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".
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30 November, 2016
Another shriek about bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef
This is just a repetition of a story that has been going on for a
year or more. Previous claims of this nature have been shown to be
highly exaggereated so a repetition of the claims from the same people
as before has no credibility.
I was born and bred in an
area close to the reef and have been hearing cries of alarm about the
reef for 50 years. But somehow the reef still seems to be
there. It has always had episodes of retreat but coral is highly
resilient and bounces back quite rapidly.
One thing we can be
sure of is that the problems were not caused by anthropogenic global
warming. Why? Because that theory says that warming is
caused by increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. But the latest readings show NO increase in CO2 during 2015 and 2016
There
WAS warming up until recently but that was caused by the El Nino
weather cycle, not CO2. Once again we had the chronic Warmist problem
that CO2 levels and temperatures do not correlate. Below is a
picture of the El Nino effect on global temperatures. You see it
peaked late last year and has been falling ever since. So if
warmth was the cause of the reef problems, the reef should soon start to
recover
Two-thirds of the corals in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef
have died in the reef’s worst-ever bleaching event, according to our
latest underwater surveys.
On some reefs in the north, nearly all the corals have died. However the
impact of bleaching eases as we move south, and reefs in the central
and southern regions (around Cairns and Townsville and southwards) were
much less affected, and are now recovering.
In 2015 and 2016, the hottest years on record, we have witnessed at
first hand the threat posed by human-caused climate change to the
world’s coral reefs.
Heat stress from record high summer temperatures damages the microscopic
algae (zooxanthellae) that live in the tissues of corals, turning them
white.
After they bleach, these stressed corals either slowly regain their
zooxanthellae and colour as temperatures cool off, or else they die.
The Great Barrier Reef bleached severely for the first time in 1998,
then in 2002, and now again in 2016. This year’s event was more extreme
than the two previous mass bleachings.
Surveying the damage
We undertook extensive underwater surveys at the peak of bleaching in
March and April, and again at the same sites in October and November. In
the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef, we recorded an average
(median) loss of 67% of coral cover on a large sample of 60 reefs.
The dieback of corals due to bleaching in just 8-9 months is the largest loss ever recorded for the Great Barrier Reef.
To put these losses in context, over the 27 years from 1985 to 2012,
scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science measured the
gradual loss of 51% of corals on the central and southern regions of the
Great Barrier Reef.
They reported no change over this extended period in the amount of
corals in the remote, northern region. Unfortunately, most of the losses
in 2016 have occurred in this northern, most pristine part of the Great
Barrier Reef.
The bleaching, and subsequent loss of corals, is very patchy. Our map
shows clearly that coral death varies enormously from north to south
along the 2,300km length of the Reef.
The southern third of the Reef did not experience severe heat stress in
February and March. Consequently, only minor bleaching occurred, and we
found no significant mortality in the south since then.
In the central section of the Reef, we measured widespread but moderate
bleaching, which was comparably severe to the 1998 and 2002 events. On
average, only 6% of coral cover was lost in the central region in 2016.
The remaining corals have now regained their vibrant colour. Many
central reefs are in good condition, and they continue to recover from
Severe Tropical Cyclones Hamish (in 2009) and Yasi (2011).
In the eastern Torres Strait and outermost ribbon reefs in the
northernmost part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, we found a
large swathe of reefs that escaped the most severe bleaching and
mortality, compared to elsewhere in the north. Nonetheless, 26% of the
shallow-water corals died.
We suspect that these reefs were partially protected from heat stress by
strong currents and upwelling of cooler water across the edge of the
continental shelf that slopes steeply into the Coral Sea.
For visitors, these surveys show there are still many reefs throughout
the Marine Park that have abundant living coral, particularly in popular
tourism locations in the central and southern regions, such as the
Whitsundays and Cairns.
Darkspots
The northern third of the Great Barrier Reef, extending 700km from Port
Douglas to Papua New Guinea, experienced the most severe bleaching and
subsequent loss of corals.
On 25% of the worst affected reefs (the top quartile), losses of corals
ranged from 83-99%. When mortality is this high, it affects even tougher
species that normally survive bleaching.
However, even in this region, there are some silver linings. Bleaching
and mortality decline with depth, and some sites and reefs had much
better than average survival. A few corals are still bleached or
mottled, particularly in the north, but the vast majority of survivors
have regained their colour.
What will happen next?
The reef science and management community will continue to gather data
on the bleaching event as it slowly unfolds. The initial stage focused
on mapping the footprint of the event, and now we are analysing how many
bleached corals died or recovered over the past 8-9 months.
Over the coming months and for the next year or two we expect to see
longer-term impacts on northern corals, including higher levels of
disease, slower growth rates and lower rates of reproduction. The
process of recovery in the north – the replacement of dead corals by new
ones – will be slow, at least 10-15 years, as long as local conditions
such as water quality remain conducive to recovery.
As global temperatures continue to climb, time will tell how much
recovery in the north is possible before a fourth mass bleaching event
occurs.
SOURCE
Swiss reject plan to speed up exit from nuclear energy
Swiss voters have rejected a plan to force their government to accelerate the country’s exit from nuclear energy.
A majority of cantons voted against the plan in Sunday’s referendum.
Under Switzerland’s direct democracy system, proposals need a majority
of both the states and overall votes to pass.
The plan promoted by the Green Party would have meant closing three of
Switzerland’s five nuclear plants next year, with the last shutting in
2029. A projection for SRF public television showed the initiative
failing by 55 percent to 45.
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the Swiss government
adopted a gradualist approach toward transitioning the country to
renewable energy by 2050.
The five Swiss nuclear power plants now generate 40 percent of the country’s electricity.
A similar movement is underway in neighboring Germany, where officials
are stepping up transition to renewables like solar energy in time to be
done with nuclear energy by 2022, a deadline also set after the
Japanese tsunami.
As part of an energy plan that runs through 2050, the Swiss government
has already agreed not to replace its existing nuclear plants, which can
operate as long as they’re deemed safe. The plants are to be closed
progressively as their life spans expire, and the government says it
needs time to switch to other sources such as wind, solar, and biomass
energy.
Switzerland regularly holds referendums as part of its particular form
of direct democracy, which allows voters in the country of about 8.2
million to set policy on major issues — at times causing hassles for
officials to carry out the public’s will.
The two chambers of the Swiss legislature and the executive Federal
Council have variously argued that the earlier shutdown of the nuclear
energy program would have forced Switzerland to import more electricity,
such as from carbon-spewing coal-fired plants in Germany.
Plus, early shutdowns could make the government — and thus taxpayers — liable to pay penalties to the nuclear plant operators.
"The initiative will compromise the security of our energy supply,"
Federal Councilor Didier Burkhalter warned in a government video.
But Ilias Panchard, secretary general of a group whose French name
translates as "Get Out of Nuclear," said Switzerland’s nuclear power
complex is dangerous, aging, and beset by problems — with two of the
five Swiss plants not operating at the moment for safety or technical
reasons.
