GREENIE WATCH -- by Dr. John Ray

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

This document is part of an archive of postings on Greenie Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permant record of what I have written. My Home Page. My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. My Blogroll. Email me (John Ray) here. NOTE: The short comments that I have in the side column of the primary site for this blog are now given at the foot of this document.

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Note: Some entries below are erroneously labelled as from 2018. All are in fact from 2019

31 January, 2019

US temperatures so low you can get frostbite in five minutes

And people still believe in global warming?? Climate is the sum of weather

A deadly polar vortex so intensely cold it can give people frostbite and hypothermia in as little as five minutes is sweeping parts of the United States.

Seventy-five per cent of the country’s population — about 220 million people — will be hit with the freezing temperatures this week, with the Northeast and Midwest forecast to be worst hit, CNN reports.

The Associated Press reports temperatures across 12 states have been forecast to be the coldest in at least a generation, if not in history.

Temperatures in Chicago are expected to go as low as minus 32C. Minnesota has had wind chills of minus 52C, AP reported.

Governors in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan have declared emergencies in their states.

The dangerous weather event has forced the cancellation of thousands of flights, with airlines waiving the usual fees for flight changes.

At least four people have died as a result of the below-freezing temperatures.

They included a man who was struck and killed by a snow plough in Chicago, a young couple whose SUV hit a car on a road in Indiana and a man in Milwaukee who was found frozen to death in a garage.

Schools across the Midwest region have been closed and workers have been sent home.

Authorities are warning about hypothermia and frostbite, which they say could come on after just five minutes of being exposed to the intensely cold outdoors.

These are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately and with that effort,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.”

About 160 warming centres have opened up in Chicago, where the wind chill could make weather feel as cold as minus 45C, officials said.

Authorities are working with shelters and churches to move homeless people off the streets as temperatures continue to plunge.

SOURCE

Germany to shutter all 84 coal-fired plants to fight climate change

Blackouts will quickly open them again

Germany is planning to shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over a 19-year span in an effort to combat climate change.

A 28-member government commission announced the commitment on Saturday, with chairman Ronald Pofalla saying that it marked an "historic accomplishment," according to The Los Angeles Times.

“It was anything but a sure thing. But we did it,” Pofalla said at a news conference in Berlin. “There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”

The Times noted that the announcement was significant considering coal plants account for 40 percent of Germany's electricity. The plan calls for $45 billion in spending to mitigate the pain in regions where coal is widely used. The recommendations from the commission are expected to be adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The move to close coal-fired power plants comes about six years after Germany announced plans to phase out all of its nuclear power plants by 2022. Twelve of the nation's 19 nuclear plants have been shut down so far, according to The Times.

The Times reported that the decision to shutter coal-burning and nuclear plants will result in Germany counting on renewable energy to supply 65 to 80 percent of the country's power by 2040.

Renewable energy accounted for 41 percent of the country's power in 2018, making it the leading source of electricity.

The commission's recommendations would mean that about 24 plants would be closed within the first three years of the plan. Just eight coal-burning plants would remain by 2030 if the plan were carried through how its intended.

The move could impact thousands of citizens, as about 20,000 jobs are directly linked to the coal industry.

SOURCE

In Vermont, a progressive haven, emissions spike forces officials to consider drastic action

It’s a state that prides itself on purity: its pristine land, progressive politics, even its ice cream. So it was no surprise when Vermont sought to lead the way in cutting carbon pollution, vowing to reduce greenhouse gases from the state’s power plants, cars, and other sources by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 and 50 percent by 2028.

Those goals, set by lawmakers in 2005, were significantly more aggressive and made before similar pledges in Massachusetts and other states. But 14 years later, the zeal in the Green Mountain State has yielded not so much cleaner air, but embarrassment.

A report released last year found that emissions had actually increased 16 percent over 1990 levels, a startling divergence from the goal.

“It wasn’t just disappointing and ironic, it was surprising,” said Sandra Levine, a senior attorney based in Vermont for the Conservation Law Foundation. “Many thought we were at least moving in the right direction. But we weren’t just missing the target, we were moving backward.”

The state’s failure to reduce emissions reflects the steep challenges in the way of radical energy efficiency, particularly at a time of low gas prices and strong economic growth. It isn’t the product of organized opposition but of up-country habits.

Among the factors tripping up the state are the preference for gas-guzzling pickups in rural parts and the reliance on wood for heat.

“Inertia is a powerful thing, but we’re going to need to break through it,” said Johanna Miller, energy and climate director at the Vermont Natural Resources Council, an advocacy group. “The state is falling behind and the time to act is short.”

The failure to meet its lofty goals has implications far beyond Vermont, a reminder that far more sweeping changes will be needed if such goals are to be met, here and across the nation.

A preliminary analysis released this month by the Rhodium Group, a research firm in New York, found that carbon emissions in the United States rose by 3.4 percent last year — the second-largest annual gain in more than two decades. It was surpassed only in 2010, as the nation emerged from the Great Recession.

In Vermont, long, frigid winters demand a lot from the state’s power plants, a challenge that increased in 2014 when the state’s only nuclear power plant closed. Drafty old homes are another source of waste and an example of the need for increased emissions, as are the state’s many wood-burning stoves and dairy farms.

Natural gas has replaced dirtier fossil fuels such as oil and coal, yet most emissions are coming from the transportation sector, mirroring the national trend.

In 2015, exhaust from trucks and cars was responsible for more than 43 percent of Vermont’s emissions, according to the state’s latest statistics.

Much of the blame falls on the aging pickup trucks, the state’s most commonly registered vehicles, which many residents often drive alone. The state also has a disproportionate number of tourists who clog its mountain roads on their way to ski resorts or leaf peeping.

A 2017 state report found that Vermont drivers log significantly more miles than the national average, a rate that was increasing more than twice as fast as in other states. With sparse development and little public transit, Vermont was 11th highest in the United States in terms of the amount of miles driven per resident, the report found.

“We have major challenges in addressing these issues,” said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. “Ultimately, it comes down to thousands of individual choices.”

SOURCE

Demo/Green New Deal Strengthens Russia and China

By hitting the U.S. military with deep cuts, "saving the planet" could have a dangerous result.

The Green New Deal has become a big deal, with a fair bit of the coverage it’s receiving being due to the fact that Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been pushing it. The fact is, her star power (in the media’s mind) is giving this program a boost. But this leftist scheme isn’t just about saving the environment from the ravages of capitalists. It would also give Russia and China a huge boost.

Aren’t “progressives” always touting how green energy is something that will benefit America? Well, it’s all in the not-so-fine print about the Green New Deal. You see, it calls for at least a 50% cut in military spending.

Take our current Air Force, which has seen massive cuts in its fighter squadrons. Even that tight budget would be cut in half. Look at our Navy, with too few hulls in the water as it is. That goes from 11 carriers to six — which would leave it in a one-to-one ratio with China’s planned carrier expansion. Our overstretched Army goes from a mere 10 divisions to five. The Marines Corps would take hits, too, in this drastic slashing of our capabilities.

What does that mean in real-world terms? Well, right now, we’d already be hard-pressed to deal with Russian aggression against Europe and Chinese power plays in the South China Sea. Our military, while it is very capable, is still too small. We fought the War on Terror with too small a force, and we’re paying today for George W. Bush’s failure to sufficiently increase the force structure after 2001.

Our current efforts against radical Islamic terrorist groups would, of necessity, also be crippled. Worse, America would be abandoning key allies in the Middle East, which would rebound to the benefit of Russia and China. With NATO already unreliable, many Eastern European nations could be compelled to again accept subjugation to Russia.

America’s allies in the Pacific would, in the best case, have to arm themselves — including with nukes — to make up for the drastic drop in American capabilities. Even then, the South China Sea would be dominated by the butchers of Beijing. That doesn’t help the cause of peace on earth at all.

Many of those who loudly support the Green New Deal are the ones who would back the nonsense claim from the likes of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) that Donald Trump somehow is a Russian agent. But the actions tell a very different story. In 2012, many of these folks cheered when Barack Obama mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia our biggest geopolitical foe, even though Romney was right all along.

On the other hand, President Trump has taken tough action against Russia. He has worked to restore our military readiness. He’s also been hitting Vladimir Putin in the wallet by expanding American oil and gas production and promoting exports, thereby not only reducing the size of the Russian pie, but also getting a slice of the pie for the United States. Oh, and Russia’s about to lose one of its client states as Venezuela moves to topple Nicolas Maduro’s regime, and the United States is happy to help shove it over the edge. Makes you wonder if Democrats are only tough on Russia because it’s a way to get Trump, not out of any real concern about Putin’s ugly track record of thuggery.

Green New Deal proponents should be asked some very tough questions about the geopolitical effects of the military cuts. After all, we wouldn’t want to be aiding Russia and China, now, would we?

SOURCE

Australia's energy crisis: Heatwave-struck residents are hit with a $1.1BILLION power bill over just two days as temperatures soared towards 50C

Heatwave-struck residents across two Australian states were hit with a $1.1 billion bill for just 48 hours' worth of energy last week.

As temperatures climbed to well over 40C last week in Victoria and South Australia, residents racked up a $944million bill for Thursday and a further $178 million bill for Friday, according to The Australian.

The figures come from an analysis of consumer demand and spot market prices, which energy experts said were at a 20-year high of over $3300/MWh (megawatt hour) and climbed to $14,500/MWh for about five hours.

Although electricity prices are worked out in advance through hedging contracts, experts have said that consumers will feel the effects of the price spike in the long term.

'When retailers need to contract, the generators know they will be petrified, and they are more likely to achieve higher prices than they otherwise would,' Victorian Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain told the publication.

In the last decade electricity prices for consumers have risen 117 per cent, more than four times the average price rise for other services, according to the ABC.

The Grattan Institute think tank released a report in 2018 saying three main factors were to blame for the rise: major power plants closing due to high maintenance costs, rises in the price of gas and coal, and the market being 'gamed' by energy generators.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan said more investment in power generation was needed to bring costs down. 'The underlying tightness of the market in these southern states risks more of these pure price setting days. The high price of power on these days alone justifies investment in reliable sources of power, such as coal-fired power,' he said.

The heatwave last week caused blackouts in 200,000 Victorian homes as residents rushed to switch on their air-conditioners and the hot weather put stress on infrastructure with transformers overheating.

Three coal-fired power units also failed, which prompted the market operator to order the blackouts at 12pm on Friday as a load-shedding measure.

Electricity prices are unlikely to drop anytime in the near future as experts warn the price of gas remains high and building new generation plants, using existing fossil fuels or renewables, is expensive and the cost will be passed on to consumers.

SOURCE

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30 January, 2019

Nutty Ethan Siegel falls at the last hurdle

He puts up a painstaking article designed to prove anthropogenic global warming but in the end concludes -- rightly -- that "It cannot be proven that human activity is the cause of global warming". He knows that correlation is not causation. Worse: Even the correlation is very poor

Ethan Siegel being manic

The Simplest Explanation Of Global Warming Ever

Let's play pretend for a moment. Pretend, if you can, that you've never heard about the idea of global warming before. Pretend you've never heard anyone else's opinions on the matter, including from politicians, scientists, friends or relatives. Pretend that there are no related concerns, like the economy, our energy needs, or the environment.

If you were going to make a genuine inquiry, there would instead be only two questions to ask and answer:

is the Earth warming or not,
and if so, what's the main cause?

This is a question that was tailor-made for the enterprise of science to answer. Here's how we can figure it out for ourselves.

There are really only two things that determine the Earth's temperature, or the temperature of any object that's heated by an external source. The first is the energy that goes into it, which is primarily energy produced by the Sun and absorbed by the Earth. The second is the energy that leaves the Earth, which is primarily due to the Earth radiating it away.

During the day, we absorb energy from the Sun; this is the power inputted into the Earth. During both the day and the night, we radiate energy back into space; that's the power outputted by the Earth. This is why temperatures heat up during the day and cool off during the night, something that’s pretty much true for every planet that has both a day side and a night side.

To know what the temperature of Earth ought to be, we need to first understand the energy that comes into our world. The source of this energy is the Sun, which radiates with a very well-measured power: 3.846 × 1026 watts. The closer you are to the Sun, the more of this energy you absorb, while the farther away you are, the less you absorb. Over the timespan that we've measured the Sun's power output, it's varied by only about ±0.1%.

Sunlight spreads out in a sphere the farther away you are from it, meaning that if you're twice as far away from the Sun, you only absorb one-quarter the radiation. At Earth's distance from the Sun, we encounter a power of around 1,361 watts-per-square-meter; that's how much hits the top of our atmosphere.

The Earth also orbits in an ellipse around the Sun, meaning that at some points it's closer to the Sun, absorbing more radiation, while at other times it's more distant, absorbing less. The variation from this effect is more like ±1.7%, with the largest amount of energy absorbed occurring in early January, and the least amount occurring in early July.

But that's not the full story. The sunlight that hits us comes in a variety of wavelengths: ultraviolet, visible, and infrared, all of which carry energy. The atmosphere has many layers, some of which absorb that light, some of which allow it to transmit all the way down to the ground, and some of which reflect it back into space.

All told, about 77% of the energy from the Sun makes it down to Earth's surface when the Sun is directly overhead, with that number dropping significantly when the Sun is lower on the horizon.

Some of that energy gets absorbed by Earth's surface, while some of it gets reflected. Clouds reflect sunlight better than average, as do dry sand and icecaps. Other ground conditions are better at absorbing sunlight, including oceans, forests, wet soil, and savannahs. Depending on seasonal conditions on Earth, the individual locations on Earth vary tremendously in how much light they reflect or absorb.

On average, however, the Earth is very consistent: 31% of the incident radiation gets reflected, while 69% gets absorbed. As far as global effects go, this average has changed remarkably little over time, even as human civilization has transformed the landscape of our planet.

When we put in all the factors we know of:

the Sun's power output,

the Earth's physical size and distance from the Sun,

the amount of sunlight that Earth absorbs vs. reflects,

and the intrinsic variability in the Sun over time,

we can arrive at a way to calculate the average temperature of the Earth.

The result?

We calculate that Earth should be at 255 Kelvin (-18 °C / 0 °F), or well below freezing. And that's absurd, and completely not reflective of reality.

Instead, our planet has an average temperature of 288 Kelvin (15 °C / 59 °F), which is much warmer than the naive predictions we just painstakingly calculated. Our world is temperate, not frozen, and there's one big reason for these predictions and observations to be so thoroughly off from one another: we've been ignoring the insulating effects of Earth's atmosphere.

Sure, the Earth radiates the energy it absorbs back into space. But it doesn't all go into space straightaway; the same atmosphere that wasn't 100% transparent to sunlight also isn't 100% transparent to the infrared light that Earth radiates. The atmosphere is made up of molecules that absorb radiation of varying wavelengths, depending on what the atmosphere is made out of.

For infrared radiation, nitrogen and oxygen — the majority of our atmosphere — act as though they're virtually transparent. But there are three gases that are part of our atmosphere which aren't transparent at all to the radiation Earth produces:

water vapor (H2O),
carbon dioxide (CO2),
and methane (CH4).

All three of these gases, when they're present in any planet's atmosphere, act the same way a blanket does when you place it over a warm-blooded animal's body: they prevent the heat from escaping.

In the case of an animal, they need to generate less of their own heat to maintain a constant temperature when there's a blanket on them. And if the blanket is thicker, or if there are a greater number of thin blankets, they need to generate even less. This analogy extends to layers of clothing in any conditions; the more insulation you have around you, the less heat escapes, allowing you to maintain higher temperatures.

For a planet like ours, these gases prevent the infrared radiation from escaping, instead absorbing it and re-radiating it back to Earth. The more of these gases that are present, the longer and more efficiently Earth holds onto the Sun's heat. We can't change the energy input, so instead, as we add additional amounts of these gases, the temperature of our world simply goes up.

The water vapor content is something that's determined by Earth's oceans, the local temperature, humidity and dew point. When we add more water vapor to the atmosphere or take water vapor out of it, the overall water vapor content doesn't change at all. As far as human activity goes, nothing we do has any impact on the net amount of H2O in the atmosphere.

The concentrations of the other two gases (CO2 and CH4), though, are primarily determined by human influence. It's well-documented, for example, that CO2 has risen by more than 50% of its 1700s-era value due to the burning of fossil fuels coinciding with the start of the industrial revolution. According to NASA scientist Chris Colose:

50% of the 33 K greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, about 25% to clouds, 20% to CO2, and the remaining 5% to the other non-condensable greenhouse gases such as ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, and so forth.

All of this leads to a very straightforward conclusion: if we increase the concentrations of infrared-absorbing gases in our atmosphere, like CO2 and CH4, the Earth's temperature will rise. Given that the temperature record unequivocally shows that the Earth is warming, and we have put these additional proverbial blankets onto our atmosphere, it seems like a slam dunk that this is cause-and-effect at work.

It cannot be proven that human activity is the cause of global warming, of course. That conclusion we drew is still a scientific inference. But based on what we know about planetary science, Earth’s atmosphere, human activity and the warming we’re observing, it seems like a very good one. When we quantify the other effects, it's unlikely that anything else could be the cause. Not the Sun, not volcanoes, not any natural phenomenon that we know of. [What about Svensmark's well validated theories about cosmic rays]

SOURCE

What Science Could Teach Ocasio-Cortez About Climate Change

Bjorn Lomborg

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared last week that “the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”

The freshly minted congresswoman skewered anyone who’d want to talk about the cost of global-warming policies, given the looming doomsday.

Yes, her full remarks made it clear she only meant that the world would begin to end in 12 years if we don’t act. But she was still wildly wrong.

Yet AOC was just saying what many people believe. Shallow, apocalyptic reporting on global warming has made us all panicky, more likely to embrace poor climate policies and less likely to think about the price tag.

The truth is comparatively boring: According to the United Nations climate science panel’s latest major report, if we do absolutely nothing to stop climate change, the impact will be the equivalent to a reduction in our incomes of between 0.2 percent and 2 percent five decades from now.

Yet by the 2070s, personal incomes will be some 300 percent to 500 percent higher than they are today.

Far from the “end of the world,” the impact of warming is what we’d expect from roughly a single economic recession taking place over the next half-century.

Many of us question how this could be true when we are constantly told that extreme weather is wreaking ever-greater devastation. In fact, research shows that extreme weather is having a rather minimal economic effect.

Since 1990, the cost associated with extreme weather worldwide has actually declined, to 0.25 percent of the global gross domestic product, from 0.30 percent.

Extreme weather costs each French citizen about $25 a year; each American, about $56 per year. That’s what the average US worker spends on coffee in less than a month.

What about the escalating costs of hurricanes, now inevitably held up as examples of climate change? Actually, a major study in Nature shows hurricane damage today costs about 0.04 percent of global GDP.

By 2100, even if hurricanes were to get twice as bad as they are now, increased prosperity and resilience mean the cost will have halved to 0.02 percent of GDP.

What’s more, the UN panel finds there is no observable increase in hurricane frequency.

Likewise, extreme weather is killing fewer people now than at any point in the last 100 years: In the 1920s, extreme weather killed about half a million people annually.

Now, despite there being four times as many people, it kills fewer than 20,000 each year.

If the world isn’t ending, and the impact of global warming by 2030 is much less than 0.2 percent to 2 percent of GDP, then we need to start comparing costs with benefits.

This is the bread and butter of William Nordhaus, the only climate economist to win the Nobel Prize. His careful work over many decades shows that a globally coordinated, moderate and rising carbon tax could reduce temperatures modestly.

This would cost about $20 trillion and avoid some climate-related harms, ensuring a net benefit of $30 trillion over coming centuries.

But aiming to reduce temperatures more escalates the costs and eventually leaves the planet $50 trillion worse off. Limiting temperature increases to 2°C or less, as many leaders promise, would prove even more costly.

Green fretting about Armageddon is nothing new, of course. In the 1960s, mainstream environmentalists worried that the world was running out of food.

In the 1980s, acid rain was going to destroy the planet’s forests. There were good reasons for concern, but a panicked response led to a poor, overly expensive response.

We need to get smarter. Climate change is a problem but not the end of the world. The United States now has little or no federal climate policy, which is inexcusable.

But almost every other nation is making climate proclamations that would impose huge costs for rather paltry gains.

This approach has failed to deliver progress against climate change for decades. We should instead embrace ingenuity and innovation and spend far more on green-energy research and development.

If we push the price of green energy below fossil fuels through innovation, everyone will switch.

If Ocasio-Cortez had stuck to the facts, she would have said: “The world is going to see costs worth about 1 percent of GDP in 50 years if we don’t address climate change — and your biggest issue is how to pay for it?”

Well, yes: We need to make sure our solution doesn’t cost more than the problem. If we look at the science and stop believing the end of the world is nigh, our decisions will be much smarter.

SOURCE

Saved by pseudo-renewable energy?

Climate alarmists must prove expensive, weather-dependent energy is green and sustainable

Paul Driessen

The IPCC says it’s still possible to limit planetary warming to an additional 0.5 degrees C (0.9 F) “above pre-industrial levels” – but only if global CO2 emissions are halved by 2030 and zeroed out by 2050.

So climate alarmists intend to carbon-tax, legislate and regulate our energy, factories, livelihoods, living standards, liberties and lives to the max. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal would eliminate and replace US fossil fuels by 2030. It’s an unprecedented economic and political power grab.

We went to war with King George over far less serious abuses and usurpations. And yet today we seem to have few Patrick Henrys or other stalwart, principled leaders willing to defy this insanity.

Those accusing someone of a crime must prove his guilt; the accused need not prove his innocence. But not only are alarmists bringing what amount to criminal charges against fossil fuels; wiping out the fuels that provide over 80% of our energy would bring widespread chaos, poverty, misery, disease and death.

As I said just days ago, those who claim fossil fuels and greenhouse gases are causing dangerous global warming and climate change have the burden of proving their case. Not with allegations, computer models, headlines, mob rule and demands for instant sentencing. With solid, irrefutable evidence.

Those who intend to use climate change accusations to disrupt and destroy modern energy systems and industrialized economies likewise have the burden of proving that wind, solar and biofuel energy can actually replace fossil fuels. That they are actually clean, green, affordable, renewable and sustainable.

Thus far, they have offered no real-world evidence whatsoever. And there is no way they can do so.

Fossil fuels are compact and dense. Small land and raw material impacts provide bountiful, affordable, reliable energy. America and the world have enough of these fuels to last at least a century at current rates of consumption – by which time human ingenuity will almost undoubtedly provide workable alternatives.

By contrast, wind, solar and biofuel energy is dispersed, weather-dependent, expensive and land-intensive. Every industrial wind facility, solar installation and biofuel plantation requires far more land – and far more raw materials – than their energy-generation-equivalent fossil fuel counterparts. Add in backup fossil fuel generators or massive battery arrays, and those impacts become astronomical.

To eliminate our fossil fuel energy – and replace it with these pseudo-renewable systems – we would have to remove tens of billions of tons of rock, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture and install millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and grow billions of barrels of biofuels. Vast acreage of croplands, wildlife habitats and scenic areas would be torn apart, covered with mining debris and blanketed with “renewable” energy facilities.

Moreover, as long as anti-mining radicals have effective control of US courts, legislatures and regulatory agencies, America’s deposits of rare earth and other strategic metals and materials will remain off limits. As Ned Mamula and Ann Bridges point out in Groundbreaking! America’s new quest for minerals independence, that would leave the USA 50-100% dependent on often unfriendly foreign sources for the “next era” energy systems that we have repeatedly been promised are “just around the corner.”

The same well-funded groups also battle mining by Western companies all over the world. That means global raw material supplies will be rapidly depleted … utopian green energy dreams will never become reality … and nations will descend into deprivation, disease, starvation, anarchy and war.

To put it simply, so that even Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Al Gore and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can understand this energy reality: The wind and sun may be free, green, renewable and sustainable. But the energy, land and materials required to harness and utilize that energy certainly are not.

Wind and solar systems also break down faster and must be replaced earlier and more often than coal, gas or nuclear power plants – which have operational life spans of 30-50 years, and generate power about 95% of the time. Wind energy proponents claim turbines last half that long: 20-25 years. They don’t.

A 2018 UK analysis of 3,000 onshore wind turbines found that they generate electricity efficiently for just 12-15 years (and maybe 25-30% of the time) – generating more than twice as much electricity in their first year than when they are barely 15 years old. So wind turbine raw materials depletion and land use impacts are far higher than advocates have admitted. These realities are no better for solar installations.

All of this also means the cost of wind and solar electricity is far higher than their advocates admit. Those costs may be partially hidden by taxpayer subsidies. But they are real, and punitive.

Electricity prices in US states that rely heavily on coal, gas, nuclear or hydroelectric generation hover around 9 cents per kilowatt-hour. In California, Connecticut, New York and other states that oppose these sources and impose hefty “green” energy mandates and feed-in tariffs, prices are almost twice as high. In Germany and Denmark, families must pay four times as much: 35-37 cents per kWh!

Try to run a factory, hospital, school, business, home, city or country on electricity priced at those rates. Imagine trying to do so when fossil fuels are driven into oblivion – by the same “environmentalists” who detest and want to eliminate nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.

Middle classes are already fleeing California’s and New York’s oppressive taxes, regulations, high energy and housing prices, job destruction, and predominantly Democrat politicians who blame every problem on manmade climate change. Just wait until their states go “100% renewable energy” by 2030 or so.

Meanwhile, more rational countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere are building coal- and gas-fired generating units by the thousands, to power modern, industrialized societies and lift billions more people out of poverty. That means global emissions of plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide will continue to increase – even if climate alarmists succeed with their power plays in the USA, Canada, Europe and elsewhere. It means a number of Asian and African countries could soon outpace many of today’s industrial and economic powerhouses.

As to biofuels, how are farmers going to grow enough corn, soybeans, sugar cane and switchgrass to replace the petroleum that radical greens want kept in the ground, if they don’t have modern equipment and fertilizers – which eco-fanatics also despise? Farmers may have to get human “fertilizer” from sewage treatment plants, since many “environmentalists” also demand that we stop raising cows, pigs and chickens … which means farmers won’t even be able to get enough animal manure.

One of the latest climate scare stories claims that our warming planet will soon drive many insect species to extinction. What are people going to eat, if they can’t even find bugs to dine on?

All these are more reasons why the United States we must formally exit the Paris climate treaty by subjecting it to a two-thirds Senate “advice and consent” vote that would most assuredly fail. They are more reasons why we must revisit and reverse the EPA carbon dioxide “Endangerment Finding.”

Climate alarmists’ increasingly shrill claims … their refusal to engage climate and energy realists in debate … their escalating efforts to silence us – are proof that they are getting desperate. We need to continue ramping up our efforts – and cajole, embarrass and harangue politicians to show some spine, intestinal fortitude and intelligence, by standing up to the forces of climate dictatorship and darkness.

What can the average person do? Speak out. Write letters to editors, legislators, corporate executives and President Trump. Attend town meetings, press briefings, committee hearings and other events. Ask tough questions. Demand evidence to back up alarmist assertions. Above all, bombard politicians, climate activists and media talking heads with the F-word they most detest and fear: Facts.

Via email

Mathematical modeling illusions

The global climate scare – and policies resulting from it – are based on models that do not work

Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris

For the past three decades, human-caused global warming alarmists have tried to frighten the public with stories of doom and gloom. They tell us the end of the world as we know it is nigh because of carbon dioxide emitted into the air by burning fossil fuels.

They are exercising precisely what journalist H. L. Mencken described early in the last century: “The whole point of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be lead to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

The dangerous human-caused climate change scare may well be the best hobgoblin ever conceived. It has half the world clamoring to be led to safety from a threat for which there is not a shred of meaningful physical evidence that climate fluctuations and weather events we are experiencing today are different from, or worse than, what our near and distant ancestors had to deal with – or are human-caused.

Many of the statements issued to support these fear-mongering claims are presented in the U.S. Fourth National Climate Assessment, a 1,656-page report released in late November. But none of their claims have any basis in real world observations. All that supports them are mathematical equations presented as accurate, reliable models of Earth’s climate.

It is important to properly understand these models, since they are the only basis for the climate scare.

Before we construct buildings or airplanes, we make physical, small-scale models and test them against stresses and performance that will be required of them when they are actually built. When dealing with systems that are largely (or entirely) beyond our control – such as climate – we try to describe them with mathematical equations. By altering the values of the variables in these equations, we can see how the outcomes are affected. This is called sensitivity testing, the very best use of mathematical models.

However, today’s climate models account for only a handful of the hundreds of variables that are known to affect Earth’s climate, and many of the values inserted for the variables they do use are little more than guesses. Dr. Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Laboratory lists the six most important variables in any climate model:

1) Sun-Earth orbital dynamics and their relative positions and motions with respect to other planets in the solar system;

2) Charged particles output from the Sun (solar wind) and modulation of the incoming cosmic rays from the galaxy at large;

3) How clouds influence climate, both blocking some incoming rays/heat and trapping some of the warmth;

4) Distribution of sunlight intercepted in the atmosphere and near the Earth’s surface;

5) The way in which the oceans and land masses store, affect and distribute incoming solar energy;

6) How the biosphere reacts to all these various climate drivers.

Soon concludes that, even if the equations to describe these interactive systems were known and properly included in computer models (they are not), it would still not be possible to compute future climate states in any meaningful way. This is because it would take longer for even the world's most advanced super-computers to calculate future climate than it would take for the climate to unfold in the real world.

So we could compute the climate (or Earth’s multiple sub-climates) for 40 years from now, but it would take more than 40 years for the models to make that computation.

Although governments have funded more than one hundred efforts to model the climate for the better part of three decades, with the exception of one Russian model which was fully “tuned” to and accidentally matched observational data, not one accurately “predicted” (hindcasted) the known past. Their average prediction is now a full 1 degree F above what satellites and weather balloons actually measured.

In his February 2, 2016 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space & Technology, University of Alabama-Huntsville climatologist Dr. John Christy compared the results of atmospheric temperatures as depicted by the average of 102 climate models with observations from satellites and balloon measurements. He concluded: “These models failed at the simple test of telling us ‘what’ has already happened, and thus would not be in a position to give us a confident answer to ‘what’ may happen in the future and ‘why.’ As such, they would be of highly questionable value in determining policy that should depend on a very confident understanding of how the climate system works.”

Similarly, when Christopher Monckton tested the IPCC approach in a paper published by the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015, he convincingly demonstrated that official predictions of global warming had been overstated threefold. (Monckton holds several awards for his climate work.)

The paper has been downloaded 12 times more often than any other paper in the entire 60-year archive of that distinguished journal. Monckton’s team of eminent climate scientists is now putting the final touches on a paper proving definitively that – instead of the officially-predicted 3.3 degrees Celsius (5.5 F) warming for every doubling of CO2 levels – there will be only 1.1 degrees C of warming. At a vital point in their calculations, climatologists had neglected to take account of the fact that the Sun is shining!

All problems can be viewed as having five stages: observation, modeling, prediction, verification and validation. Apollo team meteorologist Tom Wysmuller explains: “Verification involves seeing if predictions actually happen, and validation checks to see if the prediction is something other than random correlation. Recent CO2 rise correlating with industrial age warming is an example on point that came to mind.”

As Science and Environmental Policy Project president Ken Haapala notes, “the global climate models relied upon by the IPCC [the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and the USGCRP [United States Global Change Research Program] have not been verified and validated.”

An important reason to discount climate models is their lack of testing against historical data. If one enters the correct data for a 1920 Model A, automotive modeling software used to develop a 2020 Ferrari should predict the performance of a 1920 Model A with reasonable accuracy. And it will.

But no climate models relied on by the IPCC (or any other model, for that matter) has applied the initial conditions of 1900 and forecast the Dust Bowl of the 1930s – never mind an accurate prediction of the climate in 2000 or 2015. Given the complete lack of testable results, we must conclude that these models have more in common with the “Magic 8 Ball” game than with any scientifically based process.

While one of the most active areas for mathematical modeling is the stock market, no one has ever predicted it accurately. For many years, the Wall Street Journal chose five eminent economic analysts to select a stock they were sure would rise in the following month. The Journal then had a chimpanzee throw five darts at a wall covered with that day’s stock market results. A month later, they determined who preformed better at choosing winners: the analysts or the chimpanzee. The chimp usually won.

For these and other reasons, until recently, most people were never foolish enough to make decisions based on predictions derived from equations that supposedly describe how nature or the economy works.

Yet today’s computer modelers claim they can model the climate – which involves far more variables than the economy or stock market – and do so decades or even a century into the future. They then tell governments to make trillion-dollar policy decisions that will impact every aspect of our lives, based on the outputs of their models. Incredibly, the United Nations and governments around the world are complying with this demand. We are crazy to continue letting them get away with it.

Via email

Does Fighting Global Warming Help or Hurt the Poor?

Want to “bring nothing but misery to poor people, especially in the developing world”?

Simple: Just follow the advice of the international cabal of UN leaders and their organizations calling for drastic action to fight global warming.

The harangue is familiar everywhere by now: Global warming will harm everybody, but it’ll harm the poor most of all. Curbing it will help everybody, but it’ll help the poor most of all.

Is that true?

Not according to Dr. Mikko Paunio, an expert on public health and adjunct professor in general epidemiology at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

In a newly published report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Paunio challenges claims by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Health Organization, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that “co-benefits” of holding global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial times will be a boon to humanity.

The more likely result will be up to 200 million excess premature deaths by 2050, according to Paunio.

Why?

Because the path to 1.5C is a “highway to hell” — a highway paved with converting over one-fourth of agricultural land worldwide from food production to energy production while failing to provide the abundant, affordable, reliable energy indispensable to population-wide water purification, sewage sanitation, and electrification that are indispensable to lifting and keeping whole societies out of severe poverty and the high rates of disease and premature death that invariably accompany it.

Paunio notes that the claims that the poor will benefit from fighting global warming rest on claims of reduced air pollution as the world shifts from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and biofuels to generate electricity.

The problem, he explains, is that the world’s poor aren’t using fossil fuels for their energy today. They’re using wood, dried dung, and other rough biofuels, burned on open hearths or low-tech stoves often inside their huts, for heating and cooking. (Never mind providing light by which to study at night and gain knowledge that will enable them to work in an increasingly advanced economy.) Says Paunio,

Air pollution, and, in particular, indoor air pollution, is a genuine problem, particularly in poor countries, where wood and dung fires and crude coal-burning stoves are often the main ways of heating and cooking. But the suggestion that action on climate change will reduce the death toll is grossly misleading. The real solution has been understood for decades, and lies in a progressive movement away from solid fuels, firstly to cleaner fossil-fuel alternatives, such as liquified petroleum gas, and eventually to centralised power production and modern electricity grids.

(Paunio developed this theme in an earlier report.)

“Centralised power production has, time and again, cleaned ambient air and also reduced indoor air pollution,” Paunio continues. “More importantly, it has enabled a revolution in environmental health practices: electricity grids not only give us clean indoor air but also clean and abundant water supplies — the basis of public health in all advanced economies — and cold-chain food storage, a vital component of effective environmental health practice.”

The trouble with the prescription for curbing global warming is that it rests heavily on “widespread adoption of biofuels and bioenergy, with the carbon dioxide produced when these are burnt being removed from the atmosphere using … afforestation [and] carbon capture and storage,” coupled with “drastic reductions in energy demand, although bioenergy would still be required even in these.”

Yet, as Paunio quotes Drew Shindell, a leading researcher and advocate of the policies, most of the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would “come from technologies that have not been demonstrated at commercial scales and may not materialize.” For instance, “Biofuel energy with carbon capture and sequestration” (BECCS) “faces biophysical, logistical and social constraints, and if it were to be deployed at the scales envisioned would require a substantial fraction of the world’s arable land and water resources, with potential severe consequences for biodiversity and food security.” (Yes, you read that right: These are the words of an advocate of the policies!)

The devil’s in the details. That “substantial fraction of the world’s arable land” comes to about 13 million square kilometers — about 27% of the world’s current agricultural land. With world population rising, that means “the biofuels route to a 1.5°C future would involve famine and environmental desecration.”

Paunio concludes, “To their shame, those at the top of the WHO have another agenda entirely: an agenda that involves reckless decarbonisation, in the process preventing the world’s poorest from getting access to the energy they so desperately need, and deceiving the rest of the world into thinking that there are ‘co-benefits’ from doing so.”

One question Paunio doesn’t address is “Why?”

Why do these global elites embrace a policy the predictable consequence of which is not fewer deaths among the world’s poorest?

The specter of Malthusian fears of “overpopulation,” which launched the racist/eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lies at the root of demands to fight global warming by instituting policies that will slow, stop, or reverse the climb out of poverty for roughly 2 billion people.

Famed biologist Paul Ehrlich (who can’t tell the difference between people and bacteria and so argues that just as bacteria’s exponential multiplication until they consume all the nutrients in a Petri dish leads to their sudden death, so also human multiplication will do likewise) says the world’s optimal population is 1.5 to 2 billion — meaning we must get rid of about three-fourths of us.

The real driver behind demands to fight global warming is fear of overpopulation — particularly of people of the wrong ethnicities. Fighting global warming is just one more way of stopping it.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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29 January, 2019

There are none so blind as those who will not see: Amid fracking, Warmists are still running out of oil

The whole basis of the article below is that we are about to run out of oil. The Muslim Warmist below seems quite unabashed that that century-old prophecy never comes true and he has apparently not heard of the great boom in oil availability unleashed by fracking.

And as for economic growth collapsing, has he not heard of America's great Trump-led economic boom? The man is a moron. He is living in a little self-congratulatory world of his own. It is another article from the far-Left "Medium" site, which appears to specialize in reality-deprived prophecies of doom

Although most of their articles are just Leftist boilerplate, an amusing thing about the site is that many of their articles display a great sense of self-satisfaction -- as if they are revealing profound truths not generally known. See below:

I have not reproduced the first half of the article below but if you read it you will find an epic sense of self-satisfaction

Nafeez Ahmed

The energy turning point is unequivocal. In the years preceding the historic Brexit referendum, and the marked resurgence of nationalist, populist and far-right movements across Europe, the entire continent has faced a quietly brewing energy crisis.

Europe is now a ‘post-peak oil’ continent. Currently, every single major oil producer in Western Europe is in decline. According to data from BP’s 2018 Statistical Review of Energy, Western European oil production peaked between 1996 and 2002. Since then, production had declined while net imports have gradually increased.

In a two-part study published in 2016 and 2017 in the Springer journal, BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality, Michael Dittmar, Senior Scientist at the ETH Zurich Institute for Particle Physics and CERN, developed a new empirical model of oil production and consumption.

The study provides perhaps one of the most empirically-robust models of oil production and consumption to date, but its forecast was sobering.

Noting that oil exports from Russia and former Soviet Union countries are set to decline, Dittmar found that Western Europe will find it difficult to replace these lost exports. As a result, “total consumption in Western Europe is predicted to be about 20 percent lower in 2020 than it was in 2015.”

The only region of the world where production will be stable for the next 15 to 20 years is the OPEC Middle East. Everywhere else, concludes Dittmar, production will decline by around 3 to 5 percent a year after 2020. And in some regions, this decline has already started.

Not everyone agrees that a steep decline in Russia’s oil production is imminent. Last year, the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies argued that Russian production could probably continue to grow out to at least 2020. How long it would last thereafter was unclear.

On the other hand, the Russian government’s own energy experts are worried. In September 2018, Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak warned that Russia’s oil production might peak within three years due to mounting production costs and taxes. In the ensuing two decades, Russia could lose almost half its current capacity. This sobering assessment is still broadly consistent with the Oxford study.

The following month, Dr Kent Moor of the Energy Capital Research Group, who has advised 27 governments around the world including the US and Russia, argued that Russia is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its prize Western Siberia basin.

Moor cited internal Russian Ministry of Energy reports from 2016 warning of a “Western Siberia rapid decline curve amounting to a loss of some 8.5 percent in volume by 2022. Some of this is already underway.” Although Russia is actively pursuing alternative strategies, wrote Moor, these are all “inordinately expensive”, and might produce only temporary results.

It’s not that the oil is running out. The oil is there in abundance?—?more than enough to fry the planet several times over. The challenge is that we are relying less on cheap crude oil and more on expensive, dirtier and unconventional fossil fuels. Energetically, this stuff is more challenging to get out and less potent after extraction than crude.

The bottom line is that as Europe’s domestic oil supplies slowly dwindle, there is no meaningful strategy to wean ourselves off abject dependence on Russia; the post-carbon transition is consistently too little, too late; and the impact on Europe’s economies?—?if business-as-usual continues?—?will continue to unravel the politics of the union.

While very few are talking about Europe’s slow-burn energy crisis, the reality is that as Europe’s own fossil fuel resources are inexorably declining, and as producers continue to face oil price volatility amidst persistently higher costs of production, Europe’s economy will suffer.

In September, I reported exclusively on the findings of an expert report commissioned by the scientific group working on the forthcoming UN’s Sustainability Report.

The report underscored that cheap energy flows are the lifeblood of economic growth: and that as we shift into an era of declining resource quality, we are likely to continue seeing slow, weak if not declining economic growth.

This is happening at a global scale. EROI is already beginning to approach levels seen in the nineteenth century?—?demonstrating how constrained global economic growth might be due to declining net energy returns to society.

SOURCE

Home batteries could inadvertently increase carbon emissions, study finds

Large batteries installed in homes to store energy from the grid could actually increase carbon emissions under current policies, according to a new study.

It has been assumed that these storage systems, such as Tesla’s Powerwall, could be instrumental in lowering greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources.

However, a team of researchers at the University of California San Diego argue that deploying them today, without making fundamental policy and regulatory reforms, risks increasing emissions instead.

If residents use these systems to reduce their electricity bills, the batteries would draw energy from the grid when it is cheapest.

As the utilities don’t structure how much they charge with the goal of lowering emissions, the cheapest power more often comes from power sources that emit carbon, such as coal.

In addition, batteries do not operate at 100 per cent efficiency: as a result, households that use them draw more power from the electric grid than they actually need.

For the systems to actually reduce greenhouse gases, utilities need to change their tariff structures substantially to account for emissions from different power sources, the researchers said. They would need to make energy cheaper for consumers when the grid is generating low-carbon electricity.

“We sought to answer: what if consumers on their own or in response to policy pressure adopt these systems? Would greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power system go down and at what economic cost?” said Oytun Babacan, lead author.

This year, 2018, saw a substantial increase in installations of the systems compared to previous years, with sales tripling between January and September.

When they are set up to operate with the goal of cutting emissions, home batteries can reduce average household emissions by 2.2 to 6.4 per cent. The monetary incentive that customers would have to receive from utilities to start using their home systems with the goal of reducing emissions is equivalent to anywhere from $180 to $5,160 per metric ton of CO2.

“This is impractically high and very high compared to other emissions-reducing options that are available,” said Ryan Hanna, a postdoctoral researcher.

Most households adopting energy storage are likely to choose equipment vendors and operation modes that allow them to minimise electricity costs, leading to increased emissions, Babacan added.

“Thus, policymakers should be careful about assuming that decentralisation will clean the electric power system, especially if it proceeds without carbon-mindful tariff reforms that aim to reduce residential energy bills and energy consumption associated CO2 emissions,” he said.

Consumers could be encouraged to use the devices in an environmentally beneficial way by ensuring that system developers and equipment vendors favour clean energy use by tracking and adjusting to variations in marginal emissions across the bulk grid, the authors noted.

Although the systems do not encourage cost-effective emissions control at the moment, the research is quick to note that the advantages of batteries should not be overlooked.

“There is an enormous upside to these systems in terms of flexibility and saving households money,” the authors said. “While the increase in home batteries deployment is underway, we need to work on multiple fronts to ensure that their adoption is carbon minded.”

SOURCE

Trump cites massive winter storm to mock global warming

President Trump in an early morning tweet on Sunday suggested global warming could be helpful as a massive snowstorm dropped several inches of snow and sent temperatures plunging across the Midwest and swaths of the Northeast United States.

"Be careful and try staying in your house," Trump advised. "Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!"

The president, who has repeatedly cast doubt on the existence and effects of climate change, has regularly cited significant winter storms to mock the concept of global warming. He sent similar tweets in 2017 and 2011.

The current winter storm prompted the governor of Kansas to declare a state of emergency, canceled thousands of flights and dumped more than a foot of snow across most of upstate New York. Falling temperatures were expected to create icy surfaces, further increasing the risk of travel.

Trump and others who deny climate change have cited cold temperatures and winter storms to dismiss global warming, but experts have noted there is a difference between the climate and weather. [Climate is just the sum of weather. They are NOT different. The same instruments measure both]

A government report issued late last year concluded that climate change could cost the United States billions of dollars annually within decades if greenhouse gases aren’t dramatically reduced and could worsen environmental disasters like wildfires and flooding. Its findings aligned with those of the broader scientific community.

Trump dismissed the report, saying he did not believe its findings and disputing that climate change is man-made.

SOURCE

PURPA has long outlived its usefulness

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Congress to reform implementation of Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978 to remove mandates for electric utilities to subsidize small renewable generators:

"When PURPA passed in 1978 requiring electric utilities to purchase energy from small renewable generators, wind, solar and other renewables constituted 0.14 percent of the grid, but now it is almost 10 percent. Moreover, many states already require competition at the local level so that consumers can choose where they get electricity from. It therefore makes sense for FERC to lift the mandates and let renewable electricity sources compete with more standard electricity generation, instead of compelling coal and natural gas generators to pay for the renewable electricity.

"In addition, Congress should also consider addressing the mandates altogether via legislation by Sen. John Barrasso that would remove. Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should agree that government-mandated subsidies that benefit billionaires like Warren Buffett while working Americans pay more need to be ended."

SOURCE

Australia: The great battery conjob exposed

Craig Kelly

To keep the subsidies flowing and the public hoodwinked, green-rent-seekers have peddled the delusion that the intermittency of solar/wind can be solved with ‘’big batteries’’.

This conjob was first sold in South Australia, as with their experiment of a 50% Renewable Energy Target descending into a costly farce, and to cover-up the fact they needed spend several hundred million on emergency diesel generators to keep the lights on just before the state election, with Hollywood fanfare SA announced they were installing ‘’the world’s largest battery’’ to save the day.

And unsurprisingly, the green useless idiots of the left have swallowed this hook, line and sinker - as rent seekers continued to go laughing to the bank to cash their millions from subsidies.

Well the performance of the ‘’world’s largest battery’’ last Thursday exposed what a complete con job it’s been - and delusion that we can power our economy on solar panels, wind turbines and big batteries is as dangerous to the economy as rabies is in a dog.

Let’s look at the evidence from 24th Jan ...

As wind power collapsed into the afternoon, prices in South Australia surged to $14,500 Mwh (they averaged around $40 Mwh before all these ‘cheap’ renewables flooded into the grid) at around 4.30pm ‘’the world’s biggest battery’’ started to dribble in 30MW to the grid.

The 30MW was less than 1% of South Australia’s total demand, and less than 0.1% of the National grid’s demand.

The world’s biggest battery continued to dribble out around 30MW until 7.30pm, then it ran flat, rendering it completely useless as peak demand hit at 7.30pm.

Meanwhile the emergency diesel generators (chewing through a reported 80,000 litres of diesel an hour) were doing the real work in SA, pumping out over 400MW at a time on demand - and they continued to so as demand peaked at 7.30pm, when the world’s largest battery had given up the ghost.

So at peak demand, in the renewables paradise of South Australia, 97% of their electricity was coming from fossil fuels.

Over the afternoon, I estimate the ‘’world’s biggest battery’’ delivered only around 100 Mwh of electricity - compared to 2000Mwh by the diesel generators.

The facts should be clear from the evidence that it’s a dangerous delusion that Australia can run the economy with solar/wind backed up by big batteries.

But sadly once leftists have been radicalised by green propaganda - evidence, engineering & economics no longer matter, because their belief is a semi-religious one based on feelings and emotions and their minds are closed to rational thoughts and logic.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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28 January, 2019

POLL: Most Americans Won’t Spend $10 A Month To Fight Climate Change

Most Americans are willing to chip in a buck each month to help fight climate change, but they draw the line at $10.

A poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 57 percent of Americans would vote for a $1 fee added to their monthly electricity bill to “combat climate change,” but only 28 percent would agree to pay an additional $10 per month.

“To combat climate change, 57 percent of Americans are willing to pay a $1 monthly fee; 23 percent are willing to pay a monthly fee of $40,” said the analysis released Tuesday. “Party identification and acceptance of climate change are the main determining factors of whether or not people are willing to pay, with Democrats being consistently more inclined to pay a fee.”

The question began with $1, then $10, and rose after that in $10 increments, but a majority of those polled opposed every amount more than $1. By the time the figure reached $100 per month, just 16 percent said yes and 82 percent said no.

Climate change also ranked at the bottom of a list of policy priorities, behind the economy, health care, terrorism, immigration, and energy policy. (SEE ALSO: NBC’s Al Roker Thrilled By Online Poll Showing Climate Concern)

The lack of interest came even though 71 percent agreed that “climate change is happening.” Of those, 45 percent said it was caused “mostly by human activities.”

The survey was conducted Nov. 14-18 with 1,202 U.S. adults 18 and older from all 50 states, with a plus or minus 3.9 percent margin of sampling error.

SOURCE

‘Polar Vortex’ NOT Proof Of Global Warming

The New York Times is pushing the theory that cold snaps are becoming more frequent because of global warming. However, many scientists disagree that global warming is making U.S. winters colder.

“Such claims make no sense and are inconsistent with observations and the best science,” said one scientist.

Large swaths of the U.S. are experiencing the first “polar vortex” event of 2019, and The New York Times is out with an article suggesting cold snaps are becoming more frequent because of global warming.

The Times rolled out an article Saturday claiming “[i]f it seems as if these polar freezes are happening more often, you’re right.” Temperatures dipped across the snow-covered Midwest and Northeast where millions of Americans can expect below-zero wind chill.

The Times’ “polar vortex” article, published Saturday, rests heavily on two scientists who “suspect that the more frequent polar vortex breakdowns can be tied to climate change.”

“I’ve been making that argument that winter is shortening, but you’re getting these more intensive periods in that shorter winter,” Judah Cohen, a climate scientist with the firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research, told the Times.

“When we lose a lot of ice in that particular area in the summer, it absorbs a lot of extra heat from the sun,” echoed Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center

According to Cohen and Francis, arctic ice melt is linked to the alleged more frequent breakdown of the polar vortex, the stratospheric bands of wind circling the pole, during the winter, sending frigid air and driving winter storms.

“As the Arctic gets warmer and warmer, the severe weather picks up,” Dr. Cohen said.

Media outlets usually turn to Cohen and Francis during the winter months when brutal cold and snowfall can make it hard to convince people the earth is warming. Both scientists regularly argue human greenhouse gas emissions are driving more frequent, bone-chilling arctic blasts.

This is not a widely accepted theory. In fact, there’s lots of evidence to suggest it’s not correct, including a 2018 study that found “[c]old waves like this have decreased in intensity and frequency over the last century.”

“Such claims make no sense and are inconsistent with observations and the best science,” University of Washington climatologist Cliff Mass told The Daily Caller News Foundation in 2018 when news outlets reported record cold temperatures were a product of warming.

“The frequency of cold waves have decreased during the past fifty years, not increased. That alone shows that such claims are baseless,” Mass said.

The U.S. government’s 2017 National Climate Assessment special report said “it is not possible to draw conclusions regarding the direction of the relationship between arctic warming and midlatitude circulation based on empirical correlation and covariance analyses alone.”

The 2017 report added “confidence is low regarding whether or by what mechanisms observed arctic warming may have influenced midlatitude circulation and weather patterns over the continental United States.”

Other climate scientists have also challenged Francis’s and Cohen’s claim that cold snaps are becoming more frequent. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Amy Butler noted breakdowns in the polar vortex, which happen every winter, “does not seem to be increasing in frequency nor is there consensus it will by 2100.”

Cohen fired back over Twitter, saying he stood by the results of his work. Butler didn’t dispute the findings of his 2017 study, but did show there seems to be no evidence of a long-term weakening of the polar vortex.

SOURCE

NewsGuard Smears Those Pesky Fact-Checking Climate-Change Articles

James Delingpole

Thank you, thank you, thank you, NewsGuard, for treating all your new subscribers — both of them! — to one of the cleverest, truest things I ever wrote about climate change.

NewsGuard quotes me as saying (in the course of its danger warning to readers thinking of flirting with Breitbart News):

“When amateurs on a blog know more about science than the guys on multi-million dollar grants at U.S. academic institutions informing global energy and environment policy, you know that the time has come to drain the swamp,” Delingpole wrote.

And it presents it as though this were a bad thing to have written.

But I stand by every word. It’s the kind of thing that makes me go: “God, I wish I’d written that — No, wait. I did!”

Why? Because apart from being demonstrably true, it captures so perfectly the reason why I became something of a climate change specialist in the first place.

It wasn’t — let me assure you — because I found myself suddenly captivated by the how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin debate in certain scientific ghettos as to the extent to which tiny increases in the otherwise harmless trace gas we exhale every few seconds and that we use in greenhouses to help plants grow faster are warming the planet at a catastrophic and unprecedented rate.

No, much simpler than that, it appealed to my most basic journalistic instincts: here was a story which most of the mainstream media was covering extremely, embarrassingly badly; where the facts were almost diametrically opposite to the breast-beating, hysterical, junk science narrative presented at outlets like the BBC, CNN, and the New York Times; where there was so much low-hanging fruit, so many examples every day of greed, corruption, stupidity, mendacity, and incompetence on the most epic scale — all of it costing us taxpayers a fortune, making the world a more miserable place to live in and — the biggest joke of all — actually harming the planet in the process.