His group insisted that now is the time to set a fixed timetable, before it’s too late to move to a proper replacement.
"If we just wait until an accident or a problem with the plants, then we
do not have the time, the energy to replace it. So the idea of the
initiative, the referendum, is to say: In 2029 we will have no more
nuclear energy in Switzerland," he said in an interview in Geneva.
The initiative would have limited the life span of nuclear plants to 45
years, and force the closure next year of three of the plants, Beznau 1 —
which Panchard called the world’s oldest operating nuclear plant, built
in 1969 — as well as Beznau 2 and Muhleberg.
"Concretely, that means that in 2017, about one-third of the electricity
generated by nuclear energy will be lacking. That amounts to the
average annual electricity consumption of close to half of Swiss
households," Burkhalter said, adding that renewables won’t be able to
make up the difference right away.
Two other plants would shut over the next 13 years: Goesgen would close in 2024 and Leibstadt in 2029.
SOURCE
Solar, wind industries hope years courting Republicans pays off under Trump
U.S. wind and solar companies for the first time gave more money to
Republicans than Democrats during the 2016 election cycle, according to
federal campaign disclosures, part of a years-long effort to expand
renewable energy’s appeal beyond liberal environmentalists.
The industry is now hoping its strategy of reaching across the political
divide will pay off in the form of Congressional support as Republican
Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic who has expressed doubts about
the role of clean energy, takes the White House in January.
"We're not starting from ground zero," said Isaac Brown, a principal at
38 North Solutions, which lobbies on behalf of clean energy clients.
The U.S. wind and solar industries employ over 300,000 people, making
clean energy an important political constituency that is about five
times bigger than the coal sector for jobs, thanks to years of rapid
growth fueled by government incentives and declines in the cost of their
technologies.
They have also fought to win over a new breed of backer: conservatives
skeptical of climate change but interested in supporting homegrown
energy alternatives that increase national security, boost competition,
and create well-paying blue collar jobs.
But Trump’s upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8
presidential election has cast doubt on the future of a federal tax
break for renewable energy seen critical to the industry’s continued
growth.
Trump has never specifically called for those credits to end, but has
expressed skepticism about the role of solar and wind in the U.S. energy
landscape, calling both "so expensive" and blaming wind turbines for
killing birds and ruining picturesque landscapes.
During his campaign, Trump also called global warming a hoax and
promised to quit a global accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions, though
he has since softened his stance and said he is keeping an "open mind"
about the deal.
The renewable energy industry got a boost last year when Congress
approved a five-year extension of tax credits for new power projects
fueled by solar panels and wind turbines, and the industry's main
concern in Washington is to ensure they are not withdrawn in Trump's
first term, or allowed to expire should he win a second.
A Trump official did not respond to a request for comment about how he
will approach renewables as president. But one of Trump's potential
picks for Energy Secretary, Oklahoma oil and gas drilling mogul Harold
Hamm, has been a vocal opponent of subsidies for renewable energy.
Renewable stocks took a beating immediately after Trump’s election but have since mostly recovered.
During the 2016 cycle, the wind and solar industry's political action
committees contributed more than $225,000 to Republican candidates for
office, compared with $185,000 for Democrats. The numbers are not large
by the standards of political donations but they mark the first time the
industry has tilted its contributions toward Republicans, according to
federal records.
In 2012, Democrats got about two-thirds of the industry’s contributions.
Though Democrats have historically been viewed as the strongest
supporters of renewable energy, utility-scale wind farms and solar
installations are found throughout the nation - including in
Republican-leaning states like Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma and
North Dakota - and enjoy bipartisan support among Americans.
A Pew Research Center poll from October found 83 percent of conservative
Republicans favor more solar installations, and 75 percent favor more
wind farms. Those figures were 97 percent and 93 percent for liberal
Democrats.
The expansion of solar beyond liberal strongholds like California and
the Northeast has been critical to garnering Republican support over the
last few years. The wind industry has been established in red states
for far longer than solar and has a longer track record of support from
Republican lawmakers in those states.
SOURCE
The Growth Of Global Warming Nonsense: Surely We've Reached Peak Madness
Time magazine said Donald Trump's election has climate change
negotiators down, but not out, and has "cast a long shadow over progress
made at" the United Nations climate conference held earlier this month
in Morocco. Seems the alarmist community is still stuck in the denial
phase of the five stages of grief.
The negotiators' denial is not their attempt to pretend that Trump
didn't win, a road that some on the left have taken. It is more deeply
rooted in the fact that their predictions of disaster have not
materialized.
They have tried for decades to frighten everyone on the planet and all
this time later, few are scared because they see the gaping holes in the
narrative, the miserably failed forecasts, the glaring lack of evidence
and the garbage dump of lies.
Yet the activists continue to behave and screech as if the world is on the brink and there are only days left to save it.
Average Westerners simply trying to live their lives honestly and work
hard for their families aren't moved by the braying. They see insane
proposals, such as the one from Oxford University that suggests foods
should be priced according to their climate impacts, and shake their
heads as if their loony uncle living in the room over the garage is
talking to Moses again.
But it's more than that, isn't it? It seems we are watching the
psychological breakdown of a segment of the Western population that is
desperately trying control other people and greedily snatch the world's
economic levers, and employing harsh scare tactics in its effort to
achieve these goals.
Let's not even pretend that this group cares about the environment. The
international Paris agreement that President Obama unilaterally signed
on to without input from Congress, the agreement that the alarmist
community has declared to be absolutely vital to putting off climate
change, would do little to stop projected warming into the next century.
Researcher Bjorn Lomborg, who believes that man's carbon dioxide
emissions are having some impact on the planet, says that if every
nation fulfilled its promise to cut emissions by 2030, "the total
temperature reduction will be 0.048" degrees Celsius by 2100.
In other words, Paris won't change a thing.
Despite the fact that the Paris accord will produce no climate benefit,
the political left, which includes the agenda-driven media, continues
its deranged behavior over the election of Trump because he has
indicated that he will pull the U.S. from Obama's unethical deal.
This lunacy, consciously chosen, is possibly best illustrated by the
Democratic National Committee staffer who whined that Clinton's loss
means that he's "going to die from climate change," and marched out of a
meeting in which the Democrats were trying to rally from their election
defeat.
The unfortunate dupe, who must be a recent campus emission, as he acted
like one of higher education's delicate snowflakes, is the product of
the hysteria his own party has whipped up.
Global warming raving has also affected a group of eight kids from
Washington, who are suing their state over climate change. The
Associated Press says they are "part of a nationwide effort by young
people to try to force action on global warming."
They've been incited, no doubt, by the Democrats' unrelenting fanaticism about the subject.
But isn't the Democratic Party the party of science? That's the label
its members have awarded it. Aren't the kids and the Democratic staffer
simply reacting to the party's rational position on global warming?
Journalist John Tierney probably wouldn't agree.
"The only successful war on science is the one waged by the Left,"
Tierney, a New York Times reporter, wrote in the Autumn 2016 City
Journal.
He acknowledges that "there's plenty of ignorance all around," but also
reports that "some surveys show that Republicans, particularly
libertarians, are more scientifically literate than Democrats."
Remember this the next time outgoing (thankfully) Secretary of State
John Kerry says anything about global warming. He might be one of the
many members of his party who doesn't know that astrology isn't a
science and that it takes a year for Earth to revolve around the sun.
SOURCE
Army Corps to close Dakota pipeline protesters’ camp
The Army Corps of Engineers plans to close off a swath of North Dakota
land that for months has housed a campsite for anti-pipeline protesters.
The Army Corps sent a letter to the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux
tribe Friday that said all lands north of the Cannonball River will be
closed on Dec. 5, the Associated Press reported.
"To be clear, this means that no member of the general public, to
include Dakota Access pipeline protesters, can be on these Corps lands,"
the letter from Col. John Henderson reads.
Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault told the AP that the land to be closed
includes the Oceti Sakowin camp on Army Corps land where many protesters
have set up.
Another camp, Sacred Stone, sits on the opposite of the river and will not be affected by the Army Corps decision.
Henderson said that the decision "is necessary to protect the general
public from the violent confrontations between protestors and law
enforcement officials that have occurred in this area, and to prevent
death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to
the harsh North Dakota winter conditions."
He said that necessary services, including emergency and medical resources, can not be properly provided to protesters there.
"I do not take this action lightly, but have decided that it is required
due to the concern for public safety and the fact that much of this
land is leased to private persons for grazing and/or haying purposes as
part of the Corps' land management practices," he wrote.
The letter goes on to say that a "free speech zone" will be set up on
the south side of the Cannonball River for peaceful protests.
"In these areas, jurisdiction for police, fire, and medical response is
better defined making it a more sustainable area for visitors to endure
the harsh North Dakota winter."
The Army Corps warned that anyone on the lands north of the river after
Dec. 5 will be considered trespassing and could face prosecution. They
added that anyone who stays there does so at their own risk and
liability.
The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, joined by a flood of
other tribe members and supporters, are fighting the final stretch of
the 1,200-mile pipeline, that they say could threaten drinking water and
cultural sites. Tensions between protesters and police have escalated
in recent weeks, with law enforcement using water cannons and allegedly
concussion grenades.
SOURCE
Britain’s Stupid Climate Policy Needs the Donald Trump Treatment
by James Delingpole
Britain has now officially ratified the COP21 Paris climate agreement.
The good news is that this will make no difference to anyone or anything
because the agreement is toothless and non-binding. The bad news – as
you can tell from some of the ministerial comments – is that it serves
to remind us that Britain’s climate and energy policy is still in thrall
to the environmentalist lunacy which wiser heads like Donald Trump are
trying to write out of history.
Wiser heads? Donald Trump?? Yes, I can almost hear the sneering and the jeering from the usual suspects.
But even if you disagree with Trump’s environmental and energy policy –
which I don’t – it remains an unarguable fact that the world’s most
powerful nation is heading in a very clear direction for at least the
next four years: pro-fossil-fuels, anti-renewables. This is going to
have a massive, largely positive impact on the U.S. economy because by
bringing down the cost of energy, it will give consumers more disposable
income and enable businesses – especially in energy-intensive heavy
industry – to increase their profit margins or cut costs to the benefit
of their bottom line.
At this point, America’s global economic competitors have one of two
options: either they wake up and smell the coffee and move in America’s
direction; or they bury their heads in the sand, pretend we’re still
living in the status quo ante and sit, helpless, while America’s new
higher-carbon economy steals half of their business.
Judging by the comments of the Minister for Climate Change and Industry –
about as fatuous a title as being Minister for Veganism and Meat –
Britain has already made up her mind:
"The UK is ratifying the historic Paris Agreement so
that we can help to accelerate global action on climate change and
deliver on our commitments to create a safer, more prosperous future for
us all," Nick Hurd, Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry,
said.
"We are going to use this positive momentum to grow
the UK low-carbon sector, which is already worth over 46 billion pounds,
as we continue to provide secure, affordable and clean energy to our
families and businesses," he said."
Nick Hurd, it should be noted, had the best education money can buy at
Eton. Clearly, it was utterly wasted if this is the sort of bilge he
comes up with.
What can government-imposed limits on carbon dioxide emissions (which
inevitably lead malinvestment, cronyism, tariffs and subsidies) possibly
have to do with prosperity? Or indeed safety?
It is weapons-grade bollocks and inspires very little faith that Theresa
May, despite her axing of the Department of Energy and Climate Change,
has any real grasp of the rapidly changing nature of the climate debate.
We got a depressing taste of this when she gave the monstrously
expensive, outdated, and generally rubbish Hinkley Point C power station
the go-ahead.
If the even crazier exercise in green virtue-signalling and crony
capitalism the Swansea Bay Tidal Project gets approved, we shall know
that the government has lost the plot completely.
Perhaps had Hillary Clinton won the presidential election, this would
make a sort of sense. Britain would be merely going with the flow of
international policy.
But Trump won and now Britain faces a stark choice, described here by
Rupert Darwall who has been in Marrakech at the COP22 conference.
"Although Britain is formally leaving the EU, its
climate and energy policies look set to remain exactly the same. Indeed,
when it comes to climate and energy, Britain is being more Catholic
than the Pope.
The German government has stated its intention to
keep burning coal for at least the next two decades; Greg Clark’s
business department has just launched a consultation on phasing it out
by 2025.
That is unlikely to play well in Washington, to say
the least. Coal is important to Republicans. Over the last two years,
Britain imported 16.5 million tonnes of coal from America, worth $1.4
billion.
Four of the top five coal-producing states voted
Republican – including Pennsylvania, which switched from the Democrats.
Of the top 10 coal-burning states, seven voted Republican last week,
including Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s Indiana and swing state
Ohio.
An iron rule of American politics is that domestic
politics trump international considerations. As Henry Kissinger told The
Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg after the election, Trump’s victory "could
enable us to establish coherence between our foreign policy and our
domestic situation".
And it is very hard to envisage the Trump
Administration looking kindly on a potential trade deal with a partner
that is in the process of banning imports of American coal – and putting
American miners out of work"
So far it looks like Britain is hell bent on taking the wrong decision.
Business Secretary Greg Clark looks to be clueless and it seems
depressingly likely that all the green activists who infested the
defunct Department of Energy and Climate Change have simply been
dispersed within other ministries, spreading their environmentalist
crony capitalist poison.
Here is John Constable’s depressing take:
"The UK’s new secretary of state for Business, Greg
Clark, has just given his first public speech on energy. It suggests,
unfortunately, that he is not yet sufficiently confident of his brief to
resist the views of his civil servants. Indeed, this speech could
easily have been written for Ed Miliband, or Chris Huhne, or Ed Davey,
and suggests that the rent-seeking green interests in the electricity
sector are re-injecting themselves into the national bloodstream through
an interventionist industrial strategy. This will result in
overcapitalisation and reductions in productivity"
We have scotched the Green Blob but not killed it. A long hard battle lies ahead of us.