How could any journalist resist an opportunity like that?

So this is one of the things I now do for Breitbart News: I report the truth about climate change — and about the vast money-grubbing industry built around it.

And now, rather than demonstrate where I’ve got my facts wrong (which it can’t do), NewsGuard has instead resorted to the desperate rhetorical fallacy known as the Appeal to Authority.

It says:

Fact-checking organizations have found Delingpole repeatedly misstates climate science and its conclusions.

Yes. Dur. Of course, they have! “Fact-checking organizations” are very much part of the groupthink-driven liberal Establishment I criticize in my articles. (As are: virtually the entirety of academe; schools; publishers; Hollywood; the mainstream media; the United Nations; the corporations; the big law firms; the European Union … I could, of course, go on and on).

They’re part of the so-called “Consensus” on global warming. And what I do, every few days, much to their annoyance, is provide compelling evidence as to why they are wrong.

For some random reason, NewsGuard’s desperate intern top team of forensic experts has chosen to focus on a story I wrote in February of last year:

In a February 2018 story with the headline “Delingpole: NOAA Caught Adjusting Big Freeze Out Of Existence,” Delingpole repeated a claim he has made frequently – that climate scientists have “adjusted past temperatures to look colder than they were and recent temperatures to look warmer than they were” and said the adjustments are “well beyond the regions of error margins or innocent mistakes and deep into the realm of fiction and political propaganda.”

Climatefeedback.org, a fact-checking site that uses researchers to review the media’s treatment of climate change research, found the claim misleading, noting that “some scientifically necessary data adjustments in some places do have the effect of producing a stronger warming trend than would be seen without adjustments, but others do the opposite. Together, these adjustment actually reduce the overall global warming trend.”

Rather churlishly, they don’t include a link — so here it is.

It’s one of many stories I’ve written in a similar vein, largely because it’s just about the biggest ongoing scandal of all in the climate change industry: the way that tax-payer funded institutions like NASA and NOAA are cooking the books — adjusting the raw temperature data in both the past and present in order to suit their alarmist agenda.

That isn’t science — that’s politics. And it gives the lie to the notion endlessly promulgated by alarmists that the science is settled.

If the science really were settled — so true, so observably the case beyond all reasonable doubt — then there would be no need to exaggerate the evidence, would there?

As for their claim that those data adjustments are justifiable: don’t believe a word. In almost every case, these dodgy gatekeepers of the temperature datasets have cooled past temperatures and warmed more recent ones (notably the Big Freeze that racked the U.S. in the winter of 2017/18) in order to create a more dramatic looking warming curve.

And they’ve never plausibly justified these amendments. If the Urban Heat Island effect is causing weather stations to give false data — then it is present-day temperatures that should be adjusted downwards and past temperatures upwards, not the other way round.

But I see that I’ve wasted far, far too much of my time on NewsGuard’s silly criticisms. If you judge a man by the quality of his enemies, then pathetic attacks must make me just about the world’s biggest loser.

So thanks, again, NewsGuard. Only this time, I’m being sarcastic.

SOURCE

Will Climate Hysteria Unravel Canada?

Every so often the Pentagon comes up with a thumbsucker about how climate change is going to alter the geopolitical landscape.

The intriguing Norwegian TV show “Okkupert” (“Occupied”) might be a better guide to understanding how such instability could already be brewing on our own northern border.

Americans might be forgiven for not knowing that Norway, with a population of five million, is the world’s 11th largest oil exporter and the third largest exporter of natural gas.

They might also need a second or two to realize that this sounds a lot like the Canadian province of Alberta, with four million people and fossil energy reserves second only to Saudi Arabia’s and Venezuela’s.

In the show, which is available on Netflix, Norway’s Greens come to power and announce plans to end fossil energy production. Norway’s European Union neighbors, while keen to seem green, are not keen to do without Norway’s energy.

They quietly support a Russian campaign of intimidation that amounts to a creeping takeover, while Norway’s politicians, eager to avoid outright fighting, straddle and prevaricate.

Anyone who remembers the name Vidkun Quisling will appreciate why this theme might resonate with a Norwegian audience.

Now back to Alberta: In the provincial capital of Edmonton, house prices have been falling for three years. Car sales are drying up. One-third of Calgary’s office buildings are empty.

Though production is booming, Alberta’s oil was recently selling for barely $10 a barrel—an 80% discount to the world price. Why? Because opposition from neighboring provinces has blocked construction of needed pipelines.

In a drastic effort to prop up prices, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley in December imposed mandatory production cuts on her province’s largest oil producers.

She also announced plans, using taxpayer money, to buy 7,000 railcars to get oil to market, never mind that shipping by rail is expensive and risky.

In the middle is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, dithering between his green supporters and his desire to placate Alberta and keep its money flowing.

He impulsively committed to spend $4.5 billion to rescue a U.S.-backed pipeline whose expansion has been blocked by a Canadian court.

At the same time, he has mused that Alberta’s oil-sands production should be phased out in a “generation.” His party is pushing a bill to empower greens to block future pipelines.

It supports a U.N. treaty that would increase the veto power of native tribes. It backs a continuing ban on supertankers in Canadian ports.

Unlike the U.S., where secession was shown to be illegal in the 1860s, a 2000 Canadian law spells out the steps for provinces to declare independence.

Ms. Notley has tried to play down secession talk, but the politics are complicated. Fellow Canadians may not be ready to give up their energy-rich lifestyles, or the foreign oil imports that make them possible.

But they disapprove of Alberta’s participation in an acrid industry and their voters are willing to pay a price for it.

To the east, Quebec’s premier says Alberta’s “dirty energy” has no “social acceptability.” To the west, British Columbia’s premier was elected on a platform of killing a new pipeline project favored by Alberta.

Meanwhile, protest rallies have become a near-daily occurrence in the oil-rich province. Two truck convoys to Ottawa are planned for February, including one explicitly modeled on the French “yellow vests” movement.

Ms. Notley herself faces an uphill re-election fight in May. She was already wrong-footed once into backing a carbon tax scheme that was supposed to ease the way for more pipelines.

Now her opponent is challenging Canada’s highly symbolic “equalization” scheme, which has shifted hundreds of billions from Alberta to Quebec over two decades.

Only a quarter of Albertans say they favor independence, but that may be beside the point. The province’s future promises to be one of barely contained civil war with its fellow Canadians.

If $13 billion a year in payola can’t appease Quebec, the cause is probably beyond salvaging. A Donald Trump re-election could invite talk of becoming the 51st U.S. state.

If Obama-like pipeline opponents are returned to power in Washington in 2020, the squeeze will be even worse.

Then what? A weak state with enormous fossil energy resources caught in the West’s culture wars over climate and energy? The cash cow of Canada up for grabs?

We could spin lots of scenarios.

SOURCE

Australia: Federal Environment Minister approves Coal Mine despite Greenie opposition

The Greenies have made clear that they oppose ALL coal mines so their opposition here tells us nothing about the particular mine concerned

The Wallarah 2 Coal Mine has received Federal Government approval, despite the NSW Land and Environment Court still to rule on it.

Environment Minister, Melissa Price’s, decision on Friday, January 18, to give the go ahead to the Wallarah 2 Coal Mine has been condemned by community groups and opposition politicians.

The Australian Coal Alliance (ACA) said it was short sighted and reckless. The Greens called the timing of the decision cynical. Resident activist, Gregory Olsen, who started a change.org petition against the mine, called it outrageous.

But Wyong Coal, owned by Korean company Kores, said its Wallarah 2 project would add significant direct and indirect employment and long term economic benefit, including more than 800 ongoing jobs, and more than $600M every year in regional economic contribution.

The company is working on final feasibility and detailed design activities in line with both the federal Government approval, and the NSW Planning Assessment Commission approval from 12 months ago.

Wyong Coal said it had been to the Land and Environment Court appeal in November, 2018, and remained confident of the determination process and approval. “This action reviewed the various administrative steps, processes and responsibilities culminating in the planning approval granted by the PAC in January, 2018,” the company said in a newsletter. The legal judgment is expected early this year.

Australian Coal Alliance (ACA) said it had been estimated that the proposed mine would result in the loss of between 900 to 1300 ML of drinking water a year from the Central Coast’s drinking water catchment during its 28 year lifespan, though there was some uncertainty about the quantum of that loss.

ACA Campaign Manager, Alan Hayes, said the mining company, in their own Environmental Impact Statement, stated that between 2.5 to 3.25ML of water would be lost each day.

“Proponent Kores, which plans to export the coal for power generation, proposes to construct a pipeline to deliver compensatory water to Central Coast Council, although there was no actual documentation in their EIS to show how this could be achieved,’’ Hayes said.

Federal Member for Dobell, Emma McBride, labelled the decision reckless. “Minister Price has ignored the Central Coast community’s pleas to use her powers to stop this mine,’’ McBride said.

Central Coast Greens repeated their multiple calls to stop the mine, saying that, Minister Melissa Price, should have used the risk to Coast water supplies as a reason to halt the mine.

Greens’ NSW Upper House candidate, and Coast resident, Abigail Boyd, said that Jilliby Creek or Wyong River could not be repaired if damaged. “Coal from this mine will add to emissions, which are contributing to a climate emergency. “It makes no sense, in 2019, to approve a new coal mine anywhere in Australia, and certainly not on the Central Coast,” she said.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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27 January, 2019

‘Green energy blues’ in a town that sought to do something about climate change

FALMOUTH, Mass. — For nearly a decade, the giant blades have loomed over this seaside town, stirring hope and fear in the salty air.

To proponents, the twin wind turbines proved that residents could act on their ideals, producing their own clean energy and relying less on fossil fuels. To critics, they were mechanical monstrosities, blinking eyesores whirring at such a frequency that some neighbors said they became ill.

Nine years after the first was built beside Falmouth’s waste treatment plant, both turbines now stand idle, no longer producing a kilowatt of electricity, totems of good intentions gone awry.

Facing fierce neighborhood opposition and multiple lawsuits, selectmen last week voted to remove the turbines, which had cost the town about $10 million to build, saddling residents with years of debt.

“All that’s left now is that we have an albatross to live with,” said Sam Peterson, the one dissenting vote on the five-person board.

Wind power offers communities a way to reduce their emissions, but the protracted resistance to the turbines offers lessons as communities throughout the region consider similarly controversial renewable energy projects.

It also reflects the challenges, often tacit, in the state’s promises to make substantial reductions in its emissions. Those plans rely on importing hydropower from Canada and major offshore wind farms, and both approaches are being contested by powerful, well-organized interest groups and could be subject to legal challenges.

For Dave Moriarty, who spent much of the past decade fighting the Falmouth turbines, news that the town was finally giving up its efforts to keep them running was a welcome relief. He considers the turbines “overbearing, antiquated dinosaurs” and said they left the town with the “green energy blues.”

The 56-year-old contractor, who lived close to the turbines after they were built, moved across town because they wrought too much stress, he said. He blames town officials for ignoring his and other neighbors’ concerns.

“The town was warned,” he said. “The damage can never be reversed for many of us wind turbine victims. Some of my friends have serious health issues now.”

Neighbors complained that the churning of the turbines and the resulting flickering light and vibrations produced dizziness, nausea, depression, or anxiety — a set of symptoms that critics call “wind turbine syndrome.”

In 2012, with both 1.65-megawatt turbines operating and the opposition becoming increasingly vocal, state environmental officials took the unprecedented action of recommending that one be shut down. They found that turbine, which was fewer than 1,500 feet from the nearest home, had repeatedly exceeded allowable noise levels.

But a panel of independent scientists and doctors convened by the state Department of Environmental Protection found little to no evidence the turbines posed a health risk to neighbors.

The town eventually stopped them from operating at night, and in 2015, a state appeals court judge ruled that the town lacked sufficient permits for one of the turbines and prohibited it from operating. Two years later, a Superior Court judge ruled that both turbines posed a nuisance to neighbors and ordered that they never operate again at their current location.

“The lessons others should learn from our experience is that residents should do their homework in advance of construction,” Moriarty said. “They should ask questions and know what they’re really getting into.”

In addition to the $10 million that the town’s 30,000 residents spent on building the turbines, they now have to pay as much as $2 million more to remove them.

“It’s a shame,” said Susan Moran, chair of the town’s board of selectmen, who initially supported the turbines but voted to take them down. “This is absolutely a financial blow to the town.”

Moran and other town officials acknowledge those losses will take a toll. They’re already considering cutting back on some services, such as curbside trash collection.

While the town received $5 million in state loans for the project — $1.5 million of which has been forgiven — residents are likely to have repay the rest. If the turbines had operated as planned, functioning 24 hours a day, they were projected to earn the town between an estimated $1 million and $2 million a year.

In an effort to recoup some of those costs, selectmen have instructed town officials to consider a variety of options for what to do with the turbines.

Those include possibly converting them into cellphone towers or selling them to another community that might operate them. If they were able to negotiate such a deal with another town, Falmouth might have the rest of their state loans forgiven, as the turbines would be generating renewable energy.

“We’re looking at our options, but either way, there’s certainly going to be a financial impact to Falmouth,” said Julian Suso, to town manager.

SOURCE

Would Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal Leave $59 Billion in the Ground?

An Extra $59 Billion Could Solve a Lot of Problems

“BP just discovered a billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.” It was just another CNBC headline on January 8, and yet it highlighted a bigger trend: the surge in U.S. energy production.

And in a way, it also highlighted a big counter-trend: the green left’s desire to take it all away, in the name of fighting climate change.

So let’s take a moment to drill down, pun intended, on that new discovery. At current prices, that new oil, in the waters south of New Orleans, is worth about $59 billion. For purposes of comparison, the GDP of the entire state of Louisiana in 2017 was $246 billion. Which is to say, $59 billion is an appreciable bump.

In fact, as CNBC noted, the new discovery will inspire $1.3 billion in investment to actually get the oil out. And that’s good news for all the workers who will get jobs and overtime out of this additional economic activity; according to Zip Recruiter, energy jobs in the Gulf pay an average of $80,201 a year. And so there’s good news, too, for families, neighbors, storekeepers, and stakeholders.

And oh yes, it’s good news, as well, for the United States, since energy security is a big part of national security. As any Baby Boomer remembers, all through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, we were told by the experts that the U.S. faced an “energy crisis.” Thus we needed to take dramatic steps to deal with this supposed shortfall—everything from cutting back on consumption to invading other countries to seize their oil.

Yet in the past two decades, all this “expertise” has gone to the trash heap, because, thanks to strong science and stronger entrepreneurship, we’ve enjoyed an energy miracle. This is in large part due to the new process of fracking; in 2018, the U.S., for the first time since World War Two, became a net energy exporter.

Moreover, there’s more happening with energy production than just fracking. To put it simply, there’s a lot more energy in the earth than the experts thought possible.

Part of this energy abundance is the simple working of the law of supply and demand. As every free-marketeer knows, if there’s a market for something, some entrepreneur will find a way produce more of it. And if that requires exploration everywhere, well, that’s exactly what’s happened; around the world, proven oil reserves have nearly tripled since 1981.

Indeed, some heterodox observers, such as the late Thomas Gold, argue that the earth is, in fact, making more energy, even now. That is, oil, gas, and coal aren’t “fossil fuels” at all, in the sense that such fuels are supposed to be the decayed remains of dinosaurs and other prehistoric organisms. Instead, Gold argued, the internal heat of the earth is, as it were, constantly cooking up more oil. By this reckoning, so long as the core of the earth is hot, we’ll never run out of carbon-based fuel.

This theory of the non-biological origins—abiogenesis–of oil goes back to the 19th century. And yet even today, among geologists, it’s still a decidedly minority viewpoint. Still, every time we discover additional carbon-based fuel reserves, that’s an indicator that we might be dealing with a lot more than just the remains of the Jurassic Period. (As an aside, we might observe that the debate over the origins of oil puts useful perspective on the question of whether or not there is truly such a thing as “settled science.”)

Whatever the source, the reality is that we’re all standing atop virtually incomprehensible quantities of untapped energy abundance. In 2014, Breitbart News noted that the value of oil and gas under federal lands and waters amounted to $128 trillion. That $128 trillion, we might add, is six times the GDP of the U.S. Once again, that’s just federal lands and waters—a fraction of this country’s total territory.

These energy realities could be the makings of a happy story of energy abundance, leading to both economic and national security for every American. After all, with that much money, we could provide good education, protect retirees, build infrastructure, improve our defenses, cut taxes—and still have trillions left over.

However, as we know, there are some who don’t want any of this to happen. In the name of fighting climate change, some green environmentalists seek to, in the words of top-dog enviro Bill McKibben, “leave it in the ground.” Or, in the case of that new $59 billion worth of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, “leave it under the water.”

The argument over climate change has been raging for decades, and yet only in the past few years has it really gained momentum. The 2016 Democratic platform was ambitious; it called for getting 50 percent of our electricity from “clean” sources within a decade, and for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

Since then, the greens and the Democrats have upped the ante: In 2017, some Congressional Democrats introduced legislation eliminating carbon fuel emissions by 2035. More recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has rallied Democrats to the target of ending carbon emissions by 2030.

For perspective, we might interject that today, carbon fuels—oil, gas, and coal—account for 77.6 percent of U.S. energy consumption. And that’s all supposed to go to zero in 11 years?   Hmmm.

We can add that today, renewable fuels account for less than 13 percent of our energy consumption. And most of our renewable energy, by the way, is hydropower, and the greens are increasingly hostile to dams as well. And so if we look at the two forms of energy that the greens truly approve of, namely, solar and wind, well, those two sources account for only about three percent of U.S. energy.

So can we really expect to ramp up solar and wind, from three percent of our energy production, to 100 percent of what we need, and will need, as the population grows? In a little more than a decade? We all know the answer to that.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on the steps of the Capitol, Friday, January 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

In the short run, the green goal is moot because Republicans control the White House and the Senate; there are, to be sure, differing opinions on climate in Republican ranks, but there’s no appetite for anything like what the greens have in mind.

Of course, all that could change after 2020, if the Democrats do well in the next election. If so, then the Democrats’ green agenda, which is coming to be known as the Green New Deal, has a chance of becoming law. (This author has already written about the prospect of a Green New Deal, here, and here.)

So now we can see the makings of the next epic political fight: that is, the zeal of the greens vs. the determination of carbon-energy producers. In the U.S. today, about a dozen states are heavily dependent on carbon-energy production for their wellbeing; these states account for most of the 1.1 million employees in the energy sector.

Are these states, and their elected officials, ever going to submit meekly to some green dictate that says leave it in the ground? That doesn’t seem likely. And will lawmakers from, say, Louisiana—seeking to defend the new $59 billion worth of newly discovered oil, on top of the previously discovered $2.61 trillion, still waiting to be tapped—find a way to make constructive political alliances with those from states that don’t produce energy, but merely consume it? That does seem likely.

Indeed, it’s quickly apparent: No matter what happens in the 2020 elections, the U.S. is not going to shut itself down for the sake of climate change. And neither, of course, is any other country in the world.

So it’s entirely likely that we’ll be in a political standoff: if not after the 2020 elections, then sometime soon enough. On the one side will the greens, and on the other side will be the “carbons.” Who will win in the end? There’s no way to know, of course, but the greens’ losing fight with France’s yellow jackets should give them pause.

SOURCE

1500 Private Jets Descend On Davos For Climate Change Talks

At least 1,500 private jets are expected to descend on Davos and nearby airports in Switzerland this week as the international financial and political elite gathers to talk about global climate challenges.

Breitbart reports:

That would be up from the more than 1,300 aircraft movements seen at last year’s forum, despite climate change registering as the top risk factor identified for the global economy in a survey of World Economic Forum (WEF) movers and shakers last week.

Sir David Attenborough, a lead speaker this year, has already stated that climate is the issue of our time.

The veteran broadcaster, 92, used his acceptance speech to tell business leaders and governments to come up with “practical solutions”.

Speaking at the beginning of the forum on Monday, the Blue Planet and Dynasties narrator told the crowd he is “quite literally from another age” and warned of “man-made disaster of global scale” that lies ahead.

Industry group Air Charter Service calculated the private jet flights over the week, as delegates fly in to hear the likes of Mr. Attenborough speak at an event boasting a basic entry ticket price of U.S.$60,000 – per person.

Davos is a small town in the Swiss Alps, around 92 miles south-east of Zurich.

Andy Christie, Private Jets Director at ACS, told the Guardian how the numbers are determined:

Davos doesn’t have its own airfield and, whilst we have several clients who fly into the town by helicopter, the four main airfields that private jet users attending the forum use are Zürich, Dübendorf, St. Gallen-Altenrhein and St. Moritz.

Working with WingX, we looked at private jet activity at those airports over the six days of each WEF week since 2013 – from one day before the event to one day after. Last year was the busiest year for private jets so far, showing an 11% increase on 2017, with more than 1,300 aircraft movements. If we see a similar increase this year, we could be looking at almost 1,500 aircraft movements over the six days.

Countries with the most arrivals and departures over the past five years at Davos are Germany, France, the UK, U.S., Russia, and UAE, respectively.

Demand for private jets far outstrips other events that also loom large on the private aviation calendar, such as the Super Bowl or Champions’ League final, according to Mr. Christie.

“We have had bookings from as far as our operations in Hong Kong, India and the US ?- no other event has the same global appeal,” he said in a statement

And the trend is towards even more expensive, larger private jets such as the Gulfstream GV and Bombardier’s Global Express.

“This is at least in part due to some of the long distances travelled, but also possibly due to business rivals not wanting to be seen to be outdone by one another,” Mr. Christie said.

Around 3,000 participants are expected for the 2019 edition of the WEF. They represent the worlds of business, government, international aid, academia, arts and culture, and the media, although U.S. President Donald Trump will not be among them.

Among the list of topics to be covered this week is the WEF’s Global Risk Report for 2019 which reveals environmental crises, such as failures to tackle climate change, “are among the likeliest and highest-impact risk that the world faces over the next decade.”

How much does it cost to participate?

The WEF website reveals annual membership (required if you want to buy a ticket to Davos) is upwards of U.S.$60,000, depending on the institution or company’s “level of engagement”.

At the top are the 100 “strategic partner” companies – including Accenture, Barclays, Deloitte, KPMG and Unilever – who pay around U.S.$600,000 for annual membership, which entitles them to buy an access-all-sessions pass for themselves and five colleagues, including special privileges. But they still have to purchase actual tickets to the event.

SOURCE

Global Warming is Nothing New

By Roger Dewhurst. Roger is a retired geologist who spent much of his life studying climate history written in sedimentary rocks

There was the First Atlantic Warm Period about 7750 BC
Second Atlantic Warm Period about 7000 BC
First Saharan Warm period about 5800 BC
Second Saharan Warm Period about 5000 BC
Egyptian Warm period about 3200 BC
Sumerian Warm Period about 2200 BC
Minoan Warm Period about 1200 BC
Roman Warm Period about 0 BC
Mediaeval Warm Period about 1000 AD
Modern Warm Period about 2000 AD

All the warm periods prior to the current one have been warmer (in most cases substantially warmer) than the modern warming that we are having hysterics about.

There have been five significant Little Ice Ages scattered between these warm periods.

If you can explain how man-made carbon dioxide was the temperature driver for these events please go ahead and tell me.

Until you do there are, for me, better explanations, principally the magnetic field of the sun.

SOURCE

Australia: Animals dying in the hot weather

Note that the horses died from lack of water, not the heat. The only animals that died from the heat were bats, which fell out of trees dead. That is not however unprecedented, Sadly, it is a natural phenomenon. British military officer and amateur scientist Watkin Tench reported bats dying like that in coastal Sydney in 1790 (Yes. 1790, not 1970). There were no power stations or SUVs then

The devastating toll of an extreme heatwave creeping across Australia has been laid bare in grisly pictures of a heartbreaking discovery in the Red Centre.

The photographs show the bodies of dozens of brumbies that were found by a dry waterhole at Deep Hole, about 20km northeast of Santa Teresa in the Northern Territory last week.

Arrernte artist and activity engagement officer Ralph Turner stumbled across the horrific scenes and his pictures show masses of dried up and partially decomposing carcasses strewn across the bone dry waterhole.

“Not only was Deep Hole completely dry with barely any signs of recent mud but revealed a horrific mass grave of wild horses stretching for around 100 metres,” Santa Teresa media mentor Rohan Smyth wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

“The horses are believed to have entered Deep Hole to drink from the reservoir which has not been known to completely dry up.”

It is understood that about 40 dead horses were discovered and rangers have had to put dozens more out of their misery.

The Bureau of Meteorology tipped Alice Springs to reach 43C today.

Elsewhere, Adelaide’s mercury has reached a record high of 46.2C, toppling a heat record from 1939.

The Bureau of Meteorology reports that West Terrace recorded the highest temperature in 80 years at 1.42pm.

BIBLICAL NUMBER OF BATS WIPED OUT

Horses aren’t the only animals to perish in the intense heat.

Researchers from Western Sydney University said 23,000 spectacled flying foxes died in the event on 26 and 27 November, BBC reported.

That’s almost one third of the species living in Australia.

Lead researcher Dr Justin Welbergen, an ecologist, believes the “biblical scale” of deaths could be even higher - as many as 30,000 - because some settlements had not been counted.

“This sort of event has not happened in Australia this far north since European settlement,” says Dr Welbergen, who is also the president of the Australasian Bat Society, a not-for-profit conservation group.

The Cairns Post reported flying foxes were dropping by the dozen from trees in November.

In January rescue workers tried desperately to save the lives of hundreds of baby bats as heat exhaustion claimed the lives of thousands of flying foxes in Sydney’s west.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

25 January, 2019

I'm back already

My procedure went unexpectedly well and I am now out of hospital and back to normal. So I am posting today but will be observing my usual Sabbath tomorrow

Ocasio-Cortez: Claim World Ending in 12 Years Due to Climate Change Was Not a ‘Gaffe’

On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) declared that she did not make not a “gaffe” Monday when she said the world will end in 12 years if climate change isn’t stopped. As evidence, she cited a story and study that do not say the world will end in 12 years.

Monday, in an interview, Ocasio-Cortez said:

“And I think the part of it that is generational is that millennials and people, in Gen Z, and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we’re like, the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.

“And, You’re biggest issue, your biggest issue is how are going to pay for it? — and like this is the war, this is our World War II. And I think for younger people, we’re looking at this and we’re like, how are we saying let’s take it easy when 3,000 Americans died last year, how are we saying, let’s take it easy when the Nth person died from our cruel and unjust criminal justice system?"

Tuesday, in response to a video tweet of her comment, Ocasio-Cortez expressed bewilderment that people would think she didn’t mean it, linking to an article in The Guardian citing a U.N. study:

"For some reason GOP seems to think this is a gaffe, but it’s actually a generational difference. Young people understand that climate change is an existential threat: 3,000 Americans died in Hurricane María. The UN says we’ve got 12 years left to fix it"

But, while The Guardian article says weather events will be more severe and nature will suffer if global temperatures rise 2C degrees, instead of 1.5C degrees, it does not say the world will end:

"The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people......

At 2C extremely hot days, such as those experienced in the northern hemisphere this summer, would become more severe and common, increasing heat-related deaths and causing more forest fires....

The half-degree difference could also prevent corals from being completely eradicated and ease pressure on the Arctic, according to the 1.5C study, which was launched after approval at a final plenary of all 195 countries in Incheon in South Korea that saw delegates hugging one another, with some in tears"

SOURCE

2018 was the year of climate truth

Ed Berry

On November 27, 2016, Keith Pickering, an associate of Peter Gleick, argued on edberry.com that human CO2 caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750. I could not believe the illogic in Keith’s argument although he believed his argument was solid. His argument was the same as the one the IPCC uses as its core argument. It fails because it ignores natural CO2.

Since then, I have written a series of posts that show the IPCC claims to support its key theory are wrong. My posts introduce a physics model that replaces the IPCC model. My latest version is my “Preprint: Contadictions to IPCC’s climate change theory.” The last version is much better than my first version. It has the benefit of hundreds of comments, suggestions, and challenges over two years.

The Preprint is the basis of my poster presentation at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting on January 8. When I return from the AMS meeting, I plan to submit my preprint to a professional journal. I have not yet decided which journal will be my first choice.

Previous authors who have supported the idea that human CO2 emissions are not the cause of most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750 are Revelle and Suess (1957), Starr (1992), Segalstad (1992, 1996, 1998), Rorsch et al. (2005), Courtney (2008), Siddons and D’Aleo (2007), Quirk (2009), Spencer (2009), MacRae (2010, 2015), Essenhigh (2009), Glassman (2010), Wilde (2012), Caryl (2013), Humlum et al. (2013), Salby (2012, 2014, 2016), Harde (2017a), and Berry (2018).

My presentation resembles those of Salby and Harde. They use the same fundamental equations that I use. I think my main contributions to the physics of the effect of human CO2 on atmospheric CO2 are (a) I have made the physics derivation very simple, (b) I introduce the concept of a balance level determined by inflow, (c) I use the 14C data to show the physics model is accurate and the IPCC model fails, (d) I show how all the IPCC arguments fail because they are junk science, and (e) I show how the human-caused changes in the level of 14C and 13C support the physics model and reject the IPCC model.

My preprint presents the “convincing alternative explanation” that IPCC and USGCRP claim does not exist. My preprint shows IPCC’s claim that “abundant published literature” shows, with “considerable certainty,” applies to the physics model and not to the IPCC model.

The last little issue I will insert into my preprint is an explanation of how IPCC’s use of “adjustment time” versus “residence time” is junk physics. The physics model shows clearly that the only reference time the physics needs is a measure of how fast the level approaches its balance level. Maybe I will call it “adjustment time” after the IPCC. Maybe I will call it “balance time.” Maybe I will call it e-Time. So far, I have called it “residence time” and that will lead to confusion because it is not the same as the IPCC “residence time.”

The IPCC idea that there is a different time that tells us how fast “molecules” exchange places is junk science. It is junk science because the so-called molecule exchange time is merely what happens when the level in the physics model gets close to its balance level.

The explanation of how CO2 flows into and out of our atmosphere is really simple. Our problem is the IPCC has muddied the waters and all alarmists support the muddy waters. The minds of the alarmists are so confused that they can no longer understand simple physics.

I am forced to address these ugly physics errors made by climate alarmists because if I don’t address them, the alarmists claim I don’t understand their arguments. The truth is I understand their arguments better than they do. And many climate alarmists who do junk physics are on our National Academy of Sciences or hold important positions in government or in science societies.

Remember what Feynman said. It does not matter who you are or what important positions you hold, if you theory makes incorrect predictions, your theory is wrong. Yes, their theory makes incorrect predictions.

I refer to the physics I use in the physics model as “the Art of Physics” because it is not complicated physics but it requires a full understanding of how to formulate a hypothesis and test it with data.

So, my message to you at the end of 2018 is human CO2 adds only about 18 ppm to the atmosphere while natural CO2 adds about 392 ppm, for a total of about 410 ppm that exists today.

There is no valid argument that the human contribution is any larger than 18 ppm. Therefore, all the political actions people are doing to “address climate change” and to “save the planet” will have zero effect on climate. These people may call me a “denier” but it is they who deny science.

SOURCE

Schumer’s Green Energy Subsidies Cost Much More Than Trump’s Wall

The government is shut down over border wall funding, but only a month ago Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked President Donald Trump to support billions in green energy subsidies.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, in early December asked Trump to support “permanent tax incentives for domestic production of clean electricity and storage, energy efficient homes and commercial buildings, electric vehicles, and modernizing the electric grid.”

“If left unchecked, the damage caused by climate change will cause untold human suffering and significant damage to the U.S. economy,” Schumer wrote to Trump on Dec. 6.

Extending tax subsidy provisions primarily benefiting wind and solar power would cost nearly $32 billion over the next four years, according to Joint Committee on Taxation estimates. Permanently extending these tax subsidies could add billions more to the tab. The committee estimates solar and wind tax subsidies will cost more than $7 billion in 2019.

Based on committee estimates, continuing solar and wind tax subsidies is nearly six times the $5.7 billion Trump is asking from Congress for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The total cost of a wall to cover the nearly 2,000-mile southern border could be as high as $25 billion, according to the White House, though other estimates have put the cost of a border wall as high as $60 billion based on the projected per-mile cost.

The battle over border wall funding forced Congress to sideline its year-end debate over “tax extenders,” which includes 11 green energy-related tax benefits that would cost roughly $53 billion over 10 years if they were made permanent, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Extending these tax credits just one year is estimated to cost roughly $5 billion.

These energy tax subsidies expired at the end of 2017, the costliest of which are tax incentives for biodiesel, alternative fuels, and residential energy efficiency. If made permanent, those programs would cost more than nine times what Trump asked from Congress in border wall funding.

The two costliest green subsidies, the production tax credit and investment tax credit, primarily benefit wind turbines and solar panels, respectively. Many Republicans and conservative groups have called for eliminating green tax subsidies.

Both the production tax credit and investment tax credit are set to expire at the end of 2021. However, given the White House’s opposition to some green energy tax subsidies, some conservatives suggest ending those and put the funds toward a border wall.

“This only makes sense, and with the additional funds we could paint it green,” Dan Kish, a senior distinguished fellow at the free-market Institute for Energy Research, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s a win-win.”

But could a deal like this ever be cut? Dan Whitten, vice president of public affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association, doesn’t think so.

“Given its strong bipartisan support, this seems like a nonstarter,” Whitten told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“As for the notion of terminating the existing ITC (investment tax credit), that is something we would strenuously oppose,” Whitten said. “It is one of the most successful energy incentives to date, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars in economic activity.”

The Solar Energy Industries Association has not asked Congress to extend the investment tax credit, which is set to sunset at the end of 2021. However, there is a permanent 10 percent investment tax credit for solar and geothermal installations.

The American Wind Energy Association did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Sixteen days after Schumer sent his letter, Trump refused to sign legislation to keep the federal government open without $5.7 billion in border wall funding. Congressional Democrats refused and the government shutdown began.

SOURCE

The Growing Absurdities Of The German Energiewende

Comment from Switzerland

In Bavaria, two gas-fired power plants of the latest generation stand around as investment disasters. Nevertheless, one of the operators wants to build a third one at the same location. This can only be understood against the background of the misguided German Energiewende.

At the beginning of the year, the number of successful reports on renewable energies in Germany is increasing: The Agora Energiewende think tank writes that their 35% share of electricity production is the same as that of electricity from coal-fired power plants for the first time. By 2030, the German government even wants to increase the share of renewables to 65%.

However, people often forget to mention that the availability of electricity varies greatly, depending on whether it is produced with sun and wind or from conventional sources. The large-scale use of storage facilities for renewables is also a long way off. There is therefore no getting around keeping a conventional power plant at hand at all times, which can take over in times of “dark lulls” such as when there is little sun and wind.

Expensive interventions in the power grid

In the Bavarian town of Irsching near Ingolstadt, electricity producer Uniper and its partners have commissioned two state-of-the-art gas-fired power plants as of 2010. Nevertheless, the math did not add up: The glut of subsidised eco-electricity put pressure on stock market prices. A higher price for CO2 emissions had been expected, which would have given gas-fired power plants advantages over coal-fired power plants.

The two units cannot now be operated profitably. To do this, the CO2 price in emissions trading would have to rise to over €40 per tonne, while it is currently half as high. However, the German Electricity Grid Agency demands that the two blocks be kept in reserve. Although the two gas-fired power plants are investment ruins, Uniper is now building a third gas-fired power plant at the same location. Has the company learned nothing?

No, this time it might even be a good deal. Uniper was awarded the construction contract in an auction by the electricity network operator Tennet. The power plant with a capacity of 300 megawatts is to produce “not for the market”, but only in emergency situations to stabilize the grid. And for this emergency service, Uniper receives a remuneration that makes the construction worthwhile.

Tennet can ultimately pass the costs on to consumers. The power plant will be available from October 2022. This is no coincidence: the last nuclear power plants in Germany will be shut down that year, but security of supply must continue to be guaranteed. Now, however, strongly fluctuating wind power is generated especially in the north. In order to transport it to the south, where the industrial heart of Germany beats, new power lines are needed. But the Minister of Economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier, admitted a few months ago that the construction of this line was “catastrophically behind schedule”. Of the planned 7670 kilometers of power lines, only 950 kilometers are in operation.

Consumers pay twice

The number of interventions in the grid has increased due to the volatile feed-in of renewable energies and the lack of transport possibilities. This also includes regulating wind turbines when the grid is overloaded. In 2017, these measures already cost €1.4 billion. Consumers have to pay for these expenses via their electricity bills. These grid charges are now higher than the levies for green electricity. German consumers therefore pay one of the highest electricity prices in Europe.

In addition to Uniper, the Nürnberg utility N-Ergie also has a 25.2% stake in one of the two existing gas power plants in Irsching. Its boss, Josef Hasler, is now sharply critical of the implementation of the energy turnaround. He points out that all three power plants ultimately served grid stability. That is true even for the last one. However, the two existing units are only connected to the grid a few hours a year. This could lead to the absurd situation that the new power plant will never be used, he says. However, while the new unit will now be fully compensated, the two existing units will only be remunerated for the few hours during which they are in operation. The same task is thus compensated quite differently in Hasler’s judgment. The annual loss for the block, in which N-Ergie is involved, amounts to a two-digit million amount.

Hasler complains that consumers, who are burdened with rising grid charges, are ultimately the victims of the misguided energy policy. In Irsching, three large gas-fired power plants, which are rarely in use, will be in operation in a few years’ time. The consumers thus paid twice, namely for the massive expansion of the electricity transmission grids and the construction of new power plants, the N-Ergie boss points out. This will certainly not contribute to the acceptance of the energy system transformation.

SOURCE

Fact-free politics

IN this era when there has been more information available to more people than at any time in the past, it is also true that there has been more misinformation from more different sources than ever. We are not talking about differences of opinion or inadequate verification, but about statements and catchwords in utter defiance of facts.

Among the most popular current catchwords are “climate change deniers.” Stop and think. Have you ever — even once in your entire life — seen, heard or read even one human being who denied that climates change?

It is hard even to imagine how any minimally knowledgeable person could deny that climates change, when there are fossils of marine creatures in the Sahara Desert. Obviously there has been quite a climate change there.

The next time someone talks about “climate change deniers,” ask them to name one — and tell you just where specifically you can find their words, declaring that climates do not change. You can bet the rent money that they cannot tell you.

Why all this talk about these mythical creatures called “climate change deniers”? Because there are some meteorologists and other scientists who refuse to join the stampede toward drastic economic changes to prevent what others say will be catastrophic levels of “global warming.”

There are scientists on both sides of that issue. Presumably the issue could be debated on the basis of evidence and analysis. But this has become a political crusade, and political issues tend to be settled by political means, of which demonizing the opposition with catchwords is one.

It is much the same story on economic issues. Any proposal to reduce income tax rates is sure to bring out claims that these are “tax cuts for the rich,” based on the “trickle-down theory” that reducing the taxes collected from the rich will cause some of their wealth to “trickle down” to people with lower incomes.

Here, yet again, all you need to do is think back over your own life, and ask yourself if you have ever — even once in your entire life — seen, heard or read a single human being who advocated this “trickle-down theory.”

Certainly none of the innumerable fellow economists I have encountered in my 88 years ever advocated any such theory. Nor am I aware of anyone else, in any other walk of life, who has done so.

Yet there are ringing denunciations of the “trickle-down theory” in books, articles, and in politics and the media. That theory has been denounced as far away as India.

The next time someone talks about the “trickle-down” theory, ask them to tell you where specifically you can find the writings, videos or any other evidence of someone advocating that theory. You may get some very clever and creative evasions of your question, but no actual answer.

One of the best-selling history textbooks did name Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon as having said in the 1920s that letting the rich pay less taxes would allow their wealth to “trickle down” to others. It was one of the very rare examples that actually named a name.

Unfortunately, what this widely used history textbook attributed to Andrew Mellon was the direct opposite of what he actually said. In Mellon’s own book, “Taxation,” he said that wealthy people were not paying enough tax revenue to the government, because they put their money into tax-exempt securities.

Mellon called it “incredible” that tax laws allowed someone making a million dollars a year to pay not a cent in taxes, and an “almost grotesque” consequence that people of more modest incomes had to make up the shortfall.

He understood, however, that higher tax rates did not automatically mean higher tax revenues. So when the tax law changes that he advocated cut tax rates, the income tax revenues actually hit a record high at that time. Moreover, the rich paid more tax revenue and a much higher percentage of all income tax revenues than before.

Issues in both economics and science can get complicated. But when one side of those issues has to resort to demonstrably false catchwords, that should give us a clue.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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23 January, 2019

Environmental 'time bomb': It will be another CENTURY before we see the true effects of climate change on freshwater supplies, experts warn

The basic assumption behind this article is false. They assume that global warming will lead to LESS water being available -- when it is basic physics that warmer oceans will evaporate off more and thus lead to MORE rainfall, not less. Water availabiity would be the LAST thing to worry about in a warming world. But it's all modelling below so GIGO

Future generations face an 'environmental time bomb' caused by the effects climate change has on freshwater supplies, scientists have warned. It could take more than 100 years for the full impact of changes occurring today to be felt on the world's groundwater reserves, experts say.

Groundwater comes from rainfall that is trapped underground in cracks and small holes in soil, sand and rock, as well as from springs and other natural sources. It also takes longer to respond to climate change than surface water but will diminish with lower levels of rainfall.

This has major implications for the future availability of water for drinking, as well as farming and industry, say researchers.

Experts from the University of Cardiff based their findings on groundwater computer simulations together with hydrological data.

They found that groundwater in wetter, more humid, locations may respond to climate change over a relatively short time scales.

In contrast, regions where water was naturally more scarce had much longer groundwater response times.

The authors point out that groundwater was essential in drier parts of the world where surface water supplies were limited.

Lead scientist Dr Mark Cuthbert, from Cardiff's school of Earth and ocean sciences, said: 'Our research shows that groundwater systems take a lot longer to respond to climate change than surface water, with only half of the world's groundwater flows responding fully within 'human' timescales of 100 years.

'This means that in many parts of the world, changes in groundwater flows due to climate change could have a very long legacy.

'This could be described as an environmental time bomb because any climate change impacts on recharge occurring now, will only fully impact the baseflow to rivers and wetlands a long time later.

'It is essential that the potential for these initially hidden impacts is recognised when developing water management policies, or climate change adaptation strategies for future generations.'

SOURCE

The Antithesis of Green

By ROBERT BRYCE

The energetic chatter of the moment is dominated by talk about the Green New Deal — a collection of proposals that would require running the entire American economy on renewable electricity within a decade or so.

The Green New Deal has been endorsed by scads of liberal politicians including New York governor Andrew Cuomo, former California state senator Kevin de León, media darling and newly sworn-in Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and anti-hydrocarbon activist Josh Fox. The goals of the Green New Deal are nothing short of radical. As the website for the left-wing think tank Data for Progress explains, the Green New Deal aims to “transform the economy and the environment in ways that achieve sustainability, equity, justice, freedom, and happiness.” Achieving happiness has never been easy. Even harder will be the Green New Deal’s aim of completely eliminating the use of coal, oil, and natural gas by 2050.

How all this happiness and energy legerdemain will be achieved is anyone’s guess. Supporters are particularly vague about how they would find the hundreds of billions — or even trillions — of dollars needed to attempt such a plan. Nevertheless, there is one unassailable fact about the Green New Deal: It is not green. Indeed, the entire notion of an all-renewable-energy system is the antithesis of environmental protection and scenic conservation.

The backers of the Green New Deal — along with their allies at big environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and others that tout all-renewable schemes — refuse to acknowledge the simple truth that deploying renewable energy at the scale required to fuel the U.S. economy would require covering state-sized territories with nothing but wind turbines and solar panels. It would also require stringing tens of thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines.

Promoters of all-renewable schemes inhabit a make-believe world where there’s endless amounts of vacant land — territory that’s just waiting to be covered with energy infrastructure. The truth is exactly the opposite. All across the country, from Vermont to California, local and state politicians are restricting the encroachment of renewable-energy projects, with wind energy and high-voltage transmission lines facing the staunchest opposition.

Before discussing that opposition, let’s look at a study published last year by two researchers from Harvard University that detailed the enormous amounts of land that would be required by an all-renewable scenario. The study, co-authored by Harvard physics professor David Keith and postdoctoral fellow Lee Miller, looked at 2016 energy-production data from 1,150 solar projects and 411 onshore wind projects. Those wind projects had a combined capacity of 43,000 megawatts, or roughly half of all U.S. wind capacity that year.

The key conclusion in Keith and Miller’s paper is this: “Meeting present-day US electricity consumption, for example, would require 12 percent of the continental US land area for wind.” The two researchers didn’t spell out exactly what that means, so let’s do the math. The land area of the continental Unites States is about 2.9 million square miles (or 7.6 million square kilometers). Twelve percent of that would be about 350,000 square miles (or 912,000 square kilometers). Therefore, merely meeting America’s current electricity needs with wind would require an area more than twice the size of California, which covers about 164,000 square miles (424,000 square kilometers).

In other words, just meeting existing electricity demand — and remember, this ignores the vast amounts of natural gas needed by industry and the millions of barrels of oil per day needed to fuel our airplanes, trucks, and cars — would require covering with wind turbines a land area twice the size of Nancy Pelosi’s home state. The idea of setting aside that much land is nonsense on stilts.

The all-renewable dogma of the Green New Deal looks yet more absurd because it is being promoted at the very same time that more and more landowners and politicians in rural areas are fighting against renewable-energy projects. Consider what is happening in Vermont, the home state of Bernie Sanders, the U.S. senator and former presidential candidate. Sanders, along with Ocasio-Cortez, was among the early champions of the Green New Deal. But wind projects in Vermont are facing strong opposition. Last November, both gubernatorial candidates — incumbent Republican Phil Scott and Democratic challenger Christine Hallquist — made it clear that they’re opposed to further wind-energy development in their state. Furthermore, according to data from the American Wind Energy Association, no new wind projects are being developed in Vermont.

Or look at New York, which has a renewable-energy mandate of 50 percent by 2030. But three upstate counties — Erie, Orleans, and Niagara — as well as the towns of Yates and Somerset, are actively fighting a proposed 200-megawatt project called Lighthouse Wind, which aims to put dozens of turbines on the shores of Lake Ontario. The same developer that is pushing Lighthouse Wind, Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy, is also facing fierce resistance on another project in New York that aims to put 109 megawatts of wind capacity on Galloo Island, which sits off the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. In its application to the state for a permit, Apex neglected to report that bald eagles have been nesting on Galloo Island. The company’s permit for that project is now in jeopardy.

Or look at California, which recently enacted a mandate that requires the state to obtain at least 60 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030. In 2017, California had about 5,600 megawatts of installed wind capacity — that’s about 150 megawatts less than what the state had back in 2013. In 2017, Rob Nikolewski of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that in addition to a ban on wind projects in Los Angeles County, three other counties — San Diego, Solano, and Inyo — had also passed restrictions on wind turbines. Nikolewski then quoted the head of the California Wind Energy Association, who lamented the industry’s inability to site new projects in the state. “We’re facing restrictions like that all around the state. . . . It’s pretty bleak in terms of the potential for new development.”

Land-use battles are also being fought over the high-voltage electricity-transmission lines needed to carry solar- and wind-generated electricity from rural areas to customers in big cities. In 2017, Iowa enacted a law that prohibits the use of eminent domain for high-voltage transmission lines. The move doomed the Rock Island Clean Line, a 500-mile, $2 billion, high-voltage direct-current transmission line that was going to carry wind-generated electricity from Iowa to Illinois. The opposition forced the project’s developer, Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners, to withdraw its application for the project in Iowa.

In early 2018, Clean Line Energy Partners also announced it was suspending its years-long effort to build a 720-mile, $2.5 billion transmission line across the state of Arkansas. The Plains & Eastern Clean Line aimed to carry wind energy from Oklahoma to customers in the southern and southeastern U.S. But the project faced fierce opposition in Arkansas, where the state’s entire congressional delegation opposed the deal.

In short, renewable-energy projects are facing a growing rural backlash, and that backlash is already limiting the growth of renewable sources and in particular, the growth of wind. The obvious conclusion is that renewable energy alone cannot meet our economy’s enormous energy needs, and no amount of populist spin can change that fact.

SOURCE

The drive to make New York ‘zero carbon’ is insane

New York’s Democratic-run state Legislature might enact one of the most radical energy mandates on the planet. The Climate and Community Protection Act would require that greenhouse-gas emissions from all sources be halved by 2030 and reach zero by 2050. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

That would mean retooling the entire state economy, which will be accomplished central-planning-style, with lots of committees and working groups. The climate-justice working group, for example, will be tasked with identifying which New Yorkers receive 40 percent of a carbon-tax bounty that will be hoovered up from residents and businesses.

Other unelected bureaucrats will impose a combination of performance standards — emissions limits that will effectively ban fossil-fuel use — and set those carbon taxes.

The state’s existing Clean Energy Standard calls for reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050. But the CCPA will require the entire economy to be run solely on electricity generated with renewable energy resources, primarily wind and solar power. Transportation, which today accounts for 40 percent of the state’s energy consumption, will have to be powered solely by electricity — even the Staten Island Ferry.

Manufacturing — or what’s left of it — will have to be all-electric. Farmers won’t be able to use chemical fertilizers on their lands. The state’s dairy industry will be shuttered, because cows belch tons of methane. How the CCPA envisions those emissions being captured is anyone’s guess. The same holds for methane emitted by landfills.

The few energy-intensive manufacturing industries that remain in the state will have to go. Cement, for example, is manufactured from limestone using a chemical process that releases carbon dioxide. Even the greenest electricity won’t change that basic chemistry.

To justify the accompanying mandates and taxes, the CCPA requires comprehensive cost-benefit analyses. But even if New York’s reductions fell to zero tomorrow, the impact on the world’s climate would be too small to measure. Hence, the CCPA won’t provide New Yorkers any measurable benefits. Yet rest assured that Albany data-torturers will dutifully claim billions in benefits, and New Yorkers will bear billions in new costs.

The numbers provide a reality check. In 2015, the last year for which the state has published data, total emissions were about 217 million metric tons. According to the 2018 BP Statistical Review, between 2007 and 2017, the US steadily reduced its annual carbon emissions, cutting them by 800 million metric tons, around 14 percent.

But over that same period, annual emissions from the rest of the world increased by more than four billion metric tons. In other words, while the US has been reducing its carbon emissions, the rest of the world’s emissions have been increasing five times as fast, at an average rate of about 400 million tons each year.

Thus, even if New York somehow zeroed out, the net impact would offset only about six month’s worth of the annual increase in global emissions.

The zero goal will require the state to obtain massive quantities of renewable electricity. In 2016, total state energy consumption was about 2,800 trillion BTUs. Of that, less than one-fifth was consumed in the form of electricity. And only about 15 percent of that electricity was generated from wind, solar and biomass facilities.

Meeting the state’s needs using wind alone would require 140,000 turbines — nearly double the total amount of wind capacity in the entire US.

Meeting the state’s electricity needs solely with solar, meanwhile, would call for more than 15 times the total amount of solar energy in the entire US. It would also necessitate covering 10 percent of the entire state’s land with solar panels and cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

And because wind and solar power work only when the wind blows or the sun shines, the state will need backup storage. Lots of it. Meeting just one day’s average daily electricity consumption for an emissions-free New York would require installing 1.5 million megawatts of battery storage, equivalent to installing around 160 million Tesla Powerwalls, or about 20 in every single home and apartment in the state.

Even if current battery storage costs fall by 80 percent, that would still require an investment of $750 billion, equivalent to $37,500 for every New Yorker.

If they cared to look, the politicians in Albany could easily see that achieving the CCPA’s impossible goal will cost trillions of dollars, crater the state’s economy and have no effect on climate. Of course, when has reality ever stood in the way of green virtue-signaling and spending taxpayer money?

SOURCE

Trump Signs Another Bipartisan Law to Boost Advanced Nuclear

Democrats and Republicans are at an impasse on the government shutdown. But they agree on federal support for novel reactor technologies.

In the midst of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a rare instance of bipartisan energy policy success mostly got lost in the noise.

President Donald Trump signed a bill into law Monday aimed at accelerating development of a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors. The Republican administration's efforts to revive the coal industry clash with Democrats’ plans to address climate change and transition to clean energy. So this marks a rare instance of cooperation between the two parties, and the second instance of cooperation on advanced nuclear in the last four months.

The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act calls on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make its review process "technology-inclusive" by 2028. The process was designed for the light water reactors that ruled the industry for the last half-century, but new reactors emerging from labs and startups use fundamentally different technologies. The law also calls for more transparency on the costs and timelines of NRC reviews.

“It’s really recognizing that a lot of our policies around nuclear and institutions around nuclear are pretty outdated,” said Jessica Lovering, who researches nuclear technology and policy as director of energy at The Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank supportive of nuclear power.

The NRC is not affected by the partial shutdown, which has slowed renewable energy permitting and forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to work without pay. Its budget is funded through fiscal year 2019, according to law firm Morgan Lewis. But even with the office open, the NRC's review process is slow, which the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act seeks to address.

This follows another nuclear assistance law passed with bipartisan support and signed by Trump in September.

The Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act called for a cost-sharing grant program to help advanced reactors pay for the lengthy licensing process, and construction of a fast neutron source for testing advanced technologies. The U.S. currently lacks such a facility, forcing companies to look overseas to test certain reactor designs.

Big win for advanced reactor advocates

The two laws together knock off several wish-list items for the various stakeholders interested in commercializing advanced reactors.