SOURCE
***************************************
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
*****************************************
29 November, 2016
Arctic warming claim: An amusing combination of alarm and uncertainty
The article below starts out by making a big deal out of the fact
that: "Temperatures in the Arctic are currently about 20C above what
would be expected". Which is roughly true as far as it goes.
But like all Green/Left reporting, the important bits are what is left
out. SEPP tells us what is left out:
"The
current warmth in the Artic provides material for alarmists to predict
drastic climate change. Many of the stories fail to mention that
although the mean Arctic temperatures are as much as 15ºC, about 30ºF,
above normal, with some day-time exceptions, the temperatures are still
well below freezing. Further, the alarmist stories fail to mention that
temperatures in Asia are drastically below normal for weeks --- as much
as 60ºF below normal in Siberia. Long before appropriate
instrumentation, the Arctic experienced warm periods, as seen in the
Greenland ice cores and in warm periods such as the 1920s"
And
then we come to bathos. After the shrill and unhesitating alarm of the
first part of the article, we find out that they are actually very
uncertain. They really don't understand what is going on very well
at all: "very serious changes are happening, but they are still
poorly understood. We need more research to understand them".
You couldn't make it up. Utter trash
Arctic scientists have warned that the increasingly rapid melting of the
ice cap risks triggering 19 "tipping points" in the region that could
have catastrophic consequences around the globe.
The Arctic Resilience Report found that the effects of Arctic warming
could be felt as far away as the Indian Ocean, in a stark warning that
changes in the region could cause uncontrollable climate change at a
global level.
Temperatures in the Arctic are currently about 20C above what would be
expected for the time of year, which scientists describe as "off the
charts". Sea ice is at the lowest extent ever recorded for the time of
year.
"The warning signals are getting louder," said Marcus Carson of the
Stockholm Environment Institute and one of the lead authors of the
report. "[These developments] also make the potential for triggering
[tipping points] and feedback loops much larger."
Climate tipping points occur when a natural system, such as the polar
ice cap, undergoes sudden or overwhelming change that has a profound
effect on surrounding ecosystems, often irreversible.
In the Arctic, the tipping points identified in the new report,
published on Friday, include: growth in vegetation on tundra, which
replaces reflective snow and ice with darker vegetation, thus absorbing
more heat; higher releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from the
tundra as it warms; shifts in snow distribution that warm the ocean,
resulting in altered climate patterns as far away as Asia, where the
monsoon could be effected; and the collapse of some key Arctic
fisheries, with knock-on effects on ocean ecosystems around the globe.
The research, compiled by 11 organisations including the Arctic Council
and six universities, comes at a critical time, not only because of the
current Arctic temperature rises but in political terms.
Aides to the US president-elect, Donald Trump, this week unveiled plans
to remove the budget for climate change science currently used by Nasa
and other US federal agencies for projects such as examining Arctic
changes, and to spend it instead on space exploration.
"That would be a huge mistake," said Carson, noting that much more
research needs to be done on polar tipping points before we can
understand the true dangers, let alone hope to tackle them. "It would be
like ripping out the aeroplane’s cockpit instruments while you are in
mid-flight."
He added: "These are very serious problems, very serious changes are
happening, but they are still poorly understood. We need more research
to understand them. A lot of the major science is done by the US."
Source
'Remarkable year': What's behind the record low sea ice in Antarctica
Why should sea-ice levels suddenly change from high to low? The
galoots below don't know but my guess is increased activity from
Antarctica's sub-surface volcanoes. But you are not allowed to
mention that. One thing that is not responsible is CO2. The latest findings show that CO2 levels were static for 2015 and 2016
It was in early August this year when Phil Reid, a climatologist with
the Bureau of Meteorology, first noticed something odd happening to the
ice around Antarctica.
An area of ice had started to melt in the eastern Weddell Sea even
though the region was still in darkness and air temperatures below
freezing.
Confirmed later as a rare sighting of the Weddell polynya – as such
melts are known – abnormal sea ice activity began showing up in other
regions off the southern continent.
Having set records for area covered by sea ice just over two years ago,
the ice has rapidly retreated since late August to set new marks for
record-low coverage for this time of year.
"It's been a pretty remarkable year," Dr Reid said, adding sea ice now
totalled about 12.8 million square kilometres, or more than 2 million
below average for November.
The Weddell polynya indicates there were unusually warm waters beneath,
but researchers won't know for sure until they can retrieve and analyse
data from floats, Dr Reid said.
Some extreme weather, which also brought in warmer air from the north,
may have helped corral the thinning ice into smaller areas. "That
atmospheric pattern exacerbated the regions of lower-than-normal sea
ice," he said.
Mark Brandon, a polar oceanographer and blogger at the UK's Open
University, said the ice was noticeably compacting in three areas – the
Ross Sea, the Cosmonauts Sea, and in the Bellingshausen and Weddell
seas.
Dr Brandon said that the increased mobility of the ice implies there is less of it, so volume has probably dropped too.
"We have no long-term wide geographical ranging measurements of sea ice
thickness in the Antarctic that are comparable to what we have in the
Arctic," he said. "For various technical reasons we don't have
[satellite data] – yet – either.
"But with the evidence in the Weddell Sea I would be surprised if the
volume is constant given the pack is not being compressed against the
coast," he said.
SOURCE
Go global warming!
England will face its coldest November night for almost 25 years as
temperatures plummet below freezing this week. People have been told to
wrap up warm with overnight temperatures forecast to drop to -8C in
southern England by Tuesday. The last time it was this cold was in
Yorkshire, on November 22 1993.
It will be chilly this evening with temperatures dropping to -6C in the South of England and minus -5C in the West Midlands.
A band of cloud over the North of the country and towards Scotland will keep temperatures milder, reaching around 4C.
Into Monday and Tuesday it will remain dry with clear skies, but temperatures will drop overnight to -8C.
The brisk conditions are only expected to last until Wednesday, with warmer weather forecast later on in the week.
Met office meteorologist, Luke Miall said: 'We are set for a couple of
cold nights but we won't see sub zero temperatures during the day. It's
just a case of wrapping up warm if you go out.
Ladbrokes are offering odds of 2/1 that a new record is set for the coldest night of 2016 before next Sunday.
SOURCE
No, Donald Trump Hasn’t Suddenly Gone Soft on ‘Global Warming’
I gave my take on this on Sunday
"Trump now believes that man-made climate change is real" claims a
headline in Mother Jones. (Top trolling, guys. Almost worthy of the
Master, DJT himself.)
"In shift, Donald Trump says humans may be causing global warming," says PBS.