Old-school light water reactor construction has all but vanished from the U.S., thanks to gargantuan construction costs, long build times and public concerns about the technology. New technologies promise an antidote: They’ll be smaller, safer and easier to install, their advocates say.

Interested parties include more than the old-guard nuclear industry itself.

There’s a cluster of new startups entering the space after decades of technological stagnation. A vocal contingent of climate activists insist that nuclear, as the largest source of zero-carbon electricity, will play a crucial role in decarbonizing electricity (others would rather shut it down and put all their chips on wind and solar).

On the more conservative side, nuclear energy represents a reliable 24/7 power source, just the sort of thing the Trump Department of Energy has argued for as a bulwark against the intermittent fluctuations of wind and solar plants.

It’s also the living legacy of American ingenuity, at risk of being co-opted by Russia or China. And it could create jobs as test sites and production move forward.

Time is money

Only one of the new cohort of nuclear companies, NuScale, has officially begun the NRC review process. Tellingly, that company still uses light water reactors, just scaled down small enough to be produced in a factory; it didn’t have to run the gauntlet with a fundamentally exotic reactor design. NuScale also received a cost-share grant from the DOE worth $217 million to help pay for the review, which will take several more years.

The NRC derives most of its funding from fees paid by applicants, Lovering noted. The longer it takes to review a new and unprecedented design, the more the company has to pay for it.

Rewriting the regulations should avoid some headaches by tailoring questions to the new technology, instead of framing the review around what makes sense for light water reactors. Saving time literally saves money.

“There has been stuff happening inside the NRC, but having legislation that directs them to come up with the rules and put them in place, that’s a big change,” Lovering said. “A lot of advanced reactor companies need this to happen before they can start licensing.”

While the NRC is not affected by the government shutdown, the licensing process will still be long and expensive. To address this, the new legislation calls for “predictable and efficient” licensing, which should at least give companies a better sense of how long they should expect to wait.

The two laws set in motion a number of small efforts that could produce more efficient testing of new technologies. That still doesn’t guarantee advanced nuclear will succeed in the marketplace: As an expensive new electricity source, it will have to break into a market increasingly dominated by cheap renewables. Utilities tend to be risk-averse in adopting new energy technologies, and nuclear comes with more public relations challenges than most.

Future legislation could focus on jump-starting demand, Lovering said. Permitting has to come first, though, and Republicans and Democrats agree on that, if little else in the energy arena.

“It’s this rare thing where both sides can come together and agree we should be making it easier for these...American companies to be developing advanced energy technology,” she said.

SOURCE

Why Trump's EPA Is Right to Reverse the Obama Administration’s Regulatory Power Grab on Mercury Emissions

The Trump EPA is rejecting the flawed reasoning the Obama administration used to broaden its power under the Clean Air Act in favor of the rule of law.

In 2015, the Supreme Court’s Michigan v. EPA decision held that the Obama EPA erred in deciding that regulating mercury emissions as a hazardous air pollutant under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act was “appropriate and necessary.” Now the Trump EPA is proposing to reverse the Obama EPA's decision, and the regulatory authority it handed the agency to impose its costliest regulation ever, triggering sharp media criticisms.

A New York Times article treated it as an attack on the use of benefit-cost analysis and Americans’ health. The Los Angeles Times editorialized that the current proposal was the Trump EPA’s “most harmful step yet,” which “would undermine not only current regulations, but regulatory efforts in the future,” based on “ludicrous” logic and “wonky legalisms.”

Such reactions are highly misleading. They ignore the central issue, which is the “wonky legalism” that the Obama EPA used to bootstrap its mercury ruling into far more power than the Clean Air Act (CAA) gave it over fine particulate emissions. The Trump EPA would reject that in favor of the rule of law.

The EPA’s Mercury Bait and Switch
At the heart of the issue is the difference between the regulation of fine particulate pollution under CAA Sections 108-110 and regulation of toxic emissions, such as mercury, under Section 112.

Under Section 109, the EPA already sets national ambient air quality standards that, “allowing an adequate margin of safety, are required to protect the public health.” But if the EPA has determined that the federal fine particulate standard it set in 2013 is “adequate to protect public health,” that offers them no excuse to further tighten those standards.

Using Section 112 instead of Sections 108-110 would give the EPA almost unlimited command and control over who they could target and how.

Further, under National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the EPA sets standards for fine particulates that states must meet, but the states determine how to meet them, preventing the EPA from singling out coal-fired power plants as “victims,” echoed in President Obama’s assertion that his environmental policies would bankrupt them.

The EPA’s mercury bait and switch created a way for it to overcome both of those CAA limitations. If it could declare mercury a hazardous air pollutant, it could justify tighter mercury regulations. Then they could use those regulations under Section 112 to effectively tighten fine particulate emission restrictions. And using Section 112 instead of Sections 108-110 would also give the EPA almost unlimited command and control over who they could target and how, which Chief Justice Roberts recognized as an “end run” around its statutory limits.

Unfortunately, implementing the mercury gambit under Section 112 required a determination that harm from mercury pollution was great enough that restricting it was “appropriate and necessary,” which proved impossible to do honestly.

The Truth about Mercury Emissions
First, power plants emit only a tiny fraction of the mercury released into America’s air. According to the EPA, annual global mercury emissions were estimated at 7,300 to 8,300 tons, of which only 2,100 tons were anthropogenic in 2005, and of that, US power plants emitted only 53 tons of mercury, which was expected to fall to 29 tons in 2016. Reductions of such a small magnitude (well under 1 percent) in mercury emissions cannot save thousands of lives. In fact, CDC surveys showed blood mercury levels for American women and children to be already below the levels found safe by the EPA, FDA, and WHO, and falling further.

Even with such “creative” assumptions to inflate the damage, the estimated economic gain from reduced exposure to mercury was $6 million or less annually.

To estimate the magnitude of the effects, the EPA could have used a University of Rochester study of the Republic of the Seycheles, whose residents consume types of fish—the primary “carriers” of methylmercury from atmospheric deposition to humans—similar to American diets. But the Center for Science and Public Policy found that the study of high-dose exposure, which followed the same children from six months to nine years of age, found “no observable health effects associated with fish consumption in which methylmercury is present.” So the EPA ignored it.

Instead, the EPA based its criteria on a study of Faroe Islanders. Not only do they eat more fish, their diets include a great deal of pilot whale meat and blubber. That gives them not only far higher doses of mercury but also of PCBs. Further, they ingest little selenium (which limits conversion to methylmercury) or fruits and vegetables. Given that in epidemiology the most basic principle is that “the dose makes the poison,” their circumstances are irrelevant to Americans.

The EPA constructed a model of hypothetical women who “consume extreme quantities (at the 99th percentile) of the most contaminated fish from the most contaminated bodies of water."

As the Center for Science and Public Policy concluded, “The Faroe Islands study should not be the sentinel study upon which assessment of methylmercury intake via should be gauged.”

But on that flimsy basis, the EPA constructed a model of hypothetical women who “consume extreme quantities (at the 99th percentile) of the most contaminated fish from the most contaminated bodies of water,” according to the Cato Institute’s Amicus brief. It added a 50 percent “cooking adjustment factor.” It then estimated “the potential effect of this exposure on their hypothetical children’s neurological development in utero.” That effect was minuscule.

The EPA itself found that only “between 1 and 3 percent of women of childbearing age (the group of most concern) eat sufficient amounts of fish to be at risk from methylmercury exposure,” and the FDA and most states already issue strong advisories for consumers to limit their intake. Even with such “creative” assumptions to inflate the damage, the estimated economic gain from reduced exposure to mercury, which is the sole justification for mercury regulation spelled out under CAA Section 112, was $6 million or less annually.

The EPA Mercury Rule Is Unjustified and Punitive
Because those benefits were dwarfed by up to $9.6 billion in annual costs, the “appropriate and necessary” standard for mercury regulation was laughably unmet. So the EPA simply ignored the costs at that point (which the Supreme Court found could not allow the issue to be seriously addressed), allowing it to deem that the very small and very questionable benefits it “found” justified Section 112 regulation, even though the costs were 1,600 times the benefits relevant under that section.

Newspapers and other supporters of President Obama’s agenda never wanted anyone to notice the egregious overstepping of the EPA’s regulatory powers involved in the mercury case.

Only after that very large finesse of its legal limits, when addressing what regulations could be imposed as a result, the EPA asserted a massive claimed co-benefit of reduced fine particulate emissions to justify it. However, that was strongly at odds with its own determination that such fine particulate regulations were already “adequate to protect public health.” Further, it could not justify onerous Section 112 “remedies” in any event since fine particulates are regulated under different sections that don’t provide such powers.

Newspapers and other supporters of President Obama’s agenda never wanted anyone to notice the egregious overstepping of the EPA’s regulatory powers involved in the mercury case. Now, to preserve what following the law would undo, they are following the same script, including rhetorical red herrings to distract Americans from seeing the real issue.

But the EPA’s mercury machinations were never about protecting Americans’ health. It was a regulatory power grab to sidestep the Clean Air Act’s limits, as its purpose-built “backdoor” reveals. It was to transmute supposed environmental public servants into people Americans would have to serve. Consequently, we should recognize that rather than being “appropriate and necessary,” the EPA mercury rule is both unjustified and punitive.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

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22 January, 2019

Climatologist: Oceans Warming Reports ‘Greatly Exaggerated’

Based on ocean temperature variations in thousandths of a degree!

Roy W Spencer below hints that Cheng fitted his observations to the models

Summary: The recently reported upward adjustment in the 1971-2010 Ocean Heat Content (OHC) increase compared to the last official estimate from the IPCC is actually 11%, not 40%.

The 40% increase turns out to be relative to the average of various OHC estimates the IPCC addressed in their 2013 report, most of which were rejected.

Curiously, the new estimate is almost identical to the average of 33 CMIP climate models, yet the models themselves range over a factor of 8 in their rates of ocean warming.

Also curious is the warmth-enhancing nature of temperature adjustments over the years from surface thermometers, radiosondes, satellites, and now ocean heat content, with virtually all data adjustments leading to more warming rather than less.

I’ve been trying to make sense out of the recent Science paper by Cheng et al. entitled How Fast are the Oceans Warming? The media headlines I saw that jumped out at me (and several others who asked me about them) were:

World’s Oceans Warming 40% Faster than Previously Thought (EcoWatch.com),

The oceans are heating up 40% faster than scientists realized which means we should prepare for more disastrous flooding and storms (businessinsider.com)

For those who read the paper, let me warn you: The paper itself does not have enough information to figure out what the authors did, but the Supplementary Materials for the paper provide some of what is needed.

I suspect this is due to editorial requirements by Science to make articles interesting without excessive fact mongering.

One of the conclusions of the paper is that Ocean Heat Content (OHC) has been rising more rapidly in the last couple decades than in previous decades, but this is not a new finding, and I will not discuss it further here.

Of more concern is the implication that this paper introduces some new OHC dataset that significantly increases our previous estimates of how much the oceans have been warming.

As far as I can tell, this is not the case.

Dazed and Confused

Most of the paper deals with just how much the global oceans from the surface to 2,000 m depth warmed during the period 1971-2010 (40 years) which was also a key period in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5).

And here’s where things get confusing, and I wasted hours figuring out how they got their numbers because the authors did not provide sufficient information.

Part of the confusion comes from the insistence of the climate community on reporting ocean warming in energy content units of zettajoules (a zettajoule is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules, which is a billion trillion joules… also a sextillion joules, but male authors fear calling it that), rather than in what is actually measured (degrees).

This leads to confusion because almost nowhere is it ever stated what the assumed area of ocean was used in the computation of OHC (which is proportional to both temperature change and the volume of seawater involved in that temperature change).

I’ve looked in this paper and other papers (including Levitus), and only in the 2013 IPCC report (AR5) did I find the value 3.6 x 10^14 square meters given for ocean area. (Just because we know the area of the global oceans doesn’t mean that is what is monitored, or what was used in the computation of OHC).

Causing still further confusion is that Cheng et al. then (apparently) take the ocean area and normalize it by the entire area of the Earth, scaling all of their computed heat fluxes by 0.7.

I have no idea why, since their paper does not deal with the small increase in heat content of the land areas. This is just plain sloppy because it complicates and adds uncertainty when others try to replicate their work.

It also raises the question of why energy content? We don’t do that for the atmosphere. Instead, we use what is measured — degrees.

The only reason I can think of is that the ocean temperature changes involved are exceedingly tiny, either hundredths or thousandths of a degree C, depending upon what ocean layer is involved and over what time period.

Such tiny changes would not generate the alarm that a billion-trillion joules would (or the even scarier Hiroshima bomb-equivalents).

But I digress.

The Results

I think I finally figured out what Cheng et al. did (thanks mostly to finding the supporting data posted at Cheng’s website).

The “40%” headlines derive from this portion of the single figure in their paper, where I have added in red information which is either contained in the Supplementary Materials (3-letter dataset IDs from the authors’ names) or are my own annotations:

The five different estimates of 40-year average ocean heating rates from the AR5 report (gray bars) are around 40% below the newer estimates (blue bars), but the AR5 report did not actually use these five in their estimation — they ended up using only the highest of these (Domingues et al., 2008).

As Cheng mentions, the pertinent section of the IPCC report is the “Observations: Oceans” section of Working Group 1, specifically Box 3.1, which contains the numerical facts one can fact-monger with.

From the discussion in Box 3.1, one can compute that the AR5-estimated energy accumulation rate in the 0-2000 m ocean layer (NOT adjusted for total area of the Earth) during 1971-2010 corresponds to an energy flux of 0.50 Watts per sq. meter.

This can then be compared to newer estimates computed from Cheng’s website data (which is stated to be the data used in the Science study) of 0.52 W/m2 (DOM), 0.51 W/m2 (ISH), and 0.555 W/m2 (CHG).

Significantly, even if we use the highest of these estimates (Cheng’s own dataset) we only get an 11% increase above what the IPCC claimed in 2013 — not 40%.

Agreement Between Models and Observations

Cheng’s website also contains the yearly 0-2,000m OHC data from 33 CMIP5 models, from which I calculated the average warming rate, getting 0.549 W/m2 (again, not scaled by 0.7 to get a whole-Earth value).

This is amazingly close to Cheng’s 0.555 W/m2 he gets from reanalysis of the deep-ocean temperature data.

This is pointed to as evidence that observations support the climate models which, in turn, are of course the basis for proposed energy policy changes and CO2 emissions reduction.

How good is that multi-model warming rate? Let me quote the Science article (again, these numbers are scaled by 0.7):

“The ensemble average of the models has a linear ocean warming trend of 0.39 +/- 0.07 W/m2 for the upper 2,000 m from 1971-2010 compared with recent observations ranging from 0.36 to 0.39 W/m2.”

See that +/- 0.07 error bar on the model warming rate? That is not a confidence interval on the warming rate. It’s the estimated error in the fit of a regression line to the 33-model average warming trace during 1971-2010. It says nothing about how confident we are in the warming rate or even the range of warming rates BETWEEN models.

And that variation between the models is where things REALLY get interesting. Here’s what those 33 models’ OHC warming profiles look like, relative to the beginning of the period (1971), which shows that they range over a factor of 8X (from 0.11 W/m2 to 0.92 W/m2) for the period 1971-2010!

What do we make of a near-perfect level of agreement (between Cheng’s reanalysis of OHC warming from observational data and the average of 33 climate models) when those models themselves disagree with each other by up to a factor of 8 (700%)?

That is a remarkable stroke of luck.

It’s Always Worse than We Thought

It is also remarkable how virtually every observational dataset — whether (1) surface temperature from thermometers, (2) deep-ocean temperature measurements, atmospheric temperature from (3) satellites, and from (4) radiosondes, when reanalyzed for the same period, always end up with more (not less) warming?

What are the chances of this? It’s like flipping a coin and almost always getting heads.

Again, a remarkable stroke of luck.

SOURCE

Climate hysterics skyrocket

Increasingly absurd disaster rhetoric is consistently contradicted by climate and weather reality

Paul Driessen

Call it climate one-upmanship. It seems everyone has to outdo previous climate chaos rhetoric.

The “climate crisis” is the “existential threat of our time,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her House colleagues. We must “end the inaction and denial of science that threaten the planet and the future.”

Former California Governor Jerry Brown solemnly intoned that America has “an enemy, though different, but perhaps very much devastating in a similar way” as the Nazis in World War II.

Not to be outdone, two PhDs writing in Psychology Today declared that “the human race faces extinction” if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels. And yet “even people who experience extreme weather events often still refuse to report the experiences as a manifestation of climate change.” Psychologists, they lament, “have never had to face denial on this scale before.”

Then there’s Oxford University doctoral candidate Samuel Miller-McDonald. He’s convinced the only thing that could save people and planet from cataclysmic climate change is cataclysmic nuclear war that “shuts down the global economy but stops short of human extinction.”

All this headline-grabbing gloom and doom, however, is backed up by little more than computer models, obstinate assertions that the science is settled, and a steady litany of claims that temperatures, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts et cetera are unprecedented, worse than ever before, and due to fossil fuels.

And on the basis of these hysterics, we are supposed to give up the carbon-based fuels that provide over 80% of US and global energy, gladly reduce our living standards – and put our jobs and economy at the mercy of expensive, unreliable, weather dependent, pseudo-renewable wind, solar and biofuel energy.

As in any civil or criminal trial, the burden of proof is on the accusers and prosecutors who want to sentence fossil fuels to oblivion. They need to provide more than blood-curdling charges, opening statements and summations. They need to provide convincing real-world evidence to prove their case.

They have refused to do so. They ignore the way rising atmospheric carbon-dioxide is spurring plant growth and greening the planet. They blame every extreme weather event on fossil fuel emissions, but cannot explain the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age or extreme weather events decades or centuries ago – or why we have had fewer extreme weather events in recent decades. They simply resort to trial in media and other forums where they can exclude exculpatory evidence, bar any case for the fossil fuel defense, and prevent any cross-examination of their witnesses, assertions and make-believe evidence.

Climate models are not evidence. At best, they offer scenarios of what might happen if the assumptions on which they are based turn out to be correct. However, the average prediction by 102 models is now a full degree F (0.55 C) above what satellites are actually measuring. Models that cannot be confirmed by actual observations are of little value and certainly should not be a basis for vital energy policy making.

The alarmist mantra seems to be: If models and reality don’t agree, reality must be wrong.

In fact, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels climbed to 405 parts per million (0.0405% of Earth’s atmosphere), except for short-term temperature spikes during El Niño ocean warming events, there has been very little planetary warming since 1998; nothing to suggest chaos or runaway temperatures.

Claims that tornadoes have gotten more frequent and intense are obliterated by actual evidence. NOAA records show that from 1954 to 1985 an average of 56 F3 to F5 tornadoes struck the USA each year – but from 1985 to 2017 there were only 34 per year on average. And in 2018, for the first time in modern history, not a single “violent” twister touched down in the United States.

Harvey was the first major (category 3-5) hurricane to make US landfall in a record twelve years. The previous record was nine years, set in the 1860s. (If rising CO2 levels are to blame for Harvey, Irma and other extreme weather events, shouldn’t they also be credited for this hurricane drought?)

Droughts differ little from historic trends and cycles – and the Dust Bowl, Anasazi and Mayan droughts, and other ancient dry spells were long and destructive. Moreover, modern agricultural and drip irrigation technologies enable farmers to deal with droughts far better than they ever could in the past.

Forest fires are fewer than in the recent past – and largely due to failure to remove hundreds of millions of dead and diseased trees that provide ready tinder for massive conflagrations.

Arctic and Antarctic ice are largely within “normal” or “cyclical” levels for the past several centuries – and snow surface temperatures in the East Antarctic Plateau regularly reach -90 °C (-130 F) or lower. Average Antarctic temperatures would have to rise some 20-85 degrees F year-round for all its land ice to melt and cause oceans to rise at faster than their current 7-12 inches per century pace.

In fact, the world’s oceans have risen over 400 feet since the last Pleistocene glaciers melted. (That’s how much water those mile-high Ice Age glaciers took out of the oceans!) Sea level rise paused during the Little Ice Age but kicked in again the past century or so. Meanwhile, retreating glaciers reveal long-lost forests, coins, corpses and other artifacts – proving those glaciers have come and gone many times.

Pacific islands will not be covered by rising seas anytime soon, at 7-12 inches per century, and because corals and atolls grow as seas rise. Land subsidence also plays a big role in perceived sea level rise – and US naval bases are safe from sea level rise, though maybe not from local land subsidence.

The Washington Post did report that “the Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer, and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot.” But that was in 1922.

Moreover, explorers wrote about the cyclical absence of Arctic ice long before that. “We were astonished by the total absence of ice in Barrow Strait,” Sir Francis McClintock wrote in 1860. “I was here at this time in [mid] 1854 – still frozen up – and doubts were entertained as to the possibility of escape.”

Coral bleaching? That too has many causes – few having anything to do with manmade global warming – and the reefs generally return quickly to their former glory as corals adopt new zooxanthellae.

On and on it goes – with more scare stories daily, more attempts to blame humans and fossil fuels for nearly every interesting or as-yet-unexplained natural phenomenon, weather event or climate fluctuation. And yet countering the manmade climate apocalypse narrative is increasingly difficult – in large part because the $2-trillion-per-year climate “science” and “renewable” energy industry works vigorously to suppress such evidence and discussion … and is aided and abetted by its media and political allies.

Thus we have Chuck Todd, who brought an entire panel of alarmist climate “experts” to a recent episode of Meet the Press. He helped them expound ad nauseam on the alleged “existential threat of our time” – but made it clear that he was not going to give even one minute to experts on the other side.

“We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it,” Todd proclaimed. “The Earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not.” The only thing left to discuss, from their perspective was “solutions” – most of which would hugely benefit them and their cohorts, politically and financially.

Regular folks in developed and developing countries alike see this politicized, money-driven kangaroo court process for what it is. They also know that unproven, exaggerated and fabricated climate scares must be balanced against their having to give up (or never having) reliable, affordable fossil fuel energy. That is why we have “dangerous manmade climate change” denial on this scale.

That is why we must get the facts out by other means. It is why we must confront Congress, media people and the Trump Administration, and demand that they address these realities, hold debates, revisit the CO2 Endangerment Finding – and stop calling for an end to fossil fuels and modern living standards before we actually have an honest, robust assessment of supposedly “settled” climate science.

Via email

Judge Finds Faulty Lines, Not Climate Change, Source of Cali Fires

A federal judge is blaming giant utility Pacific Gas and Electric as a major culprit in massive wildfires that ripped through California in 2017 and 2018.

An order issued Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who is hearing a case related to the Northern California utility’s response to a 2010 pipeline blast, laid responsibility for the fires at PG&E’s door, according to NBC.

“The Court tentatively finds that the single most recurring cause of the large 2017 and 2018 wildfires attributable to PG&E’s equipment has been the susceptibility of PG&E’s distribution lines to trees or limbs falling onto them during high-wind events,” his order in the case reads.

“The power conductors are almost always uninsulated,” the judge wrote. “When the conductors are pushed together by falling trees or limbs, electrical sparks drop into the vegetation below. During the wildfire season when the vegetation is dry, these electrical sparks pose an extreme danger of igniting a wildfire.”

The utility offered a statement in response.

“PG&E’s most important responsibility is the safety of our customers and the communities we serve,” the utility said. “We are aware of Judge Alsup’s latest order and are currently reviewing. We are committed to complying with all rules and regulations that apply to our work, while working together with our state and community partners and across all sectors and disciplines to develop comprehensive, long-term safety solutions for the future.”

Scott McLean, deputy chief of communication for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said that PG&E bears responsibility for 12 of 17 fires in 2017.

No assessment was available for 2018.

Alsup has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 30. He is seeking to force the utility to upgrade its fire safety program.

One legislator hailed the judge’s action, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

State Sen. Jerry Hill, whose district includes areas impacted by the fires, said he is encouraged that Alsup is delving into PG&E’s safety policies and procedures.

“A federal judge is actually saying things and hopefully will do something about the lack of maintenance at PG&E,” Hill said. “No one else has required that.”

PG&E has said that liabilities from the fires have forced it into bankruptcy, with a Chapter 11 filing planned for the end of the month, the Sacramento Bee reported.

“The people affected by the devastating Northern California wildfires are our customers, our neighbors and our friends, and we understand the profound impact the fires have had on our communities and the need for PG&E to continue enhancing our wildfire mitigation efforts,” said interim CEO John Simon in a statement, according to CNN.

“We remain committed to helping them through the recovery and rebuilding process. We believe a court-supervised (bankruptcy) process … will best enable PG&E to resolve its potential liabilities in an orderly, fair and expeditious fashion,” he said.

Alsup has made his dissatisfaction clear with PG&E.

Earlier this month, he said he was considering an order against the utility that would require a full inspection of its power grid.

Alsup said he was considering forcing PG&E to shut down sections of the grid during windy weather unless an inspection has shown its equipment is safe, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

SOURCE

New Allegations Of ‘Fishy’ Climate Science

A collage of 50 lionfish was supposed to dampen questions over concerns around the academic rigor of former star James Cook University research student Oona Lonnstedt. Instead, the colorful photograph has prompted only more questions.

According to colleagues, Lonnstedt, who now lives in Sweden, no longer wants to be contacted about her research and, in fact, has abandoned her career in science.

What she has left behind is a test case of how the science community deals with concerns about alleged malpractice when they are raised.

Veteran marine scientist Walter Starck, who received a Ph.D. in marine science from the University of Miami in 1964, says the Lonnstedt affair is symptomatic of a new era.

Starck says generations of researchers have been schooled in a culture wherein threats to the Great Barrier Reef are an unquestionable belief from which all evidence is interpreted.

“She (Lonnstedt) got into the ocean acidification and global warming and the effect CO2 was going to have on the behavior of marine animals and she started publishing,” Starck says.

“Immediately the publishers lapped it up. As a graduate student, she managed to get as much published in one year as most professors do in a decade.”

Lonnstedt’s work is now being picked apart.

JCU says it has appointed an independent panel to investigate the lionfish study and remains “committed to the highest standards of ethical research”.

“The university takes seriously any allegation that a staff member or student has acted contrary to those standards,” a university spokesman says.

“An external panel will investigate research conducted by Oona Lonnstedt at JCU to determine whether there has been any research misconduct.”

Critics say JCU has been quick to talk but slow to act.

When concerns over Lonnstedt’s work were first raised in December 2017, JCU said: “The university intends to review the Ph.D. examiners’ report and determine whether any further investigation is required”.

In May last year, JCU said it was establishing an external panel of experts to investigate.

This week, in response to questions from Inquirer, JCU said: “Membership of the external panel has been finalized. Panel members have accepted the role but have not yet been formally appointed.”

The lionfish affair was first raised when the prestigious journal Biology Letters confirmed it was investigating a discrepancy in the number of lionfish obtained by Lonnstedt at her research facility on Lizard Island in Queensland and the dozens of specimens supposedly used in her experiments.

The Biology Letters investigation followed a finding of “scientific dishonesty” about a 2016 research project conducted by Lonnstedt, this one in the Baltic Sea and showing small fish preferred to eat small pieces of plastic, less than 5mm in diameter, than their normal food, and this made them grow slowly and more likely to be eaten by predators.

Lonnstedt’s paper on the microplastic research was published in the journal Science but was retracted after an investigation by Sweden’s Central Ethical Review Board raised the possibility that some of the research described “was not conducted”. Although Lonnstedt and her co-author still strongly defend the paper, they say they decided to retract it.

“Science has to rest on solid ground and the results of this study, even if they are correct, will not be trusted as long as a suspicion of misconduct remains,” they said in a statement to the journal Nature.

Before the microplastics study, Lonnstedt had been one of JCU’s most prolific authors before finishing her Ph.D. studies at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, publishing many high-profile papers on fish behavior.

One claimed that when damselfish live in degraded corals, which may be caused by climate change, they lose some of their sense of smell and become “fearless” and more subject to being eaten by predators.

In another paper, she looked at the effect of high concentrations of carbon dioxide on the ability of damselfish to respond to predators. Lonnstedt found they were likelier to be eaten by predators.

Three of the most well-publicised environmental threats — reef degradation from climate change, changes in ocean’s acidity or alkalinity from carbon dioxide and the impact of microplastics — all, according to Lonnstedt’s work, cause little fish to be eaten by predators.

One paper has been proved to be incorrect because it was found Lonnstedt did not have time to undertake the research she claimed.

The microplastics finding raised questions about Lonnstedt’s other published work, in particular, the finding of the behavior of lionfish. Lonnstedt found lionfish can wave their fins at each other to communicate to go hunting in pairs and take turns in striking at their prey.

After the editors of Biology Letters issued a statement of concern early last year, Lonnstedt’s co-authors on the lionfish paper wrote a “correction.”

Included in the correction was “a collage of 50 lionfish photographs providing evidence of the number of lionfish caught during the study”.

When it was posted, former JCU marine scientist Peter Ridd analyzed the collage of images and found some striking results.

“The big question is how many different fish are in these pictures,” Ridd said. “A careful analysis of the pictures would indicate that it is probably far less than 50.”

By studying the metadata included in the original file names, Ridd has shown that when put into the order that the pictures were taken, it was clear that the same images had been mirror imaged, rotated or manipulated in other ways to appear to be different fish.

Ridd wrote to Lonnstedt’s co-authors alerting them to his discovery. He said the sheer number of problems, plus the manipulation of the images by mirror imaging and color correction, “makes one wonder what is going on”.

Ridd said given that Lonnstedt had been shown to have deficient data in other research, and given that there seemed to be evidence of modified images, it would not be wise to give the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Rather than accept Ridd’s analysis, the co-authors replied that their correction to Biology Letters had been taken out of context by the journal.

“Based on our understanding, it was not her intent for the collage to represent a picture of all of the lionfish she used,” they said. Rather, she was providing it as evidence “that she had lionfish in the laboratory”, the co-authors said.

“Normally I would suggest that you contact Dr. Lonnstedt for further clarification about this paper. However, I am led to believe that she has abandoned her career as a scientist,” co-author Doug Chivers said.

“We have been asked to stop contacting her with regards to this paper. This leaves us in a tough spot in not being able to answer questions adequately. We will discuss any future actions with the editor of Biology Letters.”

SOURCE

Ten Reasons for Australia to Exit the Paris Agreement Now

by Viv Forbes

It is urgent that all Australian politicians understand the dangers in the Paris Climate Agreement. Here are TEN REASONS to EXIT PARIS NOW:

The science is NOT settled - hundreds of scientists in Australia and thousands more throughout the world reject the theory that human production of carbon dioxide is driving dangerous global warming. And the 102 computerised climate models have always predicted more warming than has occurred. (They got it right once, 39 years ago.)

There is no unusual global warming. Since the last ice age ended there have been warm eras hotter than today’s modern warming – the warm peaks are getting lower, not higher. Climate has always changed in response to forces far greater than human activities. The endless procession of man-made scare campaigns about cooling, warming, ice melting, sea levels, ocean acidity, cyclones and droughts have all proved false.

Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant – it is an invisible natural gas that supplies the whole food chain. More carbon dioxide is beneficial to the biosphere - forests, grasses and crops grow better thus benefitting all animal life that relies on plants.

The populous world nations are unlikely to curb their CO2 emissions – China, India, Russia, Brazil, USA, Japan, SE Asia, Indonesia, Africa and the Arab world will ignore Paris limits.

Despite 20 years of favourable promotion, subsidies, taxes, targets and propaganda the contribution of the intermittent energy producers (wind and solar) to world energy supplies is trivial – about 3% (see if you can find “solar” in the graph below.)

Australian energy policies, taxes and targets are making electricity more costly and less reliable, hurting consumers and driving industry off-shore. And once they have ruined electricity and coal their next targets will be agriculture and motorists.

With no nuclear power, no geothermal power, limited hydro potential and increasing barriers to gas exploration, Australia has few options except coal for cheap reliable grid power, and oil products for transport.

With a huge continent, a small population and heavy reliance on exports, each Australian will be heavily penalised by the Paris Agreement for the emissions associated with exports consumed by others.

Compliance with the Paris Agreement will destroy industries and jobs, encourage bureaucracy and transfer controls and money to affiliates of the United Nations.

Should the world experience even modest cooling in the decades ahead Australia will urgently need increased supply of reliable power for homes and industry and the global atmosphere will need more carbon dioxide plant food.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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21 January, 2019

Pacific nations spooked by climate scare

Bainimarama and Rabuka are the leading figures in Fiji politics and both are fine and reasonable men. Both have led military coups during their path to power but on all occasions did so bloodlessly. They both now hold democratically elected posts. But they are military men, not exactly steeped in world politics, so have understandably taken seriously all the Greenie shrieks about sea-level rise swamping Pacific atolls.

Most of the Fiji islands are volcanic in origin but there are a few lightly populated outlying coral atolls. The volcanic islands, where almost all the people live, are too elevated to be affected to any significan extent by the Warmist projections of sea-level rise

And sea-level rise is largely a snark anyway. As Nils Axel Morner peskily points out, it is mainly a product of "adjustments". And some atolls are actually gaining in area anyway. See Morner on Fiji here

Australia must not put the interests of a single industry above the lives of Pacific nations battling climate change, Scott Morrison has been firmly told.

At an official dinner in Fiji to mark a newly announced partnership between the two nations, Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama explicitly told Australia to do better.

He said the only way to guarantee the survival of Pacific island countries was for Australia to shift away from fossil fuels.

"I urged your predecessor repeatedly to honour his commitment to clean energy," Mr Bainimarama said on Thursday night in Suva.

"From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over.

"Rising seas threaten whole communities, forcing them to endure the trauma of relocating from land they've endured for generations.

"Fijian farmers are watching their crops perish in soil that has been spoiled by the heightened salinity that is associated with sea level rise."

Mr Bainimarama said the evidence of climate change was clear in the disappearing coastlines in Bangladesh and worsening flooding in the United States.

"And in Australia as well, where soaring temperatures have reached record highs in several major cities just this week," he said.

"This cannot be written off as a difference of opinion.

"Consensus from the scientific community is clear and the existential threat posed to Pacific island countries is certain."

Mr Morrison responded in his speech, praising Mr Bainimarama for Fiji's global leadership on climate change.

"I pay respect in particular to Mr Bainimarama's international leadership on climate change and oceans," Mr Morrison said.

"You have heard him speak passionately about this this evening and it was that same passion he took into the leadership of the COP process over the past 12 months."

In Vanuatu on Wednesday, Mr Morrison promised Pacific nations Australia would directly fund projects tackling the impact of climate change.

But he said Vanuatu's leaders had not asked Australia to do more to curb emissions.

SOURCE

Pacific island nations are GROWING in area

Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations

Paul S. Kench et al.

Abstract

Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations. Inundation and erosion are expected to render islands uninhabitable over the next century, forcing human migration. Here we present analysis of shoreline change in all 101 islands in the Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu. Using remotely sensed data, change is analysed over the past four decades, a period when [adjusted] local sea level has risen at twice the global average (~3.90?±?0.4?mm.yr?1).

Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu of 73.5?ha (2.9%), despite sea-level rise, and land area increase in eight of nine atolls. Island change has lacked uniformity with 74% increasing and 27% decreasing in size. Results challenge perceptions of island loss, showing islands are dynamic features that will persist as sites for habitation over the next century, presenting alternate opportunities for adaptation that embrace the heterogeneity of island types and their dynamics.

Nature Communicationsvolume 9, Article number: 605 (2018)

Considering the total earth system, global warming and polar ice-melt will NOT lead to sea-level rise

Why would sea-level rise for global warming and polar ice-melt?

Aftab Alam Khan

Abstract

Two major causes of global sea level rise such as thermal expansion of the oceans and the loss of land-based ice for increased melting have been claimed by some researchers and recognized by the IPCC. However, other climate threat investigators revealed that atmosphere–ocean modeling is an imperfect representation, paleo-data consist of proxy climate information with ambiguities, and modern observations are limited in scope and accuracy. It is revealed that global warming and polar ice-melt although a reality would not contribute to any sea level rise. Floating-ice of the polar region on melting would reoccupy same displaced volume by floating ice-sheets. Land-ice cover in the polar region on melting can reduce load from the crust to activate elastic rebound that would raise land for its isostatic equilibrium. Such characteristics would not contribute to sea level rise. Equatorial bulge, polar flattening, elevation difference of the spheroidal surface between equator and pole with lower in the pole, strong gravity attraction of the polar region and week gravity attraction of the equatorial region, all these phenomena would play dominant role in preventing sea level rise. Palaeo-sea level rise and fall in macro-scale (10–100 m or so) were related to marine transgression and regression in addition to other geologic events like converging and diverging plate tectonics, orogenic uplift of the collision margin, basin subsidence of the extensional crust, volcanic activities in the oceanic region, prograding delta buildup, ocean floor height change and sub-marine mass avalanche. This study also reveals that geophysical shape, gravity attraction and the centrifugal force of spinning and rotation of the earth would continue acting against sea level rise.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2018.01.008

The Great Global Warming Hurricane Myth

hurricane florence damageHow often do we hear claims that there are more hurricanes than there used to be, or that they are now much more powerful? Such claims are bolstered by 24-hour news coverage, featuring dramatic images of extreme weather.

Newspapers and TV channels alike can get more viewers and readers with apocalyptic ‘Worse Than Ever’ headlines. Worse still, many such organizations are happy simply to make up facts to suit themselves.

For instance, last year the BBC baldly stated, in a supposedly factual piece, that ‘a warmer world is bringing us a greater number of hurricanes and a greater risk of a hurricane becoming the most powerful category 5’.

They were forced to retract this claim only after an official complaint, by which time the false information had gone ’round the world and back.

But what is the truth?

A study by the Global Warming Policy Foundation shows that hurricanes, in fact, are not getting more common, or stronger.

The most reliable data is for US landfalling hurricanes, for which the US Hurricane Research Division maintains records back to 1851. The data show no upward trend in hurricane frequency.

The record year for hurricanes was as long ago as 1886 when there were seven.

As for major hurricanes (category 3 and above), there was recently a record 12-year period without any making landfall in the United States, until Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017.

Hurricanes Irma and Harvey made headlines in 2017, and Michael again last year, all making landfall at category 4. Although these were hugely powerful storms, there have been much stronger ones in the past.

Since 1851, there have only been three category 5 hurricanes, the strongest. The most powerful of these was the Labor Day hurricane which hit Florida in 1935, followed by Camille in 1969 and Andrew in 1992.

Although it is unusual to have three category 4s in the space of two years, you have to go back to 2004 and Charley to find the previous one. By contrast, between 1945 and 1954, there were six category 4s. Three more followed in successive years from 1959 to 1961.

Reliable databases for all Atlantic hurricanes and global ones do not go as far back as those for the US. It is only since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s that we have had meaningful data globally.

Previously many hurricanes were either not spotted at all, or were underestimated in strength. Hurricane hunter aircraft were understandably reluctant to fly into the middle of the strongest storms, and this is likely to have affected the record.

The data that we do have, however, show no indication of any long-term trends.

It is true that there have been shorter-term trends. For instance, there is more Atlantic hurricane activity now than in the 1970s and 80s.

But this is generally accepted to be due to the ocean cycle known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Go back to the 1940s and ’50s, and you find similar levels of activity to the present.

For example, while there have been 28 major Atlantic hurricanes in the last ten years, there were 39 in the 1950s. The record individual year was 1950 when there were eight.

Whenever a particularly bad storm comes along, there is always someone ready to claim that global warming made it worse. Bigger, stronger, wetter, fast-moving, slow-moving, earliest, latest, furthest north, longest-lasting. I could go on.

A classic example was Hurricane Florence, which brought very significant rainfall to North Carolina. However, what exacerbated Florence were some very specific localized weather conditions.

An unfortunate concatenation of prevailing wind directions meant that it stalled off the coast for a number of days, allowing high rainfall totals to build up.

There have been other hurricanes and tropical storms which have delivered more intensive rainfall over the US.

Hurricane Floyd, for instance, dumped much more rain than Florence, but this was spread over most of the US east coast as it quickly traveled north.

By contrast, Florence’s rainfall was concentrated over what was, in fact, a very tiny area.

The simple truth is that there have always been catastrophic hurricanes, and always will be. To blame them on global warming is to ignore the data and indulge a new form of green superstition.

SOURCE

6 Takeaways From New EPA Chief’s Confirmation Hearing

America is “the gold standard for environmental progress,” Andrew Wheeler, the president’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, told a Senate committee Wednesday during his confirmation hearing.

Committee Democrats, while accusing him of favoring the fossil fuel industry, avoided personal attacks on Wheeler, who took over as acting EPA administrator after Scott Pruitt’s resignation in July under partisan fire.

Wheeler highlighted the Trump administration’s regulatory reform agenda and its goals in an opening statement to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

“In 2018, EPA finalized 13 major deregulatory actions, saving Americans roughly $1.8 billion in regulatory costs,” Wheeler said. “To date, under President [Donald] Trump, EPA has finalized 33 major deregulatory actions saving Americans almost $2 billion. The U.S. is the gold standard for environmental progress.”

Wheeler said policymakers don’t need to make a trade-off between economically damaging government regulations and environmental protection.

“Through our deregulatory actions, the Trump administration has proven that burdensome federal regulations are not necessary to drive environmental progress,” he said. “Certainty and the innovation that thrives in a climate of certainty are key to progress.”

Democrats on the committee, however, said Wheeler is biased toward producers of coal and other fossil fuels and ignored the need to protect the environment and for “urgent action” to prevent catastrophic climate change.

They asked Wheeler, 54, to offer his opinion on the recent findings of the National Climate Assessment, an interagency government report, and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Democrats also pressed Wheeler on his relationship with the coal industry and took the opportunity to comment on the partial government shutdown and its impact on the EPA’s ability to perform vital functions.

Committee Republicans credited Wheeler with working to “provide greater regulatory certainty” while upholding environmental standards. They cited his long record of public service, including work he previously did for the committee.

Wheeler, Pruitt’s deputy, assumed his responsibility for implementing key parts of Trump’s regulatory reform agenda. These included ending the practice of “sue and settle” and rolling back restrictions on the private sector that the administration viewed as costly and duplicative.

The Senate confirmed Wheeler to serve as deputy EPA administrator in April 2018, and this marked his second confirmation hearing in 14 months.

Prior to rejoining the agency, the Ohio native was Republican staff director for the same Senate committee.

A lawyer who was an Eagle Scout, Wheeler began his public career in the administration of President George H.W. Bush as a special assistant in the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

Wheeler worked as a lobbyist for Murray Energy, a coal mining company based in Ohio. Robert E. Murray, the company’s founder and chief executive officer, is a prominent supporter of Trump and his name also came up.

Here are six key takeaways from Wheeler’s confirmation hearing.

1. Democrats Cast Wheeler as Extreme

Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware, the panel’s ranking Democrat, set the tone with an opening statement in which he favorably compared Wheeler with his predecessor while objecting to Wheeler’s policy stances.

“Mr. Wheeler is certainly not the ethically bereft embarrassment that Scott Pruitt proved to be and—to be fair—he has engaged more frequently and substantively than Scott Pruitt with both Congress and EPA career staff,” Carper said, adding:

I knew that Mr. Wheeler and I would not always agree. But I hoped that he would moderate some of Scott Pruitt’s most environmentally destructive policies, specifically where industry and the environmental community are in agreement. Regrettably, my hopes have not been realized.

In fact, upon examination, Mr. Wheeler’s environmental policies appear to be just as extreme as his predecessor’s, despite the promises that Mr. Wheeler made when he first appeared before our committee.

Later in the hearing, Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., criticized Wheeler for describing concerns over climate change as an “issue” instead of a “crisis.”

“I think you are 100 percent wrong,” Markey told Wheeler. “We are having a climate crisis.”

Markey cited last fall’s National Climate Assessment, which draws from the EPA and 12 other federal agencies, to bolster his point. He also criticized Trump’s response to the report.

Markey: “How did President Trump respond when asked about the conclusion of the National Climate Assessment … ? He said, ‘I don’t believe it.’ Do you agree with Donald Trump?”

Wheeler: “I believe that President Trump was referring to the media reports of the assessment itself, and I question the media reports as well because they focused on the worst-case scenario and they also focused on one study that was not actually in the report. And that’s the study that said there would be a 10 percent hit to the GDP [without strong government action].”

2. Shutdown Politics

In the run-up to the hearing, some committee Democrats criticized Wheeler for making use of EPA staff to prepare amid the partial government shutdown, which began Dec. 22.

In a letter to the EPA, they expressed concern that Wheeler was operating in violation of a U.S. law that prohibits executive branch agencies from spending money or incurring obligations outside those provided by Congress or federal law.

Carper, among the Democrats to sign the letter, commented on how the shutdown affects federal workers and the public.

“With much of EPA shut down, rules are not being written. Drinking water and power plant inspections are not being performed,” Carper said, adding:

Superfund sites are not being cleaned up. The safety of new chemicals is not being assessed. Public meetings are being cancelled. Just as important, 14,000 furloughed EPA employees are unsure if they will be able to afford their mortgages, day care providers, or grocery and electricity bills. Some of those furloughed employees appear to have been asked to help prepare for this very hearing …

In his opening remarks, Wheeler noted that the EPA “deleted all or part of 22 [Superfund] sites from the National Priorities List” in fiscal 2018, calling it the “largest number of deletions in one year” since fiscal 2005.

“And we are in the process of cleaning up some of the nation’s largest, most complex sites and returning them to productive use,” he added.

3. Facts on Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a leading skeptic of climate change, sought to set the record straight on the trend of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.

Although Trump critics have blamed the administration’s “rollback” of environmental regulations for rising carbon dioxide emissions in 2018, Inhofe said these critics overlooked key facts.

The Oklahoma Republican cited an article from Forbes that said carbon dioxide emissions are still down 11 percent since 2005 and that the recent uptick can be attributed to robust economic growth. Inhofe invited Wheeler to comment.

“Our CO2 emissions peaked in 2005 and it’s been on a decline since then,” Wheeler said. “We believe, and I was just briefed on this by my career staff, that we are going to continue to see a decline in CO2 emissions.”

“We had an uptick in manufacturing and industrial output that brought our CO2 emissions up slightly,” he added, “but overall we don’t expect that to continue. The downward trend is going to continue in the long term.”

4. Ties to Coal Industry Executive

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who once proposed using a law designed to fight organized crime to prosecute individuals and organizations who don’t support his climate change agenda, characterized Wheeler as favoring fossil fuel interests.

Related: Secret Deal Among AGs to Prosecute Climate Change ‘Deniers’ Challenged in Court

Whitehouse asked Wheeler about his relationship with Murray, the coal industry executive who owns and operates Murray Energy. He focused on an “action plan” Murray had presented to the Trump administration.

“You have your thumb, wrist, forearm, and elbow on the scales in virtually every determination that you can in favor of the fossil fuel industry, and I think that is very unfortunate,” Whitehouse told Wheeler.

“We learned by published reports that on March 29, 2017, you attended a meeting between your client Bob Murray and Energy Secretary Rick Perry where this action plan was discussed.”

Whitehouse presented photos of the meeting, saying the “action plan” was in the room. He said the plan also was given to Pruitt and to Vice President Mike Pence.

At the time, Murray was a client of the lobbying firm where Wheeler worked.

Whitehouse: “Can you tell me now how many meetings with Trump administration officials for Bob Murray did you arrange, attempt to arrange, or attend, and with whom?”

Wheeler: “I didn’t try to arrange the meeting with Scott Pruitt. Someone else at my firm did that. The purpose of that meeting was talking about the relief … ”

Whitehouse, interrupting: “My question was quite specific, how many meetings with Trump administration officials did you arrange or attend for Mr. Murray?”

Wheeler: “The meeting with Secretary Perry, and then I believe we had an additional meeting at the White House. … But I did not arrange or attempt to arrange … ”

Whitehouse interrupted again, saying he would continue to pursue this line of questioning in writing.

5. Presidential Contenders and Climate Change

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., both viewed as likely presidential contenders in 2020, asked Wheeler his views on climate change.

Sanders: “President Trump has indicated his belief that climate change is a hoax. … Do you agree?”

Wheeler: “I believe climate change is real and that man has an impact on it.”

Sanders: “The president has said that climate change is a hoax. Do you agree with him?”

Wheeler: “I have not used the hoax word myself.”

Sanders also expressed dismay that Wheeler did not refer to climate change in his opening statement.

Booker asked Wheeler about his views on the U.N.’s climate change report as well as the U.S. government assessment, highlighting dire forecasts in both documents.

“There’s this urgency to move as quickly as possible,” Booker said. “We face growing challenges not just now, but really over the next 25 years. … Why are you pulling back on regulations that will ultimately help us to deal with what our climate scientists say we need to do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?”

In response, Wheeler said he and his team are “moving forward on a proactive basis” to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

He cited the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which replaced the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, as a key component of ongoing efforts.

6. Balancing Environment With Economy

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who chairs the committee, praised Wheeler for implementing regulatory reforms that balance environmental protection with economic growth.

Summing up his EPA tenure, Barrasso said:

Acting Administrator Wheeler has led efforts to issue commonsense regulatory proposals like the Affordable Clean Energy Rule and the revised definition of ‘Waters of the United States’; implement this committee’s 2016 bipartisan reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act in an effective and efficient manner; reduce lead exposure, including through the Federal Lead Action Plan; provide greater regulatory certainty to states, to tribes, localities, and to the regulated community; and improve enforcement and compliance assistance.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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20 January, 2019

Long lost cities in the Amazon were once home to millions of people

The introduction to a recent article in New Scientist below sets the scene for what is now known about the prehistory of Amazonia. I have recently read quite a few of the scientific studies of the subject in the hope of finding out WHY civilization largely vanished from Amazonia in quite recent times. It seems that at least some parts of Amazonia were as developed as the Incas in Peru and the Aztecs in Mexico. So it seems important to understand what happened to the Amazonian civilization.

It might be better to refer to it as the Arawak civilization as the Northern Amazon seems to be the origin of a group of Arawak languages that are now widely spread in Northern South America and the Caribbean. The original Arawaks clearly had a lot of influence one way or another

And even the archaeologists may have underestimated the extent of Arawak civilization. "Black" soil is widely found in Amazonia and black soil is an artifact of human cultivation. The natural soils of Amazonia are rather poor and infertile but that can be remedied by burning any combustible material to hand. That leaves a residue of charcoal (carbon!) which makes the soil much more fertile and suitable for the cultivation of crops. So we are dealing with a pretty big phenomenon in studying the human history of Amazonia

The obvious reason for the collapse of pre-Columbian civilization in Amazonia (Arawakia?) is the white man's diseases. The conquistadores in Mexico and Peru had to wait only a little bit before disease decimated their native opponents, making conquest by the few over the many a possibility and a reality.

And we saw that sort of thing vividly in the progress through what we now know as the Southern United States by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. De Soto pushed North from Mexico into more Northern lands not for conquest but in search of gold. And wherever he went he found flourishing native tribes. Those who slightly later followed in his footsteps, however, found an almost depopulated landscape. The diseases De Soto and his men carried with them had completely wiped out the former flourishing tribes.

So on the DeSoto precedent, disease is clearly a sufficient explanation of the population loss and subsequent loss of civilization in Amazonia. But is it the whole explanation? The people of Peru and Mexico were not wiped out to anything like that extent and adapted their ways to the Spanish influence so that they substantially survived the catastrophe that had overtaken them.

Which is where we come to climate change. It appears that for much of the latter Holocene the Amazon had much less rainfall and existed in Savannah-like conditions. But Savannah can grow crops and it seems that the natives did just that. As the earth continued to rebound from the last ice age, however, rainfall increased. And rainfall fertilizes everything, including "weeds" ("Weeds" are just unwanted plants) and fungi. And the native agriculture may have been struggling with that problem at the time the Spaniards arrived. So the Spaniards and their diseases were the last straw for a struggling Amazonian civilization

It is all speculation at the present stage of our knowledge but it seems that the Greenies may be getting it partly right in their occasional squawks about the Amazon. Global warming has in fact been bad for civilization in the Amazon in the past. But there is nothing in rainforest that daunts modern civilization and its machines.

And the usual Greenie claim that Amazonia is pristine forest and, as such, should not be touched by human hands, is completely uninformed, as we expect from Greenies. "Don't bother me with the facts" seems to be their motto. There may in fact be no original forest in Amazonia

Amazonia has in fact already been heavily modified by human hands, with its fertility in particular being greatly increased by human intervention.

THE Amazon rainforest is so vast that it boggles the imagination. A person could enter at its eastern edge, walk 3000 kilometres directly west and still not come out from under the vast canopy.

This haven for about 10 per cent of the world’s species has long been regarded as wild and pristine, barely touched by humanity, offering a glimpse of the world as it was before humans spread to every continent and made a mess of things. It is painted in sharp contrast to the logged forests of Europe and the US.

But it now seems this idea is completely wrong. Far from being untouched, we are coming to realise that the landscape and ecosystem of the Amazon has been shaped by humanity for thousands of years. Long before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, the Amazon was inhabited, and not just by a handful of isolated tribes. A society of millions of people lived there, building vast earthworks and cultivating multitudes of plants and fish.

We don’t fully understand why this flourishing society disappeared centuries ago, but their way of life could give us crucial clues to how humans and the rainforest could coexist and thrive together – even as Brazil’s new government threatens to destroy it.

Some of the first Europeans to explore the Amazon in the 1500s reported cities, roads and cultivated fields. The Dominican friar Gaspar de Carvajal chronicled an expedition in the early 1540s, in which he claimed to have seen sprawling towns and large monuments. But later visitors found no such thing.

SOURCE

Scientists say Trump’s first 2 years have been fatal for a livable climate

Well, if it is fatal, the games is over and we might as well eat, drink and be merry! In reality, however, if climate change were a real thing people individually would be doing something about it. It would not depend on who is President. But the warming is so slight as to be imperceptable so no-one much is bothered about it -- except for power hungry Leftists and journalists seeking headlines

Two years in, the presidency of Donald Trump has been a possibly fatal disaster for our livable climate, a number of climate and clean energy experts told ThinkProgress.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, countless climate experts voiced their concern about Trump, who had infamously called climate change a “hoax” and said it was “created by and for the Chinese.” Trump promised to undo Obama-era environmental laws, bring back coal power, and withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, in which the world’s nations unanimously agreed to start ratcheting down carbon pollution.

For all these reasons, climatologist Michael Mann wrote in October 2016 that Trump was “a threat to the planet.”

Two years after taking office, Trump has followed through on many of his promises to gut environmental regulations, promote the production of fossil fuels, kill U.S. climate action, and start withdrawing from the Paris accord.

“Our worst fears have come true,” Mann told ThinkProgress. Other experts agreed.

“In explaining the demise of our planet, a coroner’s report might very well read ’cause of death: the Trump presidency,'” said CNN host Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs under President Barack Obama.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, noted that by undoing Obama-era climate rules and rejecting the Paris agreement, Trump is delaying climate action, perhaps fatally.

“Trump got the Koch Bros what they wanted,” McKibben said, referring to petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch. Trump’s rollbacks gave them “another half-decade or so of their business model, even at the expense of breaking the planet.”

Others, such as former Vice President Al Gore, acknowledge that “President Trump is going all out to damage humanity’s efforts to solve the climate crisis,” but take comfort in the clean energy revolution — which continues despite Trump’s repeated efforts to cut funding for research, development, and deployment.

“The price of renewable energy continues to plummet,” Gore noted. “All around the world, cities, states, and businesses alike have said ‘We’re Still In’ and are pushing forward new and increasingly ambitious goals” to cut carbon pollution.

Solar power prices are dropping at record rates. CREDIT: Acera.
Stunning drops in solar, wind costs mean economic case for coal, gas is ‘crumbling’
Things are only going to get tougher for gas and coal compared to renewables.

Some experts pointed to the very real public health disaster being created by Trump and his team as they undermine and roll back basic clean air and clean water protections that Americans have come to take for granted.

“The deep culture of corruption at all political levels of the Trump administration has reawakened fears about toxic pollution, water contamination, and even asbestos exposure in communities across the country,” said Christy Goldfuss, former managing director of Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality and currently senior vice president for energy and environment policy at the Center for American Progress. (ThinkProgress is an editorially independent project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.)

SOURCE

Climate debate: 97pc of scientists agree on nothing

IAN PLIMER

It is often claimed that 97 per cent of scientists conclude that humans are causing global warming. Is that really true? No. It is a zombie statistic.

In the scientific circles I mix in, there is an overwhelming scepticism about human-induced climate change. Many of my colleagues claim that the mantra of human-induced global warming is the biggest scientific fraud of all time and future generations will pay dearly.

If 97 per cent of scientists agree that there is human-induced climate change, you’d think they would be busting a gut to vanquish climate sceptics in public debates. Instead, many scientists and activists are expressing confected outrage at the possibility of public debates because the science is settled. After all, 97 per cent of scientists agree that human emissions drive global warming and there is no need for further discussion.

In my 50-year scientific career, I have never seen a hypothesis where 97 per cent of scientists agree. At any scientific conference there are collections of argumentative sods who don’t agree about anything, argue about data, how data was collected and the conclusions derived from data. Scepticism underpins all science, science is underpinned by repeatable validated evidence and scientific conclusions are not based on a show of hands, consensus, politics or feelings. Scientists, just like lawyers, bankers, unionists, politicians and those in all other fields, can make no claim to being honest or honourable, and various warring cliques of scientists have their leaders, followers, outsiders and enemies. Scientists differ from many in the community because they are allegedly trained to be independent. Unless, of course, whacking big research grants for climate “science” are waved in front of them.

The 97 per cent figure derives from a survey sent to 10,257 people with a self-interest in human-induced global warming who published “science” supported by taxpayer-funded research grants. Replies from 3146 respondents were whittled down to 77 self-appointed climate “scientists” of whom 75 were judged to agree that human-induced warming was taking place. The 97 per cent figure derives from a tribe with only 75 members. What were the criteria for rejecting 3069 respondents? There was no mention that 75 out of 3146 is 2.38 per cent. We did not hear that 2.38 per cent of climate scientists with a self-interest agreed that humans have played a significant role in changing climate and that they are recipients of some of the billions spent annually on climate research.

Another recent paper on the scientific consensus of human-induced climate change was a howler. Such papers can be published only in the sociology or environmental literature. The paper claimed that published scientific papers showed there was a 97.1 per cent consensus that man had caused at least half of the 0.7C global warming since 1950.

How was this 97.1 per cent figure determined? By “inspection” of 11,944 published papers. Inspection is not rigorous scholarship. There was no critical reading and understanding derived from reading 11,944 papers. This was not possible as the study started in March 2012 and was published in mid-2013, hence only a cursory inspection was possible. What was inspected? By whom?

The methodology section of the publication gives the game away. “This letter was conceived as a ‘citizen science’ project by volunteers contributing to the Skeptical Science website (www.skepticalscience.com). In March 2012, we searched the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science for papers published from 1991-2011 using topic searches for ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’.”

This translates as: This study was a biased compilation of opinions from non-scientific, politically motivated volunteer activists who used a search engine for key words in 11,944 scientific papers, were unable to understand the scientific context of the use of “global warming” and “global climate change”, who rebadged themselves as “citizen scientists” to hide their activism and ignorance, who did not read the complete papers and were unable to evaluate critically the diversity of science published therein.

The conclusions were predictable because the methodology was not dispassionate and involved decisions by those who were not independent.

As part of a scathing critical analysis of this paper by real scientists, the original 11,944 papers were read and the readers came to a diametrically opposite conclusion. Of the 11,944 papers, only 41 explicitly stated that humans caused most of the warming since 1950 (0.3 per cent). Of the 11,944 climate “science” papers, 99.7 per cent did not say that carbon dioxide caused most of the global warming since 1950. It was less than 1 per cent and not one paper endorsed a man-made global warming catastrophe.

Political policy and environmental activism rely on this fraudulent 97 per cent consensus paid for by the taxpayer to rob the taxpayer further with subsidies for bird-and-bat-chomping wind turbines, polluting solar panels and handouts to those with sticky fingers in the international climate industry. It’s this alleged 97 per cent consensus that has changed our electricity from cheap and reliable to expensive and unreliable.

Activists with no skin in the game are setting the scene for economic suicide.

Time for yellow shirts to shirt-front politicians about their uncritical acceptance of a fraud that has already cost the community hundreds of billions of dollars.

SOURCE

When environmentalism becomes corruption – Part 1

Environmental principles are too often used to stop lawful, responsible, vital land uses

Craig Liukko

All across the United States, private property rights are under assault – assault by state and federal legislators and regulators, environmentalist groups, wealthy liberal foundations, corporations and other special interests, often acting in coordination or collusion with one another. They are seizing or taking control of lands and other valuable property without due process or just compensation, under a host of environmental and other justifications, many of which are fictional at best.

I have personally witnessed attempts to shut down the small mining industry in my state of Colorado. Exploration and development by this industry often results in discoveries of major deposits of minerals that are essential for everything we make, use and do – including medical equipment, cell phones, computers, aircraft, aerospace, automobiles, wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and modern high-tech weapon and communication systems.

Actions that block mineral development in the United States make us 50-100% dependent on sometimes less than friendly foreign sources, and on mines that are operated using, abusing and under-paying parents and children, often under horrendous health, safety and environmental conditions.

Stories like what my company went through can be found everywhere in the United States now. Worse, they are no longer confined only to businesses that rely on development of our nation’s vast and highly available natural resources – done today with the highest regard for laws, worker safety and the ecology.

My parents co-founded our family’s mining business. In their later years, they suffered incredible, needless physical and financial pain – at the hands of clever crooks who defrauded our company and ideologically corrupt bureaucrats who took advantage of corrupt legal and regulatory systems to devise yet another opportunity to close yet another mining operation.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) eagerly supported the crooks in an attempt to steal and destroy our hard work and the investments of 135 mostly senior citizen shareholders in our privately held Colorado corporation. In the process, our corporate and personal names were slandered in local newspapers by false reports from DRMS officials.

Far too many government agencies are corrupted now because they have been largely taken over by radical environmentalists, who know little about mining or society’s crucial need for minerals, who are ideologically opposed to mining and other productive land uses, and whose ideologies too often make them think they are above the law.

Environmentalism has become a new religion, whose extremists will do whatever it takes to fulfill their misguided life missions, to engage in what far too often amounts to injustice and legalized theft.

Worst of all, they have no respect for those who literally stake their time, their fortunes and even their lives mining for metals that make our modern technologies, lives, health and living standards possible. There is little difference between them and other radical religious zealots who cross the line from respectful observance into insanity and acts of depravity. They miss few opportunities to undermine America’s once incredible opportunities under the guise of “saving the planet” – mostly from problems and dangers that have been wildly exaggerated or willfully misrepresented or even concocted.

When we began underground hard rock mining near Silverton in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in 1980, regulations were comparatively few – but compared to earlier times of few or no rules, mostly sensible and more than ample to ensure human safety and environmental protection.

Dynamite was available at the local hardware store. It was very important for us to protect the environment and operate with the utmost safety. We did exactly that, as we were initially regulated by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for the environment and the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for safety. In all those years, our company never had a single lost time accident; always took great care to protect the air, water and wildlife habitats; and made sure we never disturbed any more land than was absolutely necessary.

The DRMS began regulating our silver mine several years later. The transition went smoothly for several years, but then silver prices dropped to unsustainable levels. We reclaimed much of the historically mined silver property at our own expense for later use – then raised more capital from family and friends to expand into gold mining in 1988 with the purchase of 370 acres of private mineral property and associated permits. Our new property was surrounded by USFS public land.

A private litigation ensued, which we won handily – even though the DRMS entered the fray in an attempt to use the opportunity to gain more control over our property and mining in general. A concerned Colorado state representative came to our rescue at the time and blocked the DRMS action.

The agency had just become involved in the Summitville open pit mine disaster in the 1990s. The environmental disaster involved extensive pollution of local streams due to leakage of acidic water that contained large quantities of toxic heavy metals originating from decades-old mine tunnels from decades-old mining operations and poorly constructed storage pits associated with more recent open-pit mining.

The DRMS and other agencies should have regulated the operations and pollution much more responsibly from the outset. But they were largely inattentive and negligent. The disaster ultimately cost Colorado and U.S. taxpayers over $150,000,000 – a liability that the agency then capitalized on as an excuse to increase the price for reclamation bonds to unreasonable levels.

It was the first major example in Colorado of environmental activist bureaucrats attempting to regulate an industry in which it actually had no or too few qualifications, and doing so more from a position of opposing activities that they disliked and whose value they did not appreciate.

Fast forward to 2015. The historic San Juan Mining District experienced an even greater disaster: the infamous 2015 Gold King Mine Spill, whose direct cause can be laid squarely on the DRMS, in conjunction with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. DRMS policies for handling earthen plugs in old mine portals had already been evaluated by the United States Geological Survey, which strongly advised against this method of remediating leakage from abandoned mines. The USGS was ignored.

Negative environmental impacts from reopening caved-in portals have been a problem for decades. It should be obvious that plugging a leak or opening while water is still flowing into a mine means it will fill up and spill over. If the water mixes with acid-generating elements underground, it will become acidic. Yet the DRMS signed off on its policies and practices anyway – causing a disaster that even today is costing taxpayers more millions of dollars, with ongoing cleanup costs that will eventually make the Summitville clean-up costs look cheap.

And still, when my company was in court with the DRMS in 2017, its lawyer told the judge and courtroom that the DRMS would undoubtedly need to plug our portals. Some bureaucrats never learn, or will say anything to an uneducated populace to shut down legitimate operators.

In fact, another vast area in the San Juans, once one of the richest underground mining districts in the world, is now off limits to mining – not because of shoddy mining practices, but because incompetent and ideologically driven bureaucrats have been handed the reins to regulate access into oblivion.

Via email

"Heatwaves" in Australia

The Warmists at BoM are typical Leftists -- inveterate cherry-pickers. You will see below that they have searched for and reported all the places in Australia that have been unusually hot lately, mostly places that are ALWAYS very hot. You would never guess from their reporting that some places are COOLER than usual. I know that there are because I live in one -- a major State capital that is curiously unmentioned below. Typical mid-afternoon temperatures in Brisbane are 34C but yesterday (Friday) was 31C and today (Sat) it is 32.25C.

They are doing their best to transform a normal hot summer into something unusual (guess why?) but with selective reporting like theirs you would be foolish to believe it

Their latest wrinkle is to mention bitumen roads melting. But I remember sitting on the verandah of our family home in Cairns 60 years ago and watching the heated air rise like worms off the bitumen road outside. The bitumen was soft then too. You wouldn't want to walk on it. I went close to have a look. And that was long before global warming was thought of

Temperature records have already been broken but the worst of the heatwave sweeping across parts of Australia is yet to come.

The Bureau of Meteorology warned Friday will mark the peak of the week-long heatwave — currently in its fifth day — for some of NSW’s most heavily populated areas. Temperatures in western Sydney are expected to slide well into the 40s, while the CBD is likely to have its fifth consecutive day above 30C for the first time in eight years.

On Thursday, a total of 27 places across NSW and the ACT baked in record maximum temperatures, with one town in the northwest of NSW sweltering in oppressive, all-time high heat for two straight days.

The freakish temperatures have turned forecast maps a worrying black and purple in areas where the mercury is set to spike.

Whitecliff, a tiny outback town with a population of just under 150 people, broke its record on Wednesday with a temperature of 48.2C, dropping only marginally on Thursday with a high of 47C just after 3pm. The extreme heatwave emptied the streets, turning it into a scorching ghost town.

Elsewhere in the far northwest, Tibooburra Airport recorded the top temperature in the state on Thursday with 48.2C just before 4.30pm.

In Sydney’s west, Penrith, Richmond, Campbelltown and Camden all reached 35C by 1pm.

Conditions are so extreme that the bitumen on the Oxley Highway near Wauchope, just west of Port Macquarie, began melting about midday.

Motorists were warned of the deteriorating surface as social media photos show the tar beginning to melt. Picture: Facebook
Looking ahead, the Bureau of Meteorology has warned of more sweltering weather on the way for much of the state.

In a statement, BOM spokeswoman Anita Pyne said the west of NSW would likely see temperatures in the mid to high 40s, including areas around the Ivanhoe and Menindie areas forecast to hit up to 48C.

Meanwhile, the NSW Rural Fire Service is battling more than 60 fires across the state, and 13 fire bans are in place across much of central NSW, stretching from the Victorian border up to Queensland.

Temperatures in Sydney’s west are expected to climb as high as 45C on Friday, ahead of a long-awaited cool change on Saturday.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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18 January, 2019

Don’t ban plastic bags!

Learn the facts about plastic versus paper bags – and bag the bans, instead

Hal Shurtlef

Like dozen towns and cities in Massachusetts and other states, Boston recently enacted a ban on plastic shopping bags. It went into effect December 14, 2018. It was a relatively easy vote, because “evil” plastic bags have received extensive bad press that generally ignores important facts.

The same holds true in other jurisdictions, especially those controlled by Democrats who a generation ago cared about American workers, but today too often subjugate the needs of blue collar families to demands by college educated and environmentalist elites, and even noisy grade school kids.

For example, when Los Angeles was talking about banning plastic bags, employees from a business that manufactured plastic bags spoke in person to the city council, begging it not to ban their products. The company employed hundreds of low-skilled people, paid them well and gave them excellent benefits. Many of the employees had worked there for years because they were treated so well.

They presented rational, factual information about their plastic bags. But the city council enacted the ban anyway, put the company out of business, and left the employees jobless, some of them likely homeless.

And of course it’s not just plastic bags. Los Angeles just banned plastic straws, and the state legislature is preparing to ban the straws statewide. Santa Barbara, CA banned all single use plastics: no more plastic forks, spoons, knives, Styrofoam cups and take-out boxes. Paper and cardboard only, from now on.

It is all social engineering and fake environmental protection by decree.

Here are some essential facts that you and government officials need to consider carefully in the future.

Plastic shopping bags made in the United States are made from natural gas, not oil – and America has at least another century of natural gas right under our feet. Moreover, plastic grocery bags require 70% less energy to manufacture than paper bags. In fact, it takes far more raw materials and fossil fuel energy to grow and harvest trees, make pulp and turn it into paper bags, than to make plastic bags.

Manufacturing plastic bags also consumes less than 4% of the water needed to make paper bags. In the process, plastic bags produce fewer greenhouse gases per use than paper or cotton bags.

It then takes seven trucks to deliver the same number of paper bags that a single truck can haul if the bags are made from plastic. That means it also takes far more (mostly fossil fuel) energy to transport reusable and paper bags than it does to transport plastic bags.

EPA data show that plastic bags make up only 0.5 % of the U.S. municipal waste stream. Plastic bags are 100% reusable and recyclable, and many stores make that process simple.

Reusable and paper bags take up far more space than plastic bags in landfills, and the airless environment of landfills means paper bags do not decompose for years, or even decades.

Most reusable bags are made in China and Vietnam, then shipped to the USA in fossil fuel burning cargo ships. Reusable bags are made from heavier and thicker plastic or cotton, which takes more energy to produce, even if it’s recycled fabric or plastic. A reusable bag must be used no less than 132 times before having a “greener” environmental impact that a plastic grocery bag.

Reusable bags aren’t recyclable, and reusable bag giveaways are environmentally costly when unwanted bags end up in the dumpster, often after one or even no use.

Research from Arizona has determined that few people wash their reusable grocery shopping bags, 8% of reusable bags harbor E. coli bacteria, and nearly all unwashed bags harbor other pathogenic bacteria.

Some stores have seen declines in business. One Solana Beach, CA business saw a 25% decline in business following the implementation of a plastic bag ban. A Grocery Outlet Store told a Portland, Oregon newspaper that it lost over $10,000 to shoplifters walking in with and using their own reusable bag to exit with merchandise without going through checkout lines.

Other stores reported losses of hand-carried plastic and metal grocery baskets due to bans.

Following Seattle’s ban, store owners surveyed post-ban reported seeing their costs for carryout bags increase between 40 and 200 %

The City of Boston implemented its ban in defiance of the U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section, 8, Clause 3, the Commerce Clause, and the Massachusetts Constitution, amended Article 2, which prohibits municipalities from enacting private or civil laws governing civil relationships. Other governments have no doubt ignored U.S. and state laws and constitutions in enacting their bans.

They are often enabled by entities like the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a United Nations subdivision founded in 1990 to implement the goals of Agenda 21, now called Agenda 2030. Massachusetts Green Communities, and Vision Boston 2030 have all labeled plastic bags a “public enemy,” despite the above-mentioned facts.

Bad science and emotionalism lead to bad laws. But you can take steps to stop the madness.

Read and use the “Bag the Ban” flyers that our Camp Constitution organization developed. Watch our video on plastic versus paper bags. Write to me at CampConstitution1@gmail.com

Contact your elected officials, and demand that the bans be lifted.

Refuse to pay the 5 to 10 cents per bag that your city forces store owners to charge.

Encourage store owners to fight the ban. If enough of them worked together, bans could be overturned. The Texas Supreme Court has overturned bans on plastic bags. Other courts could do likewise.

We all care about our environment and planet. But we should be protecting those values from real dangers, employing actions that actually work.

Via email

Climate change activists say we should eat just 14g of meat a DAY

More from Fascists who never stop trying to impose their own ideas on the rest of us

Climate change activists have called for global veganism by 2050 and recomended we each eat only 14 grams of meat a day. The amount is little more than a AAA battery, which weighs 12g - nowhere near enough to enjoy a burger or a steak.

The recommendation was published in an article for British journal The Lancet. Meat production is a major cause of global warming and is endangering our planet, the article says. 'Strong evidence indicates that food production is among the largest drivers of global environmental change by contributing to climate change,' it reads.

'Healthy diets have an appropriate caloric intake and consist of a diversity of plant-based foods.'

'Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, including a greater than 50 per cent reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar, and a greater than 100 per cent increase in, consumption of healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits.'

The paper, whose chief author is Tamara Lucas, has called for global veganism by 2050.

Livestock are responsible for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The world needs to produce an estimated 50 per cent more food to support nearly 10 billion people by 2050, according to the United Nations.

Unless things change, this could increase the impact of food production on the environment by up to 90 percent by 2050, to a level where the planet is no longer a 'safe operating space for humanity'.

The prevent that, everyone should switch to diets rich in green vegetables, fruit and nuts and low in red meat and diary products, according to recent research funded by Scandinavian think tank EAT.

The amount of food thrown away - currently a third of the total - would also need to be halved and best practices to boost yields, recycle fertilizers and improve water management adopted worldwide.

SOURCE

Exposed: The myth that the world is going to hell! Seven incredible charts that prove the world IS becoming a better place - despite all the doom and gloom

Zombie films are breaking records, apocalyptic plot lines seem to dominate TV and both sides of the political divide can't seem to stop lamenting the demise of the civilized world as we know it.

But a closer look at the state of the world paints a rosier picture - with humankind better off, in myriad ways, than it has ever been before. Worldwide, life expectancies are up, child mortality rates are down and global income inequality has fallen, according to late Swedish academic Hans Rosling.

In his book, 'Factfulness,' Rosling outlines the countless ways that the world has become a better place over the past century – important global context, he says, for the problems that preoccupy our minds and color our perspectives.

'I'm talking about fundamental improvements that are world-changing but are too slow, too fragmented, or too small one-by-one to ever qualify as news,' Rosling wrote. 'I'm talking about the secret silent miracle of human progress.'

For example, each day an estimated 200,000 people worldwide are lifted above the $2-a-day poverty line. And more than 300,000 people gain access to electricity and clean water for the first time, every single day.

Overall, Rosling maintained that there are several key metrics that prove that the world should be more optimistic about the future. German economist Max Roser illustrated many of those same metrics on his data visualization website, Our World in Data.

1. Fewer people live in poverty now than any other time in history

While income inequality in the U.S. continues to grow, the worldwide distribution of wealth has become more equitable since 1800, when much of the world lived on less than $2 a day.

Over the past 20 years, the proportion of people in the world who are living in extreme poverty has been cut in half.

'This is absolutely revolutionary,' Rosling writes in 'Factfulness.' 'I consider it to be the most important change that has happened in the world in my lifetime.'

However, when Rosling and his team polled Americans, only 5 percent were able to correctly identify how the proportion of people living in poverty has changed in recent decades.

Rosling maintained that it was just one of many widespread, negative misconceptions that we hold about the world – which Rosling called an 'overdramatic worldview.'

'In fact, the vast majority of the world's population lives somewhere in the middle of the income scale,' he wrote. 'Perhaps they are not what we think of as middle class, but they are not living in extreme poverty. Their girls go to school, their children get vaccinated, they live in two-child families and they want to go abroad on holiday, not as refugees.'

2. Life expectancy is higher across the globe than ever before

Life expectancy across Europe during the Industrial Revolution hovered around 35 years – a number likely held down by high infant and child mortality rates, widespread disease in the pre-antibiotics era and high rates of women dying in childbirth.

Now life expectancy worldwide is nearly 72 years – an astounding achievement of modern medicine. In the Americas alone it reached 76.9 by 2015.

Rosling attributed the longer life expectancies to the fact that 'basic modernizations have reached most people and improved their lives drastically. They have plastic bags to store and transport food. They have plastic buckets to carry water and soap to kill germs.'

3. Worldwide child mortality rates have dropped significantly

Child mortality rates have also fallen steadily over the past century, reaching a low in 2015 of 4.5 percent of children around the globe dying before age 5.

Compare that to 1950 when more than 22 percent of the world's children died before age 5. Even in the U.S. that number was 19.7 percent in 1950.

Again, the contributions of modern medicine and improved public safety has helped eliminate many common causes of infant and child mortality.

'A lot of what went right was public health interventions,' Roser told DailyMail.com. 'The water supply today is much safer, has less pathogens that vulnerable children can succumb to and another big public health intervention is vaccinations. A lot of the diseases which previously killed millions of children were ones for which we developed vaccines.'

'It's also just an improvement in overall living conditions,' added Roser, whose work parallels Rosling's. 'The fact that people are much better nourished, that education has improved and people have a better understanding of how to ensure their children stay healthy, (and they have) better housing conditions.'

4. Overpopulation is not going to be a problem anytime soon

Those worried about overpopulation may be happy to learn that fertility rates are falling worldwide, down to an average of 2.49 children per woman in 2015 compared to of 5.5 children per woman in 1950. The U.S. alone is down from 3.58 children in 1958 to 1.91 children in 2011.

'We definitely know this population growth is coming to an end because the number of children born in the world is close to its peak already and the number of children born per women has halved,' Roser said.

Much of the decrease in fertility rates is linked to improving conditions for women around the world, he added.

As women gain educations, footing in the workforce and access to birth control, they are able to determine for themselves if 'they prefer that life to having seven children at home,' Roser said.

The fertility numbers are also connected to the decrease in child morbidity - when fewer children are expected to die young, women don't need to have as many children to ensure that at least one child survives.

5. Global economies have been growing, driving up income levels

At the same time, the Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services produced in a country) in developed nations has been growing by roughly 2 percent a year for the past 150 years – causing income levels to approximately double every 36 years.

The GDP ebbs and flows with the economy, taking dips during recessions and the Great Depression, but overall its growth rate has been a constant in the west.

Ultimately the rise in incomes and in GDP per capita are like the metaphorical chicken and egg. While a rising GDP pushes up incomes, so too, do rising incomes drive GDP by providing more disposable income for citizens of a country to spend on its goods.

Meanwhile, countries with lower incomes, such as China and India, have been growing at even faster rates during the past several decades and are beginning to catch up to Europe and America.

In addition, Roser says the poorer, less-advanced countries have benefited from the technologies and innovations of the developed world - affecting everything from nutrition to vaccinations, or even large-scale manufacturing efficiencies.

6. Worldwide, fewer people live under authoritarian governments

In other good news, more people around the world – some 55.8 percent – are living in Democracies than any other time in human history, Rosling noted. That's compared to 31.4 percent in 1950.

As of 2015, just 23.23 percent of the world's population lived in an autocracy – a system of government in which one person holds absolute power – and 90 percent of them are in China. Compare that to 1980 when 43.6 percent of the world lived under an autocracy.

Roser attributes this in part to the rapid information sharing now possible through the news and social media. As a society becomes more educated and has greater access to information about how its leaders are managing (or mismanaging) their country, citizens become empowered to push back against authoritarian leaders.

In addition, the rapid pace of technological developments creates a more dynamic economy, making it harder for wealth to be limited to those who have inherited it.

'Once you have a much more agile transformed society where people do have the chance to rise from poor backgrounds to much more powerful backgrounds, they are much less likely to accept the status quo,' Roser said.

7. This is a time of relative peace, with fewer international conflicts

Finally, Rosling observes that international conflicts and wars are actually on the decline after centuries of unrest. Since roughly 1500, two or more of the world's most powerful countries have been at war more than half of the time.

While conflicts in Syria and Yemen are currently creating massive humanitarian crises, it's notable that there has been no war in Western Europe for about three generations.

'Many people overestimate how many people are killed in conflict because there is a lot of news coverage of these items,' Roser said.

'If you look at the number of people who are killed by terrorism for 2016, 0.06 percent of the people that died in 2016 died because of terrorist attacks,' Roser added. 'And if we include conflict, that's a fifth of a percent. So much, much less than a percent of the world is dying from this (type of) violence.'

Ultimately, Rosling - and Roser - held that there is much to be hopeful about as we look to the future and learn from the past.

'We shouldn't diminish the tragedies of the droughts and famines happening right now,' Rosling wrote. 'But knowledge of the tragedies of the past should help everyone realize how the world has become both much more transparent and much better at getting help to where it's needed.'

SOURCE

Live long and… go extinct: The worldwide crusade by people who say having children is so damaging to the planet that the only answer is for humanity to DIE OUT voluntarily

I heartily support this movement. It would be great if all its members carried out their intention

Robots. Viruses. An asteroid. Nuclear war. There are many different scenarios how humanity could perish, but perhaps the least likely is that we ourselves volunteer to do so. For activist Les U. Knight that is exactly the plan he is advocating for: voluntary human extinction to save the planet.

‘I haven’t seen any cohesive argument why our species should continue into the future,’ Knight told DailyMail.com.

‘I have not seen a good reason for us to add one more human to the existing billions when you consider the extinctions of so many other species and when you consider how many people are not being cared for.’

Eschewing labels like leader or founder, Knight began the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, known as VHEMT and pronounced like the word vehement, in 1991. It was a combination of factors that led Knight to VHEMT, which was first launched as a newsletter and then as a website in 1996 that still thrives today.

With the United Nations estimating that the world’s population will hit nearly 9.6 billion by 2050 and the recent uptick in interest in what is known as ‘antinatalism’ and being child-free, the question of human extinction has received more attention lately in Op-Eds and articles in publications like The New York Times – ‘Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?’ – and The New Yorker – ‘The Case for Not being Born.’

But Knight, now 71, has been publicly advocating for human extinction for nearly 30 years, and privately has put his money where he’s mouth is: he got a vasectomy when he was 25. While he has no kids of his own, Knight has worked for more than 40 years as a substitute teacher in his native Oregon.

Les U. Knight is pseudonym, which he said he uses ‘because it doesn’t matter – I’m just one of the volunteers and a spokesperson and so I don’t think my name is important.’

Knight drew a line from his activism to the environmental movement of the 1970s – the first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970 – and the fact that zero population growth was a hot button issue during that time period with the publication of 1962’s ‘The Population Bomb,’ a book ‘much discussed and maligned as a doomsayer that never happened,’ he explained.

Knight also remembered a flippant remark his uncle made when he was 12 that stuck with him. ‘He said, well, I think mankind out to be phased out... He was always saying outrageous things… But he didn’t really believe that we should. When I told him that I thought we should many years later, he said, oh no, we got to have a few of us around,’ Knight recalled. ‘That gave me the idea although the seed laid dormant for quite a while.’

In Oregon, where Knight was born, raised and still lives, he said there are remnants of ‘the glory of what used to be’ of the state’s ancient forests, some of which were lost.

‘And I traced everything back to one factor and that is humans. Wherever there are fewer of us, there is much more nature,’ he said.

All of these strands led Knight to send out by mail a newsletter called These EXIT Times.

‘No one was saying that we really should stop procreating completely,’ he recalled as to why he published the newsletter in 1991.

‘The message was and still is pretty much stop at two but you don’t have to be a math genius to figure out that stopping at two – so-called replacement level fertility – will not actually bring about zero population growth due to the momentum.’

While the world’s total fertility rate has fallen since 1950 – from 4.7 to 2.4 in 2017 – global population has risen from 2.6 billion to 7.6 billion, CNN reported in November.

Knight had put out the newsletter three times but by 1996 started the website for VHEMT because ‘the Internet came along and saved me a lot of paper and postage.’ ‘I reach more people in one day then I did with each issue of the newsletter on the Internet.’

The website is an interesting mix – with touches of humor and wit – of laying out the arguments for voluntarily phasing ourselves out and the cases made against extinction. There are also several different language options, such as Chinese and Polish, as well.

‘I think it’s only natural for people to think of our extinction as a really bad thing,’ Knight said. ‘Although the extinction of millions of other species doesn’t seem to be all that upsetting so maybe it’ll help people understand what an extinction means. We’re gone forever.’

‘All societies have evolved to be natalist, meaning we consider a new human being created as a good thing… no matter what the circumstances are, it’s good. Whereas it isn’t necessarily so good but we don’t question it because of our natalist conditioning, cultural conditioning to consider procreation to be a very good thing.’

‘Antinatalism’ rejects this idea, with some pontificating it is morally bad to have children.

‘So when somebody comes along and says, well, no, it’s not such a good thing, in fact, it would be much better if we didn’t so we can take care of everything that’s here. It… creates a cognitive dissonance that is uncomfortable,’ Knight said, noting that when he is hosting tables at fairs, it’s rare that he gets pushback in person.

A Facebook page for VHEMT has over 9,400 people who follow it, and Knight estimated that about 8,000 are volunteers and supporters of the movement, and 'the others are either just curious or opposed - occasionally trolling.' Last year, daily average unique page views to the site was a little over 630 with occasional spikes to the thousands when an article about the movement was published, he said via email. It is unclear, however, how large the movement is.

‘It’s really hard to say because it’s never been an organization with membership and I hope it never is. Organizations tend to dissolve into infighting and then it’s all over. But if we remain a movement, we will only increase in awareness and in number of people who are volunteering and supporting,’ he said.

‘A volunteer agrees that we should stop procreating and the best thing for planet and people would be to go extinct. Supporters, on the other hand, say, yeah for now, but it would be nice if later when our population is down to a sustainable number, we rethink this idea and not go extinct. They don’t want to advocate the extinction of any species including our own.’

Knight emphasized that the movement is voluntary and there are misconceptions around wanting people to die or commit suicide, which is not the case.

‘But it doesn’t take long to clear that up, it’s like no, we just (do it) through natural attrition, like when a company doesn’t hire more people - just lets people retire and they downsize to a proper number. So we just downsize and clean up our messes as we go.’

Calling humans exotic invaders - everywhere except Africa – Knight said that humans are ‘incompatible with every ecosystem that we have either evolved in or invaded.’

For the sake of the Earth’s biosphere, humans should voluntarily phase themselves out, and the movement encourages people to think before they procreate.

Even if humans could get themselves down to a sustainable number for the planet, which according to Knight is 10 to 15,000 people to maybe a million, he would still advocate for human extinction.

‘But the problem is we are so fecund. We just breed and breed. It’s just amazing,’ he said. ‘We’re not like other species, we’re very smart – too smart for our own good and for the planet’s good.’

According to his website: ‘It has been suggested that there are only two chances of everyone volunteering to stop breeding: slim and none. The odds may be against preserving life on Earth, but the decision to stop reproducing is still the morally correct one. Indeed, the likelihood of our failure to avoid the massive die off which humanity is engineering is a very good reason to not sentence another of us to life. The future isn’t what it used to be.’

Knight added that he noticed reproductive freedom was lacking in the United States and around the world, and that it should be a human right to not procreate.

Recently, the child-free movement has been gaining momentum.

‘In the last year, I’ve seen more and more articles about people choosing to remain child-free or to not add more to their existing family than ever. I’ve been collecting these stories and last year was just a groundswell of articles, and, in addition, there have been articles about human extinction, almost all of them… saying that we need to avoid that - as if it’s a bad thing.’

SOURCE

Once again the BoM is calling a normal Australian summer a "heatwave", probably to encourage belief in global warming

And the newspapers like it as it gives them an excuse to put up big pictures of attractive women at the beach in brief bikinis. Cropped example below:

The temperatures are indeed very hot in some places -- places where it normally gets very hot. For some paradoxical reason to do with air currents, Southern Australia is always the hottest at the height of summer, despite being further from the equator. And so it is this year.

But it is certainly no global effect. If it were it would be unusually hot where I live in sub-tropical S.E. Queensland. It is not. The normal mid-afternoon summer temperature where I live is 34C but the temperatures for the last few days have been a touch below that -- at 33C or 33.5C. Global Warmists eat your heart out

Australia's scorching summer will continue on Thursday following a day of extreme heatwave conditions which saw a child taken to hospital with heatstroke.

On Wednesday ambulance officers were called to Cabramatta West Public School, in Sydney's southwest, where three children were suffering symptoms of heatstroke.

All children were told to wear hats and stay in the shade but despite teachers' best efforts one child was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a stable condition.

Much of NSW roasted on Wednesday with the mercury hitting the 40s by midday in some areas.

The majority of the state is forecast to exceed 41C until Friday which hasn't been experienced since the the 1940s, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

There will be some relief this weekend as temperatures take a slight dip, but this won't last for long and the mercury is predicted to start rising again by Monday.

Perth will be the first to experience soaring temperatures before the heatwave gradually makes its way back across the southeast.

Wagga Wagga, in NSW, could reach temperatures of 44C for the next two days while Ivanhoe, in the state's far west, is expected to surpass 48C.

Whitecliff in the northwest, has recorded the highest temperature so far with 48.2C just before 3.30pm, and temperatures are set to stay above 40C there until the end of next week.

By midday on Wednesday, the mercury had soared beyond 45C across much of NSW's central west and at 3pm Wilcannia, Mulurulu, Ivanhoe and Hay topped 47C.

Temperatures in NSW are set to stay above 40C for most of next week, bar the potential for some cloud cover on Sunday.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Diana Eadie said 'severe to extreme heatwave temperatures are expected to persist across most of the country.'

'Temperatures are expected to climb into the low to high 40s — that's eight to 12 degrees above average,' she said.

'We've already seen some January maximum temperature records fall and we're likely to see many more before this event is over.

'The humidity and 'feels like' temperature will make for really oppressive conditions.'

The heat is expected to persist through the days and nights for the rest of the week, according to Weatherzone's Ben Domensino.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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17 January, 2019

Are climate skeptics nuts?

Psychologists are overwhelmingly Left-leaning so you might expect that claim. In fact, Leftist psychologists have been trying hard to medicalize non-Leftist thinking for around 70 years, with a big push under Marxist theoretician Theodor Adorno in 1950. So the propaganda below was to be expected. I call it propaganda advisedly because it mentions not one climate fact. It is all based on appeals to authority, one of the informal fallacies of logic.

And there is absolutely not one clinical interview with any skeptic reported . There is NO evidence given that even one denier has psychological problems. It is all just assertions. The pattern of their argumentation is simply that climate change is a big threat so therefore anybody who disagrees with that must be either a dupe or psychologically awry. That there might be ample evidence for it not being a threat at all is ignored. It is a statement of faith. It is in no way a scientific treatise

Adorno and friends did better in 1950. At least they tried to provide clinical and survey evidence for their claims. There is nothing like that below. Below I give just excerpts. I have left out the repetitious bits. But read the arrogant whole if you have the stomach for it. I give the link

A lot has been written about climate change denial and there are clearly many explanations for it. For one thing, an enormous amount of money is being spent encouraging us to ignore climate change. Corporations, especially the fossil fuel industry, have spent huge sums attempting to obfuscate the reality of climate change. We are constantly told by them that “more data are needed” because “climate scientists don’t agree.” While no scientist would ever disagree with a call for more research—that line is, after all, found near the end of almost every scientific paper ever written—it just is not true that scientists don’t agree that climate change is real. To some extent, then, we are the victims of a well-funded and sophisticated misinformation campaign that attempts to keep us in the dark about climate change.

But studies persistently show us that simply providing people with the facts about climate [When has any Warmist done that? They occasionally offer some facts but regularly ignore others] does not reliably change minds. The science that proves the earth is warming is very technical and difficult for most of us to grasp. “Humans aren’t well wired to act on complex statistical risks,” according to a Brookings Institute report. Even when the evidence about climate change is relayed in very clear terms with lots of compelling graphics, many people either don’t believe it or shrug it off. Hence, the problem of climate change denial is not simply a matter of an information gap.

Climate change denial is in some ways a new mental process for psychologists to understand. Of course, the concept of denial itself is well understood. Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defense mechanism.

But despite the fact that psychologists know a lot about denial, they have never had to face denial on this scale before. Millions of people share the phenomenon of climate denial. This is clearly not something that is amenable to individual or even group psychotherapy.

Nevertheless, there are at least two psychological reasons that encouraging people to adopt climate protecting activities in their daily lives may help promote action on the larger scale needed. First, denial is a response to something we fear, and we know from animal and human studies that fear induces freezing and passivity. But studies also demonstrate that giving a fearful animal or human a task that even symbolically addresses what is feared can minimize freezing and promote action. Thus, recommending tasks that we can perform in our daily lives may help us overcome our feeling that mitigating climate change is a hopeless enterprise and motivate us join the voices insisting on ending burning fossil fuels.

Second, these quotidian activities can be the basis for the formation of committees and communities that bring people together with the common goal of addressing climate change. Being part of a group with a common goal may help people overcome denial and have the courage to face the realities of climate change, however grim they may be. It may be easier and more effective for groups of people to demand that countries impose carbon taxes and spend heavily on sustainable energy than it is for individuals.

Mental health professionals are increasingly recognizing the critical role they play in combating climate change. Data suggest that rising temperatures are linked to increases in multiple psychiatric disorders and suicide rates. In an excellent review of the mental health aspects of climate change, a group from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto comment that “The overarching threats of a changing climate, can also incite despair and hopelessness as actions to address the ‘wicked problem’ of climate change seem intangible or insignificant in comparison to the scale and magnitude of the threats."

Organizations like Climate Psychiatry Alliance and Climate Psychology Alliance have been formed not only to point out the severe consequences of climate change for emotional and behavioral health but also to lend expertise in determining how best to overcome climate change denial. For these and similar organizations, climate change denial constitutes an emergency that demands immediate attention. We need urgent attention to developing and implementing the best practices for overcoming public despair and inaction and increasing the motivation to demand large-scale climate change mitigation action.

SOURCE

EPA criminal action against polluters hits 30-year low

Less harassment for businesses

The Environmental Protection Agency hit a 30-year low in 2018 in the number of pollution cases it referred for criminal prosecution, Justice Department data show.

EPA said in a statement that it is directing "its resources to the most significant and impactful cases."

But the 166 cases referred for prosecution in the last fiscal year is the lowest number since 1988, when Ronald Reagan was president and 151 cases were referred, according to Justice Department data obtained by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility advocacy group and released Tuesday.

"You don't get closer to the core of EPA's mission than enforcing the law," Jeff Ruch, PEER's executive director, told The Associated Press. "We're reaching levels where the enforcement program is lacking a pulse."

EPA efforts to prosecute polluters reached 592 criminal referrals under President Bill Clinton in 1998. Criminal referrals have been on a downward trajectory since then, and have fallen by more than one-fourth since fiscal year 2016, the last of the Obama administration.

A supporter of deregulation, President Donald Trump as a candidate called for doing away with all but "little tidbits" of the federal environmental agency.

Asked for comment, EPA spokesman John Konkus pointed to the civil settlement of about $800 million with Fiat Chrysler over claims the automaker rigged its diesel-powered Ram and Jeep vehicles to cheat on emissions tests.

EPA referrals resulted in 62 federal convictions in fiscal year 2018, the fewest since 1995.

Scott Pruitt was the agency's head for most of fiscal year 2018, resigning in July amid ethics scandals over his spending and allegations of favor-seeking in office. Pruitt rankled many by insisting on an unusual round-the-clock security detail that included taking agents from regional EPA offices away from their work investigating possible environmental crimes to work two-week stints "baby-sitting" Pruitt, said Michael Hubbard, a former special agent who led the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division regional office in Boston.

Andrew Wheeler, whose nomination to succeed Pruitt as the agency's chief goes before a Senate committee Wednesday, stopped the 24-hour guard when he was named Pruitt's acting replacement.

Congress in 1990 mandated that the agency's Criminal Investigation Division deploy at least 200 special agents. PEER said the number had fallen to 140 special agents by last April. "They're being gutted," Hubbard said.

With so few EPA special agents to investigate polluters around the country, "as leads come in, they can't be followed up on," Hubbard said. "You end up saying 'no' to potential leads routinely because you just don't have the wherewithal to investigate them."

Justice Department figures show the agency's referrals for criminal prosecution slowing even more in the first two months of fiscal year 2019, to 24, under Wheeler.

Wheeler, like Pruitt, at times emphasizes giving states more say in regulation of polluters within their borders. Wheeler also has continued a centralization of enforcement action and decision-making within the agency. Critics say that could discourage enforcement.

SOURCE

Antarctic Losing Tiny Amounts Of Ice (Or Maybe It’s Gaining Ice, NASA Is Not Sure!)

Paul Homewood has some comments below about the recent claim that Antarctica is losing ice

There are several aspects to this latest story that need closer examination.

Firstly, according to NASA’s own press release, the study only looks at data since 1992. The Mail’s headline that “Antarctica is losing SIX TIMES more ice a year than it was in the 1970s “ is totally fake, as there is no data for the 1970s. Any estimates of ice loss in the 1970s and 80s are pure guesswork, and have never been part of this NASA IMBIE study, or previous ones.

Secondly, the period since 1992 is a ridiculously short period on which to base any meaningful conclusions at all. Changes over the period may well be due to natural, short term fluctuations, for instance ocean cycles. We know, as the NASA study states, that ice loss in West Antarctica is mainly due to the inflow of warmer seas.

The eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 is another factor. Global temperatures fell during the next five years, and may well have slowed down ice melt.

Either way, the claim that the ice loss is due to global warming is fake. It is a change in ocean current that is responsible, and nothing to do with global warming.

Then there is his pathetic claim that “Antarctica is shedding ice at a staggering rate”. Alarmist scientists, and gullible reporters, love to quote impressive sounding numbers, like 252 gigatons a year. In fact, as NASA point out, the effect on sea level rise since 1992 is a mere 7.6mm, equivalent to 30mm/century.

Given that global sea levels have risen no faster since 1992 than they did in the mid 20thC, there is no evidence that Antarctica is losing ice any faster than then. To call it staggering is infantile.

NASA also reckon that ice losses from Antarctica between 2012 and 2017 increased sea levels by 3mm, equivalent to 60mm/century. Again hardly a scary figure. But again we must be very careful about drawing conclusions from such a short period of time. Since 2012, we have had a record 2-year long El Nino. What effect has this had?

But back to that previous NASA study, carried out by Jay Zwally in 2015, which found:

A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.

The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed   to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

Far from losing ice, as the new study thinks, Zwally’s 2015 analysis found the opposite, that the ice sheet was growing.

OK, Zwally’s data only went up to 2008, but there are still huge differences. Whereas Zwally estimates ice gain of between 82 and 112 billion tonnes a year between 1992 and 2008, the new effort guesses at a loss of 83 billion tonnes a year.

It is worth pointing out that Zwally’s comment about the IPCC 2013 report refers to the 2012 IMBIE report, which was the forerunner to the new study, the 2018 IMBIE.

Quite simply, nobody has the faintest idea whether the ice cap is growing or shrinking, never mind by how much, as the error margins and uncertainties are so huge.

The best guide to such matters comes from tide gauges around the world. And these continue to show that sea levels are rising no faster than mid 20thC, and at a rate of around 8 inches per century.

SOURCE

Is the world becoming less windy?

Wind energy resources have been in sharp decline in regions all across the world, according to a study conducted by Chinese researchers.

After analyzing data from more than 1,000 weather stations around the world, a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that 67 percent had witnessed an extensive decrease in wind power potential over the course of nearly 40 years. The team — which also included a researcher from Purdue University — reached their findings after examining the changes of wind surface speeds from 1979 to 2016.

“The results show that surface wind speeds were decreasing in the past four decades over most regions in the Northern Hemisphere,” the study’s authors wrote, according to a Greentech Media report on Wednesday.

Around 30 percent of locations in North America have witnessed a 30 percent drop or more in available hub-height wind power. Sites in Europe were worse, where about 40 percent experienced a similar decline. However, the effect was the most significant in Asia, where around 80 percent of sites on the continent saw a 30 percent drop in wind.

It’s not immediately clear what is behind the decline of wind across the Northern Hemisphere. Dr. Gang Huang, a corresponding author of the research, revealed to Greentech Media that they are currently performing a follow-up study to help determine possible causes.

Huang surmised that surface cover changes — such as the fast expansion of cities in developing countries — could possibly be affecting wind speeds, but maintained that it’s just an assumption. Increases in carbon dioxide emissions have also been predicted to decrease wind power.

Another cause could be the expansion of wind energy technology itself. A study published in November found that wind farms upwind from other turbines reduced their electricity generation. This “wake effect,” the study found, reduces wind speed and affects turbines downwind from their direction. The research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences did find that the most dramatic decreases in wind power in China tended to occur “where a number of gigantic commercial wind farms were built.”

However, other experts warn to use caution before reaching conclusions.

“We need to take these kinds of studies with a pinch of salt, with all due respect to them. Maybe it’s true, but would it have an impact on the industry? I don’t know,” said Shashi Barla, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. Barla added that a drop in wind power could be offset with advancement in wind turbine technology. (RELATED: Lawmakers Overwhelmingly Vote To Modernize US Nuclear Fleet)

No matter what changes with wind power in the United States, wind energy is expected to make up an increasing part of the country’s generation industry. State governments across the country continue to increase their renewable energy mandates, with wind generation already a major presence in Midwestern states.

The Trump administration has been a major backer of wind energy development. The Interior Department announced a $405 million offshore wind auction that shattered all previous records.

SOURCE

Heaviest Alpine Snowfalls In 100 Years Bring Chaos To Ski Resorts -- etc

According to Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. —The Independent, 20 March 2000

Thousands of British holidaymakers face travel chaos in Austria today after the country experienced the heaviest snowfalls in a century and was bracing for another round of storms. —The Times, 12 January 2019

The search is on for the next President of the World Bank following the sudden resignation of the incumbent, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, on January 7. He will leave his position on February 1. The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) said it welcomed Dr. Kim’s departure, accusing him of turning “the World Bank into a green think tank, betraying its core mission of lifting the world’s most disadvantaged populations out of poverty.” —Ghana News Agency, 12 January 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Germany of being a “captive” of Moscow because of its reliance on Russian energy and urged it to halt work on the $11 billion gas pipeline. —Reuters, 14 January 2019

A new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) reveals that there has been no increase in global hurricane activity, despite frequent claims that global warming is making hurricanes more of a problem. —Global Warming Policy Foundation, 13 January 2019

David Whitehouse, the science editor for the Global Warming Policy Forum, based in the UK says we must very careful when drawing conclusions. “I think you’ve got to be very careful when splicing together two sets of data from two sets of instruments and trying to compare them”, he told RFI, referring to the fact that the study in question pulled together measurements from before the Argo system was up and running. —Radio France Internationale (RFI), 12 January 2019

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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16 January, 2019

Ice loss from Antarctica has sextupled since the 1970s, new research finds

Chris Mooney is at his usual pulpit below making a muckle out of a mickle. He quotes some big numbers but fails to mention that the ice loss claimed is the tiniest fraction of the whole. Someone has calculated that at that rate of ice loss the last ice will melt in the year 3079

But let us forget Mooney and look at the underlying journal article headed by that long-time warmist Eric Rignot. Abstract below Mooney's lucubrations.

It is a joke of an article. It is heavily dependent on modelling and completely ignores the well-known influence of subsurface vulcanism in West Antarctica, including the peninsula. We have known about melting ice there for a long time.

The one innovation is that curly-haired Eric has implicated East Antarctica in the melting. How confident we should be in that finding can be judged by Eric's own words on the matter in his conclusions: "we posit that a similar situation is taking place in Wilkes Land, where novel and sustained oceanographic data are critically needed." Sounds like the data he already has is pretty punk.

Antarctic glaciers have been melting at an accelerating pace over the past four decades thanks to an influx of warm ocean water — a startling new finding that researchers say could mean sea levels are poised to rise more quickly than predicted in coming decades.

The Antarctic lost 40 billion tons of melting ice to the ocean each year from 1979 to 1989. That figure rose to 252 billion tons lost per year beginning in 2009, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That means the region is losing six times as much ice as it was four decades ago, an unprecedented pace in the era of modern measurements. (It takes about 360 billion tons of ice to produce one millimeter of global sea-level rise.)

SOURCE

Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017

Eric Rignot et al.

Abstract

We use updated drainage inventory, ice thickness, and ice velocity data to calculate the grounding line ice discharge of 176 basins draining the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1979 to 2017. We compare the results with a surface mass balance model to deduce the ice sheet mass balance. The total mass loss increased from 40 ± 9 Gt/y in 1979–1990 to 50 ± 14 Gt/y in 1989–2000, 166 ± 18 Gt/y in 1999–2009, and 252 ± 26 Gt/y in 2009–2017. In 2009–2017, the mass loss was dominated by the Amundsen/Bellingshausen Sea sectors, in West Antarctica (159 ± 8 Gt/y), Wilkes Land, in East Antarctica (51 ± 13 Gt/y), and West and Northeast Peninsula (42 ± 5 Gt/y). The contribution to sea-level rise from Antarctica averaged 3.6 ± 0.5 mm per decade with a cumulative 14.0 ± 2.0 mm since 1979, including 6.9 ± 0.6 mm from West Antarctica, 4.4 ± 0.9 mm from East Antarctica, and 2.5 ± 0.4 mm from the Peninsula (i.e., East Antarctica is a major participant in the mass loss). During the entire period, the mass loss concentrated in areas closest to warm, salty, subsurface, circumpolar deep water (CDW), that is, consistent with enhanced polar westerlies pushing CDW toward Antarctica to melt its floating ice shelves, destabilize the glaciers, and raise sea level.

PNAS published ahead of print January 14, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1812883116">SOURCE

China: No Wind Or Solar If It Can't Beat Coal On Price

China has said it will not approve wind and solar power projects unless they can compete with coal power prices.

Beijing pulled the plug on support for large solar projects, which had been receiving a per kWh payment, in late May. That news came immediately after the country’s largest solar industry event and caught everyone by surprise.

Officials are understood to have been frustrated at seeing Chinese suppliers and engineering firms building solar projects overseas that delivered electricity at prices far below what was available back home.