According to The Washington Post, meanwhile:
President-elect Donald Trump appears to be softening
his tone on whether climate change is real and on his stated plans to
scrap the recent multinational agreement to limit carbon emissions.
The name for this nonsense is "fake news" – as becomes clear when you
read the transcripts of what President-Elect Trump actually said at his
meeting with The New York Times:
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, opinion columnist: But it’s
really important to me, and I think to a lot of our readers, to know
where you’re going to go with this. I don’t think anyone objects to, you
know, doing all forms of energy. But are you going to take America out
of the world’s lead of confronting climate change?
TRUMP: I’m looking at it very closely, Tom. I’ll tell
you what. I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very
carefully. It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few
things where there’s more division than climate change. You don’t tend
to hear this, but there are people on the other side of that issue who
are, think, don’t even …
ARTHUR SULZBERGER Jr., publisher of The New York Times: We do hear it.
So at this point, Trump is gently introducing the NYT‘s liberals to the
concept that not everyone thinks the same way on climate change as they
do. Let’s carry on, shall we?
FRIEDMAN: I was on ‘Squawk Box’ with Joe Kernen this morning, so I got an earful of it. [laughter]
TRUMP: Joe is one of them. But a lot of smart people
disagree with you. I have a very open mind. And I’m going to study a lot
of the things that happened on it and we’re going to look at it very
carefully. But I have an open mind.
SULZBERGER: Well, since we’re living on an island,
sir, I want to thank you for having an open mind. We saw what these
storms are now doing, right? We’ve seen it personally. Straight up.
FRIEDMAN: But you have an open mind on this?
TRUMP: I do have an open mind. And we’ve had storms always, Arthur.
SULZBERGER: Not like this.
TRUMP: "You know the hottest day ever was in
1890-something, 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different
views. I have a totally open mind.
My uncle was for 35 years a professor at M.I.T. He
was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And he was … a long
time ago, he had feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings
on this subject. It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is
ever going to really know. I know we have, they say they have science on
one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent
between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years
ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you
say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell
you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean
water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important.
And you know, you mentioned a lot of the courses. I
have some great, great, very successful golf courses. I’ve received so
many environmental awards for the way I’ve done, you know. I’ve done a
tremendous amount of work where I’ve received tremendous numbers.
Sometimes I’ll say I’m actually an environmentalist and people will
smile in some cases and other people that know me understand that’s
true. Open mind"
Trump, it is obvious to anyone with half a brain, is taking the piss. He
is telling the NYT‘s liberal assembly "I hear what you say" and then,
ever so nicely, indicating that he doesn’t give a toss. The way he
repeats that phrase "open mind". He’s trolling them, basically.
(Especially where he tells them he’s an "environmentalist": classic
Trump.)
JAMES BENNET, editorial page editor: When you say an
open mind, you mean you’re just not sure whether human activity causes
climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn’t connected?
TRUMP: I think right now … well, I think there is
some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It
also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to
understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.
They’re really largely noncompetitive. About four
weeks ago, I started adding a certain little sentence into a lot of my
speeches, that we’ve lost 70,000 factories since W. Bush. 70,000. When I
first looked at the number, I said: ‘That must be a typo. It can’t be
70, you can’t have 70,000, you wouldn’t think you have 70,000 factories
here.’ And it wasn’t a typo, it’s right. We’ve lost 70,000 factories.
We’re not a competitive nation with other nations
anymore. We have to make ourselves competitive. We’re not competitive
for a lot of reasons.
That’s becoming more and more of the reason. Because a
lot of these countries that we do business with, they make deals with
our president, or whoever, and then they don’t adhere to the deals, you
know that. And it’s much less expensive for their companies to produce
products. So I’m going to be studying that very hard, and I think I have
a very big voice in it. And I think my voice is listened to, especially
by people that don’t believe in it. And we’ll let you know.
"We’ll let you know." In other words: "I’ll get back to you." In other
words: "Sorry. Not interested in your business. Got better things to
do."
SOURCE
Five stages of climate grief
Ever since the elections, our media, schools, workplaces and houses of
worship have presented stories showcasing the stages of grief: denial,
anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Liberal-progressive snowflakes are wallowing in denial, anger and
depression. They cannot work, attend class or take exams. They need safe
"healing" spaces, Play-Doh, comfort critters and counseling. Too many
throw tirades equating Donald Trump with Adolph Hitler, while too few
are actually moving to Canada, New Zeeland or Jupiter, after solemnly
promising they would.
Nouveau grief is also characterized by the elimination of bargaining and
acceptance – and their replacement by two new stages: intolerance for
other views and defiance or even riots. Sadly, it appears these new
stages have become a dominant, permanent, shameful feature of liberal
policies and politics.
The Left has long been intolerant of alternative viewpoints. Refusing to
engage or debate, banning or forcibly removing books and posters,
threatening and silencing contrarians, disinviting or shouting down
conservative speakers, denying tax exempt status to opposing political
groups, even criminalizing and prosecuting climate change "deniers" –
have all become trademark tactics. Defiance and riots were rare during
the Obama years, simply because his government enforced lib-prog
ideologies and policies.
Liberals view government as their domain, their reason for being, far
too important to be left to "poorly educated" rural and small-town
voters, blue-collar workers or other "deplorable" elements. Liberals may
not care what we do in our bedrooms, but they intend to control
everything outside those four walls.
They are aghast that over 90% of all US counties and county equivalents
voted for Trump. They’re incensed that President Trump and Republicans
in Congress, 33 governor’s offices and 69 of 99 state legislatures
nationwide will likely review and reform policies, laws and regulations
on a host of issues.
Above all, they are outraged over what might happen to their "dangerous
manmade climate change" mantra. It was supposed to be their ticket to
endless extravaganzas at 5-star venues in exotic locales – their trump
card for controlling the world’s energy, economy, livelihoods and living
standards.
That is why they demand that only their "facts" be heard on the
"consensus science" supporting policies they say are essential to
prevent a "disastrous" 2º C (3.6º F) rise from 1850 levels, when the
Little Ice Age ended (and the modern industrial era began). It’s why the
Paris climate agreement tells developed nations to keep fossil fuels in
the ground, roll back their economies and reduce their living standards
– while giving $100 billion per year to poor countries for climate
mitigation and reparation.
That, in turn, is why developing countries eagerly signed the Paris
accord, bringing it into force and effect just before this year’s
climate confab in Marrakech. They would not be required to reduce their
fossil fuel use or greenhouse gas emissions. And they – or at least
their governing classes – would receive trillions of dollars over the
coming decades. Countless thousands were thus in jolly spirits as they
flew giant fuel-guzzling, GHG-spewing jetliners into Morocco for the
historic event.
But then, on the third day, news of the US elections brought misery and
mayhem to Marrakech. Event organizers had tolerated credentialed
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow representatives handing out
Climate Hustle DVDs and discussing Real World climate science and energy
development. But when CFACT erected a Donald Trump cutout and shredded a
copy of the Paris accord, they sent armed police to forcibly end the
educational event and boot the impudent non-believers out of the
hallowed conference.