The country also has its own issues with grid logjams. These have caused power from wind and solar projects to be wasted due to a lack of capacity on the network to transmit and distribute it. In 2017 12% of wind generation and 6% of solar was curtailed.

In the plans announced on Thursday, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top strategic planning authority, and the National Energy Administration (NEA) set out a series of conditions under which new solar and wind projects would be approved from now till the end of 2020.

Chief among these is that the price matches or undercuts the national coal benchmark, something that happened for the first time ever just last month.

Projects will also have to show that the grid can handle their output. Technical specifications will ensure that the highest standards are met on that front.

Local governments have been told they are free to offer their own subsidies to projects if they wish.

In the past, provincial authorities have spent heavily to bankroll uncompetitive solar manufacturers. Thursday’s announcement warned that any attempt to use project subsidies to invest in “local factories” or to make the use of locally made components a condition of the subsidy.

Also included in the wide-ranging changes is the introduction of a green certificate scheme. A small trial of such a scheme was undertaken in 2017. It would work in a similar way to renewable energy certificates schemes in the U.S. and elsewhere. A certificate is created for each unit of electricity generated. These are then traded among utilities who may have targets to meet as determined by regulators or purchased by an end user to demonstrate their use of “clean” power. Details on the mechanics of the certificate scheme have not yet been released.

SOURCE

Study: renewable energy subsidies costly to taxpayers, benefit big companies

The federal production tax credit for wind energy producers has cost the U.S. government billions of dollars in revenues while benefiting just a few large corporations, says a new study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

The federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy producers has cost the U.S. government billions of dollars in revenues, distorted energy markets, and benefited just a few large corporations, a new study reports.

The federal government imposed the PTC in 1992 in an effort to promote renewable energy. The PTC, currently 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour for the first 10 years of a wind farm’s operations, has been extended several times by Congress. It is scheduled to begin phasing out at the end of 2019. The PTC and tax depreciation allowances cover more than 50 percent of the capital costs of a typical wind facility.

Billions for a Few

Between 2007 and 2016, just 15 parent companies accounted for more than three-fourths of all PTC eligibility, raking in more than $19 billion from the program between 2007 and 2016, the study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) found.

The biggest recipient of PTC largesse is NextEra Energy, the nation’s largest wind power producer, with approximately 10,000 wind turbines and annual revenues of $17.5 billion, reports the study by TPPF Senior Fellow Angela Erickson. More than $5.7 billion in taxpayer dollars flowed to NextEra Energy courtesy of the PTC between 2007 and 2016, making NextEra “one of the most subsidized Fortune 500 companies,” writes Erickson.

‘Web of Government Incentives’

The $14 billion wind industry in the United States benefits from numerous types of government support and incentives, the study shows.

“[T]he industry operates within a web of government incentives—from subsidies, to loan guarantees, to various other federal, state, and local government incentives,” Erickson writes. In 2017 alone, the nation’s taxpayers had to make up $4.2 billion in foregone revenues solely due to the PTC, the study notes.

Over the decades, the PTC has caused market distortions, including instances of “negative pricing,” where producers operate wind turbines when the electricity they provide is not needed, simply to receive PTC revenue.

“The PTC’s $24 per megawatt-hour credit sometimes results in wind energy producers paying electricity suppliers to take their energy rather than turning off wind turbines during surplus energy hours (e.g., early mornings when people are sleeping),” the study states. “By keeping wind turbines running, producers will receive the tax credit even though the grid does not need the energy. The resulting low prices may harm the reliability of the grid by reducing the incentives for investing in energies that can supply baseline generation.”

Racing to Start

With the PTC set to be phased out by the end of 2019, companies are in an aggressive race to erect as many wind turbines as possible across the nation. Corporations that start construction of wind facilities before December 31, 2019 will continue to receive PTC tax credit payments until December 2029.

As a result, “the federal government will transfer at least an additional $48 billion in PTC subsidies to owners or financiers of commercial wind farms,” through 2029, Erickson reports.

Erickson says the PTC is destructive and should be ended.

“The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers by giving some companies an advantage over other companies and taxpayers,” Erickson writes.

‘Biggest Hoax Ever Perpetrated’

Renewable energy mandates and subsidies are based on the false notion we must fight dangerous human-caused climate change, says Jay Lehr, Ph.D., science director at The Heartland Institute, which publishes Environment & Climate News.

“While the threat of man-caused global warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on society, its most immediate damage has been the growth of an unsustainable wind and solar industry that raises energy costs for the poorest Americans,” Lehr said. “Far from being replaced by wind turbines, fossil-fuel plants will always have to be on the ready as backup to supply life-sustaining electricity when the wind doesn’t blow within acceptable limits and the sun doesn’t shine.”

Cutter Gonzales, a policy analyst with TPPF, says the wind subsidies do a great deal of harm.

“Subsidies for renewable energy have distorted markets and created a plethora of other problems for Texans,” said Gonzalez. “From statewide issues like reliability of our electric supply to secret negotiations that disrupt faith in our institutions, renewable energy subsidies are a bad deal.”

SOURCE

Andrew Cuomo wants to ban plastic bags across New York

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday proposed a blanket ban on thin plastic bags at store checkouts, attracting criticism from business groups and environmentalists alike.

“While the federal government is taking our environmental progress backwards and selling out our communities to polluters and oil companies, in New York we are moving forward with the nation’s strongest environmental policies and doing everything in our power to protect our natural resources for future generations,” Cuomo said in a prepared statement on Sunday. “These bold actions to ban plastic bags and promote recycling will reduce litter in our communities, protect our water and create a cleaner and greener New York for all.”

Cuomo — who recently won a third gubernatorial term — is doubling down on what has been a months-long campaign to eradicate plastic bags. The governor pushed legislation in 2018 that would have banned single-use plastic bags, with a complete phase out by January 2019. However, that bill failed to gain traction in the state legislature.

Now the third-term governor plans to reach his goal by welding executive power.

To be included in Cuomo’s executive budget, is a ban on thin plastic bags at store checkouts. The proposal — which is meant to encourage recyclable bag use — would replace fees local governments in the state have enacted on plastic bags. The new rule would also exclude paper bags.

The idea has sparked controversy among business leaders and grocery stores.

“All evidence points to the simple fact that a plastic bag ban will not effectively impact the environment positively when paper bags are not addressed, as well,” said CEO of the Food Industry Alliance of New York State Michael Durant, according to Newsday. Durant said he plans to “strongly oppose” the bag ban.

Darren Suarez, a spokesman for The Business Council of New York State, said in a Sunday statement that the proposal would come at a “considerable cost” to both businesses and consumers. Suarez added that the ban would “do little, if anything” at fixing the state’s solid waste issues, and could actually raise emissions due to the extra cost of transporting paper bags.

Notably, environmental groups also repeated the need to couple a plastic bag ban with a fee on paper bags

“This needs to be coupled with a fee on paper bags, so as not to trigger a shift from plastic to paper, which has its own environmental concerns,” Eric Goldstein, senior attorney for the Manhattan-based Natural Resources Defense Council, but added that the ban “heads in the right direction.”

Such a move would undoubtedly raise prices for consumers, with the worst hit being elderly and lower-income Americans whose grocery bills take up a larger percentage of their income. The same task force report that helped push Cuomo’s original plastic ban bill acknowledged that such a proposal would raise prices on consumers. Paper bags, which are a typical alternative when loading groceries, are already “three to five times as much as single-use plastic bags.”

Despite pivoting left on a number of issues and quickly becoming one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics, Cuomo said recently he does not plan on running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

SOURCE

Elizabeth Warren signs pledge backed by group tied to population control enthusiasts

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren officially pledged to reject fossil fuel campaign donations, becoming the first 2020 presidential contender to do so.

While making her first visit to New Hampshire since announcing the launch of her presidential exploratory committee, Warren on Saturday called for “systemic change” that involves much more than just “change around the margins.” The progressive senator touted her desire to legalize marijuana, boost estate taxes and expand affordable housing. Warren also set the pace on climate change by becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to vow not to accept money from oil and gas interests.

Not only is this a strong move to take power away from big oil & gas, but it’s a statement about where the Democratic priorities lie.

Consider the precedent now set for all 2020 presidential candidates.

Under the stipulations of the pledge, Warren cannot knowingly accept contributions above $200 from any political action committees, employees or front groups tied to fossil fuel companies. The senior senator from Massachusetts joins other possible presidential contenders — such as Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley and Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee — in signing her name onto the pledge.

The pledge appears to indicate Warren has shifted leftward on the issue of fossil fuel money in politics. She dodged a question in August about the Democratic National Committee’s decision to reverse its stance on fossil fuel money, allowing once again to accept money from oil and gas interests.

Warren’s pledge to reject fossil fuels on Saturday follows lobbying from the Sunrise Movement — an environmentalist group that’s heavily involved in promoting the Green New Deal.

“We’re making it clear any politician who wants to run for federal office needs to support the Green New Deal and not take fossil fuel money,” Varshini Prakash, founder of Sunrise, said during a Sunday conference call with activists and reporters. The organization — which is quickly becoming influential among environmental and progressive circles — was involved in New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s candidacy and has gone on to push Democratic lawmakers more left on climate change issues.

Because it is not legally required to disclose its donors, not much has been known about the money behind the Sunrise Movement. However, a recent profile piece on the organization has shed some light on the organizations funding its activities. Institutional funders for Sunrise include the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Winslow Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund, supplying 55 percent of the group’s 2018 budget.

All three groups have a long history of funding left-wing and other environmental causes. The Wallace Global Fund, in particular, has received criticism for financially supporting population control causes. The fund has given nearly $7 million to population control groups since the past two decades — Zero Population Growth among one of the groups that has enjoyed its donations.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Warren’s campaign, inquiring about her position on population control as a means to fight climate change, but did not hear back in time for publication.

SOURCE

15 January, 2019

The charm of Chaamjamal

Chaamjamal appears to be a female statistican living in Thailand. She is a ferocious critic of global warming "science" -- using rigorous statistical analysis to detonate the sloppy Warmist claims. Unfortunately, she presents her findings in a very telegraphic way. She apparently cannot be bothered to present them as an orthodox academic journal article. I am of that mind myself these days. Writing academic journal articles is rarely worth it unless you are confirming some popular belief

That does mean that her work will be and is thoroughly ignored by Warmist scientists. They are interested only in work that supports their faith so doing the work needed to follow and critique her analyses would be of no interest to them. That is a pity but she is apparently unconcerned. She has no mission. She just puts down the facts and let them fall where they may.

She does however give enough information to follow her workings and they seem sound to me. She uses a big lot of graphs to illustrate her workings so I will not attempt to reproduce them here. I will simply reproduce her conclusions, which she offers in bullet-point form.

Her basic conclusion is that there is no relationship between human CO2 emissions and global temperature

Fossil Fuel Emissions and Atmospheric Composition

* Figure 1 shows that atmospheric CO2 concentration as measured at Mauna Loa has been rising steadily since 1958 while at the same time post industrial humans have been injecting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels into the atmosphere. It is in this context that the usual assumption is made that observed changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration (?CO2) are driven by fossil fuel emissions. This assumed relationship appears to be visually validated in the left panels of the five charts in Figure 3 where changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (?CO2) appear to be strongly correlated with the rate of emissions.

* The correlation was tested in a related work [LINK] where it was shown with detrended correlation analysis that there is insufficient evidence to claim that atmospheric CO2 concentration is responsive to fossil fuel emissions at an annual time scale and that therefore the attribution of rising atmospheric CO2 to emissions is without empirical support. Detrended correlation analysis extracts the portion of the observed source data correlation that derives from responsiveness at the chosen time scale by removing the portion that derives from shared trends. The motivation for this procedure is described in a related post [LINK] . Briefly, the trend is removed from the data so that only the regression residuals remain and a correlation between these residuals is used to measure the responsiveness of ?CO2 to emissions.

* This work is a further investigation into the relationship between changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and fossil fuel emissions. The failure of the prior study to find a responsiveness of atmospheric CO2 to fossil fuel emissions at an annual time scale leaves open the possibility that a responsiveness may exist at longer time scales. Five time scales from one year to five years in increments of one year are studied. The data for the five time scales are displayed in Figure 2 which contains five charts one for each time scale. Each chart consists of three frames. The left frame shows emissions at the time scale of the chart in gigatons of carbon equivalent (GTC). The middle frame displays the corresponding increase in atmospheric CO2 converted from parts per million in volume (ppmv) to GTC equivalent. The last frame contains the ratio of ?CO2 to emissions. This ratio, called the “Airborne Fraction (A/F)” is considered to be a constant with a value of approximately 50%. It describes the portion of emissions that end up in the atmosphere. The spread of the Airborne Fraction appears to include the value of A/F = 0.5 and the spread appears to narrow as the time scale is increased. Curiously, a slight downward trend is seen in the A/F at all time scales. The Airborne Fraction concept appears to assume a causal relationship between emissions and change in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The results are summarized in Figure 4. The volatility of the Airborne Fraction decreases sharply from Range=0.8 to Range =0.29 as the time scale is increased from T/S=1 to T/S=5 and at the longer time scales the median A/F converges nicely to the original IPCC figure of A/F=0.5. Later claims to reduced figures of A/F=0.42 seems arbitrary and perhaps a case of circular reasoning as explained in a related post [LINK]

* The correlation analysis is presented in Figure 3. There are five charts one for each time scale. Each chart consists of two frames, a left frame that displays correlation in the source data and a right frame that shows the correlation between the detrended series. Both of these correlations rise as the time scale is increased from one to five years. At all five time scales we find a significant loss in correlation when the data are detrended. The correlation that survives into the detrended series serves as evidence of responsiveness at each of the five time scales. The survival fraction also rises as the time scale is increased from annual to five years. The results are summarized in Figure 5. Here we see that the source correlation rises from CORR=0.742 to CORR=0.921 as we increase the time scale from T/S=1 to T/S=5. The corresponding detrended correlation also rises from DETCOR=0.145 to DETCOR=0.314 with the corresponding survival fraction rising sharply from 19.5% to 34.1%.

* The higher and higher detrended correlations and survival fractions at longer time scales raise the intriguing possibility that the failure to find a responsiveness of atmospheric composition to the rate of fossil fuel emissions was an inappropriate choice of an annual time scale. Perhaps a longer time scale will resolve the issue. To test that hypothesis we present one tailed hypothesis tests for each of the five detrended correlations at the five selected time scales. Here the alternate hypothesis is that the detrended correlation is positive or HA: DETCOR>0. The corresponding null hypothesis is that is not positive or H0: DETCOR<=0. The maximum false positive error rate is set to ?=0.001, much lower than the usual values of ?=0.01 to ?=05, in accordance with Revised Standards for Statistical Significance (Johnson, 2013) published by the NAS to address an unacceptable rate of irreproducible results in published research (Siegfried, 2010). Since five comparisons are made for the five different time scales, the probability of finding at least one significant correlation in random data is increased by a factor of five to 0.005 (Holm, 1979). The results of the hypothesis tests are presented in Figure 5. Here EFFN=effective value of the sample size corrected for time scale which decreases from EFFN=60 to EFFN=12 as the time scale is increased from T/S=1 to T/S=5 to account for residual unique information in the time series. The procedure and rationale for this computation are described in a related work [LINK] . Along with the effective sample size, the degrees of freedom also falls since in this case degrees of freedom is computed as DF=EFFN-2. Thus, although the T-statistic rises from TSTAT=1.132 to TSTAT=2.478 as the time scale is increased from T/S=1 to T/S=5, the PVALUE for the hypothesis test does not fall as quickly as one would expect and in fact it actually rises from T/S=4 to T/S=5. More relevant to the research question here, none of the five PVALUEs is even close to the critical value of the PVALUE=0.001. We therefore fail to reject H0: DETCOR<=0 and conclude that the data do not provide evidence that atmospheric CO2 concentration is responsive to fossil fuel emissions at any of the time scales studied. We note also that since the p-value rose from T/S=4 (p-value=0.0135) to T/S=5 (p-value=0.0163), in time scales greater than T/S=4, the effect of longer time scale on degrees of freedom overcomes its effect on detrended correlation at the available time span of the data. Thus even though a stable Airborne Fraction can be computed as A/F=0.5, its interpretation in terms of the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to ?CO2 requires the use of circular reasoning with an assumed responsiveness that is not found in the data. Related post [LINK] .

* A rationale for the inability to relate changes in atmospheric CO2 to fossil fuel emissions is described by Geologist James Edward Kamis in terms of natural geological emissions due to plate tectonics [LINK] . The essential argument is that, in the context of significant geological flows of carbon dioxide and other carbon based compounds, it is a form of circular reasoning to describe changes in atmospheric CO2 only in terms of human activity. It is shown in a related post, that in the context of large uncertainties in natural flows, it is not possible to detect the presence of fossil fuel emissions without the help of circular reasoning [LINK] .

* The results of detrended correlation analysis at five time scales shows that the failure to find a responsiveness of atmospheric composition to fossil fuel emissions in a related work [LINK] cannot be ascribed to the annual time scale used in the study as the result is validated at longer time scales to the point of diminishing returns. We conclude that atmospheric composition specifically in relation to the CO2 concentration is not responsive to the rate of fossil fuel emissions. This finding is a serious weakness in the theory of anthropogenic global warming by way of rising atmospheric CO2 attributed to the use of fossil fuels in the industrial economy; and of the “Climate Action proposition of the UN that reducing fossil fuel emissions will moderate the rate of warming by slowing the rise of atmospheric CO2.

SOURCE

Tracking Progress on Disasters, 2018 Update

The figure above shows disaster losses as tracked by Munich re from 1900 to 2018, based on an update published earlier this week (here). The update allows me to add another year to the data reported in this paper: "Pielke, R. (2018). Tracking progress on the economic costs of disasters under the indicators of the sustainable development goals. Environmental Hazards, 1-6."

The graphs below show losses as a percentage of global GDP from 1990 to 2018, for all catastrophes (top) and those that are weather/climate related (bottom)

Overall losses were at about the 1990-2017 average ($160b vs $163b)

Weather/Climate losses were above the 1990-2017 average ($147B vs $129B)

Overall losses are well below the 1990-2017 average (0.19% vs 0.28%)

Weather/Climate losses are slightly below 1990-2017 average (0.18% vs 0.22)

Bottom line: 2018 saw substantial disasters with large costs. However, in terms of economic damage it was a fairly typical year in historical context.

2018 contributes to the trend (1990-2018) of disaster losses decreasing as a proportion of global GDP.

This is good news.

SOURCE

Funding The Climate-Industrial Complex

Supposedly “green” or “renewable” energy has become a trillion-dollar-plus annual industry that has spawned tens of thousands of new businesses worldwide. The total Climate-Industrial Complex is a $2-trillion-per-year business. Major fossil fuel companies like Shell Energy now have green energy divisions.

These companies are virtually 100% dependent on the politically driven notion of “dangerous man-made global warming and climate change.” The media, public and political establishment constantly recite the assertion that 97% of scientists say the problem is real and man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is the cause.

However, increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere do not lead to global warming and climate change. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere. The major “greenhouse gas” is water vapor.

An intricate feedback system regulates the Earth’s temperature, maintaining immunity from temperature increases and decreases due to such trace gases.

Furthermore, the false notion of CO2-driven climate change is responsible for the potential massive redistribution of wealth from now-wealthy industrialized nations to poor countries.

This has led to the corrupt worldwide business of carbon tax credit trading and more money to fund wind, solar and biofuel energy. Green industries should not predicate their business models on false claims about climate change.

They should base their businesses and R&D budgets on the fact that fossil fuels will become less economically viable over the coming decades as easily recovered reserves are depleted.

Renewables such as solar and wind cannot provide material amounts of energy required worldwide – and require vast amounts of metals and other materials that are themselves not renewable or sustainable.

Utilities and energy companies must be free to use petroleum, coal, natural gas and biofuels at market-demand costs and must increase nuclear energy production. New sources of high energy density power generation must be created.

Today the “green energy” or “renewables” sector of the power generation industry is driven by the perceived but not scientifically proven notion that carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and bio-fuels cause “global warming” or “climate change.”

This is based on incorrect ideas about the real practical effects that “greenhouse gases” cause when introduced into our atmosphere.

This chart demonstrates in dramatic fashion that there is absolutely no connection between steadily rising CO2levels and nearly stable to slightly higher average global temperatures over the past four decades.

CO2 Temp Chart

Water vapor is the gaseous form of water and is by far the most important greenhouse gas. Its spectral absorption is wider than that of carbon dioxide – meaning its absorption of photons from the Sun, as radiated by the Earth’s surface at night across the wider electromagnetic radiation (EMR) spectrum, causes a higher rise in molecular vibrational momentum, equating to higher thermal rise than carbon dioxide.

Furthermore, the water vapor content in the lower atmosphere varies from 10,000 PPM or 1% to 40,000 PPM or 4% – whereas carbon dioxide is ? 400 PPM or 0.04% of the atmosphere. That is many orders of magnitude.

This suggests that water vapor has a much greater effect as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Water vapor is responsible for well over 98% of any “greenhouse effect.”

It is theoretically possible that carbon dioxide and other non-condensable greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide and ozone can create minute increases in thermal absorption and therefore could increase the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere via a “positive feedback cycle,” leading to warming and an increase in evaporation of sea water.

However, the trace amounts of these gases would lead to virtually undetectable and immeasurable temperature and water vapor increases. Moreover, adding more water vapor to the atmosphere would also produce a negative feedback effect.

This could happen as more water vapor leads to more cloud formation. Clouds reflect sunlight and reduce the amount of energy that reaches the Earth’s surface to warm it. If the amount of solar warming decreases, then the temperature of the Earth would decrease.

In that case, adding more water vapor would result in global cooling, rather than warming. But cloud cover does mean more condensed water in the atmosphere, making for a stronger greenhouse effect than non-condensed water vapor alone.

It is warmer on a cloudy winter day than on a clear one.

Thus the possible positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation will largely cancel one another out and further complicate the ability to model these feedback cycles using computer simulation and mathematical modeling.

Many in the “renewables energy” industry will object to this analysis, because they see it as undermining their reason to exist, affecting investor interest and sales opportunities. They miss the key point.

We do need to find replacements for fossil fuels – but not because of “climate change.” The real driver is the absolutely indisputable fact that we are depleting economically viable sources of fossil fuels, while at the same time increasing our demand for energy worldwide.

The key term is “economically viable,” because the petroleum industry will be forced to pursue more difficult to recover deposits of oil and natural gas, while also enduring ever-increasing amounts of litigation.

Today the only viable energy source beyond fossil fuels is nuclear fission. Our nuclear energy industry must be rebuilt if America is to remain a leader in energy, economic growth, and opportunity.

We must also continue our research and development in fusion energy which has many advantages over nuclear fission if it is ever perfected.

We commissioned an objective science-based analysis of solar power as a means to generate 100% of baseload power in the USA based on current demand. The results are clear: solar power for baseload electricity is simply unrealistic.

It is a virtual impossibility to power America from solar energy based on the science, let alone the economics, reliability or land and material requirements. Electrifying the transportation infrastructure will increase this impossibility several-fold. The same is true of wind power.

We must develop the next generation of very high energy density nuclear power – first nuclear fission, to be replaced possibly by fusion in the mid to late 21st Century.

We must also learn to conserve energy and materials better, not to save the planet from man-made climate change, but to give mankind more time to develop a high flux density energy generation science and technology.

In December 2018, both Excel Energy and Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) announced plans to convert to 100% renewable green energy generation by 2050.

That is a scientific impossibility unless policymakers and environmentalist alike redefine nuclear energy as green.

Why would they make such claims? For Excel boosting stock prices through subsidies comes to mind.

NIPSCO is a government-protected monopoly utility, with Indiana state government guaranteeing NIPSCO a profit of approximately 10% for every dollar it spends. That means NIPSCO has an obvious financial self-interest to engage in costly business practices.

Building expensive new power facilities, even when existing facilities are working perfectly well, is one of the most effective ways for NIPSCO to ramp up its spending and guaranteed profits.

Of course, both companies do so at the expense of consumers, many of whom have no knowledge that their electricity bills are about to rise substantially.

(To learn more about fusion energy, its promise and scientific difficulties facing it, visit our website Fusion4Freedom.com. For information about what energy is and where it comes from, see “Energy Basics: Where does energy on our planet come from?” Go here to learn more about Excel Energy’s deceptive and wholly unrealistic plans– and here for more about NIPSCO’s wholly unrealistic plans.)

Let energy buyers beware. Politicians, activist groups and industrialists are all using “climate change” to increase their power and income. We need to figure out what they’re doing – and fight back.

SOURCE

Green Deal Fiasco: Thousands Face Massive Energy Bills After Failure Of UK Energy Scam

Thousands of homeowners face rip-off energy bills for decades after being ‘scammed’ into joining a state-backed £400million eco-energy scheme that ‘utterly failed’.

The Green Deal – which ministers trumpeted as the ‘biggest home improvement programme since the Second World War’ – was abandoned after two years as MPs admitted it had been a ‘complete fiasco’ that brought almost no environmental benefits.

But more than three years after its collapse, families remain trapped repaying loans of up to £21,000 which they unwittingly took out for solar panels, replacement boilers, and insulation.

The repayments are added to monthly utility bills which in some cases have quadrupled once the loans were added to the cost of their usual fuel and will take more than 20 years to pay back.

In some of the worst cases, the scheme was allowed to be ruthlessly exploited by Government-approved ‘gangster companies’ who conned the elderly and vulnerable, including those with dementia, MPs told the Commons.

Because loans were attached to a property, many victims are unable to sell their home and are effectively ‘imprisoned’ in them for the rest of their lives. The result has been ‘years of agony’ for people fighting for compensation.

MPs have now called for urgent action, saying the scandal showed the UK’s system of regulation is ‘simply not fit for purpose’.

When the Green Deal was launched by the Coalition Government in January 2013, climate minister Greg Barker said it would make 14 million homes more energy efficient by 2020 and upgrade the UK’s entire building stock by 2030.

The aim was to encourage homeowners to save energy by installing loft and wall insulation, more efficient boilers, solar panels, and ground source heat pumps at no up-front cost.

Homeowners were lent cash via private companies with repayments collected through energy bills in what was described as ‘pay as you save.’

But take-up was far lower than hoped, largely because the interest rate for loans was almost 14 times the Bank of England rate at the time, meaning that in almost every case it would be cheaper for a homeowner to raise the cash needed off their own house.

Ministers finally announced they were pulling financial support for the Green Deal in July 2015 to ‘protect taxpayers’ because of low take-up and ‘concerns about industry standards.’

But nearly four years later, thousands of people are still paying the price. In 2017 the Government sold the Green Deal loan book to a private firm, which now deals with consumer complaints.

SNP MP Gavin Newlands said the Green Deal ‘failed utterly’. He told the Commons: ‘Through their incompetence, the UK Government has in some cases allowed unscrupulous operators to prey on vulnerable families who ultimately just want to be able to go back to a warm home every day’.

SOURCE

Ecofascism in South Australia

Free plastic waste is almost entirely a 3rd world problem but it gives Greenies erections to blame it on us

South Australians may soon be banned from using a range of single-use plastics as the government considers a major crackdown.

Plastic items such as straws, cutlery, shopping bags and coffee cups are on the chopping block after the state’s Environment Minister, David Speirs, released two discussion papers on the issue yesterday.

One deals with the possible single-use plastic ban and the other is a review of the state’s container deposit scheme reviewing what sort of containers should be included and whether the refund amount should be revised.

Mr Speirs said it was important to keep the impact of single-use plastics at the forefront of conversation so South Australia could continue to be the national leader in recycling.

“I am keen to keep South Australia at the forefront of these areas, and to maintain this position while also increasing economic activity,” Mr Speirs said.

“Plastic is a valuable material, integral to modern life. But when littered, it ruins our environment’s pristine image, and harms marine and terrestrial life.”

There is a growing global trend towards doing away with plastics and Mr Speirs said it was important for South Australia to keep up.

The European Union announced its intention on October to ban a range of plastic items.

“We can take more immediate local action on items that are designed and intended for disposal after only a single use, are prone to being littered, are unlikely to be recycled and for which more sustainable alternatives are available,” Mr Speirs said.

Mr Speirs’ paper, entitled “Turning the tide on single-use plastic products”, suggests a ban on these products be implemented the same way single-use plastic bags were banned at check-outs across the state in 2009.

Switching from lightweight shopping bags to reusable ones has resulted in 400 million bags being removed from circulation in South Australia, according to the paper.

The paper seeks views from the community and business on what they consider are the problems associated with plastic products, alternatives and if there is a need for government intervention.

Environmental groups, including Conservation SA, have welcomed the government’s move.

“Despite this, the recent State of the Environment Report shows that per capita waste in SA still increased by over 40 per cent over the last five years,” chief executive Craig Wilkins said. “It’s time for stronger action.”

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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14 January, 2019

Global cooling!

We are often told that unusually hot weather indicates global warming so, logically, unusually cold weather must indicate global cooling. Or am I missing something?

A state of emergency was in force across parts of Europe last night after the death toll in the worst snowfall for at least 30 years reached 21.

Tanks and troops were drafted in to rescue homeowners from neck-deep snow in Germany and Austria as the whiteout looked to continue past the weekend.

British skiers were among thousands facing long delays on their airport transfers to and from resorts in Austria due to road conditions, but travel industry sources said they had heard no reports of Britons snowed in or trapped.

In Switzerland, a 1,000ft-wide avalanche ploughed through the front of a hotel while diners were eating. Three people were injured but miraculously there were no deaths.

A brief break in the weather is allowing workers in southern Germany to try and clear heavy loads of snow from roofs and roads. Heavy snow has paralyzed parts of Europe in recent days, cutting off mountain villages, disrupting transport

Parts of Europe have been paralysed in recent days with the snow cutting off remote mountain villages and disrupting transport. Avalanche warnings were at critical levels.

The state of emergency was declared across much of southern Germany, with soldiers deployed to help trapped people. The army was also called in across Albania, Montenegro and Serbia.

‘Such quantities of snow above 800m altitude only happen once every 30 to 100 years,’ said Austrian meteorologist Alexander Radlherr. Austrian military helicopters on Friday rescued 66 German teenagers out of a mountain guest house where they had been trapped for several days.

The snow is up to 10ft (3m) deep in parts of the country, where seven people have died in the past week. Two hikers have also been missing since last Saturday.

The military used helicopters to blow snow off treetops to reduce the risk of trees falling on roads and train tracks.

Sweden and Norway were hit by similar problems, while three diners were injured when an avalanche came down the Schwägalp Pass in the Swiss Alps and crashed into the Hotel Santis.

One guest in the hotel restaurant said that initially he thought snow was falling from the roof. ‘There was a gigantic noise and the back area of the restaurant was engulfed in masses of snow,’ the guest told media.

In Germany’s southern state of Bavaria, a nine-year-old boy was killed by a tree which collapsed under the weight of snow. It was 40 minutes before he was found and emergency services were unable to revive him.

The blanket of snow is expected to remain into the middle of next week throughout central and northern Europe. In Britain, forecasters have warned of heavy frosts and snow after the recurrence of conditions which preceded the Beast from the East last winter.

Meteorological Office forecaster Sarah Kent said: ‘We’re not yet sure whether the winds are going to come from the Arctic or Siberia, but it could become very cold. ‘There’s definitely an increased risk of widespread hard frosts and, if any weather systems bump into that cold air, it increases the chance of snow.’

SOURCE

Which is it?! ‘Global warming’ causes more illegal immigration — BUT Illegal Immigration causes less ‘global warming’

As official Washington battles over the issue of illegal immigration and how to respond to, climate activists are promoting very confusing contradictions when it comes to immigration and climate change. See: Sen. Bernie Sanders declares biggest threat facing the US was climate change, not immigration – warns Earth may become “uninhabitable in the not-so-distant future.”

Image result for immigration climate change

A study by a UN IPCC lead author claimed that “global warming” will lead to “mass migration to the U.S.” by 2080 due to the alleged climate model-based predictions of reduced “crop yields in Mexico. The peer-reviewed study claimed that the massive climate caused influx of immigrants from Mexico, could equal many millions. See:

Flashback 2010: LA Times breathlessly reporting on UN IPCC lead author Michael Oppenheimer PNAS immigration paper:
Climbing temperatures are expected to raise sea levels and increase droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires. Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States. Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The number could amount to 10% of the current population of Mexicans ages 15 to 65.

But wait, before we accept the claim that “global warming” will INCREASE mass illegal immigration to the U.S., the climate change narrative also claims that the influx of immigration to the U.S. will REDUCE “global warming.!” Climate activist Bill McKibben wrote in the LA Times in 2013 McKibben wrote: “It’s true that the typical person from a developing nation would produce more carbon once she adopted an American lifestyle but she also probably would have fewer children.” As a bonus, McKibben added that illegal immigrants are more likely to “pull the [election] lever for climate deniers.” See:

LA Times 2013: Illegal Immigration Can Reduce Global Warming – The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial by Middlebury College Professor Bill McKibben arguing that allowing millions of illegal immigrants into America will reduce global warming…McKibben says that while the average American has a larger carbon footprint than a person living in the developing world, bringing more immigrants to America would likely reduce their tendency to have higher birthrates, thereby creating less carbon-producing people. “It’s true that the typical person from a developing nation would produce more carbon once she adopted an American lifestyle,” says McKibben, “but she also probably would have fewer children.” McKibben, who previously wrote a book arguing for Americans to have smaller families, says that “global warming is arguably the greatest danger we face,” that “immigrants, by definition, are full of hope,” and they are thus less likely to “pull the [election] lever for climate deniers, for people who want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, for the politicians who take huge quantities of cash from the Koch brothers and other oil barons.”

So, “global warming” will increase illegal immigration — but at the same time — increased illegal immigration will reduce “global warming.”Got that?!

SOURCE (See the original for links)

The Ecofascist 'Green New Deal'

Like FDR's New Deal, the plan expands government power while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been called “the new face of the Democratic Party.” Propped up by the Leftmedia, the Millennial socialist celebrity is pushing forward with the Left’s “Green New Deal” in the hopes that Americans will fall for what’s nothing more than a dangerous scam to destroy the country as we know it.

But you can’t put a new face on socialism, not matter what you call it.

Like FDR’s New Deal, the Green New Deal expands government power while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. Except this time around, the plan will cost trillions of dollars, gut our economy, leave millions without jobs, destroy our energy independence, and fund social justice programs. Other than that, what’s not to like?

A little climate change doesn’t seem so bad compared to this spending splurge. But make no mistake: This is a disastrous plan, and we’d better start taking it seriously. As with any Democrat scheme, the devil’s in the details.

The Green New Deal would have serious implications for American energy production. Advocates claim that the U.S. would be required to eliminate nuclear power and natural gas. How important is that? As National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes, “Natural gas currently provides about 32 percent of America’s energy, and nuclear power produces another 10 percent.” Additionally, he says, “The ‘Green New Deal’ would also eliminate coal, which provides almost 18 percent of America’s energy, and liquid natural gas and oil, which generates another 28 percent.” Geraghty warns that all of this would require the U.S. to “replace about 88 percent of its current energy sources” in 11 years and would result in the loss of nearly six million energy jobs.

Still not convinced that the Green New Deal is bad for America?

Its proponents also want to reduce our military by half. This would affect our commitments around the world and would likely result in greater global conflict in a matter of a few years, not to mention putting more than a million military personnel out of work.

According to Reason’s Ronald Bailey, the deal also proposes, “All fossil fuel emissions should be ended by 2050. All new passenger automobiles for sale in 2030 should be zero emissions vehicles; all rail, vehicles, and aviation should be totally fossil-fuel free by 2050. Other parts of the Green New Deal include reforesting 40 million acres of public and private land by 2035, greatly expanding mass transit systems, upgrading local water supply and management infrastructure, expanding federal regulation of the waters of the U.S., and requiring that all materials be recyclable by 2040.”

Our nation is already more than $20 trillion in debt, and we’d easily double that number by implementing the Green New Deal. Asked how she’d pay for it, Ocasio-Cortez recently suggested — what else — raising the marginal income tax rate to 70% for the wealthy. But that in itself wouldn’t even make a dent in the costs.

Notice that there’s actually very little in the way of environmental conservation in this deal. It’s really all about realizing Barack Obama’s promise of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” But who’d want to live in an ecofascist nation where economic slavery empowers a totalitarian elite determined to enact socialism under the guise of environmental protection?

Investor’s Business Daily reminds us that the real problem isn’t climate change but “having enough people working and paying taxes to support all the retirees around the world and pay off hundreds of trillions of dollars of global debt. What is a problem is the nonstop fear-mongering, demands for more taxes, and dangerous socialist experiments in expanding government control of the economy, all in the name of warding off the threat of global warming.”

All the details of the Green New Deal speak for themselves. Ocasio-Cortez’s dream of using renewable energy “as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social, and racial justice in the United States of America” is a pipe dream we cannot afford to pursue.

SOURCE

Don't Join The Media Freak Out Over Recent Jump In CO2 Emissions — It Won't Last

CO2 Emissions: For the first time in years, U.S. carbon dioxide output rose last year, a new report says. The jump has set off alarms in all the predictable media quarters. Relax. It's a great sign for the economy, and will mean nothing long term for the environment.

CO2, the main greenhouse gas that global warming advocates most fear, happens to be rising around the world right now. It has been for decades.

But in recent years the U.S. has been the big exception to that trend, with declining amounts of CO2 spewed into the air from its industry. The reason for this is that, thanks to fracking, companies and utilities around the country are replacing coal with natural gas.

At least, that is, until 2016. But in 2018, U.S. carbon dioxide output jumped by 3.4%, according to Rhodium Group, a research firm.

It's not hard to understand why. Thanks to a booming economy set off by President Trump's new trade deals, tax cuts and deregulation, in the past two years the U.S. has seen manufacturing jobs surge.

CO2 Emissions Vs. Factory Jobs

Indeed, since Trump entered office, the number of manufacturing jobs has jumped by close to half a million. Once-moribund industrial areas around the country, many of which voted for Trump, are coming back to life. Minority unemployment rates are at or near record lows. Meanwhile, wages rose 3.2% last year, the fastest in a decade.

These are good things. This is prosperity.

All those people going back to work in refurbished factories in America's Heartland — you remember, the ones Hillary Clinton called "deplorables" — helped push emissions from manufacturing up 5.7% last year alone.

Transportation also contributed, of course, in the surging economy, with jet fuel (up 33.1%) and diesel fuel (up 3%) posting solid gains. A growing economy also means more electricity demand. Emissions in the electricity producing sector jumped 1.9%.

Then there's the irony of ironies: some of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which activists fear are causing runaway global warming, was due to an unusually cold winter last year. That's right: Businesses and homes used more fuel for heat than they have in years. Rhodium noted that CO2 from this winter effect rose 10% in 2018.

A Cold, Cold Winter

Are these bad things? No. Not at all.

First off, people need to heat their homes and businesses in winter. That's a given. Anyone who doubts that deserves the scorn and ridicule that surely would come their way for suggesting otherwise.

Second, those who have regained their jobs in factories across America should be cheered after living through years of steady, unremitting industrial decline. That some media outlets are now treating the very recent rise in CO2 output as some epic tragedy, please.

A healthy economy always produces more CO2 when its growing fast than otherwise. Our current growth rate is roughly 50% higher than it was under President Obama. If it didn't produce more CO2, that would be surprising.

"The boom in manufacturing is good news for American workers," said The Daily Caller, "however, major media outlets sounded the alarm on global warming." Both Washington Post and Bloomberg .

The Post was worst, claiming the "world has only about a decade to make the 'unprecedened changes necessary" to stave off climate disaster.

Of course, such predictions of doom are based on statistical models that have proven wrong repeatedly in the past. That's not science; it's little better than a Ouija Board. And yet, these prophets of climate doom would have us slash CO2 output and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs just to satisfy the demands of the green socialist movement.

Nothing's Forever — Not Even CO2

By the way, those gains in CO2 won't go on forever. The next slump or slowdown will take care of that, by causing many companies to close and many people to lose their jobs. And fracking will continue to chip away at our CO2 emissions.

Meanwhile, around the world, countries are abandoning their restrictions on CO2 emissions that have impoverished them and angered voters. They're also throwing aside the idea of punitive carbon taxes. People want jobs. They want incomes. They want better lives. And taxing them and the businesses they work for so that they'll be poorer and pollute less creates resentment, even rage.

Just ask France's Gilets Jaunes, who have nearly paralyzed President Emmanuel Macron's administration over his proposal for higher energy taxes. It should be a warning to U.S. Democrats, who hope to parlay fear of a changing climate into total control of the U.S. government.

As Nancy Pelosi said earlier this month, on becoming House speaker again, "We must... face the existential threat of our time: the climate crisis — a crisis manifested in natural disasters of epic proportions." This is nonsense on steroids.

Capitalism Cleans Up

The truth is, the world is getting much cleaner, when measured by CO2 output per dollar of GDP. So is the U.S. It's decarbonizing. And as the world population begins to decline later this century and new energy technologies come on line — everything from new battery technology to ultra-safe nuclear power designs — CO2 emissions won't be a problem, real or imagined.

The real problem? Having enough people working and paying taxes to support all the retirees around the world and pay off hundreds of trillions of dollars of global debt.

What is a problem is the nonstop fear-mongering, demands for more taxes, and dangerous socialist experiments in expanding government control of the economy, all in the name of warding off the threat of global warming.

So don't worry about this jump in CO2. It won't last. But the damage from bad green policies foisted on the economy will.

SOURCE

The Incredible Shrinking Credibility of the Climate Movement

The climate movement has become utterly ridiculous; driven by corporatists and ideologues who refuse to acknowledge anything that doesn’t fit their template.

I’m sick to death of the climate movement, by which I refer not to the cause per se but, rather, those who advocate for it on ideological grounds. They’ve chosen to ignore the real progress made toward achieving their supposed goals, reject debate and antagonize everyone who might actually make a difference. They’ve become serious demagogues and just as unserious about the facts. They’ve not only lost all credibility, but have become utterly laughable.

I’m old enough now to have lived through several predictions of environmental doom. The purveyors of this “eve of destruction” theme come at us regularly, issue one forecast after another that is never realized and are seldom held to account. I’ve learned enough at this point to know they’ll always be with us.

No amount of facts, history or logic will change that; there’s just too much emotional investment and too many special interests involved. Human nature is human nature and it isn’t pretty. Nonetheless, the truth eventually outs as those who buy into the fear and the distortions invariably take things too far and illustrate the emperor has no clothes. That’s the tipping point and it looks like we’re about there.

A sure sign of this is the yellow jacket resistance to climate movement fuel taxes France just proposed. Ironically, it did so in the weeks leading up to the big elitist climate meeting in Poland that virtually no one took seriously, providing a sharp contrast between fantasy and reality.

The climate movement is built upon a foundation of fantasy and deliberate ignorance when it comes to reality, of course. The fantasy is a virtual font of failed predictions because it is based on models invariably adopting the worst case assumptions, which is the first indication there’s something more than science going on. There is also a whole lot of evidence to the contrary. Take, for example, this wonderful video by our friend and guest blogger, Greg Wrightstone, the author of Inconvenient Facts:

Greg’s book is filled with stuff like this and is one of several I’ve read on the subject. His is the most readable and the best illustrated. I highly recommend it. Subscribe to his YouTube channel, too. I just did.

Having said that, I don’t reject the possibility there is some human impact on climate change. I tend to hold to views of scientists such as Judith Curry who acknowledges there could well be, but doesn’t get hysterical about it, choosing, instead, to put things in the proper context. That means continued research, thoughtful discussion and a search for policies we can all agree upon.

Surely, one of those policies should be natural gas development. It is low cost, it involves much lower CO2 emissions than either coal or oil and it stimulates real economical development in the areas where it is produced and huge consumer savings in the areas where it is consumed. It has achieved more dramatic reductions in not only CO2 but all emissions, improving air quality dramatically. The U.S., simply because it has not stood in the way of fracking, has done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than anyone, in fact, as the following chart (assembled from EIA data) demonstrates:

The data is incontrovertible; as natural gas production via fracking has soared, CO2 emissions have plummeted. Yet, the climate movement insists on ignoring it and exaggerating the threat of global warming. It is so thoroughly committed to the apocalyptic vision of a melting Earth that it insists on shutting down the speech of anyone who disagrees. It generates incredible amounts oh heat itself, in fact, putting out increasingly bizarre theories and predictions. Take, for instance, a story yesterday in the New York Times, entitled “Would Human Extinction Be A Tragedy?” Here’s the salient quote:

"There are stirrings of discussion these days in philosophical circles about the prospect of human extinction. This should not be surprising, given the increasingly threatening predations of climate change. In reflecting on this question, I want to suggest an answer to a single question, one that hardly covers the whole philosophical territory but is an important aspect of it. Would human extinction be a tragedy?"

This is the view of a professor of philosophy at Clemson University. Tuition and board at Clemson costs $50,516 per year, so don’t send your kids there. They’ll only learn to conform to a political correctness insisting not only that global warming is marauding threat but the Earth itself is worth more than the humans who inhabit it. Talk about self-hate! Todd May, the author of this claptrap, drivel that could only impress elitists worried about the masses threatening his own way of life, needs to get a grip.

Such is the nature of so much of the climate movement. It is impossible to take it seriously anymore. Enough with the endless spinning of doomsday scenarios based on little or nothing. Enough with the attempts to intimidate the speech of others and squelch it. Enough of the no-compromise, my way or no way, global warming politics. Enough of the corporatist schemes from the likes hedge funds types such as Nat Simons and Tom Steyer who but seek to add to their vast wealth and collections of houses by promoting green energy scams.

I’m sick to death of them. If they gave a damn about global warming, they’d be reasoning with us and admitting natural gas is part of the solution if one be needed. That they aren’t willing to do so tells me the climate movement isn’t about global warming at all. It’s about power, money and a substitute religion adopted by true believers. That and nothing more. Meanwhile, natural gas is reducing emissions across the board proving, yet again, that no good deed goes unpunished.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

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13 January, 2019

Ocean heat is climbing 40% faster than thought (?)

I add the introduction to the academic article after the journalist report below. There seems to be nothing in the academic paper to support the headline: "Ocean heat is climbing 40% faster than thought".

Zeke Hausfather is one of a trio of Warmist diehards behind the academic article and it would seem that he got carried away when he was talking to journalists about his article -- expanding his comments beyond what was found

But the paper is all based on corrections and estimates -- which are inherently unreliable anyway -- and if you wanted your corrections and estimates to be objective and unbiased, Zeke and his friends are the last ones you would turn to

New, independent observations from ocean buoys and other data sources show Earth's oceans are warming at a rate that's about 40% faster than indicated in the 2013 U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Why it matters: The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, resolves a key uncertainty in climate science by reconciling analyses from a variety of different scientific teams.

The oceans are absorbing about 93% of the extra heat going into the climate system. So far, most of that heat resides in the upper ocean, and is only slowly diffusing down into deeper waters. Faster warming is already resulting in tangible, harmful impacts, from coral bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef to rapidly intensifying hurricanes.

Scientists describe the ocean as having a "long memory," meaning that the heat going into the waters now will continue to be released long after humans cut greenhouse gas emissions (assuming we do take that course).

Be smart: The data from four different research groups now generally match the ocean heat content projections from the newest climate models, the study finds, which indicates that these models are accurately simulating the Earth's radiation budget.

“We can see the emergence of the signal of global warming much more clearly in ocean heat content,” says study co-author Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the climate research group Berkeley Earth.

Hausfather says 2018 will be the warmest year on record for the Earth's oceans, beating the record set just last year.

How it works: Because the ocean's heat content doesn't vary as sharply as surface temperatures, it is considered a more reliable indicator of global warming.

The impact: Warmer oceans are already causing unprecedented back-to-back coral bleaching events, and are contributing to sea-level rise. They're also causing glaciers to melt from below in Greenland and Antarctica.

Warmer waters provide critical fuel for extreme storms, with studies showing ties between Hurricane Harvey's devastating deluge and warmer than average waters in the Gulf of Mexico, for example.
Why you'll hear about this again: The oceans are a main reason why climate change will not relent even if emissions were to cease today, since they will continue to release heat, and also greenhouse gases, over time. There are also implications for carbon removal technologies, which are getting more attention from scientists and investments from major oil companies.

Lost in much of the discussion on carbon removal, however, is the potential for the oceans to spoil the party.

“The climate system has a long memory," Hausfather says, “It doesn’t warm as quickly as it otherwise would and it’s a lot harder to cool it back down once it starts warming.”

The bottom line: "Just like the oceans buffer the rate of warming, they would also similarly buffer the rate of cooling in a world where we had net-negative emissions," Hausfather says.
He cited a 2016 study that showed it would take slightly more negative emissions to reduce warming than it takes positive emissions to increase temperatures.

SOURCE

How fast are the oceans warming?

Lijing Cheng, John Abraham, Zeke Hausfather, Kevin E. Trenberth

Introduction:

Climate change from human activities mainly results from the energy imbalance in Earth's climate system caused by rising concentrations of heat-trapping gases. About 93% of the energy imbalance accumulates in the ocean as increased ocean heat content (OHC). The ocean record of this imbalance is much less affected by internal variability and is thus better suited for detecting and attributing human influences (1) than more commonly used surface temperature records. Recent observation-based estimates show rapid warming of Earth's oceans over the past few decades (see the figure) (1, 2). This warming has contributed to increases in rainfall intensity, rising sea levels, the destruction of coral reefs, declining ocean oxygen levels, and declines in ice sheets; glaciers; and ice caps in the polar regions (3, 4). Recent estimates of observed warming resemble those seen in models, indicating that models reliably project changes in OHC.

Science 11 Jan 2019: Vol. 363, Issue 6423, pp. 128-129. DOI: 10.1126/science.aav7619

Trump nominates Wheeler as permanent EPA administrator

President Trump nominated Andrew Wheeler to head the EPA on Wednesday, seeking to elevate the former coal lobbyist who has led the agency on an acting basis for six months.

Trump praised Wheeler in November for having “done a fantastic job” as acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency following the July 2018 resignation of the agency’s scandal-plagued chief, Scott Pruitt.

The nomination heads to the Senate, which confirmed Wheeler for his current job as the EPA’s deputy administrator last April by a vote of 53-45, amid complaints from Democrats and environmentalists that his energy-heavy roster of former lobbying clients could pose conflicts at the agency. Wheeler has vowed to steer clear of decisions affecting former clients, but those concerns are likely to figure prominently in a new round of Senate confirmation hearings and votes.

Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming who heads the committee that oversees the EPA and is responsible for vetting Wheeler’s nomination, said in a statement that he would work with committee members toward Wheeler’s confirmation. Wheeler “has done an outstanding job leading EPA and is well qualified to run the agency on a permanent basis,” Barrasso said.

Wheeler, a politically savvy former Senate aide, shares Trump’s approach to environmental regulation — and his commitment to easing Obama administration regulations governing climate change and pollution. But he has moved more methodically than Pruitt to pursue it.

He also has cultivated a relationship with EPA staff, repeatedly invoking his own deep history with the agency in a bid to forge ties with career employees.

Wheeler said he was “honored and grateful” for the nomination. “For me, there is no greater responsibility than protecting human health and the environment,” Wheeler said in an e-mailed statement. “I look forward to carrying out this essential task on behalf of the American public.”

Environmentalists immediately blasted the move, with Brett Hartl, government affairs director of the Center for Biological Diversity, saying “the only thing Wheeler is going to protect at the EPA is the profits of polluters.”

“I’m sure corporate board rooms will celebrate this nomination,” Hartl said by e-mail. “But for anyone who drinks water, breathes air, or cares about wildlife, this will be nothing but awful.”

Unlike Pruitt, Wheeler has avoided the limelight, instead working doggedly behind the scenes to advance policy priorities. With Wheeler at the helm, the agency has already sought to ease Obama-era limits on carbon dioxide from new coal plants and has proposed changes that could make it harder to toughen mercury emissions standards at the facilities.

Wheeler’s professional life has been tethered to the EPA, beginning in 1991, when he was hired for a non-political job focusing on toxic chemicals. After four years working at the EPA under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, he shifted to Capitol Hill, working for Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe.

After Wheeler left Capitol Hill in 2009, he took on a cadre of lobbying clients, eventually leading FaegreBD Consulting’s energy and environment practice group. His job was dedicated to advocating for chemical manufacturer Celanese Corp., coal producer Murray Energy Corp., uranium miner Energy Fuels Resources Inc., utility holding company Xcel Energy Inc., and other clients.

SOURCE

Greens begin push for nationwide 100 percent renewable energy mandate

Environmental groups are set to fan out on Capitol Hill on Thursday to lobby lawmakers to back a 100 percent renewable energy mandate for the nation as an essential part of the progressive "Green New Deal" agenda.

The groups, including Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity, and Food and Water Watch, along with 625 members, called on lawmakers in a letter to pursue legislation to ensure that all electricity comes from solar and wind by 2035 or sooner.

Renewable energy, under the groups’ definition, would not include any form of fossil fuel or combustion-based electricity generation, nuclear power plants, biomass energy, large-scale hydroelectric power, or waste-to-energy technologies.

The mandate corresponds to the United Nations' recently released report on climate change that recommends transitioning away from fossil fuels to avert the worst effects of climate change, including sea-level rise, stronger storms, flooding, and drought.

Those principles also align with the so-called "Green New Deal" agenda being floated by new Democrats in the House, which calls for taking more direct action to combat the threat of global warming.

Critics of that deal say that, if adopted, it would ultimately raise the cost of electricity and place additional burdens on the average consumer.