Marrakech may have marked the zenith of the religious-political climate
movement. President-Elect Trump has long held that there is likely "some
connectivity" between human actions and the climate – but he has also
said it is a "hoax" to say humans are now causing catastrophic global
warming and climate change. He also says he has an "open mind" on the
issue and will be studying it "very closely."
Here are a few important facts and probing questions that he could raise, to get the ball rolling.
1) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed to detect
and assess possible human influences on global climate systems, amid
many natural forces. However, it soon began looking only at human
influences. Now it claims warming, cooling and weather are driven only
by human emissions. How and why did this happen? How can alarmists
ignore the powerful natural forces, focus solely on air emissions
associated with fossil fuel use – and call it solid, honest, empirical,
consensus science?
2) Your "manmade climate chaos" thesis – and computer models that
support it – implicitly assume that fossil fuel emissions and feedbacks
they generate have replaced numerous powerful natural forces that have
driven climate cycles and extreme weather events throughout Earth and
human history. What caused the ice ages and interglacial periods,
Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Anasazi and Mayan droughts, and
other major climate and weather events – before fossil fuel emissions
took over?
Where did all those natural forces go? Why are they no longer
functioning? Who stole them? When did they stop ruling the climate: in
1850, 1900, 1950 … or perhaps 1990, after the IPCC was established?
3) You claim climate and weather patterns are already "unprecedented"
and increasingly cataclysmic. But even as plant-fertilizing CO2 levels
continue to climb, average global temperatures have risen barely 0.1
degrees the past two decades, amid a major El Niño. Antarctic and
Greenland ice sheets are growing at record rates. Seas are rising at
barely seven inches per century. It has now been a record eleven years
since a category 3-5 hurricane struck the US mainland; the previous
record was nine years, 1860 to 1869. The 2016 US tornado count was the
lowest on record. Where are the unprecedented cataclysms?
4) Your computer models begin with the assumption or assertion that
increasing levels of carbon dioxide will cause rapidly, dangerously
rising global temperatures, and more extreme weather events. But if this
assumption is wrong, so are your models, projections and scenarios.
It’s garbage in / garbage out. And in fact your models have been wrong –
dramatically and consistently, year after year. When will you fix them?
When will they factor in data and analyses for solar, cosmic ray,
oceanic and other natural forces?
5) The manmade climate cataclysm community has refused to discuss or
debate its data, methodologies, analyses and conclusions with those whom
you call "skeptics" or "deniers." 97% consensus, case closed, you say.
What do you fear from open, robust debate? What manipulated data or
other tricks are you trying to hide? Why are you afraid to put your
cards on the table, lay out your supposed evidence – and duke it out? Do
you really think taxpayers should give you one more dime under these
circumstances?
6) The FDA and other federal agencies require that applications for
drugs, medical devices and permits for projects include extensive raw
data, lab and project methodologies, and other information. Your
modeling and other work is largely paid for with taxpayer money, and
used to determine public policies. Why should you be allowed to hide
your data and methodologies, treat them as proprietary, refuse to share
them with Congress or "realist" scientists, and refuse to engage in a
full peer-review process?
7) EPA’s "social cost of carbon" scheme blames everything imaginable on
fossil fuels – but totally ignores the huge benefits of using these
fuels. Isn’t that misleading, disingenuous, even fraudulent?
8) America already produces more ethanol than it can use. Now EPA wants
another 1.2 billion gallons blended into our gasoline. Why should we do
this – considering the land, water, environmental, CO2, fuel efficiency
and other costs, rampant fraud in the RIN program, and impacts on small
refiners? If we replace all fossil fuels with biofuels, how much land,
water, fertilizer and energy would that require?
9) Wind turbines are land intensive, heavily subsidized and exempted
from most environmental rules. They kill millions of birds and bats.
Their electricity is expensive and unreliable, and requires fossil fuel
backup generators. Why should this industry be exempted from endangered
species laws – and allowed to conduct bogus mortality studies, and
prevent independent investigators from reviewing the work?
Mr. Trump, keep an open mind. But keep exercising due diligence. Trust,
but verify. And fire anyone who lies or refuses to answer, or provides
the climate equivalent of shoddy work and substandard concrete.
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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28 November, 2016
National Geographic asked photographers to show the impact of climate change
The idea that you could photograph climate change is a considerable
absurdity so it should be no great surprise that the results embodied
much absurdity.
And equally absurd is the idea that you can support a generalization
-- which global warming is -- by selected cases of something. I
used to be something of a photographer in my youth and I am quite
confident that I could produce a series of shots to "illustrate" just
about anything.
For instance, just about everyone seems to have heard that Australia is a
"dry" continent. It is. Most of it is deserts. But just by
wandering around the tropical areas where I was born and bred, I could
produce photos of things in Australia that "prove" the opposite: Photos
of lush greenery, big rivers, scenic waterfalls and images of dairy cows
grazing lush green fields of long grass. Thus I could "prove"
that Australia is NOT a dry country. In fact, however, such a
procedure would in fact give precisely wrong results.
Given the feebleness of the presentation, I am not going to attempt to
critique it all so I will advert briefly to the text underneath a
picture of animals grazing at dusk.
Underneath the picture, the following text occurs:
"These animals have found the secret stash of the orange farmer who
dumps the oranges that have fallen from his trees at least seven
kilometers away from the orchards to control the breeding of the fruit
fly. It is the end of a winter exacerbated by global warming, which
makes the season longer and drier and the summer hotter with less rain
in an already dry climate"
Which is complete nonsense. The scene is apparently from somewhere
in South Africa and it may be that there was unusually low rainfall
there recently. Rainfall varies. But the low rainfall was NOT due
to global warming. Due to El Nino, there was indeed an unusually
warm period globally in late 2015 and early 2016 but why should that
cause less rain? Hot weather evaporates more water off the oceans
and that comes down again as rain. Which is why the tropics are wetter
than elsewhere. El Nino should have caused MORE rain, not less.
Even the most basic physics seems to be unknown to most Warmists -- JR.
Stunning new data indicates El Nino drove record highs in global
temperatures suggesting rise may not be down to man-made emissions
Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C
since the middle of this year – their biggest and steepest fall on
record.
The news comes amid mounting evidence that the recent run of world record high temperatures is about to end.
The fall, revealed by Nasa satellite measurements of the lower
atmosphere, has been caused by the end of El Nino – the warming of
surface waters in a vast area of the Pacific west of Central America.
Some scientists, including Dr Gavin Schmidt, head of Nasa’s climate
division, have claimed that the recent highs were mainly the result of
long-term global warming.
Others have argued that the records were caused by El Nino, a complex
natural phenomenon that takes place every few years, and has nothing to
do with greenhouse gas emissions by humans.
The new fall in temperatures suggests they were right.
Big El Ninos always have an immense impact on world weather, triggering
higher than normal temperatures over huge swathes of the world. The
2015-16 El Nino was probably the strongest since accurate measurements
began, with the water up to 3C warmer than usual.
It has now been replaced by a La Nina event – when the water in the same
Pacific region turns colder than normal. This also has worldwide
impacts, driving temperatures down rather than up.
The satellite measurements over land respond quickly to El Nino and La
Nina. Temperatures over the sea are also falling, but not as fast,
because the sea retains heat for longer.
This means it is possible that by some yardsticks, 2016 will be declared
as hot as 2015 or even slightly hotter – because El Nino did not vanish
until the middle of the year.
But it is almost certain that next year, large falls will also be
measured over the oceans, and by weather station thermometers on the
surface of the planet – exactly as happened after the end of the last
very strong El Nino in 1998. If so, some experts will be forced to eat
their words.
Last year, Dr Schmidt said 2015 would have been a record hot year even without El Nino.
‘The reason why this is such a warm record year is because of the
long-term underlying trend, the cumulative effect of the long-term
warming trend of our Earth,’ he said. This was ‘mainly caused’ by the
emission of greenhouse gases by humans.
Dr Schmidt also denied that there was any ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in global warming between the 1998 and 2015 El Ninos.
But on its website home page yesterday, Nasa featured a new study which
said there was a hiatus in global warming before the recent El Nino, and
discussed why this was so. Last night Dr Schmidt had not returned a
request for comment.
However, both his own position, and his Nasa division, may be in
jeopardy. US President-elect Donald Trump is an avowed climate change
sceptic, who once claimed it was a hoax invented by China.
Last week, Mr Trump’s science adviser Bob Walker said he was likely to
axe Nasa’s $1.9 billion (about £1.4 billion) climate research budget.
Other experts have also disputed Dr Schmidt’s claims. Professor Judith
Curry, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and president of the
Climate Forecast Applications Network, said yesterday: ‘I disagree with
Gavin. The record warm years of 2015 and 2016 were primarily caused by
the super El Nino.’
The slowdown in warming was, she added, real, and all the evidence
suggested that since 1998, the rate of global warming has been much
slower than predicted by computer models – about 1C per century.
David Whitehouse, a scientist who works with Lord Lawson’s sceptic
Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the massive fall in temperatures
following the end of El Nino meant the warming hiatus or slowdown may be
coming back.
‘According to the satellites, the late 2016 temperatures are returning to the levels they were at after the 1998 El Nino.
The data clearly shows El Nino for what it was – a short-term weather event,’ he said.
SOURCE
Captain Cook's detailed 1778 records confirm global warming today in the Arctic (?)
The Warmists really are incredible. Here they are generalizing
from ONE YEAR! We know that Actic ice waxes and wanes so how are
we to know that 1778 was typical of anything? It could have been
an unusually hot or an unusually cold year. We have no way of
knowing. This is faith, not science
Passengers simmered in Jacuzzis and feasted on gourmet cuisine this
summer as the 850-foot cruise ship Crystal Serenity moved through the
Northwest Passage.
[Led by two icebreakers!]
But in the summer of 1778, when Capt. James Cook tried to find a Western
entrance to the route, his men toiled on frost-slicked decks and
complained about having to supplement dwindling rations with walrus
meat.
The British expedition was halted north of the Bering Strait by "ice
which was as compact as a wall and seemed to be 10 or 12 feet high at
least," according to the captain's journal. Cook's ships followed the
ice edge all the way to Siberia in their futile search for an opening,
sometimes guided through fog by the braying of the unpalatable creatures
the crew called Sea Horses.
More than two centuries later, scientists are mining meticulous records
kept by Cook and his crew for a new perspective on the warming that has
opened the Arctic in a way the 18th century explorer could never have
imagined.
Working with maps and logs from Cook's voyage and other historical
records and satellite imagery, University of Washington mathematician
Harry Stern has tracked changes in ice cover in the Chukchi Sea, between
Alaska and Russia, over nearly 240 years.
The results, published this month in the journal Polar Geography,
confirm the significant shrinkage of the summer ice cap and shed new
light on the timing of the transformation. The analysis also extends the
historical picture back nearly 75 years, building on previous work with
ships' records from the 1850s.
"This old data helps us look at what conditions were like before we
started global warming, and what the natural variability was," said Jim
Overland, a Seattle-based oceanographer for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in Stern's project.
Though earlier explorers ventured into the frigid waters off Alaska,
Cook was the first to map the ice edge, Stern said. Cook undertook the
voyage, which also covered the Northwest coast, on orders from King
George III to seek a shorter trading route between Europe and the Far
East across the top of the world.
Stymied by the ice, Cook headed for the winter to Hawaii, where he was killed by native people.
Stern's analysis found that for more than 200 years after Cook's visit
the summer ice cover in the Chukchi Sea fluctuated, but generally
extended south to near where Cook encountered it.
SOURCE
Another Blow To CO2…French Scientist’s Research Attributes Most Global Warming To Solar Activity
More fresh climate science just out showing that the sun is the main driver of our climate.
The Dutch-British publishing company Elsevier B.V. has put online a
paper entitled "Earth Climate Identification vs. Detection and
Attribution". This publication, referenced on the ScienceDirect website,
was revised in the due rules by a peer committee in Annual Reviews in
Control (ARC), one of the seven scientific journals of IFAC, federating
thousands of international experts in automatic control and modelisation
of complex systems.
The paper’s author, Professor Philippe de Larminat, applied the proven
techniques of dynamical systems identification to the Earth climate,
using paleoclimatic databases available from the major institutes and
international organizations. It follows that "with a 90% probability
level, one cannot reject the hypothesis of a zero anthropogenic
contribution". While "the hypothesis of a low sensitivity to solar
activity must be rejected with a probability level greater than 90%."
Conversely, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
considers that "it is extremely likely that human influence has been the
dominant cause of the observed warming since the middle of the 20th
century", this on the basis of the "Detection and Attribution", a theory
explicitly dedicated to anthropogenic attribution of recent climate
change.
The paper presents and clarifies the causes of this contradiction:
* The main one is due to the durations used for climate observations: a
thousand years for identification, at most one hundred and fifty years
for the Detection-Attribution, thereby eliminating the millennia events
of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, notoriously
correlated to solar activity. "It has the effect of minimizing the
contribution of solar activity," says the author.
* The second contradiction is due to a confusion between cause and
effect, about the El Niño events. The author examines the reasons for
this "heavy methodological error, which is obvious to any expert in
systems science".
Could the Philippe de Larminat publication challenge the prevailing
consensus on anthropogenic climate change, consensus which is turning
the world economic issues (COP 21, 22) as far as the moral issues
(Laudato si)? Questioned on the eventuality that a new consensus can
emerge, that of a preponderant influence of solar activity on the
climate, the author only recalls:
Neither the consensus nor the votes have any place in science; only the
evidence matter. To the argument of authority, French philosopher
Descartes opposed the authority of the argument. But the consensus is
only a submission to the argument of authority, the lowest ever."