The activists swarming the Hill Thursday are also calling for mining and extraction policies that ensure fossil fuels are kept in the ground.

“Pursuing new fossil fuel projects at this moment in history is folly,” the groups state in a letter to lawmakers. “Most immediately, the federal government must stop selling off or leasing publicly owned lands, water, and mineral rights for development to fossil fuel producers.” The groups also want the government to ban approvals of all new fossil fuel power plants and infrastructure projects.

Additionally, the environmental activists are aiming to repeal recent legislation that ended the 40-year ban on crude oil exports to be reversed and to end the export of all other fossil fuels. They want a phase-out of existing fossil fuel plants and projects.

Meanwhile, another large environmental coalition called Environment America also launched a campaign to persuade the nation’s 20 new governors elected in November to enact laws and regulations to face the challenge posed by climate change.

Environment America is also using the U.N. report, in addition to the new national climate assessment issued by the U.S. government, to make the case for enacting new clean energy policies.

"With the stroke of a pen, governors can increase renewable energy use, reduce transportation emissions, and curb energy waste,” said Andrea McGimsey, Environment America’s senior director of global warming program. “These policies have proven effective and can bring immediate benefits to our health and environment."

Environment America’s list of principles is less prescriptive than the activist groups' letter to House and Senate lawmakers. For instance, it does not call specifically for a 100percent renewable energy goal, attributing the lack of specificity on the limits placed on governors by pre-existing laws.

Nevertheless, it does call on governors to enact aggressive clean-energy targets, impose limits on fossil fuel use and production, and transition to more electric cars.

SOURCE

The Two Energy Futures Facing America

There are two energy futures for America. One is freedom and prosperity. The other is politics, conflict, and waste. As with other goods and services, energy’s availability and affordability will depend on whether natural incentives and economic law are respected or hampered by government policy.

Free-Market Energy

The future of free-market energy is bright and open-ended. “It’s reasonable to expect the supply of energy to continue becoming more available and less scarce, forever,” Julian Simon wrote in his magnum opus, The Ultimate Resource II. “Discoveries, like resources, may well be infinite: the more we discover, the more we are able to discover.”

Resourceship, entrepreneurship applied to minerals, explains the seeming paradox of expanding depletable resources. Statistics confirmed Simon’s view, yet Malthusian critics belittled him as a naïve romantic. To which Simon responded: “I am not an optimist, I am a realist.”

Julian Simon had once feared overpopulation and resource depletion. The contradictory data, as he explained in his autobiography A Life Against the Grain, reversed his thinking. More people, greater wealth, more resources, healthier environment was the new finding that Simon turned into articles, books, and lectures in the last decades of his life.

Energy coordination and improvement do not depend on geography or race but on the right institutions. Sustainable energy—available, affordable, and reliable—requires private property rights, voluntary exchange, and the rule of law. Cultural and legal freedom unleash human ingenuity and problem-solving entrepreneurship, what Simon called the ultimate resource.

Philosopher Alex Epstein has reframed the energy-environmental debate in terms of human flourishing. Under this standard, consumer-chosen, taxpayer-neutral, dense, storable mineral energies are essential and moral.

Free-market energy is a process of improvement, not a state of perfection. There is always room for betterment as the good is no longer the best and as problems and setbacks occur. Profit/loss and legal consequences propel correction in a way that government intervention does not.

Problems spur improvement in ways that otherwise might not occur. “Material insufficiency and environmental problems have their benefits,” noted Julian Simon. “They focus the attention of individuals and communities, and constitute a set of challenges which can bring out the best in people.”

Energy Statism

Government interventionism has plagued domestic energy markets in pronounced and subtle ways. Price and allocation controls during wartime and in the 1970s caused shortages of gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, and other essential products. More subtly, tariffs, quotas, entry restrictions, efficiency edicts, punitive taxes, tax subsidies, forced access, profit guarantees, and other government intervention distort energy markets away from consumer demand.

Socialism has reversed resource abundance in nations around the world. Venezuela is today’s example and is not unlike Mexico’s plunge into nationalism a century ago. International statism is responsible for much of the price volatility experienced in global oil markets.

American citizens must be educated on the perils of politicized energy and corporate cronyism at all levels of government. Capitalist institutions need to be introduced in state-dominated oil regions. Subsoil mineral rights and infrastructure privatization are golden opportunities for wealth creation and wealth democratization around the world.

Conclusion

“The world’s problem is not too many people,” Julian Simon concluded, “but a lack of political and economic freedom.” He explained:

The extent to which the political-social-economic system provides personal freedom from government coercion is a crucial element in the economics of resources and population…. The key elements of such a framework are economic liberty, respect for property, and fair and sensible rules of the market that are enforced equally for all.

This message for 2019 will be the same a century hence. It is optimistic and realistic. And it points toward a continuing open-ended role for natural gas, coal, and oil as the master resource.

Let freely functioning supply meet demand, and let market demand meet supply. Banish alarmism, pessimism, and coercion—the very things that incite and define government intervention and socialism where markets can and should prevail.

SOURCE

Paris Agreement to shrink Australian economy, says US’s Brookings Institution

Australia’s economy will be among the worst affected by the Paris climate change agreement, enduring slower growth, fewer jobs and a “notable” 6 per cent slump in the exchange rate, according to a new analysis of the global accord.

The report by the Washington-based Brookings Institution also finds the treaty will fail to cut carbon emissions on 2015 levels or put the world on a path to keeping global temperature rises to 2C or less.

The co-ordinated push to save the planet from climate change will shrink the economy by about 2 per cent and sap household wealth by 0.5 per cent by 2030, even if Australia chooses to back out of the agreement, the report found.

“Because Australia relies heavily on fossil fuels for its own use and as a source of export revenue, it experiences a large fall in investment, a significant capital outflow, and the largest depreciation of the real exchange rate,” the report said.

“For Australia, the Paris Agreement still has a significant impact on GDP even when Australia does not participate. These losses occur because Australia’s exports of fossil fuels are still subject to the CO2 tax in other regions, and the revenue is collected outside Australia.”

The report estimated employment would fall 1 per cent — or 127,000 jobs based on present levels — by 2020, with some offsetting gains later as workers shifted to the renewable energy sector.

The analysis, which ignored the impact of climate change itself, found only Australia and OPEC nations came out behind overall because the benefits of less pollution, less traffic and lower mortality under the Paris Agreement did not offset the damage to economic growth, arising largely as a result of the implicit global tax on energy exports.

The Morrison government, which opted to remain in the Paris accord against the wishes of hardline conservatives, leapt on the report to attack Labor over its promised 45 per cent emissions cut. “Our economy is growing stronger than any G7 nation besides the US, while emissions per person are at their lowest levels in 28 years,” Acting Environment Minister Simon Birmingham said.

“The choice at the next election is between our responsible balancing of environmental and economic considerations or Labor’s reckless doubling of emissions targets, which will smash our economy and drive electricity prices even higher.”

Labor said its plan to ramp up emissions cuts was “calibrated to represent Australia’s fair share of emissions reductions to keep global warming to below 2C ”.

Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler said it was no surprise that current commitments by Paris signatories would fail to keep temperature rises below 2C.

“That is why the Paris Agreement includes a ratchet mechanism to increase ambition, and it is why the Morrison government are lying to Australians when they insist their already inadequate 26 per cent emissions-reduction target is sufficient and doesn’t need to be increased,” he said.

Warwick McKibbin, an ANU economics professor and one of the report’s authors, said Australia could not avoid economic pain by pulling out of the agreement.

“If we stay in, we’re better off because if we pull out, we’ll still be getting most of the economic damage — other countries won’t be buying our resources so much — but miss out on the benefits of curbing carbon emissions such as less pollution,” Professor McKibbin told The Australian.

“You don’t have to believe in climate change at all to support staying in Paris. That said, if you just cared about jobs or real wages but didn’t care about climate or pollution, you’d stay out.”

According to the report, Australia’s promised carbon emissions cuts equate to a 35 per cent reduction on forecast 2030 levels, compared with the US’s 25 per cent, China’s 27 per cent, Russia’s 20 per cent and Japan’s 42 per cent.

The research compared the promises to reduce carbon emissions of eight nations or groups of nations, and the costs and benefits to each if all fulfilled their undertaking using a carbon tax, which economists say is the most efficient way to curb emissions.

“Emissions are still not declining in absolute terms, let alone following a path consistent with a 2C stabilisation,” the research found, suggesting the goal of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, would not be reached even if all 197 participating countries lived up to their promises.

The Minerals Council of Australia said the report confirmed the “significant negative impact” of lowering carbon emissions, but reiterated its support for the accord.

MCA chief executive Tania Constable said using a mix of technologies and abatement methods was crucial to minimising the economic impact of emissions cuts in the treaty, and called for the removal of the ban on nuclear power under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. “This would be a costless way to allow zero emission dispatchable power sources available 24/7 into Australia’s energy mix,” she said.

The paper assumed a government-introduced $5-a-tonne carbon tax from 2020 — which neither the Coalition nor Labor has foreshadowed — to cut Australia’s carbon emissions by a promised 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.

In June 2017, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in a move many Australian conservatives, including Tony Abbott, wanted to emulate. But abandoning the treaty would make almost no difference to outcomes for Australia, assuming other signatories still fulfilled their promises, the study found.

Professor McKibbin said a Chinese withdrawal, however, would have a big positive effect on economic outcomes for Australia: “They’d still buy our fossil fuels but we wouldn’t lose the environmental ‘co-benefits’ of lower carbon emissions at home.”

The research found that “almost half of the reduction in global emissions comes from China’s participation”.

Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, who has consistently called for Australia to pull out of the Paris Agreement, said the report confirmed “Paris is not pain-free … There is a lot pain in cutting emissions by 26 per cent: in lower wages and lower GDP growth, and a lower exchange rate that makes all imported goods more expensive. The pain of a 45 per cent cut would be enormous.”

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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11 January, 2019

Donald Trump is threatening to cut off federal money to aid California’s deadly wildfires, claiming the money is being wasted

He's absolutely right. Greenie meddling in forest management is killing people

In a tweet, the US President announced he has already ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to withhold funding for the state unless it takes measures to improve forest management.

“Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest fires that, with proper Forrest Management, would never happen,” Mr Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, local time. “Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!”

Critics on social media questioned whether Mr Trump could legally withhold FEMA money that has already been appropriated.

This isn’t the first time the US President has lashed out at California for its handling of the destructive wildfires. In November, he blamed wildfires across the state on “gross mismanagement” and threatened to stop federal payments unless officials addressed their strategy.

State officials and local firefighters have accused Mr Trump of not understanding the issues involved in fighting fires, adding that climate change has worsened the impact of the natural disasters.

Mr Trump’s latest funding threat comes as he continues to face criticism over the ongoing partial government shutdown, which affects some of FEMA’s operations. The shutdown has so far lasted 19 days, and counting.

The Northern California wildfire of 2018 killed at least 85 people and destroyed thousands of buildings across the state, obliterating the entire town of Paradise.

The natural disaster was the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in California history, leaving an overall damage cost of $23 billion, according to German insurance company Munich Re.

SOURCE

Head of Brazil's environmental agency resigns

The chief of Brazil's environmental protection agency resigned on Monday after the new government led by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro -- a critic of its treatment of mining and farm interests -- raised questions over its spending.

Suelly Araujo said in a letter to Environment Minister Ricardo Salles that she would step down on Tuesday as head of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources, IBAMA. She had led the agency since June 2016.

Salles last week tweeted an excerpt from an Ibama contract signed in July 2018 for the rental of vehicles at a cost of 28.7 million reais ($7.8 million at current exchange rates).

"Nearly 30 million reais in car rentals for Ibama alone," Salles said in his post. That was retweeted -- then deleted -- by Bolsonaro, who added that his government was uncovering "mountains of irregularities."

Araujo said in her Instagram feed that she considered the comment to be "an unfounded accusation, which shows a total misunderstanding of the size of Ibama and its functions."

She said the contract covered the lease of 393 SUVs modified for patrolling forests, fighting fires, technical examinations across Brazil's 27 states, and included fuel, maintenance and insurance, with a vehicle turnover every two years.

Araujo noted that media reports had already "amply" spoken of a successor who she said was named by Bolsonaro's team even before he took office on New Year's Day.

Ibama's press service told AFP that Araujo had not officially received any notification that she was to be replaced.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly criticized Ibama for what he sees as overly slow action on environmental permits to timber, farming and mining companies, and a perceived zeal in handing out fines.

He has made it clear that he intends to put business interests above environmental ones to boost exploitation of Brazilian commodities and resources as part of a plan to boost the economy.

SOURCE

Prodding Trump’s EPA to reexamine Endangerment

Use external pressure to overcome Administration inertia on reviewing Endangerment Finding

William L. Kovacs

Campaign rhetoric strongly suggested that the Trump Administration would redress the Obama Administration’s insane attempts to regulate every aspect of society in a futile attempt to control nature and climate. President Trump withdrew from the Paris Accord, initiated repeal of the Clean Power Plan, sought a reasonable replacement for the plan, and turned off the regulatory fire hose. Great start!

But two years in, it is clear that the administration has stalled on dealing with the most significant part of Obama regulatory overreach: the 2009 Endangerment Finding – the Environmental Protection Agency’s declaration that plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threaten the health and welfare of current and future generations.

While the Finding itself does not impose any new regulations, it does provide the administrative basis to justify a massive number of regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, data and facts asserted as supporting the Endangerment Finding (EF) drive many climate change studies, including the November 23, 2018 study titled Climate Change Special Report – Fourth National Climate Assessment Authoritative Report on the Science of Climate Change with a Focus on the United States.

Most unfortunate of all, while the evidentiary basis for the Endangerment Finding was subject to informal public comment and the scope of the Obama era Clean Power Plan was enjoined by a court, the studies underlying EPA’s Endangerment Finding have not been subjected to outside, independent expert analysis, nor tested in the rigors of cross-examination in a court or courtroom setting.

Simply put, without independent testing of the factual claims establishing its Finding, EPA retains the power to regulate all energy-producing and energy-using activities throughout the United States – and thus to regulate our production, consumption, transportation, employment base and living standards.

Since the climate change issue could not be resolved when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, it is even more improbable that a divided Congress could ever reach a compromise. Even worse, while EPA talked tough on climate change in the early days of the Trump Administration, it has since hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on its front door.

So, what can citizens do in the next two years, knowing that neither Congress nor the administration will act to critically examine the supposed “facts” set forth in EPA’s Endangerment Finding?

My moral code prohibits me from saying “there is nothing we can do.” So I will set forth some modest proposals that can be taken up by younger people who have the energy and willingness to discover, highlight and dramatize the true facts and evolving knowledge underlying the science of climate change.

First and foremost, EPA must release all of its climate studies. It might surprise some, but many of the foundational studies have never been publicly released or are so old they are corrupted. In a similar case, amid my 20-year effort to obtain the “Six-City” health study, EPA told me in the late 1990s that the information belonged to Harvard University. A few years later, when I sought it under the Data Access law, EPA said information in the studies was developed before 2000 and the law was not retroactive. The Bush administration responded to my FOIA with documents that were so redacted that the only readable words were the “to” and “from” on the first page. And finally, the Obama administration told me the studies could not be produced because the information is now too corrupted to be usable.

But this is not about the lack of transparency in government. It is about obtaining and analyzing EPA’s climate data and studies, so that the science underlying the Endangerment Finding can be tested. That means you should not pre-judge any of the studies. You must let the analysis of facts in the studies be your guide. This is essential, because otherwise environmentalist groups, the news media, left-leaning politicians and others with a stake in the 2009 Finding will paint the entire effort as an attempt to destroy the planet and human civilization.

This search for the facts is crucial since establishing the facts is essential for developing the right policies for now and for after the Trump administration is gone. If the science proves the EF is solidly supported by the evidence, we will all know that we must develop and implement the very costly policies needed for mitigation. If the facts prove the Finding is faulty or highly uncertain, then the nation could save trillions of dollars by not implementing numerous useless projects. Here are my suggestions:

1) File a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesting from EPA a list of all climate studies it has undertaken and links to the electronic version of the Endangerment Finding studies. A citizen friendly EPA should be most willing to provide the list of and link to the studies.

2) Should EPA provide this list and links, scientists from around the world could review the quality of the studies by evaluating them under the standards of review set out in the OMB Information Quality Act (IQA) Guidance Document: peer review, objectivity, reproducibility and similar standards. There are likely thousands of studies, so the essential first task is to identify the most influential studies, of which there are likely only a few.

3) A similar request could be filed under the Data Access Law for studies performed after 1999.

4) For the most influential studies, request that EPA provide the underlying data so that the actual data can be tested in accordance with the IQA Guidance Document. The government paid for and owns this data, so it should be available to citizens to test its reliability, reproducibility and the peer review quality.

5) When the most influential studies are identified and the underlying data secured, hire a team of forensic data scientists to analyze the data used in EPA’s studies, to determine whether the studies’ authors used the data properly … or used them in ways that supported a personal bias. For the most influential studies, the forensic data team should also review the emails that relate to the government study.

6) Concurrently, a group of non-scientists should compile a list of the scientists who performed the studies, the amounts the scientists were paid, potential conflicts of interest, the total number of federal grants each scientist received, and the qualifications of each scientist working on the climate studies.

7) Establish a review board of independent, non-political climate experts to determine the soundness of the facts underlying the Endangerment Finding. If the facts are sound, the matter is settled.

8) If the facts are judged not to support the EF or if they establish a high degree of uncertainty, then it is essential that a Petition for Rulemaking be presented to EPA to conform its Endangerment Finding with the data. If it is granted, then the process of getting the facts corrected will start.

9) If EPA denies the petition, the matter should be taken to federal trial court to challenge the arbitrariness of EPA’s decision. Keep in mind: this crazy idea to challenge an EPA denial of a petition for rulemaking in court is exactly the process that environmental groups used to win the Massachusetts v. EPA case in the Supreme Court. Just don’t forget – you need to include a few states to have standing to sue.

What is outlined is a long, long shot. It requires that EPA make government-owned scientific data available to the public for review. It assumes the Trump administration will be open to such a process and can make it happen in two years. It assumes that funds can be raised to hire the best scientists in the world to analyze the facts and defend them in court, if necessary. Finally, to paraphrase Colonel Jessup in the movie “A Few Good Men,” it assumes that both sides will be prepared to handle the truth.

But at least we will all have attempted to find the truth behind the Endangerment Finding, so our country will have the best information possible on which to make some very expensive and far-reaching public policy decisions.

Via email

Are the Greenie bike-riders getting tired of it?

As a correspondent said to me: "Sports cars are more fun, attract more women, they get you to work quicker and you arrive fresh and dry"

by Jeff Jacoby

SEATTLE IS one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the United States — by one reckoning, the most bicycle-friendly. It's also a city in which bike commuting is rapidly losing its appeal. In 2017, according to recent Census Bureau data, a mere 2.8 percent of Seattle's workforce commuted to work by bicycle. That was down from 3.5 percent in 2016, and from 4 percent in 2015. The Seattle Times reports that bike commuting in the Emerald City has fallen to its lowest level in a decade. In raw numbers, the number of people cycling to work in Seattle has plunged from a peak of 16,000 to fewer than 12,000 — a decline of one-fourth.

It isn't only Seattle where the bloom is off the cycling rose. Between 2016 and 2017, bicycle commuting dropped by 12.1 percent in Boston, by 13.7 percent in Atlanta, by 19.9 percent in San Francisco, and by 24.1 percent in Austin. Nationwide, the average number of Americans using a bike to get to work fell to just 836,569, a decrease of 3.2 percent over the past year. It was the third consecutive annual decrease — at a time when the number of US workers is climbing. (Note: The Census Bureau asks about biking only in the context of commuting.)

Considering the billions of dollars that federal, state, and local governments have poured into bicycle infrastructure over the past decade, the steady drop in cycling amounts to a sharp vote of no confidence in bicycles as the much-touted wave of transportation's future. So maybe it's time for public officials and policymakers to turn their backs on the militant, self-righteous bike lobby and its fantasy of a world in which drivers defer to cyclists as the rightful kings of the road. Bicycles — nimble, healthful, non-polluting, cheap — have many advantages. But they don't belong in crowded urban traffic.

There could be a number of reasons for the drop in bicycle commuting. Americans overwhelmingly prefer to travel by car, and lower gasoline prices are making it easier for them to do so. At the same time, more Americans are working from home, and so don't commute at all. It is also plausible, as the head of the California Bicycle Coalition told USA Today, that some commuters have switched from biking to ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft.

Plainly, however, tens of thousands of Americans have had second thoughts about cycling to their jobs. And that's despite the recent mania for inserting bike lanes into city streets, which has everywhere disadvantaged the vast majority of commuters who drive in order to accommodate the tiny minority who bike.

Subtracting or squeezing already-crowded car lanes for the benefit of cyclists is a terrible idea. As bicycle lanes have worsened traffic congestion, they have led to a "bikelash" in communities as disparate as Los Angeles, Memphis, and Boise, Idaho. The doctrine that cars, buses, and trucks should "share the road" with bicycles sounds egalitarian and green, but it's as impractical as expecting motor vehicles to "share" urban thoroughfares with skateboards and strollers. The chief function of those roads is to keep people and goods moving as rapidly, efficiently, and safely as possible. Bike lanes unavoidably impede that function — often to the detriment of bike riders themselves.

"Cyclists are at high risk when they're on the road," observed environmentalist Lawrence Solomon in Canada's Financial Post. Citing data from Canada and Europe, he noted that the accident rate for bicycles is at least 26 times the rate for cars, explaining that dedicated bike lanes are more likely to cause accidents, especially when cyclists and drivers turn or cross at intersections. Within the European Union, cyclists accounted for 12 percent of all urban road deaths as of 2017. In the almost obsessively bike-friendly Netherlands, wrote Solomon, a whopping two-thirds of individuals seriously injured in road accidents were bicycle riders — the majority of them hurt not by cars but by poor road conditions or the cyclist's own negligence.

In the United States, meanwhile, the Transportation Department reports that the number of annual cyclist fatalities climbed 20 percent between 2007 and 2016.

For drivers and cyclists alike, the roads can be a challenge, clogged and dangerous. Where street space is scarce and traffic is heavy, bicycle lanes simply don't work. They may initially have seemed appealing, but Americans know better now. Commuting by bike is not the wave of our urban future. It's just another overrated utopian scheme.

SOURCE

Australian Warmists spin like a top

How do you spin a COOLING temperature? You call it the third warmest! Both statements are true but their implications differ greatly, though neither foretells the future. Below is the graph put out by Australia's great temple of Warmism, the BoM -- well-known "fiddlers" of temperature data

It shows a roughly one degree temperature increase since about 1960. Australia is not the world, however, so a more informative graph is the global satellite record, the only truly global measure of temperature

The satellites show about a 0.2 degree rise on average since 1999. That is one fifth of one degree Celsius. One fifth of one degree -- that tiny amount is enough to keep Warmists tumescent. But you may understand that skeptics vary between saying it is trivial to saying it is not significant at all.

But that's not all of the bad news for warmism. The satellite graph shows clearly that the temperature has been DECLINING since 2016. Are we entering a period of global cooling? Could be. The truth however is that nobody knows. Temperatures on earth have been warmer and have been cooler. Anything is possible.

Temperatures have risen in fits and starts over the last century or so but nobody knows why and nobody can tell whether or for how long that will continue. The one certainty is that temperatures do not remotely track CO2 levels. From 1945 to 1975 global temperatures stayed flat on average while CO2 levels rose sharply. That is a total contradiction of Warmist theory

2018 was Australia’s third hottest year on record. You’re not imagining it, it really is hot out there. And, no, it’s not just summer as usual. The last 12 months have been abnormally hot.

If you thought it was hotter than usual last year, you weren’t wrong. Climate experts have confirmed it was Australia’s third-warmest year on record, with every state and territory recording above average temperatures in 2018.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) annual climate statement, the nation’s average temperature last year was 1.14C above the average for 1961-1990, making 2018 slightly warmer than 2017.

“When we look across all of Australia in 2018, we can see that every single state and territory had above average day and night-time temperatures,” the Bureau’s senior climatologist Lynette Bettio said in a statement on Thursday.

Only 2005 and 2013 were warmer.

Nine of the 10 warmest years on record in Australia have occurred since 2005. Dr Bettio said the only part of the country to buck the trend for above average temperatures was Western Australia’s Kimberley Region, which had cooler than average nights for the year.

The BOM also said rainfall totals in Australia in 2018 were the lowest since 2005.

The total was 11 per cent below the 1961-1990 average, but many areas experienced significantly lower average rainfalls, the bureau found. Dr Bettio said large areas of southeast Australia had rainfall totals in the lowest 10 per cent on record.

New South Wales had its sixth-driest year on record while the Murray-Darling Basin had its seventh driest.

However, some parts of northern Australia and southeast Western Australia received above-average rainfall totals.

The Bureau’s statement follows a run of exceptionally high temperatures around the nation late last month, along with a prolonged heatwave in Queensland in late November and early December.

Globally, 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service assessment, released on Tuesday. The last four years have seen the highest average temperatures globally since records began in the 19th century.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

10 January, 2019

A jellyfish ‘epidemic’ has Australian scientists wondering if climate change is to be blamed

Why are they wondering? We all know that EVERYTHING bad is caused by climate change! It is however just a theory. There is no proof. Intermittent jellyfish infestations of Australia's Northern coastal waters have been happening for a long time -- definitely before global warming. They were a big concern when I was a kid and I am now 75

Authorities in Queensland, Australia, were forced to close beaches across the region over the weekend, amid what local officials said was a jellyfish ‘‘epidemic.’’ More than 13,000 stings were recorded in Queensland alone last week, with more than 2,500 people seeking treatment over the weekend, according to rescue organizations.

While the vast majority of those stings are not life-threatening and were caused by so-called bluebottle colonies, researchers say that the number of more serious injuries from less common jellyfish is also at above-average levels.

Some researchers also say this jellyfish infestation could be one more thing to blame on climate change.

‘‘Unlike other species, jellyfish are stimulated by just about any change to the ecosystem. So, it’s reasonable to say that the jellyfish might potentially be responding to the warmer-than-usual weather,’’ said marine life researcher Lisa Gershwin, who works with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which is Australia’s national science agency.

While researchers are still examining how much recent heat waves may have contributed to the current jellyfish bloom off Australia’s coasts, they can already say with certainty how they got to the beaches: strong and unusual winds pushing toward Queensland.

Gershwin and other scientists say that the surge in stings is unlikely to be coincidental. ‘‘Jellyfish are demanding our attention right now and we should be giving it to them. Those stings are an indication that something is wrong with our oceans — and we’re silly that we’re not listening,’’ said Gershwin.

While some scientists have been more careful about linking climate change and jellyfish blooms, given a lack of long-term data so far, most researchers agree that jellyfish populations respond positively to a number of human-induced changes, including pollution, overfishing, and warmer water. ‘‘All of this takes out their predators and competitors, so they’re the ‘last men standing,’?’’ said Gershwin.

For some less common species, that’s also true for any contact with humans. While a so-called Irukandji variety of jellyfish can cause hours-long body pain and potential strokes, the number of actual deaths is relatively low. By 2017, there had only been two recorded fatalities in Queensland, according to the Department of Health there. Far more dangerous are box jellyfish, which have caused more than 70 fatalities across Australia.

Even though there is no definite way to predict future fatalities caused by jellyfish blooms, Australian researchers are concerned that the numbers could rise significantly.

Australian environmental activists say that their own government shares some of the blame, pointing at the lack of a coordinated effort to target plastic pollution in the waters around the Australian coastline, for example. In October, the conservative governing party faced additional criticism after it rejected calls to abandon coal power by 2050.

While Australia’s current government does not appear in a rush to tackle some of those factors, other nations like China have a far bigger carbon and plastic waste footprint and it’s unlikely that this will change any time soon. Combined, that makes for some pessimistic predictions.

‘‘[Jellyfish] are bad for the environment; they’re bad for humans. Having more jellyfish isn’t something good — but I’d say we’re on track to that,’’ said Gershwin.

SOURCE

What's the Point of a Carbon Tax Rebate?

The Irish government is proposing rebates to a carbon tax it recently imposed to households that comply with what it considers “low-carbon lifestyles.” The rebate, according to Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, might be in the form of a check, an increase in welfare benefits or a tax credit for people who live the way the government thinks they should.

Some believe that if implemented, the rebate could reduce tensions seen in many parts of Europe, but especially in France, where the “yellow vest” movement that began as a protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s big tax increase on gasoline, since rescinded, made a gallon of petrol among the most expensive in Europe with the tax accounting for more than half the cost.

I’m doubtful. People don’t like their governments forcing them to accept a lesser lifestyle because of an ideology some believe has yet to be definitively proved, while the elites continue to live as they like.

So strong is the faith of the climate change cult that McDonald’s, the world’s largest purchaser of beef, is considering “meat alternatives” because of alleged environmental damage from traditional farming methods, according to a story in the Financial Times.

In the United States, Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” resembled the media in totalitarian countries when he announced that henceforth he would not give air time to climate change deniers. Todd says that’s because climate change is “settled science.” The many legitimate scientists with knowledge and experience in climate who disagree are to be isolated in an ideological gulag for not toeing the party line.

Roy Spencer is a meteorologist, a research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Writing for the Global Warming Policy Forum, a London-based think tank, Spencer says “2018 marked the second straight year when global temperatures declined and that last year was the sixth warmest year globally since El Nino peaked in February, 2016.”

As the Irish Times writes, recent projections by Ireland’s Economic and Social Justice Institute found that the carbon tax would have to increase substantially — from 100 euros per person annually to 1,500 euros if the country is to meet legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Let’s see how that will go down with the Irish, who have only recently begun to emerge from a long economic recession.

SOURCE

U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions saw a yearly increase of 3.4 percent in 2018, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday

The rise represents the second-biggest yearly gain in over two decades, independent research provider the Rhodium Group said in a note. The figures are based on "preliminary power generation, natural gas, and oil consumption data." The increase was only surpassed by the 2010 figures when the economy was bouncing back from the global financial crash, it said.

Breaking the figures down, the transportation sector remained the largest source of emissions in the U.S. for the third year in a row, with "robust growth in demand" for both diesel and jet fuel offsetting a "modest" drop in gasoline consumption.

While a record amount of coal-fired power plants were shut in 2018, emissions from the power sector grew by 1.9 percent, the note said. This was down to natural gas replacing the majority of this lost generation and feeding the majority of growth in electricity demand.

The buildings and industrial sectors also showed "big year-on-year emissions gains." This was in part down to "unusually cold" weather at the beginning of 2018. The estimates in Tuesday's note refer to energy-related CO2 emissions only.

SOURCE

Fracking’s Secret Projection Gap: Analysis shows many wells underperform

Thousands of shale wells drilled in the last five years are pumping less oil and gas than their owners forecast to investors, raising questions about the strength and profitability of the fracking boom that turned the U.S. into an oil superpower.

The Wall Street Journal compared the well-productivity estimates that top shale-oil companies gave investors to projections from third parties about how much oil and gas the wells are now on track to pump over their lives, based on public data of how they have performed to date.

Two-thirds of projections made by the fracking companies between 2014 and 2017 in America’s four hottest drilling regions appear to have been overly optimistic, according to the analysis of some 16,000 wells operated by 29 of the biggest producers in oil basins in Texas and North Dakota.

Collectively, the companies that made projections are on track to pump nearly 10% less oil and gas than they forecast for those areas, according to the analysis of data from Rystad Energy AS, an energy consulting firm. That is the equivalent of almost one billion barrels of oil and gas over 30 years, worth more than $30 billion at current prices. Some com panies are off track by more than 50% in certain regions.

The shale boom has lifted U.S. output to an all-time high of 11.5 million barrels a day, shaking up the geopolitical balance by putting U.S. production on par with Saudi Arabia and Russia. The Journal’s findings suggest current production levels may be hard to sustain without greater spending because operators will have to drill more wells to meet growth targets.

Yet shale drillers, most of whom have yet to consistently make money, are under pressure to cut spending in the face of a 40% crude-oil price decline since October.

Companies whose wells appear to lag behind forecasts, according to the analysis, include Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Parsley Energy Inc., two of the biggest oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico. The Journal’s review didn’t include some leading producers, such as Exxon Mobil Corp., because they didn’t make shale well projections.

Pioneer, Parsley and several other companies disputed the findings, saying the third-party estimates used by the Journal differ from their forecasts on key points such as the likely lifespan of shale wells.

Some companies, including major North Dakota producer Whiting Petroleum Corp., acknowledged the forecasts can be unreliable and said they were moving away from providing such estimates.

Another North Dakota driller, Oasis Petroleum Inc., said the projections it provided in investor presentations were estimates made as it tested drilling in vast tracts, including areas it has since abandoned. “It’s not a science,” said Richard Robuck, the company’s treasurer. “It’s more of an art.”

Few U.S. shale companies disclose exactly how they make their forecasts—the systems they use and the assumptions they make to estimate well-by well production—or whether their projections from years ago hit the mark. The fact that many have missed is an open secret in the industry.

“I certainly expect many of today’s estimates will turn out to have been pretty optimistic,” said Francis O’Sullivan, director of research for the MIT Energy Initiative, which has examined shale forecasting. He said the complex geology of shale basins and assumptions based on a small number of wells could make forecasts unreliable.

“There is profound variability in the performance of these wells,” he said.

Schlumberger Ltd., the oilfield- services giant, reported in a research paper that secondary shale wells completed near older, initial wells in West Texas have been as much as 30% less productive than the initial ones.

The problem threatens to upend growth projections for America’s hottest oil field, the company said in October.

Oil engineers and reserves specialists say existing data suggests there is a more accurate way to model well output. Operators, they say, must use more conservative assumptions about how quickly production will decline and how many wells can be drilled in a given area. Operators also should avoid making forecasts without a sufficient sample size of wells, they say.

Flawed forecasting doesn’t mean U.S. oil output is about to drop. Shale wells reach peak production quickly and rapidly decline, so companies are constantly drilling new wells. But if thousands of shale wells produce less over their lifetimes, companies will reap less of a long tail than anticipated, requiring them to spend more to sustain output and making it harder for them to reach profitability.

Shale companies have attracted huge amounts of capital from Wall Street over the past decade. So far, investors have largely lost money. Since 2008, an index of U.S. oil and gas companies has fallen 43%, while the S&P 500 index has more than doubled in that time, including dividends. The 29 companies in the Journal’s analysis have spent $112 billion more in cash than they generated from operations in the last 10 years, according to data from Fact Set, a financial-information firm.

All oil companies are required to file estimates of total proven oil reserves with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Those estimates, governed by strict rules, generally only capture future reserves companies plan to tap in a five-year period. As the fracking boom intensified, many exploration and production companies looked for a way to persuade investors to value their prospects outside of that five-year window. Shale companies began touting a metric known as estimated ultimate recovery, or EUR, in investor presentations.

The estimates, often represented graphically by what is known as a type curve, project how much oil and gas wells are likely to produce over several decades, including the rate of decline.

EUR estimates from many companies were grounded on two assumptions: that they could pack wells closer together, squeezing more value from the land they leased, and that they could replicate their best early wells. The results to date suggest those assumptions were often wrong.

The Journal’s analysis involves public data that at times gives an incomplete picture of well performance. North Dakota reports oil and gas production by well, but Texas does so only by land parcel. Third-party data providers must extrapolate to make up for that, meaning their data may not be as precise as well-level data maintained by companies.

The Journal relied primarily on figures from Rystad Energy, but consulted with several other third-party providers, including Oseberg Inc. and BLR Digital LLC, whose data pointed to similar conclusions. Those providers forecast well output over several decades based on early, publicly reported production data, taking into account typical decline rates.

When oil prices plummeted around 75% between 2014 and 2016, to below $30 a barrel, many shale companies used EUR estimates to try to persuade investors that the sector remained a strong place to put their money.

The production forecasts made by many companies were “dangerous” because they were based on a small population of wells, and the performance of individual wells varies significantly, said Norman MacDonald, a natural-resource specialist at asset manager Invesco Ltd.

“Companies were able to high-grade the numbers, show those to Wall Street, and the stock price went up accordingly,” said Mr. MacDonald, a portfolio manager who has urged shale companies to prioritize profits over production growth. “Geology doesn’t line up with Excel spreadsheets too well, unfortunately.”

In September 2015, Pioneer Natural Resources, based in Irving, Texas, told investors that it expected wells in the Eagle Ford shale of South Texas to produce 1.3 million barrels of oil and gas apiece. Those wells now appear to be on a pace to produce about 482,000 barrels, 63% less than forecast, according to the Journal’s analysis.

An average of Pioneer’s 2015 forecasts for wells it had recently fracked in the Midland portion of the Permian Basin suggested they would produce about 960,000 barrels of oil and gas each. Those wells are now on track to produce about 720,000 barrels, according to the Journal’s review, 25% below Pioneer’s projections.

Pioneer disputed the conclusions, noting that it assumes its wells will produce for at least 50 years, while Rystad Energy uses 30 years in its forecasts. Pioneer also assumes its well productivity will fall off at a slower rate than the 7% final decline rate Rystad assumes.

“We find it is simply impossible to compare the numbers due to the methodological differences,” a Pioneer spokesman said.

Adjusting for those factors doesn’t fully make up for the disparity in production forecasts.

If Pioneer’s wells produce for 50 years and decline at 5% annually, its current production trajectory would still be nearly 12% below the company’s forecast of 849,000 barrels of oil and gas in the Permian, according to the Journal’s analysis. In the Eagle Ford, estimated production would increase only slightly to 498,000 barrels, or 62% less than the company projected.

A spokesman for Pioneer said problems in the Eagle Ford in 2015 were “widely known,” and the data shows the company’s well performance has improved.

While it is difficult to know how long shale wells will remain productive, assuming tens of thousands of them will pump for 50 years without costly interventions to keep them flowing is extremely optimistic, according to specialists on reserves.

SOURCE

5 Things Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t want you to know about the Green New Deal

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, the self-described democratic socialist who has become a media sensation, is pushing for enactment of a radical plan called the Green New Deal that would ban the use of all fossil fuels from U.S. electricity generation, agriculture and manufacturing by 2030.

In addition to the energy provisions of the Green New Deal that have received the most attention from left-wing pundits and radical environmentalists, there is a lot of important information related to this proposal that proponents have deliberately kept out of the spotlight.

Here are five of the most important things you need to know about the Green New Deal.

1. It includes many radical programs that have nothing to do with so so-called “green” energy.

Supporters of the Green New Deal spend most of their time talking to the public about the proposal’s energy-related mandates, but some of the costliest parts of the plan are completely unrelated to the energy industry.

For example, Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal calls for the creation of “basic income programs” and single-payer health care.

The Green New Deal would also establish a federal jobs guarantee – one of the few non-energy-related parts of the plan Ocasio-Cortez has spent significant time advertising. And it would include provisions to “mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth.”

2. It would do nothing to curb global warming.

The primary justification given by Green New Deal proponents for the radical nature of the plan is that it is necessary to slow the rise of human-caused climate change, which Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals say will cause significant damage to the economy and human health over the next century.

Many scientists say there is no good evidence global warming will be catastrophic or that there’s anything humans can do to stop it. But even if we were to assume that global warming must be slowed down, the Green New Deal would do nothing to achieve this goal.

Even if the United States were to eliminate all of its carbon dioxide emissions by the start of 2030 – something that is likely impossible – the increased carbon dioxide emissions of the rest of world would more than offset the reductions in America.

Whether the Green New Deal is imposed or not, global carbon dioxide emissions are going to rise.

3. Renewable energy costs significantly more than fossil fuels.

The Green New Deal would eliminate fossil fuels from all electricity generation and transportation, forcing Americans to rely largely on expensive and unreliable renewable technologies like wind and solar power.

The Institute for Energy Research estimates that new solar power generation is nearly five times more expensive than using existing fossil fuel-powered electricity. Wind power is 3.5 times costlier.

These higher costs would drive up the price of all goods and services, not just electricity bills. And because all manufacturing would also be required to rely on “green” power, industries in the United States would struggle to match the prices of their foreign competitors, forcing some businesses to either close or move overseas.

4. The Green New Deal would empower and give handout to left-wing special interest groups and industries.

Some of the most vaguely worded parts of Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal plan are those that promise to increase the power of labor unions and give favors to left-wing industries.

According to the proposal, the Green New Deal would “deeply involve national and local labor unions to take a leadership role in the process of job training and worker deployment,” and it promises the “funding (of) massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases.” That’s a code phrase for giving billions of taxpayer dollars to renewable-energy companies.

5. It would run up the national debt by tens of trillions of dollars.

Although no one knows exactly how much the Green New Deal would cost, a very conservative estimate is $40 trillion in its first 10 to 15 years. The Mercatus Center estimates the single-payer health-care proposal supported by Ocasio-Cortez would, on its own, cost more than $32 trillion.

Ocasio-Cortez has suggested one way to pay for these gigantic government programs would be to increase the income tax rate for America’s wealthiest earners as high as 70 percent, but even that radical move would fail to fund the Green New Deal.

In Ocasio-Cortez’s draft resolution, she suggests funding her proposal using “the same ways that we paid for the 2008 bank bailout and extended quantitative easing programs, the same ways we paid for World War II and many other wars. The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments.”

In other words, Ocasio-Cortez says we should pay for these left-wing proposals by running up the national debt by trillions of dollars, putting the nation’s economy at risk of collapsing.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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9 January, 2019

Green/Left intellect on display

An email to Marc Morano from Bob Judd, a biomass power producer in Sacramento, California. Mr Judd's meditations appear to be based on this Warmist show smearing Morano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnzuQ2WwFIA&feature=youtu.be

"Email: bobjudd@cox.net
Message: I enjoy your FAKE NEWS site. I saw you lying on Fox News about fossil fuels being 'better for the environment' and it made me laugh so hard I thought I'd see if your site is for real. Did you know you're listed as one of the Premiere Fake News sites of 2019? You're on several lists that present the most PHONY bullshit and your site has been entered in a contest to see who presented the biggest lies to the public.

So my question is: how do you FUCKING SLEEP AT NIGHT!? Do you realize that you represent TREASON?? What you're doing by lying to American is a form of TREASON. Putting lies in to the MSM is a form of TREASON, and you'll be busted for your lies and I hope to see your asses INDICTED for your nonsense. GO FUCK YOURSELF!"

Europe’s “green” parties are creating political climate change. Is it sustainable?

Long known for its bicycles, Amsterdam is taking recycling to a whole new level. Last year it began extracting used toilet paper from sewage plants and mixing it into asphalt, which helps reduce the noise from cars. The city is cutting down on cars, too: its “auto-avoidant city” strategy will make many streets one-way and raise parking tariffs to €7.50 ($8.25) per hour. Its coal-fired power plant is shutting down, and the city plans to eliminate gas heating in homes by 2040, replacing it with electric heat pumps and centralised neighbourhood hot-water systems. A green-roof subsidy programme encourages owners to cover buildings with turf and moss.

This is what it looks like when a Green party takes power. For decades Amsterdam was a bulwark of the Dutch Labour Party. But the city’s demography long ago shifted away from factory workers and towards multicultural yuppies, and last March the Greenleft party came first in the municipal election. Femke Halsema, the mayor and a former leader of Greenleft, has refused to enforce a national ban on burkas in her city’s public buildings. The city has even removed the giant “i amsterdam” letters on which tourists used to pose: a Greenleft council member had complained that the slogan was too individualistic.

Amsterdam is a harbinger of a wider European trend. Since last April, Greenleft has been the most popular party on the Dutch left. Germany’s Greens reached the same milestone in October, overtaking the once-mighty Social Democrats (SPD). Belgium’s two Green parties (one French-speaking, one Flemish) are polling at high levels. In Luxembourg a coalition including the Greens took power in November and promptly abolished fares on public transport.

Many Greens see this as a historic chance to take over the leadership of the European left, supplanting the social-democratic parties that held that role for a century. “I think they’re gone. They’re parties of the past,” says Jesse Klaver, Green-Left’s leader. The centre-left, he argues, betrayed its ideals by embracing austerity during the financial crisis. The future will be dominated by issues like climate change, migration and inequality, where the Greens represent a clearer alternative to the right.

The German and Dutch Greens owe part of their success to the vicissitudes of politics. In both countries centre-left parties entered grand coalitions with centre-right ones during the financial crisis, making themselves targets for anti-establishment voters. And both countries’ Greens have charismatic young leaders: Mr Klaver in the Netherlands, the duo of Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck in Germany.

But political scientists say there is also a logic to the Greens’ rise, one that mirrors that of right-wing populist groups. “Right now there is a high polarisation around globalisation versus nationality, which favours both the Greens and the radical right,” says Emilie van Haute of the Université Libre in Brussels. Where left and right were once divided along economic lines, she sees a new cleavage over “post-materialist values” such as cultural identity and the environment. That explains results like Bavaria’s regional election in October, where both the Alternative for Germany and the Greens made big gains.

The next big test will come at the European Parliament elections in May. The Green-European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) group is among the smaller groups in the parliament, with just 50 out of 751 seats. But the election looks likely to shrink the overall share of the three largest ones: the centre-right EPP, the centre-left S&D and the liberal ALDE. Greens/EFA might just end up as kingmakers, with far more influence than in the past.

Not always greener on the other side

Still, beyond Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, there is little sign of a Green wave. Green parties in the Nordic countries still lag far behind the established social-democratic ones. In central and eastern Europe, the educated urban voters who might support Greens in the west tend to back other parties. In Poland and Hungary, where populist nationalists are in power, urban liberals generally support the mainstream centrist opposition. In Romania and Bulgaria they can back anti-corruption outfits like the Save Romania Union or the Yes, Bulgaria! party. The Greens/EFA strategy is to recruit such anti-corruption parties, says Bas Eickhout, a Dutch Greenleft MEP and one of the group’s two lead candidates in the election. (Like Germany’s own Greens, the European-level group has two co-leaders, one of each sex.)

In southern Europe economic hardship has made the Greens’ post-materialist values a handicap. In 1989, 11.5% of Italians listed environmental protection as an important issue, nearly as many as in Britain. But by 2008, after two decades of stagnation, that had fallen to 2.4%, well below most of northern Europe. What environmental concern there is in Italy, such as opposition to infrastructure projects, has mostly been captured by the populist Five Star Movement.

Meanwhile, France’s main Green party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), has been hobbled by feuds and by a first-past-the-post electoral system. The EELV had its greatest success at the European election of 2009, winning 16% of the vote. But it was hurt by its collaboration with the unpopular government of François Hollande, and has struggled to find charismatic leaders to replace earlier ones such as Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Over the past two years President Emmanuel Macron’s new party, La République en Marche, has sucked up the energy of the urban, educated voters to whom the Greens might hope to appeal.

It is also in France that the latest challenge to the Greens has emerged: the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) movement. The protests began in opposition to a fuel tax introduced by Mr Macron’s government to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Their explosive spread highlighted the problem that people do not like paying for expensive green policies, as opposed to small-bore ones, out of their own pockets.

Mr Eickhout thinks Mr Macron’s mistake was to introduce a carbon tax without using the revenues to aid those on whom it falls hardest. To tackle such problems, Green parties have broadened their platforms far beyond environmental issues. In Germany Mr Habeck has proposed a social-security guarantee, similar to a basic income, to convince working-class voters that the party is not only for tree-huggers. In the Netherlands Mr Klaver has made tax avoidance by multinational corporations one of his signature issues.

But there is tough competition on many of these issues. Working-class voters may be more attracted to economic hard-left groups such as Unsubmissive France, or to populist-right parties. Tax-justice and rule-of-law enthusiasts may gravitate to liberal parties like the Netherlands’ D66.

Indeed, no Green party has consistently stayed above 20% support in polls. That makes their ambition to lead Europe’s left seem like a long shot. But Mark Blyth, a professor of European politics at Brown University, argues that with social-democratic parties collapsing, European leftists have little choice. “The left is weak or dead, unless they jump on the youth and enthusiasm that the Greens attract,” he says.

SOURCE

New Papers: Intermittent Wind Power PRESERVES & INCREASES Need For Fossil Fuel Energy Generation

In late 2012, a prophetic article appeared in the Los Angeles Times that warned: “As more solar and wind energy generators come online, […] the demand will rise for more backup power from fossil fuel plants.”

Wind turbines cannot produce energy when the wind is not blowing.   Consequently, wind power routinely needs to be backed up by reliable and immediately-available energy sources — which are often fossil fuels-based (gas, oil, coal).

So as wind power installation expands across the world, more fossil fuel plants will need to be built to back them up.

A new observational analysis using data from 10 European Union countries affirms the rather devastating conclusion that wind power installation “preserves fossil fuel dependency” because for every 1% increase in the installed capacity of wind power there is a concomitant ~0.25% increase in the need for more electricity generation from fossil fuels.

And, sure enough, the growth in natural gas production and consumption across the globe is expected to explode in the coming decades (EIA, 2016), nearly doubling in production (from 300 to nearly 600 billion cubic feet per day) between 2010 and 2040.

Currently, 1,600 new coal plants in 62 countries are planned or in the process of being constructed across the world, expanding the world’s coal-fired energy capacity by 43% in the coming years (New York Times, 2017).

There can be no long-term CO2 emissions reduction benefit to installing more and more wind power if the long-term net effect of doing so leads to the requisite construction of more fossil fuel energy plants.

Marques et al., 2018

* “The installed capacity of wind power preserves fossil fuel dependency. … Electricity consumption intensity and its peaks have been satisfied by burning fossil fuels. … [A]s RES [renewable energy sources] increases, the expected decreasing tendency in the installed capacity of electricity generation from fossil fuels, has not been found. Despite the high share of RES in the electricity mix, RES, namely wind power and solar PV, are characterised by intermittent electricity generation. … The inability of RES-I [intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar] to satisfy high fluctuations in electricity consumption on its own constitutes one of the main obstacles to the deployment of renewables. This incapacity is due to both the intermittency of natural resource availability, and the difficulty or even impossibility of storing electricity on a large scale, to defer generation. As a consequence, RES [renewable energy sources] might not fully replace fossil sources.”

* “The literature proves the existence of a unidirectional causality running from RES [renewable energy sources] to NRES [non-renewable energy sources] (Almulali et al., 2014; Dogan, 2015; Salim et al., 2014). This unidirectional causality proves the need for countries to maintain or increase their installed capacity of fossil fuel generation, because of the characteristics of RES [renewable energy sources] production.”

* “In fact, the characteristics of electricity consumption reinforce the need to burn fossil fuels to satisfy the demand for electricity. Specifically, the ECA results confirm the substitution effect between the installed capacity of solar PV and fossil fuels. In contrast, installed wind power capacity has required all fossil fuels and hydropower to back up its intermittency in the long-run equilibrium. The EGA outcomes show that hydropower has been substituting electricity generation through NRES [non-renewable energy sources], but that other RES have needed the flexibility of natural gas plants, to back them up.”

* “[D]ue to the intermittency phenomenon, the growth of installed capacity of RES-I [intermittent renewable energy sources – wind power] could maintain or increase electricity generation from fossil fuels. … The electrification of the residential, services and industrial sectors has been continuously pursued to diminish the consumption of fossil sources. Nevertheless, the increased electricity consumption intensity in the economy has been satisfied by fossil fuel burning, which has cancelled out the advantages of that shift.”

* “The installed capacity of wind power preserves fossil fuel generation to back up its electricity generation. In fact, the installed capacity of wind power has been deployed in large amounts to increase the exploitation of natural resources. But, the intermittency phenomenon, more noticeable in wind power, means that, unlike fossil fuels, the installation of this RES capacity does not correspond to growth by the same amount of electricity generation. On the one hand, this can cause a lack of energy in the grid, i.e., the excess of installed capacity does not correspond to the effective generation to satisfy the entire demand. … In short, the results indicate that the EU’s domestic electricity production systems have preserved fossil fuel generation, and include several economic inefficiencies and inefficiencies in resource allocation.”

* “[A]n increase of 1% in the installed capacity of wind power provokes an increase of 0.26%, and 0.22% in electricity generation from oil and natural gas, respectively in the long-run…. Natural gas plants are the most commonly used to manage the scarcity of RES electricity supply and the uncertainty of electricity demand. Indeed, the flexibility and storage facilities of natural gas plants allow the electricity production systems to effectively match the electricity demand with the electricity supply. Hence, this implies that the greater the electricity consumption peaks, the larger the capacity for generation from natural gas plants must be and, consequently, the longer and larger the capacity needed on stand-by status.”

SOURCE

Nuclear activity: UK, Russia, Japan, China and US all increasing capacity

Nuclear accounts for 10,5% (2017) of global power generation and is growing in many countries as demand for electricity increases. From 2012-2017, installed capacity rose to 392GW (an increase of 18GW). According to GlobalData, nuclear will continue to grow steadily over the next decade, reaching an estimated 536GW by 2030. Self-proclaimed “time traveller from the age of steam” Dan Yurman’s NeutronBytes blog keeps tabs on all the latest developments. Here’s his December round-up…

The first Areva/EDF European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), a 1650MW commercial plant, is now in revenue service in Taishan, China, located about 136Km west of Hong Kong.

Power was sent to the grid this week following extensive testing. World Nuclear News (WNN) reported that Taishan 1 completed a full-power continuous demonstration test run of 168 hours.
The Taishan project was launched on November 26, 2007, and was initially expected to generate power by 2013. The cost of the project was not announced via reports published in English language Chinese news media.

Given the five years added to the original schedule, the cost per kilowatt probably came in significantly higher for the more complicated GEN III design than for older Chinese plants such as the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Shenzhen which was a legacy Framatome design.

A second EPR reactor is expected to come online at the plant next year. Work began on Unit 2 in 2010. The Taishan power station is a joint venture between China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) and Electricité de France (EDF).

Guo Limin, general manager of the joint venture, told the South China Morning Post that the company had learned from the delays and would apply that knowledge to the construction of the second reactor.

“The EPR has increased its safety standards with equipment grades,” Guo said. “Actually, some of the equipment we have used, although it is from the same factory, are not typical parts. The development process for new equipment takes some time, and it takes repeated processes.”

He said delays had also been caused by changes in design of key components and systems.

WNN notes that Taishan 1 and 2 are the first two reactors based on the EPR design to be built in China. They are part of an EUR8 billion (USD9 billion) contract signed by Areva and CGN in November 2007. The Taishan project is owned by the Guangdong Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company Limited, a joint venture between EDF (30%) and CGN.

These two units are the third and fourth EPR units under construction globally, after the Olkiluoto 3 project in Finland and the Flamanville 3 project in France. The EPR design adopted in Taishan was developed by Framatome.

CGN began loading fuel assemblies into Unit 1’s core last April. The reactor achieved first criticality in June and was connected to the grid by the end of that month. Taishan 2, which is in the equipment installation phase, is scheduled to begin operating next year.

UK: plans for EPRs for UK are underway

EDF is also building two EPRs in the UK. Under a strategic investment agreement signed in October 2016, CGN agreed to take a 33.5% stake in EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C project in Somerset.

A tie-in to that contract is a plan to jointly develop new nuclear power plants at Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex.

The Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C plants will be based on France’s EPR reactor technology. The new plant at Bradwell in Essex will feature China’s Hualong One design. That reactor is part way through the UK Generic Design Review which assesses the safety of the design and its environmental risks.

More HERE

Canada: Another report reluctantly admits that 'green' energy is a disastrous flop

This report should be profoundly embarrassing to the government of Justin Trudeau

Amid hundreds of graphs, charts and tables in the latest World Energy Outlook (WEO) released last week by the International Energy Agency, there is one fundamental piece of information that you have to work out for yourself: the percentage of total global primary energy demand provided by wind and solar. The answer is 1.1 per cent. The policy mountains have laboured and brought forth not just a mouse, but — as the report reluctantly acknowledges — an enormously disruptive mouse.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has in recent years become an increasingly schizophrenic organization. As both a source of energy information and a shill for the UN’s climate-focused sustainable development agenda, it has to talk up the “transition to a low-carbon future” while simultaneously reporting that it’s not happening. But it will!

This report should be profoundly embarrassing to the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, which has virtue-signalled itself to the front of a parade that is going nowhere, although it can certainly claim genuine leadership in the more forceful route to transition: killing the fossil fuel industry by edict.

The WEO report, yet again, projects that global fossil fuel use — and related emissions — will grow out to 2040, as oil, gas and coal continue to dominate the energy picture. But it also struggles to put a positive spin on wind and solar. Solar had a “record-setting” year in 2017. The Chinese solar business is “booming.” New wind and solar additions “outpaced those of fossil fuels in 2017, driven by policy support and declining costs.

“Policy support” means subsidies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As for declining costs, solar is at least twice as expensive a generator as coal and almost twice as expensive as gas.

Finally, and most significantly, the report confirms what should have been obvious from the start: the more “variable” wind and solar are introduced into any electricity system, the more they make it both more expensive and less reliable.

The term Variable Renewable Energy, VRE, could more accurately be described as Unreliable Renewable Energy, URE, due to the terribly obvious fact that the sun doesn’t shine at night, and sometimes not during the day either, while the wind doesn’t always blow. Thus the more that wind and solar are part of your system, the more technical contortions they demand from backup power and the structure of the grid. The efficient part of the system has to twist itself into a technical pretzel to accommodate the inefficient part.

Accommodating unreliability has led to outright perversity. The widespread adoption of wind and solar under Germany’s Energiewende (“energy transition”) has resulted in rising overall emissions, mainly from coal-fired backup facilities. Meanwhile the green Godot is battery storage, which is always on the point of turning up, but never quite does. Still, the IEA has a scenario for that: “What if battery storage becomes really cheap?”

Supply isn’t the only area where expensive and unreliable wind and solar need to be accommodated. There is also “demand flexibility.” This includes having solar panels installed on your roof, or adopting — or being forced to adopt — “smart meters,” which can monitor a household’s electricity usage in minute-by-minute detail. According to the report, “The spreading of rooftop solar PV (photovoltaics) and the falling costs of digital technologies, combined with affordable wind and solar power options, are creating a host of new opportunities that enable consumers to take a more active role in meeting their own energy needs.”

But wind and solar are not “affordable,” and few people want to take a “more active role” in meeting their energy needs (That is, unless they are being heavily “policy supported” to stick solar panels on their roofs). They just want to flip a switch.

As for smart meters, the IEA notes that many countries “have successfully rolled out smart meters on a large scale, such as Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.” Would such success be like the smart meter program in Ontario, which was panned by provincial auditor Bonnie Lysyk for costing an extra billion dollars and not working as advertised, while several thousand meters were found to represent a fire hazard?

Although it mentions nothing of the absurdities attached to Ontario’s Green Energy Act, the WEO report confirms that Canada has the most stringent emissions pricing program in the world, at least out to 2025, at $35 a tonne (in 2017 U.S. dollars), thus cementing its competitive disadvantage. Others, such as the EU and Korea, are prepared to make marginally more self-damaging commitments out to 2040 (at US$43 and US$44 respectively), but these levels nowhere near approach that allegedly required by the beyond-fantasy “Sustainable Development Scenario,” which, for developed countries, is US$63 in 2025 and US$140 in 2040. In fact, those figures, like most of the IEA’s projections, are not worth a solar fig.

The Sustainable Development Scenario not only solves the climate issue, but also takes care of universal access to modern energy and air pollution, too. Even more amazing, it achieves all this via imposing swathes of expensive and unreliable energy, but without the slightest impact on economic growth. How? By simply assuming so.

The report’s solution to policy mayhem is inevitably to call for more — and more complex — policy. “Can an integrated approach spur faster action?” it asks. Since governments have screwed up so badly, might they screw up less if they try to do much more?

At least they are assured of firm support from the IEA.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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7 January, 2019

Are Climate Skeptics the new Jews?

Before WWII Jews were a despised minority almost everywhere. That is no longer so. But a similar prejudice has emerged to replace it

Climate change is a full-blown religious crusade. News organizations, church leaders, schools, corporations, and governments all insist something dangerous is underway, and that vigorous responses are necessary.

Anyone who dares challenge this doctrine is a heretic. In other eras, religious heretics were burned at the stake.

Today, climate skeptics often remain in the closet. Some have been bullied into play acting, into mouthing what they secretly believe to be untrue in order to retain their jobs or their government grants.

It’s accurate, therefore, to describe climate skeptics as a minority – swimming against the tide, surrounded on all sides by a worldview to which they conscientiously object.

Independent thinkers don’t require society’s approval. But there’s a difference between an environment that is non-supportive and one in which vilification flows like a river from the pages of the New York Times.

Members of other minority communities – be they religious, ethnic, racial, or sexual – are usually accorded tolerance and respect. Yet late last year, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, called climate skeptics depraved in his Times column.

He declined to use the term ‘skeptic,’ choosing instead an emotionally-laden smear.

Calling someone a ‘climate change denier’ is a deliberate attempt to link doubt over wholly unproven predictions about the future to people who dispute historically documented mass murder. (Ellen Goodman, another famous newspaper columnist, made this explicit a decade ago when she declared that “global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.”)

Krugman insists “there are almost no good-faith climate-change deniers” – just people motivated by “greed, opportunism, and ego.”

What rubbish. He has no possible way of diagnosing at a distance the motives of any human being, never mind the thousands of diverse individuals across the globe who dissent publicly and the multitudes more who do so privately.

In 2009, this man similarly accused climate skeptics of “treason against the planet.” In 2013, he said they deserved to be punished in the afterlife for their “almost inconceivable sin.”

This is extreme prejudice. This is outright bigotry. This is a grown adult stamping his foot and bellowing that people who disagree with him are immoral villains.

In other contexts, we make a point of treating minorities with courtesy. But it remains open season on people who think humanity has more pressing problems than climate change, who draw different conclusions from the available scientific evidence, who’ve concluded that science is being abused by political operatives, or who’ve noticed that many similar eco-apocalyptic predictions have failed to materialize.

To be a climate skeptic is to belong to a despised minority, one that respectable people think it’s OK to demonize.

SOURCE

The overblown and misleading issue of global warming

By Prof. Anastasios Tsonis

Very often, when I talk to the public or the media about global warming (a low-frequency positive trend in global temperature in the last 120 years or so), they ask me the unfortunate question if I “believe” in global warming. And I say “unfortunate” because when we are dealing with a scientific problem “believing” has no place. In science, we either prove or disprove. We “believe” only when we cannot possibly prove a truth. For example, we may “believe” in reincarnation or an afterlife but we cannot prove either.

One may argue that when we are dealing with a scientific problem, such as global warming, for which we cannot obtain unquestionable experimental confirmation as to what is causing it (for the simple reason that we cannot repeat this experiment; we only have one realization of climate evolution), we may form an opinion based on the existing scientific evidence in hand, current knowledge, possible theories and hypotheses. But we should be skeptical of claims that the science of a complicated and unpredictable system is settled.

Nobody argues that the temperature of the planet is not increasing in the last 120 years or so. Yes, the temperature is increasing overall. But there are a lot of questions regarding why that is.

In the current state of affairs regarding global warming, opinion is divided into two major factions. A large portion of climate scientists argues that most, if not all, of the recent warming is due to anthropogenic effects, which originate largely from carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Another portion is on the other extreme: Those who argue that humans have nothing to do with global warming and that all this fuss is a conspiracy to bring the industrial world down.

The latter group calls the former group “the catastrophists” or “the alarmists,” whereas the former group calls the latter group “the deniers.” This childish division is complemented by another group, the “skeptics,” which includes those like me who question the extreme beliefs and try to look at all scientific evidence before we form an opinion (by the way, the former group also considers skeptics to be deniers).

In the realm of deniers, skeptics and believers, science has been compromised. I usually don’t bother with pseudo-scientists, media and ignorant people abusing the freedom of the Internet by writing and posting nonsense comments. But I have grown wary of what is going on with the debate on the overblown and misdirected issue of global warming — a case in point being “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd saying he will no longer give time to global warming “deniers” and also that the “science is settled.”

The fact that scientists who show results not aligned with the mainstream are labeled deniers is the backward mentality. We don’t live in the medieval times, when Galileo had to admit to something that he knew was wrong to save his life. Science is all about proving, not believing. In that regard, I am a skeptic not just about global warming but also about many other aspects of science.

All scientists should be skeptics. Climate is too complicated to attribute its variability to one cause. We first need to understand the natural climate variability (which we clearly don’t; I can debate anybody on this issue). Only then we can assess the magnitude and reasons of climate change. Science would have never advanced if it were not for the skeptics. All model projections made for the 21st century failed to predict the slowdown of the planet’s warming despite the fact that carbon dioxide emissions kept on increasing. Science is never settled. If science were settled, then we should pack things up and go home.

My research over the years is focused on climate variability and climate dynamics. It is my educated opinion that many forces have shaped global temperature variation. Human activity, the oceans, extraterrestrial forces (solar activity and cosmic rays) and other factors are all in the mix. It may very well be that human activity is the primary reason, but having no strong evidence of the actual percent effect of these three major players, I will attribute 1/3 to each one of them.

Two final points. First, all the interactions of humans with the environment are part of our technological evolution. During this evolution, we could not go directly from living in the dark ages to a clean energy technology. There was no other way but to use fossil fuels and other pollution-producing agents. Is this enough to ruin the planet by altering the climate system, a system that has undergone major changes throughout the ages?

Second, while we should try our best to take care of our planet, global warming is not the only urgent planetary emergency. Overpopulation, poverty, infectious diseases and the effect of globalization in spreading them, the water crisis, energy and food availability and safety, political instability and terrorism, the global economy, even cyber security, are far more urgent problems with potentially catastrophic results for humanity.

SOURCE

Major Scottish power cut could last days, engineers warn

ENGINEERS have issued a warning about the growing danger of a power blackout – leaving Scotland facing deaths, riots and widespread food and water shortages.

The Institute of Engineering and Shipbuilding in Scotland (IESIS) said relying on wind farms at the expense of coal and gas has led to the “growing likelihood of a complete failure of the electricity system”. With Scotland now almost entirely dependent on wind, nuclear and hydro power, it would take “days rather than hours” to restore the country’s electricity supply. The warning comes in a new IESIS report which calls for the creation of an independent UK-wide energy authority to avoid the problems witnessed in the USA and elsewhere.

It warns that lengthy electrical blackouts “lead to deaths, severe societal and industrial disruption, civil disturbance, loss of production” and cites 1977 riots in New York City.

The report adds: “All UK coal-fired generating stations are expected to close by 2025. Coal-fired and gas-fired generators are important in restoring electricity supply after a system failure.

“Wind generators can only have a very limited role in such situations and nuclear generators cannot be quickly restarted. The time to restore supply in Scotland is now estimated in days – several days – rather than in hours.

“A lengthy delay would have severe negative consequences – the supply of food, water, heat, money, petrol would be compromised; there would be limited communications. The situation would be nightmarish.”

The report’s author, Iain MacLeod, called for politicians at Holyrood and Westminster to urgently review the safety of the UK’s power supply.

He said: “The system was designed to keep the risk of failure to an acceptable level. For many decades the risk of failure was low.

“Now, we are closing thermal stations to reduce emissions without a robust plan in place to address the long-term security of supply and security of operation.”

GMB, the energy union, said there were 65 “low wind days” last year where wind farms produced less than 10 per cent of their total installed and connected capacity.

Louise Gilmour, GMB Scotland senior organiser, said: “This report is the latest document to back up what we’ve been saying for years – government must heed these expert warnings and place gas at the heart of future energy policy.

“Gas heats 85 per cent of UK homes and provides nearly half of our electricity. As we transition to a lower carbon economy, we need to make sure our energy supply is safe, secure and in our own hands and, should the worst happen, gas will be vital to quickly deal with a power outage.”

SOURCE

Blue-Dog Dems Get Antsy As House Progressives Push The Green New Deal

Blue-dog Democratic lawmakers are wincing as the leaders of their party continue adopting measures that some believe could be perceived as anti-business in states dominated by Republicans.

Democrats are haggling over how far to push climate change policies at a time when President Donald Trump is dominating American politics. Liberals are wanting to push the envelope, but moderate Democrats are blanching.

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who co-chairs the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, told reporters that he will talk with Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, about the direction and scale of climate legislation.

Cuellar’s concerns come after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday a new panel to address climate change.

“We must … face the existential threat of our time: the climate crisis,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in her opening address to Congress. “The entire Congress must work to put an end to the inaction and denial of science that threaten the planet and the future.”

The new panel is called the “Select Committee on the Climate Crisis” and focuses on ending fossil fuels. Cuellar is objecting. “We’ve got to find a way that we can accommodate our goals and not be seen as anti-business,” he said. “A lot of the oil-and-gas state folks feel the same way.”

Meanwhile, many of the progressives leading the charge were dismayed that the panel’s final structure did not require Democratic members to swear off campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies. They are also upset that the committee is in a purely advisory role.

Newly elected Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is one of the biggest proponents of the mission to force Democrats toward a more anti-fossil fuel message. Her strident objection to energy production does not appear to be winning her many converts among the middle-class union workers.

Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), took issue with her anti-oil mission during a phone conference in December. (RELATED: Claire McCaskill To Ocasio-Cortez: Don’t Anger Working Class People)

“To me the Green New Deal is just a regurgitation of the keep it in the ground movement,” he said, referring to the so-called Green New Deal, an environmental push by Ocasio-Cortez. “What I’ve seen so far I’m not that impressed with. It scares the heck out of me.”

SOURCE

Australia: Minister in a conservative State government is a Warmist

The Gilets Jaune movement in France, rapidly spreading to other countries, stems from public revolts against the arrogance of the leaders that have been elected. The issue that has galvanised the French is government action to combat climate change, particularly its corollary of politically driven price increases for energy.

Many of these leaders who are the target of the demonstrations share similar career patterns. Starting with political activism at University they seamlessly move into working for a politician, thence into becoming themselves an elected politician, often parachuted into a safe seat, and from then on to ministerial office. All this is achieved without ever having had a real, productive job.

This describes NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin whose political agenda has been dominated by gay rights activism and who, as President of the NSW Upper House, supported a motion that described Mr Trump as ‘a revolting slug’ unfit for public office.

[Harwin has been described as a "sanctimonious windbag". I like it -- JR]

An associate of lobbyist and political fixer Michael Photios, he applauds the Paris Treaty which is underpinned by the global warming fraud with its failed projections of significant temperature rises, increased incidences of hurricanes, rising sea levels etc. And, grandly calling for his opponents to surrender, he announces, “We need to end the “climate wars” and put science, economics and engineering ahead of ideology”. For good measure, he unselfconsciously adds, “That’s why NSW wants a sensible emissions policy to be embedded in the National Electricity Law, outside the high drama of the “Canberra bubble”.

Above all, in lockstep with the renewables business of his patron’s current wife, Kristina Photios, Mr Harwin is a true believer in renewables, maintaining, in the teeth of factual evidence to the contrary, “the era of baseload coal is coming to an end, fossil fuel plants are not a guarantee of reliability, wind and solar offer the cheapest forms of new generation”. Not only does he mistakenly see renewables as cheap, he also believes that solar and wind, the electricity from which is, by definition “intermittent” and therefore undependable, is more reliable than those coal plants that provide 90 per cent of NSW’s power.

In the run-up to the energy ministers meeting in Adelaide yesterday, Mr Harwin sought to resurrect the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) with its barely hidden tax on coal and additional subsidy to renewables. In doing so he scored an op-ed piece in the Australian Financial Review and a doe-eyed supportive piece by that paper’s resident climate alarmist, Ben Potter. Mr Harwin claimed the NEG and a pie-eyed proposal for zero emissions in 2050 would give investors certainty. He is right in saying that a further round of the subsidies inherent in the NEG would help propel further investment in renewables but, like all other advocates of this poor-quality source of electricity, he cannot explain why, if it is cheaper, that it needs a subsidy.

Mr Harwin had proposed that energy ministers meeting in Adelaide ask the Energy Security Board (ESB) to develop a national pathway to lower emissions. That would hardly have come out of the blue – the Minister would be acutely aware that the ESB (which devised the NEG’s regulatory carbon tax) shares his group-think about the coming, if not already arrived, competitive edge allegedly held by wind and solar. Its report would lend some pseudo-authoritative support for preferred direction.

Having failed to get his way, in what has become the familiar pattern of a Liberal Party riven with the climate wars and associated subsidies for renewables, he lashed out at the federal Liberals. He publicly excoriated his fellow party members, telling them that they should reconsider their positions, ”We want Australia to move forward on climate change. Not stand still.”

Renewable energy subsidies have poisoned the Australian electricity industry, converting it from the cheapest to among the dearest in the world. It will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to unwind the effect of this act of political vandalism on the economy. The ALP is openly promoting further such action and there is no sign that the Liberal Party’s “broad church” can accommodate the differing views and interests on energy which would allow it to make a start in reforming the damage of previous policies.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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6 January, 2019

New National Geographic Documentary Highlights How Ill-Informed Climate Debate Has Become

In announcing the United State’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement last year, President Donald Trump declared, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

A company called RadicalMedia and Bloomberg Philanthropies attempted to counter the president this week with the release of a documentary titled “Paris to Pittsburgh” on the National Geographic Channel.

Taking incredible liberty with the facts and playing on fears and false hopes, the documentary casts a cataclysmic vision of extreme weather, blaming it on fossil energy all along the way.

This is a sad reminder of how ill-informed the national energy debate has become. It spreads alarmist propaganda and promotes a junk science proposition that the world would somehow be better off without fossil energy, while never disclosing how that same energy has made our world more climate resilient.

Worst of all, the film completely ignores the tragic continuation of energy poverty that myopic, renewable-centric policies inflict on the billions of humans on this planet. They are being deprived of affordable electricity because environmental zealots advocate restricting new fossil energy projects in nations that simply cannot afford to electrify their nations at scale with anything else.

The movie also couldn’t be more ill-timed or poorly titled.

Invoking Paris as some kind of beacon of smart energy policy is beyond ironic — given that Paris is currently burning at the hands of working-class protesters opposed to climate change policies that intentionally increase fuel prices.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh’s Democratic mayor, in politically motivated sound bites, claims that Paris-like policies are the reason Pittsburgh has cleaned up its act. But the facts on the ground tell a very different story.

Pittsburgh is a beacon of how the environment can be cleaned up with fossil energy, not despite it. Anyone who visited Pittsburgh decades ago can’t fail to note how much clearer its skies are now, and the data backs up that observation. But those gains did not come from myopic anti-fossil energy policies.

Quite the contrary, like many great American cities, Pittsburgh’s environment improved because of technology, not ideology. Despite implications from the film, coal miners, oil and gas drillers, and steelworkers are still around in Pennsylvania. They are just doing their work cleaner and leaner than ever before.

The 90-percent reduction in air and water pollution in Pittsburgh occurred because we found a cleaner way to harness fossil energy through high-efficiency power plants and improved steel manufacturing technologies like Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs).

One need only track the dramatic drop in air pollution across the country throughout the 80s, 90s, and 2000s to see that the deployment of these and other pollution control technologies brought about cleaner air, not some anti-fossil fuel ideology or marginal increase in renewable energy.

Aside from the irony of its title, the “Paris to Pittsburgh” film represents the worst kind of junk science and fear mongering.

The fundamental premise of the film is: unless the United States takes aggressive steps to reduce CO2 emissions, we’ll see disastrous impacts from sea level rise on the order of three, six, and even 20 feet. But once the real facts are disclosed, the film’s premise is ridiculous.

Here are the facts: If U.S. emissions were completely eliminated by 2020, the standard RCP4.5 model from the IPCC — which is deserving of criticism in its own right — predicts that the atmospheric concentration of COa would be 2.1-percent lower in 2050. An immediate shift to 100-percent renewable electricity (which is the primary topic of the film), even if it were achieved as soon as next year, would reduce 2050 CO2levels by a mere 0.7 percent.

So the climate zealots’ own data show that eliminating, let alone reducing emissions from the United States will contribute little to nothing to prevent the supposed catastrophic consequences the film uses as the call for the United States to stop using fossil fuels.

The sponsors of this film should spend less time playing games with climate science models and more time practicing basic math.

Meanwhile, the policies required to reduce CO2 emissions in any significant way would do real damage to this country and societies all over the world. The latest IPCC report calls for carbon taxes that would increase fuel anywhere from $1.20 to as much as $49 per gallon by 2030. Parisians are rioting over an increase of just 25 cents-per-gallon, imagine the potential for chaos created by a $49 per gallon increase.

The energy cost explosion from these policies would cripple most economies, including our own. Not to mention what life without access to reliable, abundant energy will continue to look like for billions of global citizens in the developing world who have bigger problems than feeling guilty about how they charge their iPhone.

Weather changes. Climate changes. The real story about weather and climate of the last 100 years is how incredibly resilient humans have become because of access to affordable and reliable fossil energy.

Pittsburgh and America have proven that you can harness fossil energy, make the building blocks of modern society, and clean the environment.

And, no, you don’t need billions of dollars in renewable subsidies to make it happen. You just need science, technology, and economic freedom.

That’s the foundation on which our country was built.

SOURCE

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ Is Neither ‘New’ Nor ‘Green’ — It’s Just Socialist

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has championed the “Green New Deal,” an idea rapidly gaining traction in Democratic Party circles.

The “democratic socialist” from New York has pushed for the policy in alarmist terms: “People are going to die,” she says, unless it becomes law. Or perhaps “Americans are dying” already. Either way, we face “cataclysmic climate disaster” unless Congress can “plan and implement a Green New Deal” in ten years.

But the “Green New Deal” has little to do with the environment. It is the latest incarnation of a “red-green” strategy, developed decades ago, which seeks to achieve socialist economic policy through the ruse of environmental crisis.

A decade ago, for example, Van Jones — now a left-wing CNN commentator with an admirably pragmatic streak — published The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. In it, he suggested the U.S. should move to renewable energy resources to avoid higher fuel prices and “climate catastrophe.”

Jones rejected as “scary” and “bizarre” new technologies that would make fuel “out of tar sands and oil shale.” Rather, he argued, the government should promote “green jobs” in renewable energy.

To that end, he envisioned a diverse, working-class political movement embracing formerly elitist policies on the environment as a means to the “transformation of the entire economy,” solving pollution and poverty at the same time.

The book was published a month before Barack Obama won the 2008 election; Jones went on to serve briefly as Obama’s “green jobs czar.”

At around the same time, New York Times columnist and British academic Richard Murphy separately introduced the phrase “Green New Deal” to propose that economic stimulus be used to stimulate renewable energy industries, while ending subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry.

These proposals collectively made their way into Obama administration policies, from the grand stimulus of 2009 to restricted oil and gas activity on federal lands.

But these policies failed.

The stimulus largely disappeared into state and local governments, and pet projects like Solyndra, which failed spectacularly.

Meanwhile, innovation in the fossil fuel industry — especially hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” — created a shale boom that made the U.S. the world’s number one producer of oil. Innovation also helped the U.S. shift to natural gas, reducing carbon emissions while growing the economy.

The “Green New Deal,” in other words, has already been tried, and failed.

Nevertheless, Ocasio-Cortez and a new cohort of “progressive” Democrats is determined to try again, borrowing partly from Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate in 2016 (whom Ocasio-Cortez joined at the protests in North Dakota in the winter of 2016 against an oil pipeline near Standing Rock).

The main demand: a shift to 100% renewable energy sources by 2030. The promise, as with Van Jones in 2008, is that the shift will create massive numbers of new working-class jobs.

To place that demand in context, in September, outgoing California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will require the state to achieve 100% renewable energy — by 2045, not by 2030.

That is, by far, the most ambitious renewable energy plan of any state in the Union — and the state government has no idea how to achieve it. There is no backup plan in case the sun and wind alone cannot meet the needs of a growing population. Critics predict electricity shortages and rationing, and hence a poorer economy, unless the state continues to use fossil fuels.

The “Select Committee” Ocasio-Cortez is demanding would draft legislation to achieve the “Green New Deal.” Along with 100% renewables, her plan also calls for “upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety”; and “funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases.”

By any measure, Ocasio-Cortez is calling for huge government intervention in the economy.

The environment might benefit — or might not, if big government creates inefficiencies that produce more waste. Better to let the economy do what it has done without — or against — the government: namely, to innovate, creating cleaner fuels and new technologies, including in renewables.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is not “new,” and may not even be “green.” It is just socialism, which is often the opposite of sound environmental policy.

SOURCE

Dems Announce Climate Committee Guidelines; Ocasio-Cortez Isn’t Pleased

Democratic leadership has formulated the guidelines for the widely anticipated climate change committee, but have bucked environmental hardliners by giving it no real authority or legislative powers.

As part of a rules package that will govern the House for the next two years, House Democrats unveiled the authority and operations of the new “Select Committee on the Climate Crisis” on Tuesday. The new committee will be made up of 15 members — nine Democrats and six Republicans. Kathy Castor, a six-term Democratic representative from Florida, has been tapped to serve as the committee’s chairwoman.

The climate change committee will be tasked to “investigate, study, make findings, and develop recommendations on policies, strategies and innovations to achieve substantial and permanent reductions in pollution,” according to the rules package.

However, the new panel won’t be able to do much else.

The Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will not have subpoena power, nor will it be permitted to vote on bills and send them directly to the House floor for a vote. Members will also not be barred if they accept donations from the fossil fuel industry. The committee is not even being specifically tasked with writing legislation pertaining to the Green New Deal — a vague set of demands by environmentalists that aim to transition the country to 100 percent renewable electricity. (RELATED: Elizabeth Warren Hasn’t Fully Embraced ‘Green New Deal’)

The committee’s lack of power is a major setback for environmental activists who hoped it would serve as a focal point for their Green New Deal agenda. Democratic Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who skyrocketed to fame after unseating a powerful New York congressman in the 2018 primaries — has been the Green New Deal’s biggest purveyor.

New York state senatorial candidate Julia Salazar was joined by Democratic primary winner Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in Bushwick to honor campaign workers who canvassed on her behalf. Shutterstock

Ocasio-Cortez blasted Democratic leadership Monday for not giving the committee subpoena authority or meeting any of her other “reasonable” demands.

The Sunrise Movement — an environmentalist organization and major supporter of Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal — was even more critical.

“The mandate for Speaker Pelosi’s Select Committee on the Climate Crisis is out and it’s everything we feared,” Sunrise co-founder Varshini Prakash stated Wednesday. “1) It allows members to accept fossil fuel money; 2) It has no mandate to create a plan on the 12-year timeline mandated by the world’s top scientists; 3) It has no language on economic and racial justice, or a just transition.”

SOURCE

Mass Transit Is a Gov’t Failure

Hans Bader

I like subways, and spent most of my adult life taking them to work. Unfortunately, most people prefer to drive. It can take an hour and a half to take buses and trains to work for a commute that would take only half an hour by car. Mass transit is largely a failure, and continues to decline despite growing subsidies to many mass transit systems. Light rail systems are white elephants. The money spent on light rail would be better spent on bus lines. The underground corridors used for some subways might better be devoted to self-driving cars.

Randal O’Toole describes just what a failure mass transit is in this country, a failure on every level, in a recent Cato Institute report:

“Nationwide transit ridership has declined steadily since 2014, with some of the largest urban areas, including Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles, losing more than 20 percent of their transit riders in the last few years. While this recent decline is stunning, it results from a continuation of a century-long trend of urban areas becoming more dispersed and alternatives to transit becoming more convenient and less expensive.

“Those trends include a dispersion of jobs away from downtowns and increasing automobile ownership, both of which began with Henry Ford’s development of the moving assembly line in 1913. As a result, per capita transit ridership peaked in 1920 at 287 trips per urban resident per year, and have since fallen to just 38 trips per urbanite in 2017.

“Congress began federal subsidies to transit with passage of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, and since then federal, state, and local governments have spent well over $1 trillion on subsidies aimed at reversing transit’s decline. Yet those subsidies have failed to do more than slow the decline, as the trends that have made transit obsolete and nearly irrelevant to the vast majority of urban Americans have overwhelmed the subsidies … transit carries fewer than 3 percent of commuters to work in half the nation’s 50 largest urban areas, as well as in the vast majority of smaller ones, making transit nearly irrelevant to those regions except for the high taxes needed to support it. Due to moderate gas prices, increasing auto ownership, and the growth of the ride-hailing industry, the nation likely reached ‘peak transit’ in 2014.

“The supposed social, environmental, and economic development benefits of transit are negligible to nonexistent. Federal, state, and local governments should withdraw subsidies to transit and allow private operators to take over where the demand still justifies mass transit operations.”

His very readable and interesting full report is available at this link.

So-called bullet trains generally turn out to be white elephants. South Korea is abolishing its celebrated high-speed rail line from its capital Seoul to a nearby major city because it can’t even cover the marginal costs of keeping the trains running. Most people who ride trains don’t need maximum possible speed, and most of those who do will still take the plane to reach distant destinations. Despite Japan’s much vaunted bullet trains, most Japanese don’t take the bullet train either, they take buses, because the bullet train is too expensive. Bullet trains do interfere with freight lines, so Japanese freight lines carry much less cargo than in the United States, where railroads — rather than trucks — carry most freight, thereby reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

California’s so-called bullet train is vastly behind schedule and over budget, and will likely never come close to covering its operating costs once it is built. As Reason magazine noted, transportation officials have warned that California’s misnamed “bullet train” is a disaster in the making. California is drastically understating the costs of its high-speed rail project. Just the first leg of this $77 billion project will cost billions more than budgeted. And the project is already at least 11 years behind schedule.

SOURCE

Environmentalists make good movie villains because they want to make your real life worse

Radical environmentalists have really been taking it on the chin at the multiplex. They are perfect villains for our times: well-intended enough to often seem somewhat reasonable, but meddlesome busybodies whose hopes and dreams are to radically reduce standards of living in order to effect some utopian scheme or another that will return the world — or worlds — to an unsullied Eden.

Thanos, the villain (and protagonist, really) of the $2 billion-grossing megahit, “Avengers: Infinity War,” was basically an omni-powered Paul Ehrlich. Whereas the comic book version of Thanos sought to kill half of the universe in order to prove his love for an anthropomorphized Death, the film version was driven insane by his home planet’s self-immolation after a series of resource wars. Determined to eliminate suffering over food and land, over clean water and clean air, Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet not to create abundance of each but to kill half of all living things.

Again, this is Ehrlichian in its madness: The author of “The Population Bomb” argued for years that the planet is overpopulated and that famines will wipe out a significant portion of humanity. It could still happen, I suppose — global warming could inspire an “Interstellar”-style blight; the skies could go dry — but, frustratingly for the doomsayers, life on Earth keeps getting better despite the “overpopulation” our precious blue orb continues to shoulder.

“Aquaman” is the surprise hit of the winter, racking up more than $800 million worldwide so far. And while Jason Momoa’s bro-tastic turn as Arthur Curry is earning deserved plaudits from male and female audiences alike, it’s Patrick Wilson’s King Orm who caught my eye. Orm hopes to unite the underwater clans of Atlantis in order to create an unstoppable army that will destroy life on the planet’s landmasses.

But Orm is no madman. His genocidal war is not the result of personal trauma or ideological insanity. It is, rather, a version of self-defense: The surface dwellers dump their trash into the water, strangling the sea life; the surface dwellers spew their smoke into the skies, choking the ocean with particulates; the surface dwellers hunt to extinction the ocean’s animals, depriving the Atlanteans of conveyances. Humanity must die so Atlantis might live.

You saw something similar in “Kingsman: The Secret Service” a few years back. Amongst the most reactionary films of our age, “Kingsman” featured as its villain a tech guru named Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson). This billionaire was so disgusted by humanity’s excesses and so riled by the excretions of the masses that he engineered a plot to kill all of us in the most horribly violent manner possible. He invented a device that would cause man to turn against man, mother against child, sister against brother — with bare hands, we would tear each other apart. In so doing, the planet would be cleansed of humanity’s foul stench. Once free of the riffraff, wealthy swells and fabulous celebrities would reclaim the planet for themselves and rebuild the world in their image. Clean. Pristine. Free of the gauche hordes who have rendered our air travel unbearable and our beaches crowded messes.

Environmentalists make a useful villain because their malevolence can be obscured by a patina of reasonableness. Global warming and other manmade problems are going to end the world if we don’t do something — so just about anything is justified! But their villainy resonates with the masses because they actually do want to make life worse for people, for the most part.

There’s a reason France convulsed in recent weeks, as middle-class protesters angered by taxes pushed for by environmentalists took to the streets. Environmentalists want to increase the costs of everyday goods and services by taxing carbon. They want you to fly less and to pay more, via offsets, when you do fly. They want you to stop eating meat. They want you to stop having kids. They want to deprive you of disabled-friendly plastic straws — and they’re coming for your delightful balloons next. They want to turn your corpse into food for plants because even the sweet release of death cannot save you from the environmentalist menace.

There is no aspect of your life that environmentalists don’t want to tinker with, no realm immune from their meddling: just think of those poor small-businessmen whose livelihoods were destroyed by a deranged EPA bureaucrat in the 1984 classic “Ghostbusters.” On the plus side, this makes them pretty solid villains. Expect to see more of them in our big-budget films going forward.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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4 January, 2019

Your guess is as good as theirs

Jeff Jacoby

WONDERING WHAT SORT of winter Americans are in for, The Wall Street Journal last week checked the 2019 edition of the venerable Old Farmer's Almanac, which is published each year in Dublin, N.H. It predicts a mild winter with "above-normal temperatures almost everywhere" this season.

To confirm that forecast, the Journal also checked the equally venerable Farmer's Almanac based in Lewiston, Maine. It warns of that Americans should expect "teeth-chattering cold, plentiful snow" and a "chilly, wintry mix."

They can't both be right. Yet each almanac is confident in its predictions, and each claims a high rate of accuracy. Does that sound familiar? Of course it does. It sounds like the endless parade of experts, insiders, and pundits who routinely predict the future, and routinely get it wrong.

The other day Politico rounded up a handful of the least prescient political predictions of 2018. Among them: Huffington Post reporter Matt Fuller's prophecy that Joe Crowley would be the next speaker of the House, Carnegie Endowment scholar David Rothkopf's assurance that the US embassy would remain in Tel Aviv, and CNN journalist Frida Ghitis's forecast that President Trump's approval rating would crumble to just 25 percent. In fact, Crowley lost his seat in Congress to political neophyte Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US embassy was relocated to Jerusalem, and Trump's approval rating remains above 40 percent.

It's not only weather and politics that prognosticators botch. Financial predictions are notoriously unreliable. A research paper released this year by the International Monetary Fund documented the decades-long failure of economists to spot a looming recession until it was already well underway. "Treasury yields have been forecast to rise every year for the past decade," noted the Wall Street Journal in November 2017, "yet they have gone down more often than not."

From military predictions to technological predictions to sports predictions, when experts foretell the future, it's always safest to assume they're wrong. And just as that's true of short-term predictions, it's also true of long-term predictions.

On Jan. 1, 1901, at the dawn of the 20th century, the editors of The Boston Globe surveyed the international scene and assured its readers that "the rise of Germany" posed no cause for concern, since "of all the nations she is probably the least corrupted by the lust of conquest." In 1968, the Foreign Policy Association published "Toward the Year 2018," an anthology of predictions by a dozen "eminent leaders" of where the world would be 50 years in the future. A few auguries they got indisputably right — several contributors accurately foresaw a world in which computers and information technology would play a key role. But many of their predictions — from man-made hurricanes used as weapons to anti-gravity cars — were laughably off-base.

It isn't being snarky or arch to stress how inept experts are at predicting the future. It's being prudent. Because they are deeply knowledgeable in a particular field, experts are more prone than others to view the world through a too-narrow lens, assuming that the current trends they understand so well are indicators of what is to come. Their expertise reinforces their confidence in their own analysis, blinding them to contrary data or disconfirming evidence. That helps explains why those who knew the most about the Soviet Union, for example, didn't foresee its collapse in 1991. Or why judicial experts, such as constitutional-law professors and former Supreme Court clerks, aren't very good at predicting how the high court will rule.

In the 1980s, political psychologist Philip Tetlock asked 284 political experts to make roughly 100 predictions of future events, and to assign a degree of probability to their forecasts. Two decades later, with the benefit of hindsight, Tetlock was able to analyze the accuracy of the experts' predictions. What he discovered was that they hit the mark only slightly more often than if they had guessed at random. Non-experts who keep up with current events by regularly reading the newspaper, concluded the New Yorker in a review of Tetlock's study, "can guess what is likely to happen about as accurately as the specialists whom the papers quote."

That's worth keeping in mind as 2019 gets underway, and from every quarter self-assured sages and savants materialize to tell you what to expect. As you listen to their smart, persuasive, credible prophecies, just remember: Most of them, most of the time, will be wrong. (You can take my word for it. After all, I'm an expert.)

SOURCE

Trump EPA to Repeal Another Obama Admin Anti-Coal Regulation

The Environmental Protection Agency published its proposed revision of the Obama administration’s carbon dioxide emission standards for new coal power plants in late December. The Obama standards effectively ban investment in new coal generation—a policy Congress never approved and would not pass if put to a vote. EPA’s proposal will help restore the separation of powers and safeguard affordable energy for American consumers.

In more technical terms, EPA is proposing, under the Clean Air Act, to revise the agency’s 2015 determination that partial carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the best system of emission reduction (BSER) for new coal units. A CCS system uses various technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and deliver the emissions for storage in underground geologic formations.

Since new coal power plants are already more costly to build than new natural gas combined cycle power plants, and CCS increases both capital and operating costs, the Obama rule powerfully deters investment in new coal generation.

EPA now proposes that the best system of emission reduction is the most efficient commercially-viable coal boiler combined with best industry practices. New coal power plants would have to meet a standard of 1,900 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour rather than the current more stringent standard of 1,400 pounds per megawatt-hour. To put those numbers in perspective, just one megawatt-hour is about as much electricity as the average American home consumes in three and a half weeks.

EPA’s proposal is based on an updated analysis of the cost and geographic availability of carbon capture and storage. EPA finds that CCS-based emission standards are “exorbitantly costly” and not “achievable” in all parts of the country, providing the justification for a new rule replacing the Obama standards.

Although carbon capture systems can substantially increase power plant construction costs, EPA is most concerned about the increase in operating costs. In deregulated markets, where units with the lowest operating costs are the first to be “dispatched,” CCS power plants would likely go to the back of the queue, rendering them uncompetitive or even unable to recover their capital costs.

Geographic constraints compound the problem. Clean Air Act performance standards must be “achievable”—a term determined by case law to mean achievable “anywhere in the country” by the “industry as a whole.” However, EPA finds, the significant water consumption requirements of most CCS systems make them “prohibitively expensive” to deploy in arid regions of the country.

In addition, the only two utility-scale CCS power plants in existence—Petra Nova in Texas and Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan—depend financially on the sale of carbon dioxide for use in nearby enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. Many potential sites of new coal power plants are not near oil fields. For that reason, too, CCS-based emission standards are not “achievable.”

In a press conference on the proposal, EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler stated: “By replacing onerous regulations with high, yet achievable, standards, we can continue America’s historic energy production, keep energy prices affordable, and encourage new investments in cutting-edge technology that can then be exported around the world.”

Critics instantly declared EPA’s proposal useless because the agency expects “few, if any” new coal power plants to be built in an era of cheap gas. But Wheeler and EPA are not trying to guarantee a market for coal generation. Rather, they seek to rescind an unlawful regulation that blocks investment in new coal capacity regardless of how market conditions evolve.

Critics also claim the proposal would exacerbate climate change because the proposed CO2 standards are less stringent than the Obama standards. That complaint conflicts with the first one because the potential number of new U.S. coal power plants that might be built under the revised standards is too small to significantly increase U.S. emissions or have any detectable climatic effects.

What both criticisms overlook is that hundreds of new coal power plants are being built overseas, especially in Asia. Access to efficient U.S. coal technology might help limit developing countries’ emissions. More importantly, if U.S. firms are free to compete in the global marketplace for advanced coal technologies, they can bring affordable energy to millions of people, helping them live healthier, more prosperous lives.

Developing future technologies is far more likely if the U.S. coal industry itself has a future. The prior administration’s unrealistic and unlawful standards—for both new and existing coal power plants—were tantamount to a regulatory death sentence.

Consumers are best served when economic competition rather than bureaucratic machination picks energy-market winners and losers. EPA’s proposal will advance that principle in law and national policy.

SOURCE

Ninth Circuit Hands Trump A Big Win Against Youth’s Global Warming Lawsuit

The Trump administration’s battle against a global warming lawsuit brought by 21 youths will continue into 2019 after a federal court handed the government a big win over the holiday season.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a Dec. 26 ruling largely missed by major media outlets.

The court granted DOJ’s petition for interlocutory appeal that decreases the chances of the climate lawsuit going to trial anytime soon.

The three-judge Ninth Circuit panel is the very same one that in March 2018 ruled against Trump administration petitions for a writ of mandamus, which allows a higher court to overrule a lower court before a case is decided.

Environmentalists handling the case on behalf of youth activists immediately filed a petition asking the District Court of Oregon to restart trial proceedings in light of the appeals court ruling.

“The bottom line is, this case is ready for trial, and should not be held up by further appeals,” said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and executive director of Our Children’s Trust, the activist group handling the climate lawsuit.

“The government has used the power of their office and the depth of taxpayer coffers to waste precious time and resources to avoid trial in this case, and now the court has capitulated with little scrutiny,” Olson said in a statement.

Our Children’s Trust filed suit against the federal government in 2015 on behalf of 21 youths, aged 11 to 22, arguing their right to a “stable climate system” was being violated. The suit asks the court to order the government to issue laws and regulations to fight global warming.

The government should move “to ensure that atmospheric CO2 is no more concentrated than 350 [parts per million] by 2100 … to stabilize the climate system,” reads the group’s legal complaint.

The youth lawsuit is just one of a handful of global warming lawsuits being brought before state and federal courts in recent years as environmentalists, Democratic politicians, and trial lawyers turn to the courts to advance the climate agenda.

Youth activists, however, base their legal reasoning on the idea that the “public trust doctrine” also requires the government to ensure a “stable climate system.”

Many legal experts are doubtful activists will succeed in getting the courts to force other branches of government to push climate policies.

The U.S. District Court in Oregon ruled in 2016 the youth plaintiffs had standing to sue, which was reaffirmed by the Ninth Circuit in March.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the youths’ climate lawsuit could proceed in November 2018 after initially granting the Trump administration’s request to stay the climate lawsuit.

However, the Supreme Court’s unsigned opinion also stated the reasons the Ninth Circuit rejected the Trump administration’s petition for mandamus relief were “to a large extent, no longer pertinent.”

Ninth Circuit Appeals Judge Michelle Friedland claims in her four-page dissent the lower court only approved the Trump administration’s appeal is because it “felt compelled” to by the Supreme Court’s November opinion.

“We could then resolve any novel legal questions if and when they are presented to us after final judgment,” Friedlander wrote in her dissent, which argues the climate lawsuit should go to trial.

SOURCE

New York Times Praises Greenie Nut Who Killed Himself To Save Earth

The New York Times has treated one man's deranged act of self-immolation as some sort of noble sacrifice worthy of reverence.

Earlier this year, radical environmentalist David Buckel demonstrated his love for planet Earth by lighting himself on fire in Brooklyn's Prospect Park in order to set an example in the fight against climate change. In a suicide note, the 60-year-old gay rights activist said his use of fossil fuels to immolate himself was to make a point about what humans are already doing to themselves.

"Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result," Buckel wrote in his note. "My early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves. Honorable purpose in life invites honorable purpose in death."

In an obvious ploy to somehow articulate his derangement as something poetic, Buckel likened his death by inferno to that of Buddhist monks who would self-immolate to protest China's occupation of Tibet. "This is not new, as many have chosen to give a life based on the view that no other action can most meaningfully address the harm they see,” he wrote. "Here is a hope that giving a life might bring some attention to the need for expanded actions, and help others give a voice to our home, and Earth is heard."

For its annual "The Lives They Lived" obituary, The New York Times treated Buckel's destructive act of intense misanthropy with such reverence that it's practically impossible to tell if they wished others followed in his footsteps: ?

In Buddhism, which Buckel studied with his characteristic deliberateness, self-immolation can be a kind of communication. "To burn oneself by fire," the activist Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in a 1965 letter to Martin Luther King, “is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance.” In his own letter, Buckel wrote about Tibetan monks who set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule because "no other action can most meaningfully address the harm they see."

The obituary then describes the life Buckel lived as being "saintlike" and whose final moments could be interpreted as "an incandescent act of speech."

For years, Buckel sought to negate the harm he caused with a continual turning of windrows [a composting technique] and recycling of water, until these measures came to seem inadequate.

One challenge with climate change is that the problem is so large it cannot be grasped. What can be grasped: A healthy man with a satisfying career and a loving family — a man who lived an almost saintlike life of helping others — died in a painful way in a public park in Brooklyn, abruptly reducing a unique living system to ash. Buckel appears to have seen his final moments as an incandescent act of speech.

As noted by LifeNews, The New York Time's reverential treatment of Buckel's suicide stands in sharp contrast to the media guidelines from the World Health Organization about reporting on suicide victims. "Glorifying suicide victims as martyrs and objects of public adulation may suggest to susceptible persons that their society honors suicidal behavior," says WHO. "Instead, the emphasis should be on mourning the person’s death."

SOURCE

Australia: New Queensland coal mine to hire 350 workers

MORE than 350 workers will be hired at a new coal mine in Central Queensland in the latest sign of a resurgence in the state’s resources sector.

Fitzroy Australia Resources is gearing up to recruit the workers for its Ironbark No 1 coking coal mine 35km northeast of Moranbah.

Queensland’s surging coal and LNG sectors will fuel record Australian resource and energy export earnings this financial year.

Coal, both coking used to make steel and thermal used to generate electricity, is expected to overtake iron ore as Australia’s largest resource and energy export.

Fitzroy is partnering with employment company SES Labour Solutions to recruit and train the workers for the mine, which is the first development from a suite of assets acquired from Brazilian mining giant Vale in 2016. Fitzroy also purchased the neighbouring Carborough Downs mine and Broadlea project from Vale.

Fitzroy chief executive Grant Polwarth said the partnership with SES would help “de-risk” the development of Ironbark No 1, which will share major infrastructure with Carborough.

Operations at the underground greenfield mine, which will be able to produce six million tonnes of coal a year, is expected to start in the first quarter of 2020.

It is expected to provide opportunities for 160 contractors in the production phase and up to 350 operational staff.

“Employing some 350 new Fitzroy personnel is very exciting for our business and the region, and it comes with both great opportunity and challenges,” Mr Polwarth said.

SES Labour Solutions executive general manager Nathan Sharpe said recruitment for the new roles will begin at end of this year, with half of the workers to be new to the industry.

“Because this is a new mine, this is an opportunity to build a culture from the ground up,” said Mr Sharpe, a former Wallaby captain.

“There has been a certain amount of automation in underground mining, but workers need to have team working skills as they have to rely on each other in what can be a dangerous environment.”

Mr Sharpe said Queensland’s resources sector was experiencing a buoyant period helped by solid commodity prices.

“Most of the major commodities are priced at a good level, and resources companies are investing in assets that they were not previously looking at mining,” he said. “They can now plan for the future.”

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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3 January, 2019

China Ignores Paris Climate Accord As CO2 Emissions Rapidly Rise

Despite being lauded by President Obama for signing the Paris UN Climate Change Accords, China is still rapidly expanding greenhouse gas emissions.

President Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping issued a ‘U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change’on March 31, 2016 stating that both nations were signing the Paris Accords and would take further “concrete steps” to “use public resources to finance and encourage the transition toward low carbon technologies as a priority.”

The joint statement on climate change was trumpeted as creating “an enduring legacy of the partnership.”

President Obama’s “concrete steps” for the U.S. to combat climate change included issuing an Executive Order ‘Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change’, directing the Environmental Protection Agency to cut 32 percent of power plant carbon emissions by 2025, mandating higher vehicle mileage, substantially limit oil and gas drilling on public lands and requiring energy-efficient building codes.

The Heritage Foundation estimated that if the Paris Accords Obama signed were fully implemented, it would have achieved a .36 degree Fahrenheit reduction in global temperatures.

But the economic costs of Obama’s Paris commitments over the next 20 years would have included the loss of $2.5 trillion in GDP, 400,000 jobs, over $20,000 less income per family of four; and about 17 percent higher electricity prices.

The Paris Accords’ also commitment so-called ‘advanced nations’ to provide $100 billion in ‘Green Climate Fund’ subsidies for reparations to developing countries to fund infrastructure improvements.

With the U.S. share already set at about $22 billion, Obama‘ Joint Presidential Statement’ committed the U.S. to increase climate change subsidies.

Despite already being the planet’s largest contributor of greenhouse emissions at 22 percent, China was required by the Paris Accords to curtail emissions’ growth only by 2030.

China did commit to promoting a “global clean and low-carbon energy transition, especially towards sustainable, affordable, reliable and modern energy services.”

To quantify China’s actions since signing the Paris Accords, the GWP Foundation issued an analysis titled, ‘China’s Climate U-Turn.’

According to the GWP analysis, China now has the world’s largest number of renewable energy installations. But as a percent of China’s total electric power production, wind accounts for 2.7 percent and solar accounts for just 0.5 percent.

Given the higher costs of maintaining interruptible power, the Chinese authorities curtailed about 50 percent of wind unit potential production.

Low utilization rates are also blamed on poor wind-farm siting, failing to build power grid connections, and installing inefficient wind turbines.

China’s air pollution levels did decline last year due to a reduction in electric power produced from coal. But greenhouse gas emissions grew due to a 15 percent increase in the use of natural gas.

As a result, China’s annual pollution levels remained 72 percent higher than World Health Organization guidelines.

Rather than planning for a post-carbon future, The International Energy Agency reported that China has been the world’s largest oil importer since 2013.

China has signed new oil supply agreements with Oman, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Congo, South Sudan, Brazil, Venezuela, and Canada.

China is set to be the world’s largest LNG importer in two years and is building natural gas import pipelines from Russia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Turkmenistan

To keep its domestic coal miners employed, China increased its consumption of coal last year for the first time since 2013. As part of its “Belt and Road” initiative, China has plans to build 700 coal-fired electric plants across the Eurasian plain.

One of Donald Trump’s first actions after being inaugurated as President of the United States was issuing an Executive Order withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Accords.

China’s state news agency Xinhua led media outlets around the world in calling Trump’s move a “huge setback” in the global battle against climate change.

The official China news source deemed the move a U.S. retreat from the “common aspiration of mankind for a low-carbon future.”

SOURCE

Tale Of Two Stations…Striking Contrast: Urban Tokyo Warms Strongly While Rural Island Station Shows No Warming

Hachijojima is a rural-type island off the coast from the megapolis of Tokyo in the Pacific.

What makes Hachijojima interesting is that it is ideal for comparing its trend to a heavily urban environment, like Tokyo’s.

Such a comparison can allow us to see the urban signal on measured data, like temperature. The following chart shows that there has been no warming at this island over the past 70 years, using the unadjusted data from the Japanese Meteorology Agency (JMA):

Now when we compare rural Hachijojima to massively urban Tokyo, using the mean daily maximum temperature, we can clearly see the urban heat island (UHI) effect:

While Hachijojima has seen no only a modest warming trend since 1980, modern urban Tokyo has seen a strong warming. This is very likely due to the urban heat island effect where steel, concrete and asphalt store energy from the sun and fuels consumed by cars, buildings and factories.

The data for both stations go way back to 1907:

From 1907 to 1935, the trend for both was very similar, with no rise. Then there was a rise for both stations from the 1930s to 1961. Note how in this period Tokyo temperature rose more quickly than Hachijojima. Next came the cooling of the the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, followed by the most recent warming.

Note how the most recent warming since the 1980s has been far stronger in Tokyo then it has been in rural Hachijojima. Tokyo, once significantly cooler, is about as warm as Hachijojima today.

And since the peak in 1998, Hachijojima has been cooling a bit while Tokyo has been warming!

Can all this be explained by CO2? Honestly not.

Obviously the urban heat island (UHI) effect is the real driver in Tokyo and is corrupting urban data, while natural ocean factors may be at work to account for the difference as well.

SOURCE

Michigan Lawmaker Wants To Fine Restaurants Hundreds For Handing Out Plastic Straws

A Michigan state lawmaker is pushing two bills that would impose a hefty fine on distributing plastic straws unless requested and ban single-use plastic items such as cotton swabs, cutlery and plates, the Michigan Capitol Confidential reports.

Democratic Rep. Tom Cochran introduced the pair of bills, House Bill 6504 and House Bill 6505, Nov. 27, 2018 to start a conversation about single-use plastics and “the impact they have on our environment.”

“I guarantee my bills are not going to get a hearing or any movement,” Cochran told the Capitol Confidential. “I felt very strongly that I wanted to make a statement and hopefully move the conversation forward and I’m working with my colleagues to hopefully get the issue taken up in the future.”

Bill 6504 would ban the sale of all single-use plastics by 2024, except in cases where no “sustainable alternative” exists. Bill 6505 would charge restaurant owners with a misdemeanor for giving plastic straws to customers unless the customer explicitly requests one.

The misdemeanor’s penalty is unclear. One section says those guilty of violating 6505 are “punishable by a fine of $500.00 for each day” the law is violated. Another section says a restaurant owner will be warned for the first two violations and fined $25 per violation after that, but no more than $300 annually.

Cochran did not respond to requests for comment and clarification.

On Sept. 20, Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation banning full-service restaurants from handing out plastic straws unless requested by a customer. Restaurants in violation can be fined up to $300 a year. Individual cities in the state have enacted much stiffer penalties, such as Santa Barbara’s that hits straw ban violators with six months in jail or $1,000 in fines.

Seattle banned plastic straws and utensils at “all food service businesses, including restaurants, grocery stores, delis, coffee shops, food trucks, and institutional cafeterias” on July 1. Violators are fined $250 per infraction.

Several restaurant chains, such as McDonald’s and Starbucks, have begun transitioning from plastic to paper straws on their own.

SOURCE

Polar Bears: Why All You’ve Been Told Could Be WRONG

On the afternoon of July 3, Aaron Gibbons, a hunter from the Inuit hamlet of Arviat on the north-west shore of Hudson Bay, took his three children on a boat trip.

Gibbons, 31, had a well-paid job at Meadowbank, a gold mine deep in the Arctic tundra, which took him away for weeks at a time.

But when he was home, he loved to deploy the inherited skills of his ancestors.

‘He was an experienced provider of country food for his family,’ says his uncle, Gordy Kidlapik, 60, a hunting veteran. ‘His father had brought him up that way, and he was good at it.’

Aaron and his children were headed for Sentry Island – seven miles across the bay from Arviat – a popular spot for picnics, hunting and fishing, where they planned to harvest some of its abundant supply of Arctic tern eggs.

In dappled summer sunshine, the island is idyllic – a place of rugged moorland, shingly beaches, and brilliant green shrubs.

Unfortunately, polar bears like tern eggs, too, and the family hadn’t been there long when Gibbons realized that a mature male, 9ft in length from jaws to rump, was stalking them.

He yelled at the children to get back in the boat, and as they scrambled to escape, he stood his ground on the beach. For reasons that remain unknown, he was without his rifle.

The bear pounced, and while his 12-year-old daughter desperately radioed for help, Aaron was mauled to death.

His friend William Tiktaq, 32, told me:

‘That evening, I was in the party that recovered his body. I put a tarp on top of him in the boat, so the salt water wouldn’t get to him. He was badly mauled. There were bites everywhere. It’s not a sight you want to see.’

Six months later Aaron’s death, the first fatal attack by a polar bear in the Hudson Bay area for 19 years, is still a raw and emotional wound, described with sadness and horror by everyone I met.

Its impact was intensified by a second mauling in August, when a mother bear and a cub attacked a group of three Inuit hunters near Naujaat, 500 miles to the north, killing Darryl Kaunak.

‘These deaths have been a blow to the whole community – all of us are in shock,’ Evelyn Qasuk, 43, a mother of four children, told me. ‘

It makes me nervous about my kids walking around outside the house. Everyone says there are more polar bears, and they’re not scared of us. Ten years ago, they’d run when they saw a human. Now they’re no longer shy. They keep on coming.’

Part of a chain of coastal settlements in Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory,

Arviat, population 2,800, is a snowy huddle of low, well-insulated buildings and very remote. The nearest road connected to the rest of Canada is at Winnipeg, 800 miles away.

For six days before my arrival, blizzards and ice on the runways had forced the Arctic carrier Calm Air to cancel its Arviat flights.

Last week, Arviat’s minimum temperature hit minus 36C. However, as I rapidly discovered, its people – who are almost all Inuit – are as warm as its weather is brutal.

They also turned conventional wisdom on its head, saying that polar bears are not in crisis, nor even in decline: the main problem, according to the people who know them best, is that there are too many of them.

Climate change – cited as the reason for their imminent demise, due to rising temperatures shrinking the ice essential to their survival – may be altering their behavior, but the Inuit say they are adapting, and remain fat and healthy, and perfectly able to breed.

Scared and exasperated by the threat the bears pose, some Inuit leaders are voicing a demand which, if granted, may trigger a global furor akin to Japan’s decision to resume commercial whaling.

They want to be allowed to increase their permitted polar bear hunting quota to reduce numbers.

Like almost any story about polar bears, the summer maulings were soon slotted into a familiar narrative. They were, it was claimed, one more symptom of climate change caused by humans, which is said to be rapidly driving the bears towards extinction.

‘Without action on climate change, we could see dramatic declines in polar bear numbers by mid-century,’ says campaign group Polar Bears International (PBI). The reason: ‘Loss of their sea-ice habitat and reduced access to their seal prey.’

According to PBI’s conservation director, Geoff York,

‘what we’re seeing across the Arctic as sea ice recedes is that more polar bears are spending time on shore… It is creating that perfect storm of potential for human-bear conflict’.

In places such as Arviat, adds Professor Andrew Derocher of the University of Alberta, there might appear to be more bears, ‘but you can’t equate seeing more bears with there being more bears’.

All that was happening was that the bears were spending more time near humans, and hence becoming more visible.

Around the Arctic, polar bears – estimated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to number in total about 26,000 – are divided into 19 ‘sub-population’ groups.

Prof Derocher said he had ‘no hesitation’ in saying that the sub-population in the Arviat region, known as West Hudson Bay, has ‘declined from historic levels’. Eventually, the level would become ‘unsustainable’. Already, he says, the bears have become skinnier and less able to reproduce, while fewer cubs grow to adulthood.

The people of Arviat vehemently disagree, their knowledge derived from centuries of survival in the harshest environment imaginable and co-existence with bears and other wildlife.

Inuit elder David Alagalak, 74, spent his early years living in a traditional stone hut and shot his first adult bear in 1952 when he was nine.

He says: ‘The population in this area has increased by 300 to 400 percent. Everywhere the hunters go, they see polar bears. There are a lot more than in the past.’

William Tiktaq adds:

‘When I was a kid, I didn’t worry about bears. Now you have to keep your eyes open and your ears clean. I wish the scientists from down south who say they’re dying out would come and spend a year, or even five years, and they would know about this increase. If we had scientists living here, they would have a different perspective.’

Mayor Bob Leonard, originally a southerner who has lived in Arviat for 45 years, agrees: ‘Something has happened in the past six or seven years. We never used to see bears, even if we went camping somewhere like Sentry Island. People are angry and afraid.

And because of the claims scientists have made in the past, which turned out not to be true, they don’t care much for what scientists say. You get the sense the world looks at this place as a large zoo and has to have an opinion on it. That can get irritating.’

Since polar bear sightings began to increase, Arviat has employed bear ‘monitors’ who patrol its perimeter and unpaved streets on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs, a type of quadbike) or, when it’s snowy, on ski-doos. Their job: to ‘deter’ bears who pose a threat and chase them away.

One of them is Gordy Kidlapik’s friend Leo Ikhakik, 56. He’s had many close calls – such as the time his ATV’s wheels got snared in a fishing net at a former whaling spot jutting out into the bay: ‘I couldn’t move forward or backward.’

He radioed for help, but by the time it came, ‘there were five polar bears coming towards me, real close’.

On another occasion, the main fuse on his ATV blew when he was at the village dump – ‘the polar bears’ restaurant’, where they find lots of goodies. Fumbling with the electrics, he managed to get it going, once again encircled by five bears.

The first stage in deterring a bear is to fire a blank, ‘crackshot’. The problem, Ikhakik says, is that you’re ‘training a bear not to be scared of it because it knows it won’t get hurt’. Next, he will try a rubber bullet, aiming at the rump.

But if even that doesn’t work, rather than kill a charging bear with a high-velocity rifle round, he will try to hit it with another rubber bullet on the nose.

‘I’ve lost count of the times I’ve stopped a bear like that. They really protect their noses. They find food with them, and that’s how they sense danger.’

Ikhakik and his fellow monitors have become very necessary. In mid-winter, with pregnant bears hibernating and males far out on the sea ice, the danger seems remote, though a huge male was seen at the Arviat dump the night before I arrived. But in warmer seasons, bears have become a constant presence. On some days, Ikhakik has had to deter up to 20. The record is 26.

One day, Kidlapik says: ‘I saw a bear that popped out between two buildings, right after school ended – the children were just going home.’

It chased two girls who, thankfully, managed to get inside their house and shut the door in time.

On other occasions, ‘bears have come right up to local hunters,’ says Kidlapik. ‘They’d be butchering an animal they’d just harvested and it would take it away. One guy had just harpooned a beluga whale and was getting ready to tow it back in his boat. He ended up having a tug-of-war on the beach.

‘Bears get close to fishermen’s nets, then start chasing them, to protect the catch they now see as theirs. It used to be normal to camp out. Today you can’t, because there are too many bears. You might travel 40 miles out in an ATV, but you make sure you get back home, even if it’s the middle of the night.’

Halloween, says Ikhakik, was especially challenging – because ‘there were so many bears around and so many kids on the streets’. They put on extra patrols, but many families decided it was too dangerous for their children to go out. Trick or treating mostly happened within the confines of the community center sports hall.

Many people in Arviat have encountered mortal peril. Tiktaq told me: ‘One time there were three of us, driving in a line on ATVs. My friend was leading and he thought he’d passed a rock. I was in the middle and the rock got up. It was a big, lone male and he started running towards my brother, who was at the back. If he hadn’t swerved, the bear would have got him.’

And, say the Inuit, the bears are not ailing. According to Kidlapik: ‘They’re not coming here because they’re starving. And they’re still mating, still having cubs.’

He illustrates his point with a series of photographs he has taken in and around Arviat in all seasons over the past two years. They show bears of both genders at every stage of life – and all nourished and healthy.

Part of Ikhakik’s job is to record details of every bear he sees and to estimate its weight. He says: ‘You often hear that the lack of ice is killing the bears but it’s not true. The bears are healthy. Once in a while with any species you’re going to come across sick animals: you’ll find skinny, limping caribou. But 95 percent of the time, these are healthy, big, fat bears.

‘I respect people who say there’s a crisis. But when you’re doing bear work, as I do, you’re going to have a better side of the story. They wouldn’t hire me to protect the townspeople if they didn’t need me, and I’m not seeing them dying out.’

So who is right – the scientists and campaigners or what the Nunavut government calls Inuit ‘TEK’ – traditional ecological knowledge? Despite the bears’ iconic status, it is impossible to give a definitive answer.

Scientists use two main methods to estimate the changing size of polar bear sub-populations: ‘mark and recapture’, which requires bears to be tranquilized and tagged, and aerial surveys. But both have huge margins of error.

According to scientists, three of Canada’s 13 bear sub-populations are in decline, including West Hudson Bay.

However, a new Nunavut government bear management plan cites TEK from Inuit communities that contradict this: they say none of the bear populations are shrinking, while nine are increasing.

Meanwhile, a study published in 2016 revealed past cases where TEK and scientists disagreed about bear sub-populations – and claimed the Inuit were eventually proven right.

SOURCE

Australia: Built and paid for by the poor

Sunlight is free, as any number of solar power advocates will remind you.

But converting sunlight into electricity very definitely is not free. This applies even if you do not have solar panels installed at your property.

The costs of solar energy to the general community are created by government subsidies that encourage solar panel installation. This means that your money is financing at a significant level the solar panels being fitted throughout Australia.

As the Daily Telegraph reports, tax-funded subsidies to the one-in-four Australian households that have installed solar panels add $45 a year to the average power bill of every family in NSW.

Analysis of electricity costs by power giant EnergyAustralia shows that Australia’s eight million households are helping to pay off the solar systems of the two million people who can afford them.

If you pay taxes but do not have the spare cash to install solar panels yourself, bad luck. Those taxes will instead help fund the installation of solar panels for those with sufficient wealth to do so.

This is clearly an inequitable arrangement, and it just as clearly hits Australia’s most economically-disadvantaged taxpayers hardest.

In fact, they are hit twice: once by subsidies, and again by higher power costs that in part are due to a continued push for renewable energy sources over reliable and inexpensive coal.

Yet Labor, supposedly the party representing society’s battlers, is poised to make this unfair situation even worse.

Labor leader Bill Shorten’s plan to introduce further subsidies for households that install battery storage for solar systems is forecast to send costs even higher.

Again, further subsidies will only offer a discount to those who are already able to afford their share of battery storage installation. But the less well-off will make up the difference.

“Our concern is not with solar power,” EnergyAustralia chief customer officer Chris Ryan told the Daily Telegraph. “It’s about fairness.

“With electricity prices at record highs, it’s time to look at whether one group of Australians should be paying more for their electricity than they need to for the privilege of funding other households’ solar systems.”

One group of Australians should not be subsidising wealthier Australians. This is a reversal of how charity works. It is Robin Hood giving to the rich.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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2 January, 2019

Something else left out of the "models"

A model with things left out isn't a model

Many mountains in Indonesia and neighboring Papua New Guinea consist of ancient volcanic rocks from the ocean floor that were caught in a colossal tectonic collision between a chain of island volcanoes and a continent, and thrust high. Lashed by tropical rains, these rocks hungrily react with CO2 and sequester it in minerals. That is why, with only 2% of the world's land area, Indonesia accounts for 10% of its long-term CO2 absorption. Its mountains could explain why ice sheets have persisted, waxing and waning, for several million years

Now, researchers have extended that theory, finding that such tropical mountain-building collisions coincide with nearly all of the half-dozen or so significant glacial periods in the past 500 million years. "These types of environments, through time, are what sets the global climate," said Francis Macdonald, a geologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, when he presented the work last month at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C. If Earth's climate has a master switch, he suggests, the rise of mountains like Indonesia's could be it.

SOURCE

A strange system

Free Up Markets to Reduce Wildfire Damage and Lower Energy Bills

Shortly before wildfires such as the Camp and Woolsey fires ravaged Northern and Southern California, respectively, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a contentious bill making it easier for the state’s investor-owned utilities—primarily, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric—to recover wildfire costs from ratepayers, but don’t expect the flames to die down anytime soon.

The legislation arose out of the calamitous wildfires the state has experienced the past couple of years and utilities’ fears about their abilities to cover potentially billions of dollars in damages. PG&E faces a possible $15 billion liability for wildfires that wreaked havoc on Northern California’s wine country last year, and contends that it might be forced into bankruptcy if the California Public Utilities Commission does not allow it to cover the costs with rate increases on consumers.Senate Bill 901, authored by state Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), largely sidestepped the broader reforms Gov. Brown had sought to reduce liability exposure for the utilities.

California law is unusual in that utilities may be held liable for fire damage caused by their equipment even if they were not negligent in maintaining it and followed all safety rules (such as wind blowing a tree down onto power lines and sparking a blaze). SB 901 did, however, direct the CPUC to consider PG&E’s financial status in deciding its liability for the 2017 fires, and may allow the company to pass along costs it cannot financially bear (however that is determined) in the form of bonds to be paid by ratepayers over time.

The legislation also requires utilities to beef up protections of their equipment, and provides some much-needed relaxing of logging restrictions on private land. A greater focus on wildfire prevention efforts such as removing excess fuel through vegetation clearing and controlled burns is also long overdue, and will be funded to the tune of $200 million a year for five years from the state’s cap-and-trade fund. Environmental policies preventing thinning to keep forests in a “natural” state, as well as drought conditions and a bark beetle infestation that have killed millions of trees, have created tinderbox conditions and significantly exacerbated wildfire damage. The money would go a lot farther, though, if the forest-thinning services were competitively bid instead of just doled out to Cal Fire.

In fact, privatization of wildfire services in general would likely substantially reduce costs. Approximately 40 percent of all wildfire services are already provided by the private sector, according to the National Wildfire Suppression Association, which represents more than 250 companies in 27 states employing about 10,000 private firefighters and support personnel.

The state should also stop interfering in insurance markets. An August study prepared for the California Natural Resources Agency by the RAND Corporation and Greenware Tech noted that insurers complain that the California Department of Insurance prevents them from using probabilistic wildfire models to project future losses and has not allowed them to raise homeowners insurance rates high enough to cover the full risk-based cost of policies in high-risk areas, which would discourage building in the most fire-prone locations.

Despite the significant risk to which it exposes investor-owned utilities in the state, strict liability is probably appropriate under the existing regulatory system. It is the same compensatory standard to which governmental agencies are held, and, as the state courts have noted, the eminent domain powers granted to electric utility companies under the Public Utilities Code and the government-protected monopolies under which they operate make them more akin to public agencies than unfettered private companies. Under such a system, where utilities face no competition and property owners cannot opt out if they are targeted for eminent domain action, it makes sense to spread the costs of wildfires among the utilities and their customers, who all share the benefits of the utilities’ electricity generation and transmission infrastructure.

That said, the existing regulatory system is at fault for creating “too big to fail” regional utility monopolies in the first place. A central planning commission that grants monopoly rights and dictates prices and “acceptable” profit levels sounds more characteristic of a socialist or totalitarian state like North Korea or the Soviet Union, but that is the state of energy markets in California.

A better solution would be to open up competition by eliminating regional government-granted energy monopolies with eminent domain powers and treating the provision of electricity like other goods and services. Fully privatizing the energy and insurance markets and eliminating government monopoly protections would do much more to reduce energy costs, increase innovation and reduce losses from wildfire damage than any measures currently being discussed in Sacramento.

SOURCE

Bernie Sanders Obsesses Over Climate Change, Yet He Spent $300k On Private Jets In October ALONE!

Like most Democrats, Bernie Sanders is a major hypocrite when it comes to climate change. He claims to care about the environment so much, but he travels in private jets that guzzle tons of unnecessary fuel and harms the environment.

A public report from the Federal Election Commission shows that Commie Bernie spent upwards of $300,000 on just private air travel in just OCTOBER alone!

Here’s more from the Washington Examiner:

“Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2018 re-election campaign spent nearly $300,000 on private jet services in October, a report from the Federal Election Commission shows.

Sanders, a climate change hawk, went on a campaign blitz involving nine states to stump for Democratic candidates ahead of the November midterm elections, according to VTDigger. His aggressive campaigning likely served as a preamble for the independent senator’s potential bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.

Sanders, who flew on private Apollo jets, has already positioned himself highlighting climate change as a major economic, infrastructure, and national security challenge in 2020. His busy travel schedule came the same month he issued a stark warning ahead of the November elections on the planet’s impending doom if humanity remains largely asleep at the wheel combating environmental threats.”

If he cares so much about the environment, why doesn’t he just fly coach like the rest of us? For being such a “socialist”, he sure does live like a CAPITALIST!

With climate change likely to be a key talking point for Democrats in the 2020 election, it will be easy for Trump to point to the hypocritical actions of establishment Democrats like Bernie Sanders.

SOURCE

Hot start to 2019 after Australia ends its third-warmest year

Warmist apparatchik Peter Hannam (below)is slipping. He seems happy that Australia's average temperature was only the third warmest. But, according to Warmist theory, 2018 should be THE hottest. According to Australia's Cape Grim, CO2 levels shot up in 2018, particularly in the second half. Download the CO2 data here.

We should be roasting. The BoM do their best to create the impression that we are but the averages tell the story. Peter seems to think our temperatures support global warming. In fact they starkly contradict it

The searing end to 2018 for much of Australia will likely make it the third-hottest on record for maximum temperatures with little early relief in sight in the new year, preliminary data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows.

For mean temperatures, 2018 will also come in among the top five, according to bureau meteorologist Skye Tobin. The year was also "very much drier" than average for Australia, particularly in the south-east.

In New South Wales, Hay, Ivanhoe and Wilcania recorded the highest temperatures, reaching 44 degrees Celsius while in the east, there was little relief with the mercury peaking at 40 degrees in Penrith.

All but one of the country's top 10 hottest years have occurred since 2005, a result "in line with long-term trends resulting from anthropogenic climate change", the bureau said in a summary on 2018's national weather.

Australia was hardly alone in recording a hot year. "For the globe as a whole, 2018 is likely to be the fourth-warmest year on record, continuing the recent pattern of very warm years," the bureau said.

Temperatures are now about 1.1 degrees above the pre-industrial norm. That's more than half way to the 2-degree upper limit of warming almost 200 nations agreed to work towards under the Paris climate agreement signed in 2015.

Every year since 1978 has been above the 1961-90 average for mean temperatures, the bureau said.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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1 January, 2019

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Kept ‘Climate Deniers’ Off His Hour-Long Global Warming Special

They're dead-scared of contradiction. They know they cannot handle it. If you want balance, go to a gym

NBC’s “Meet the Press” devoted the full hour of its Sunday program to talk about climate change, and the show focused the bulk of its time discussing the matter with a who’s who of climate activists.

MSNBC host Chuck Todd kicked off the program with a promise to the audience: the show will avoid debating the science of climate change. Instead, the hour was dedicated to asking various well-known climate activists about how to inject talk of global warming into American politics.

“We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period,” Todd said at the top of the broadcast. “We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not.”

Outgoing Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown was also on hand to discuss his solutions. He called rising global temperatures a serious threat, something akin to what Americans faced at the outset of WWII. He said the U.S. is not doing enough to address the problem.

“[N]ot even close, and not close in California, and we’re doing more than anybody else, and not close in America or the rest of the world,” said Brown, who crafted a position as one of President Donald Trump’s biggest opponents.

He added: “We’ve got to get off this idea, ‘it’s the economy, stupid.’ No, it’s the environment.”

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made similar comments, telling Todd he is still mulling a presidential bid in 2020.

“I will be out there demanding that anybody that’s running has a plan. And I want to hear the plan, and I want everybody to look at it and say whether it’s doable,” the billionaire philanthropist said. (RELATED: House Democrats Are Lining Up Behind What Could Be The Largest Expansion Of Government In Decades)

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are wrestling with a new flock of activist lawmakers who are pushing the party further to the left on climate policies. One of the ideas coming from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is the Green New Deal.

Sanders, a self-avowed socialist, and Ocasio-Cortez want to move the U.S. to 100-percent green energy, federal job guarantees for workers forced out of their fossil fuel jobs, guaranteed minimum income and universal health care. Analysts warn the Green New Deal could come with a monster price tag.

Eliminating fossil fuels and transitioning to a 100-percent renewable electric grid could cost as much as $5.2 trillion over two decades, according to a 2010 study by the conservative Heritage Foundation. That’s about $218 billion to move the grid away from coal and natural gas.

Mainstream Democrats are hesitant, especially those who remember the party’s failed carbon tax experiment in 2010, which ultimately helped thrust them into a political wasteland after the GOP won both houses of Congress that year.

SOURCE

Trees Found Under Glaciers Discredits CO2 Climate Theory

Between 60 and 40 thousand years ago, during the middle of the last glacial, atmospheric CO2 levels hovered around 200 ppm – half of today’s concentration.

Tree remains dated to this period have been discovered 600-700 meters atop the modern treeline in the Russian Altai mountains.

This suggests surface air temperatures were between 2°C and 3°C warmer than today during this glacial period.

Tree trunks dating to the Early Holocene (between 10.6 and 6.2 thousand years ago) have been found about 350 meters higher than the modern treeline edge.

This suggests summer temperatures were between 2°C and 2.5°C warmer than today during the Early Holocene when CO2 concentrations ranged between about 250 and 270 ppm.

None of this paleoclimate treeline or temperature evidence correlates with a CO2-driven climate.

“Samples of wood having an age of 10.6–6.2?cal ka BP were [the Early Holocene]found about 350?m higher than the present treeline. It seems that the summer temperature was 2.0–2.5?°C higher and annual precipitation was double that of the present day”

“Buried wood trunks by a glacier gave ages between 60 and 28?cal ka BP and were found 600–700?m higher than the present upper treeline. This evidences a distinctly elevated treeline during MIS 3a and c. With a correction for tectonics, we reconstructed the summer warming to have been between 2.1 and 3.0?°C [higher than today].”

SOURCE

Arctic sea ice volume has GROWN over the past 12 years

Arctic sea ice has not been cooperating at all with the doomsday scenarios of the global warming alarmists. Some of them said it should have gone ice-free in late summer by now.

A recent chart shows that late summer Arctic sea ice volume has GROWN over the past 12 years, and not plummeted as the alarmists once warned:

Note how predictions made back in 2007 by "leading experts" were completely wrong, and sea ice volume instead has been rising modestly, thus totally surprising and shaming the doomsday prophets.

Yet today the media as a whole continue to lend credibility to these totally failed experts. Is it only natural that citizens are distrustful and regard much climate reporting as "fake news"?

In summary: the polar ice has been holding up well for more than 10 years. The earlier predictions are totally wrong. And in historical context, there is more ice today at the poles than at most times over the past 10,000 years.

SOURCE

COP 24: Dangerous rules recently added to Paris Climate Accord

Buried in the 133 pages of gobbledygook agreed to at last week's UN climate summit are two very dangerous provisions. These greatly advance the green cause known as "loss and damage."

This is where the green goal is for the developed countries like America to pay for all of the damages supposedly due to climate change, especially in the developing countries. Given that pretty much all bad weather is now attributed to human caused climate change, the potential amount of wealth transfer is simply staggering. I explain this in my May article titled "Absurd "loss & damage" policy advances at UN's Bonn climate summit."

The new provisions added at the Katowice, Poland summit meeting do not yet call for this sort of compensation, but they lay the groundwork for it. This is because they allow the developing countries to build their fantasy case in detail. Liability lawyers are going to love this.

These are basically paperwork provisions, but as I said in an earlier article on the Katowice summit, paperwork has implications.

First off, there is to be an annual report of climate change actions and events. This report was originally intended to facilitate verification of each country's claimed climate change efforts under the Paris Agreement. Each country has what is called "Nationally Determined Contributions" for addressing climate change and the idea is that their progress needs to be monitored. Thus the UN-speak for this yearly report is called the "Transparency Framework" because it is designed for watching what countries are doing.

The sorts of things originally intended to be reported are CO2 emissions, emission reductions, adaptation projects, as well as financial transactions. The latter are a big deal, especially funding by developed countries to developing countries.

However, it is now the case that developing countries can also annually report loss and damage from climate change. They will certainly do this and they have every incentive to make the numbers as big as possible. I can imagine countries competing to see who has been hit hardest. They are, after all, hoping to get paid and the bigger the hit the more they make.

Countries can even include projected future loss and damage. (Damage refers to things that can be fixed, albeit perhaps at great cost. Loss includes things like lives and crops.) These projections open the door to wild speculation using computer modeling, along the lines of the recent reports from the IPCC and the National Climate Assessment.

The second provision has to do with what is called the "Global Stocktake." This is a recurring five year assessment, based on the cumulative Transparency Framework reports. Here we can expect to see truly huge numbers for global losses and damages. (It remains to be seen if preposterous claims can be challenged within the UN process.)

All of the above is artfully designed to put pressure for compensation on America and the other developed countries. These numbers can also support claims for compensation in the Courts. There is even a proposal to have a big tax on fossil fuels, the proceeds going to pay for losses and damages.

Here is how proponents of this monster tax put it in a recently released 32 page report titled "The Climate Damages Tax: A guide to what it is and how it works." They ominously say this:

"A day of reckoning is coming. There is a price for heating up the planet and to date the fossil fuel industry have fled the table without paying the bill. When climate change has brought devastation, poorest countries and communities have been left to pay. The Climate Damages Tax (CDT) proposal set out in this paper can help rectify this situation by making the fossil fuel industry pay for their damage."

It is mind boggling that the developed countries allowed this to happen in Katowice. Under UN rules any country can veto a position, so the developed countries should have piled on the vetoes. Note that the U.S. is still at the table; in fact they successfully challenged a motion to "welcome" the latest IPCC scaremongering report, on the grounds that they do not accept it as accurate.

But this nice gesture is as nothing compared to allowing developing countries to make unsupported claims for trillions of dollars in loss and damage, which is just where we are now going under these dangerous new Paris Accord provisions. Then the question of compensation will hit the fan for sure.

SOURCE

Let's Follow The Climate Money!

Paul Driessen

The climate crisis industry claims 24/7/365 that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global, cpossible.

Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.

However, as France's Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world does not accept CCI's assertions. Countries worldwide are expanding their fossil fuel use, and families are refusing to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.

Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we've experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.

More importantly, the CCI "solutions" would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.

Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats - to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would still be grossly insufficient for humanity's needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels - and some of the mining involves child labor.

How do CCI alarmists respond to these points? They don't. They refuse to engage in or even permit civil discussion. They rant that anyone "who denies climate change science" is on the fossil fuel industry payroll, thus has a blatant conflict of interest and thus no credibility, and therefore should be ignored.

"Rebuttals" to my recent "We are still IN" article cited Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog as their "reliable sources" and claimed: I'm "associated with" several "right-wing think tanks that are skeptical of man-made climate change." One of them "received $582,000 from ExxonMobil" over a 14-year period, another got "$5,716,325 from Koch foundations" over 18 years, and the Koch Brothers gave "at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science" in 20 years, my detractors claimed.

These multi-year contributions work out to $41,571 annually; $317,574 per year; and $59,728 per organization per year, respectively - to pay salaries and overhead at think tanks that are engaged in multiple social, tax, education, medical and other issues . not just energy and climate change.

But let's assume for a moment that money - especially funding from anyone with a "special interest" in the outcome of a research project - renders a researcher incapable of analyzing facts fairly and honestly.

Then apply those zero-tolerance, zero-credibility Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-CCI standards to those very same climate alarmists and their allies - who are determined to shut down debate and impose their wind, solar and biofuel policies on the world. Where do they get their money, and how much do they get?

Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.

Over a 12-year period, the Environmental Protection Agency gave its 15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members $180.8 million in grants - and in exchange received quick rubberstamp approvals of various air quality rules. It paid the American Lung Association $20 million to support its regulations.

During the Obama years, the EPA, Interior Department and other federal agencies paid environmental pressure groups tens of millions in collusive, secretive sue-and-settle lawsuit payoffs on dozens of issues.

Then we get to the really big money: taxpayer funds that government agencies hand out to scientists, computer modelers and pressure groups - to promote global warming and climate change alarmism.

As Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore noted recently, citing government and other reports:

* Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama's first term.

* That didn't include the 30% tax credit/subsidies for wind and solar power: $8 billion to $10 billion a year - plus billions more from state programs that require utilities to buy expensive "green" energy.

* Worldwide, according to the "progressive" Climate Policy Initiative, climate change "investment" in 2013 totaled $359 billion - but this "falls far short" of the $5 trillion per year that's actually needed.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoes those greedy demands. It says the world must spend $2.4 trillion per year for the next 17 years to subsidize the transition to renewable energy.

Bear in mind that $1.5 trillion per yearwas already being spent in 2014 on Climate Crisis, Inc. research, consulting, carbon trading and renewable projects, according to the Climate Change Business Journal. With 6-8% annual growth, we're easily looking at a $2-trillion-per-year climate industry by now.

The US Government Accountability Office puts United States taxpayer funding alone at $2.1 billion per year for climate change "science" . $9.0 billion a year for technology R&D . and $1.8 billion a year for international assistance. Total US Government spending on climate change totaled $179 billion (!) from 1993 through 2017, according to the GAO. That's $20 million per day!

At the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit, 29 far-left foundations pledged to give $4 billion over five years to their new Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign. Sea Change Foundation co-founder Nat Simons made it clear that this "is only a down payment"!

And I get pilloried for working with organizations that received $41,571 to $59,728 per year from fossil fuel interests . questioning claims that fossil fuels are causing climate chaos . and raising inconvenient facts about wind, solar and biofuel replacements for coal, oil and natural gas.

Just as outrageous, tens of millions of dollars are squandered every year to finance "studies" that supposedly show "surging greenhouse gases" and "manmade climate change" are creating dangerous hybrid puffer fish, causing salmon to lose their ability to detect danger, making sharks right-handed and unable to hunt, increasing the number of animal bites, and causing US cities to be overrun by rats.

Let's apply the Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-Climate Crisis, Inc. standard to them. Their massive multi-billion-dollar conflicts of interest clearly make them incapable of analyzing climate and energy matters fairly and honestly - and disqualify them from participating in any further discussions about America's and the world's energy and economic future.

At the very least, they and the institutions that have been getting rich and powerful off the catastrophic manmade global warming and climate hustle should be cut off from any future federal funding.

Via email

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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.

Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

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Calibrated in whole degrees. Larger graph here. It shows that we actually live in an era of remarkable temperature stability.

Climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson said. “The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all.”

This site is in favour of things that ARE good for the environment. That the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however disputed. Greenie policies can in fact be actively bad for the environment -- as with biofuels, for instance

This Blog by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.

I am the most complete atheist you can imagine. I don't believe in Karl Marx, Jesus Christ or global warming. And I also don't believe in the unhealthiness of salt, sugar and fat. How skeptical can you get? If sugar is bad we are all dead

And when it comes to "climate change", I know where the skeletons are buried

There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be challenged, no sacred truths.

Context for the minute average temperature change recorded in the graph above: At any given time surface air temperatures around the world range over about 100°C. Even in the same place they can vary by nearly that much seasonally and as much as 30°C or more in a day. A minute rise in average temperature in that context is trivial if it is not meaningless altogether. Scientists are Warmists for the money it brings in, not because of the facts

"Thinking" molecules?? Terrestrial temperatures have gone up by less than one degree over the last 150 years and CO2 has gone up long term too. But that proves nothing. It is not a proven causal relationship. One of the first things you learn in statistics is that correlation is not causation. And there is none of the smooth relationship that you would expect of a causal relationship. Both temperatures and CO2 went up in fits and starts but they were not the same fits and starts. The precise effects on temperature that CO2 levels are supposed to produce were not produced. CO2 molecules don't have a little brain in them that says "I will stop reflecting heat down for a few years and then start up again". Their action (if any) is entirely passive. Theoretically, the effect of added CO2 in the atmosphere should be instant. It allegedly works by bouncing electromagnetic radiation around and electromagnetic radiation moves at the speed of light. But there has been no instant effect. Temperature can stay plateaued for many years (e.g. 1945 to 1975) while CO2 levels climb. So there is clearly no causal link between the two. One could argue that there are one or two things -- mainly volcanoes and the Ninos -- that upset the relationship but there are not exceptions ALL the time. Most of the time a precise 1 to 1 connection should be visible. It isn't, far from it. You should be able to read one from the other. You can't.

Antarctica is GAINING mass

Warmists depend heavily on ice cores for their figures about the atmosphere of the past. But measuring the deep past through ice cores is a very shaky enterprise, which almost certainly takes insufficient account of compression effects. The apparently stable CO2 level of 280ppm during the Holocene could in fact be entirely an artifact of compression at the deeper levels of the ice cores. . Perhaps the gas content of an ice layer approaches a low asymptote under pressure. Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski's criticisms of the assumed reliability of ice core measurements are of course well known. And he studied them for over 30 years.

The world's first "Green" party was the Nazi party -- and Greenies are just as Fascist today in their endeavours to dictate to us all and in their attempts to suppress dissent from their claims.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Warmism is a powerful religion that aims to control most of our lives. It is nearly as powerful as the Catholic Church once was

Believing in global warming has become a sign of virtue. Strange in a skeptical era. There is clearly a need for faith

Climate change is the religion of people who think they're too smart for religion

Some advice from the Buddha that the Green/Left would do well to think about: "Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, The Moon and The Truth"

Leftists have faith that warming will come back some day. And they mock Christians for believing in the second coming of Christ! They obviously need religion

Global warming has in fact been a religious doctrine for over a century. Even Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, believed in it

A rosary for the church of global warming (Formerly the Catholic church): "Hail warming, full of grace, blessed art thou among climates and blessed is the fruit of thy womb panic"

Pope Francis is to the Catholic church what Obama is to America -- a mistake, a fool and a wrecker

Global warming is the predominant Leftist lie of the 21st century. No other lie is so influential. The runner up lie is: "Islam is a religion of peace". Both are rankly absurd.

"When it comes to alarmism, we’re all deniers; when it comes to climate change, none of us are" -- Dick Lindzen

The EPA does everything it can get away with to shaft America and Americans

Cromwell's famous plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken" was ignored by those to whom it was addressed -- to their great woe. Warmists too will not consider that they may be wrong ..... "Bowels" was a metaphor for compassion in those days

The plight of the bumblebee -- an egregious example of crooked "science"

Inorganic Origin of Petroleum: "The theory of Inorganic Origin of Petroleum (synonyms: abiogenic, abiotic, abyssal, endogenous, juvenile, mineral, primordial) states that petroleum and natural gas was formed by non-biological processes deep in the Earth, crust and mantle. This contradicts the traditional view that the oil would be a "fossil fuel" produced by remnants of ancient organisms. Oil is a hydrocarbon mixture in which a major constituent is methane CH4 (a molecule composed of one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). Occurrence of methane is common in Earth's interior and in space. The inorganic theory contrasts with the ideas that posit exhaustion of oil (Peak Oil), which assumes that the oil would be formed from biological processes and thus would occur only in small quantities and sets, tending to exhaust. Some oil drilling now goes 7 miles down, miles below any fossil layers

As the Italian chemist Primo Levi reflected in Auschwitz, carbon is ‘the only element that can bind itself in long stable chains without a great expense of energy, and for life on Earth (the only one we know so far) precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the key element of living substance.’ The chemistry of carbon (2) gives it a unique versatility, not just in the artificial world, but also, and above all, in the animal, vegetable and – speak it loud! – human kingdoms.

David Archibald: "The more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere, the better life on Earth will be for human beings and all other living things."

Fossil fuels are 100% organic, are made with solar energy, and when burned produce mostly CO2 and H2O, the 2 most important foods for life.

Warmists claim that the "hiatus" in global warming that began around 1998 was caused by the oceans suddenly gobbling up all the heat coming from above. Changes in the heat content of the oceans are barely measurable but the ARGO bathythermographs seem to show the oceans warming not from above but from below

WISDOM:

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered, than answers that can’t be questioned.” — Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, Physicist

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” — Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

UNRELIABLE SCIENCE:

(1). “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness… “The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a place in a select few journals. Our love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale…Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent…” (Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, “Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?”)

(2). “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” (Dr. Marcia Angell, NY Review of Books, January 15, 2009, “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption)

Consensus: As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough - Michael Crichton

Bertrand Russell knew about consensus: "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

"The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement" -- Karl Popper

"I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem -- Christopher Hitchens

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken

'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire

Lord Salisbury: "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe."

Calvin Coolidge said, "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." He could have been talking about Warmists.

Some advice from long ago for Warmists: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans,there'd be no room for tinkers". It's a nursery rhyme harking back to Middle English times when "an" could mean "if". Tinkers were semi-skilled itinerant workers who fixed holes and handles in pots and pans -- which were valuable household items for most of our history. Warmists are very big on "ifs", mays", "might" etc. But all sorts of things "may" happen, including global cooling

There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" -- William of Occam

Was Paracelsus a 16th century libertarian? His motto was: "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself." He was certainly a rebel in his rejection of authority and his reliance on observable facts and is as such one of the founders of modern medicine

"In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy". (Bob Parks, Physics, U of Maryland). No prizes for guessing how global warming skepticism is normally responded to.

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley

Time was, people warning the world "Repent - the end is nigh!" were snickered at as fruitcakes. Now they own the media and run the schools.

"One of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world" -- George Orwell, 1943 in Can Socialists Be Happy?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts -- Bertrand Russell

“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” -- John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001

The closer science looks at the real world processes involved in climate regulation the more absurd the IPCC's computer driven fairy tale appears. Instead of blithely modeling climate based on hunches and suppositions, climate scientists would be better off abandoning their ivory towers and actually measuring what happens in the real world.' -- Doug L Hoffman

Something no Warmist could take on board: "Knuth once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Prof. Donald Knuth, whom some regard as the world's smartest man

"To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective. They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against" -- Rich Kozlovich

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“ – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Leftists generally and Warmists in particular very commonly ascribe disagreement with their ideas to their opponent being "in the pay" of someone else, usually "Big Oil", without troubling themselves to provide any proof of that assertion. They are so certain that they are right that that seems to be the only reasonable explanation for opposition to them. They thus reveal themselves as the ultimate bigots -- people with fixed and rigid ideas.

ABOUT:

This is one of TWO skeptical blogs that I update daily. During my research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I have shifted my attention to health related science and climate related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic. Hence this blog and my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers published in both fields during my social science research career

Update: After 8 years of confronting the frankly childish standard of reasoning that pervades the medical journals, I have given up. I have put the blog into hibernation. In extreme cases I may put up here some of the more egregious examples of medical "wisdom" that I encounter. Greenies and food freaks seem to be largely coterminous. My regular bacon & egg breakfasts would certainly offend both -- if only because of the resultant methane output

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future. Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world. Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions. Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

A "geriatric" revolt: The scientists who reject Warmism tend to be OLD! Your present blogger is one of those. There are tremendous pressures to conformity in academe and the generally Leftist orientation of academe tends to pressure everyone within it to agree to ideas that suit the Left. And Warmism is certainly one of those ideas. So old guys are the only ones who can AFFORD to declare the Warmists to be unclothed. They either have their careers well-established (with tenure) or have reached financial independence (retirement) and so can afford to call it like they see it. In general, seniors in society today are not remotely as helpful to younger people as they once were. But their opposition to the Warmist hysteria will one day show that seniors are not completely irrelevant after all. Experience does count (we have seen many such hysterias in the past and we have a broader base of knowledge to call on) and our independence is certainly an enormous strength. Some of us are already dead. (Reid Bryson and John Daly are particularly mourned) and some of us are very senior indeed (e.g. Bill Gray and Vince Gray) but the revolt we have fostered is ever growing so we have not labored in vain.

A Warmist backs down: "No one knows exactly how far rising carbon concentrations affect temperatures" -- Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Jimmy Carter Classic Quote from 1977: "Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.

SOME POINTS TO PONDER:

Today’s environmental movement is the current manifestation of the totalitarian impulse. It is ironic that the same people who condemn the black or brown shirts of the pre WW2 period are blind to the current manifestation simply because the shirts are green.

Climate is just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate 50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

The frequency of hurricanes has markedly DECLINED in recent years

Here's how that "97% consensus" figure was arrived at

97% of scientists want to get another research grant

Another 97%: Following the death of an older brother in a car crash in 1994, Bashar Al Assad became heir apparent; and after his father died in June 2000, he took office as President of Syria with a startling 97 per cent of the vote.

Hearing a Government Funded Scientist say let me tell you the truth, is like hearing a Used Car Salesman saying let me tell you the truth.

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think (e.g. here) that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they agree with

David Brower, founder Sierra Club: “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license"

To Greenies, Genghis Khan was a good guy, believe it or not. They love that he killed so many people.

Greenie antisemitism

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down when clouds appear overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2 and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years show that plantlife is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2 will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to increases in atmospheric CO2

Every green plant around us is made out of carbon dioxide that the plant has grabbed out of the atmosphere. That the plant can get its carbon from such a trace gas is one of the miracles of life. It admittedly uses the huge power of the sun to accomplish such a vast filtrative task but the fact that a dumb plant can harness the power of the sun so effectively is also a wonder. We live on a rather improbable planet. If a science fiction writer elsewhere in the universe described a world like ours he might well be ridiculed for making up such an implausible tale.

Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilization -- and they intend to be.

The Greenie message is entirely emotional and devoid of all logic. They say that polar ice will melt and cause a big sea-level rise. Yet 91% of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica, where the average temperature is around minus 40 degrees Celsius. The melting point of ice is zero degrees. So for the ice to melt on any scale the Antarctic temperature would need to rise by around 40 degrees, which NOBODY is predicting. The median Greenie prediction is about 4 degrees. So where is the huge sea level rise going to come from? Mars? And the North polar area is mostly sea ice and melting sea ice does not raise the sea level at all. Yet Warmists constantly hail any sign of Arctic melting. That the melting of floating ice does not raise the water level is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes demonstrated it around 2,500 years ago. That Warmists have not yet caught up with that must be just about the most inspissated ignorance imaginable. The whole Warmist scare defies the most basic physics. Yet at the opening of 2011 we find the following unashamed lying by James Hansen: "We will lose all the ice in the polar ice cap in a couple of decades". Sadly, what the Vulgate says in John 1:5 is still only very partially true: "Lux in tenebris lucet". There is still much darkness in the minds of men.

The repeated refusal of Warmist "scientists" to make their raw data available to critics is such a breach of scientific protocol that it amounts to a confession in itself. Note, for instance Phil Jones' Feb 21, 2005 response to Warwick Hughes' request for his raw climate data: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" Looking for things that might be wrong with a given conclusion is of course central to science. But Warmism cannot survive such scrutiny. So even after "Climategate", the secrecy goes on.

Most Greenie causes are at best distractions from real environmental concerns (such as land degradation) and are more motivated by a hatred of people than by any care for the environment

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices. -- Prof. P. Stott

Comparing climate alarmist Hansen to Cassandra is WRONG. Cassandra's (Greek mythology) dire prophecies were never believed but were always right. Hansen's dire prophecies are usually believed but are always wrong (Prof. Laurence Gould, U of Hartford, CT)

The modern environmental movement arose out of the wreckage of the New Left. They call themselves Green because they're too yellow to admit they're really Reds. So Lenin's birthday was chosen to be the date of Earth Day. Even a moderate politician like Al Gore has been clear as to what is needed. In "Earth in the Balance", he wrote that saving the planet would require a "wrenching transformation of society".

For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that fire was explained by the release of an invisible element called phlogiston. That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming is the new phlogiston. Though, now that we know how deliberate the hoax has been, it might be more accurate to call global warming the New Piltdown Man. The Piltdown hoax took 40 years to unwind. I wonder....

Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Policies: The only underlying theme that makes sense of all Greenie policies is hatred of people. Hatred of other people has been a Greenie theme from way back. In a report titled "The First Global Revolution" (1991, p. 104) published by the "Club of Rome", a Greenie panic outfit, we find the following statement: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.... All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." See here for many more examples of prominent Greenies saying how much and how furiously they hate you.

After fighting a 70 year war to destroy red communism we face another life-or-death struggle in the 21st century against green communism.

The conventional wisdom of the day is often spectacularly wrong. The most popular and successful opera of all time is undoubtedly "Carmen" by Georges Bizet. Yet it was much criticized when first performed and the unfortunate Bizet died believing that it was a flop. Similarly, when the most iconic piece of 20th century music was first performed in 1913-- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- half the audience walked out. Those of us who defy the conventional wisdom about climate are actually better off than that. Unlike Bizet and Stravinsky in 1913, we KNOW that we will eventually be vindicated -- because all that supports Warmism is a crumbling edifice of guesswork ("models").

Al Gore won a political prize for an alleged work of science. That rather speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Jim Hansen and his twin

Getting rich and famous through alarmism: Al Gore is well-known but note also James Hansen. He has for decades been a senior, presumably well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize. He pulled in a total of $1.2 million in 2010. Not bad for a government bureaucrat.

See the original global Warmist in action here: "The icecaps are melting and all world is drowning to wash away the sin"

I am not a global warming skeptic nor am I a global warming denier. I am a global warming atheist. I don't believe one bit of it. That the earth's climate changes is undeniable. Only ignoramuses believe that climate stability is normal. But I see NO evidence to say that mankind has had anything to do with any of the changes observed -- and much evidence against that claim.

Seeing that we are all made of carbon, the time will come when people will look back on the carbon phobia of the early 21st century as too incredible to be believed

Meanwhile, however, let me venture a tentative prophecy. Prophecies are almost always wrong but here goes: Given the common hatred of carbon (Warmists) and salt (Food freaks) and given the fact that we are all made of carbon, salt, water and calcium (with a few additives), I am going to prophecy that at some time in the future a hatred of nitrogen will emerge. Why? Because most of the air that we breathe is nitrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea. Logical to hate nitrogen? NO. But probable: Maybe. The Green/Left is mad enough. After all, nitrogen is a CHEMICAL -- and we can't have that!

UPDATE to the above: It seems that I am a true prophet

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some belief in global warming?

For many people, global warming seems to have taken the place of "The Jews" -- a convenient but false explanation for any disliked event. Prof. Brignell has some examples.

Global warming skeptics are real party-poopers. It's so wonderful to believe that you have a mission to save the world.

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

The claim that oil is a fossil fuel is another great myth and folly of the age. They are now finding oil at around seven MILES beneath the sea bed -- which is incomparably further down than any known fossil. The abiotic oil theory is not as yet well enough developed to generate useful predictions but that is also true of fossil fuel theory

Help keep the planet Green! Maximize your CO2 and CH4 output!

Global Warming=More Life; Global Cooling=More Death.

The inconvenient truth about biological effects of "Ocean Acidification"

Medieval Warm Period: Recent climatological data assembled from around the world using different proxies attest to the presence of both the MWP and the LIA in the following locations: the Sargasso Sea, West Africa, Kenya, Peru, Japan, Tasmania, South Africa, Idaho, Argentina, and California. These events were clearly world-wide and in most locations the peak temperatures during the MWP were higher than current temperatures.

Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is maximum 4%.

Cook the crook who cooks the books

The great and fraudulent scare about lead

How 'GREEN' is the FOOTPRINT of a WIND TURBINE? 45 tons of rebar and 630 cubic yards of concrete

Green/Left denial of the facts explained: "Rejection lies in this, that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light; preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that his doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes to the light" John 3:19-21 (Knox)

Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a time of exceptional temperature stability.

Recent NASA figures tell us that there was NO warming trend in the USA during the 20th century. If global warming is occurring, how come it forgot the USA?

Warmists say that the revised NASA figures do not matter because they cover only the USA -- and the rest of the world is warming nicely. But it is not. There has NEVER been any evidence that the Southern hemisphere is warming. See here. So the warming pattern sure is looking moth-eaten.

The latest scare is the possible effect of extra CO2 on the world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates. No comprehensive, reliable measurement of worldwide oceanic acid/base balance has ever been carried out: therefore, there is no observational basis for the computer models' guess that acidification of 0.1 pH units has occurred in recent decades.

The chaos theory people have told us for years that the air movement from a single butterfly's wing in Brazil can cause an unforeseen change in our weather here. Now we are told that climate experts can "model" the input of zillions of such incalculable variables over periods of decades to accurately forecast global warming 50 years hence. Give us all a break!

If you doubt the arrogance [of the global warming crowd, you haven't seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate over. Consider: If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming -- infinitely more untested, complex and speculative -- is a closed issue

Scientists have politics too -- sometimes extreme politics. Read this: "This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child." -- Albert Einstein

The "precautionary principle" is a favourite Greenie idea -- but isn't that what George Bush was doing when he invaded Iraq? Wasn't that a precaution against Saddam getting or having any WMDs? So Greenies all agree with the Iraq intervention? If not, why not?

A classic example of how the sensationalist media distort science to create climate panic is here.

There is a very readable summary of the "Hockey Stick" fraud here

The Lockwood & Froehlich paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film. It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even have been the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and very detailed critiques here and here and here for more on the Lockwood paper and its weaknesses.

As the Greenies are now learning, even strong statistical correlations may disappear if a longer time series is used. A remarkable example from Sociology: "The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added." So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. In the Greenie case, the correlation between CO2 rise and global temperature rise stopped in 1998 -- but that could have been foreseen if measurements taken in the first half of the 20th century had been considered.

Relying on the popular wisdom can even hurt you personally: "The scientific consensus of a quarter-century ago turned into the arthritic nightmare of today."

Greenie-approved sources of electricity (windmills and solar cells) require heavy government subsidies to be competitive with normal electricity generators so a Dutch word for Greenie power seems graphic to me: "subsidieslurpers" (subsidy gobblers)

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