This publication, whose part is accessible even to the non-experts,
confirms the conclusions already advanced by the author in his previous
work "Climate change – identification and projections" (ISTE/Wiley,
2014).
SOURCE
Australian anti-immigration politician slips into wetsuit for barrier reef trip -- and finds that all is well with the reef
Most of the media have been amusing about this. They say that
she has embarrassed herself by not going to the "right" part of the
reef. But that claim is itself a message that only part of the
reef is affected by bleaching. We can perhaps be thankful to them
for getting that message out to a wider audience.
There
are many possible causes of bleaching but the loons of the
Green/Left are sure it is caused by global warming. And that might
pass muster when we note that the bleaching has occurred in the most
Northerly (and hence warmer) one-third of the reef. Problem:
Coral LIKES warmth, which is why the Northern part of the reef normally
has the greatest biological diversity. Normally, the further
North you go (i.e. the warmer you get), the greater the diversity.
So the cause of the bleaching is unknown.
As a fallback
position, the Greenies say that the bleaching is caused by agricultural
runoff. Problem: The Northern part of the reef runs along an area
of the Cape York Peninsula where there is virtually NO
agriculture. The soils there are too poor for it to be
economically feasible. So no runoff. "Facts be damned" seems
to be the Greenie motto
Pauline Hanson has slipped into a wetsuit and made a splash on the Great
Barrier Reef to show the world the natural wonder is worth visiting
amid claims it is dying.
The senator, who once cooked fish for a living, went swimming off Great
Keppel Island today and expressed concerns about reports on the reef's
health.
Ms Hanson says agenda-driven groups are telling "untruths" about the
state of the reef that are harming the tourism industry and
businesses. "When we have these agendas that are actually
destroying our tourism industry and businesses ... we need to ask the
questions and we want answers," she said. "The Greens have no concern
about people and jobs that we need here in Queensland, and the
escalating costs that we are feeling from the effects of this."
One Nation senators Malcolm Roberts, who has long argued the case that
global warming doesn't stack up, and Brian Burston were also on the reef
trip.
Mr Roberts said people had stopped coming to the reef because they were
being told it was dead and that Australia should not be reporting on its
health to the UN agency UNESCO.
Conservationists are concerned climate change is putting severe stress
on the reef, which experienced a massive coral bleaching event this
year, and some have declared it's dying at an unprecedented rate.
They say Ms Hanson and her senators visited the wrong part of the reef
as the southern sections had been least affected by the worst bleaching
event in the icon's history.
The World Wildlife Fund said One Nation should have visited Lizard
Island where bleaching, caused by high water temperatures, has killed
much of the coral.
SOURCE
***************************************
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
*****************************************
27 November, 2016
More Orwellian thinking from the Green/Left
Press "freedom" = restricting the voice of global warming skepticism
Amazing to see what Christiane Amanpour had to say about global warming and "press freedom" -- starting at 4:35
here
The transcript on the link (slightly different from what she actually says in the video) includes the following:
"It appeared much of the media got itself into knots trying to
differentiate between balance, objectivity, neutrality, and crucially,
truth.
We cannot continue the old paradigm--let's say like over global warming,
where 99.9 percent of the empirical scientific evidence is given equal
play with the tiny minority of deniers.
I learned long ago, covering the ethnic cleansing and genocide in
Bosnia, never to equate victim with aggressor, never to create a false
moral or factual equivalence, because then you are an accomplice to the
most unspeakable crimes and consequences. (my emphasis)
Wikipedia states that "The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards honor
journalists or their publications around the world who show courage in
defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or
imprisonment."
Isn't it ironic that an award for press freedom is going to an
individual who feels that defending press freedom means that journalists
must self-censor and RESTRICT their readers' access to countering and
opposing views. And she equates reporting of skeptics' views with
"ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia" and "unspeakable crimes".
And note that the 97% consensus has now become, according to Amanpour,
99.9%. She is obviously not much interested the actual facts.
Sweden's Royal Academy of Science highly critical of wind power
Translation of the main points by EPAW's spokesman in Scandinavia, Peter Skeel Hjorth:
Multi-billion-dollar subsidies for wind power are wasteful
Wind power production is negligible
10 TWh of wind power would require costly expansions to the distribution network
Expansion of wind power will harm Swedish competitiveness
Expansion of wind power will cost dearly to electricity customers
Expansion of wind power will not reduce carbon dioxide emissions
The subsidies could be better spent on other things
Thirteen of Sweden's most eminent scientists within climate and energy
explain that the current Swedish wind power investment is a huge mistake
that will cost the Swedish people billions of dollars without providing
any benefits to the country.
It is also stated that wind production is minuscule, but was it to
increase significantly then it would entail additional costs to
electricity consumers in the form of demands for increased network
expansion and back up power generation.
All in all this means that the expansion of wind power as a whole is
negative for the electricity consumers and for Sweden's competitiveness.
There are no environmental benefits either because wind power is not
able to reduce carbon emissions.
SOURCE
Antarctic ice has hardly melted in 100 years, log books from Captain Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole confirm
Which rather contradicts this dramatic report: "In 2014,
researchers claimed the melting of glaciers in West Antarctica may be
irreversible. A study by Nasa and the University of California, Irvine
revealed the barren region was haemorrhaging ice at a rate triple that
of a decade before. The team found the rate by taking radar, laser and
satellite measurements of the glaciers' mass between 1992 and 2013. 'The
mass loss of these glaciers is increasing at an amazing rate,' said
scientist Isabella Velicogna, jointly of the University of California,
Irvine and Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory"
A century after their deaths, Antarctic explorers Captain Robert Scott
and Sir Ernest Shackleton are helping further our knowledge of the
frozen continent. Log books recovered from their doomed expeditions show
the amount of sea ice there has barely changed in 100 years.
Only one region, the Wendell Sea, has seen a significant reduction – 14
per cent – scientists from the University of Reading found.
Scott died with four of his men in 1912 during their ill-fated quest to become the first to the South Pole.
The team reached their goal only to find their rival, the Norwegian
Roald Amundsen, had beaten them by five weeks. They perished on the
return journey.
Shackleton, who had explored Antarctica with Scott a decade before, led
an expedition to trek across the continent between 1914 and 1917. He had
to be rescued when his ship sank. He died in 1922.
Log books detailing the extent of the sea ice in Antarctica were recovered from both expeditions.
These have been used to help fill gaps in the data – complete records of
ice cover exist only for the period since scientists began to use
satellites to survey the planet.
Researchers looked through the logbooks of early Antarctic explorers
from the 'Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (1897-1917)' and compared
the recorded observations of Antarctic ice from the time with satellite
images from today.
Jonathan Day, who led the University of Reading study, said: 'The
missions of Scott and Shackleton are remembered in history as heroic
failures, yet the data collected by these and other explorers could
profoundly change the way we view the ebb and flow of Antarctic sea ice.
'We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began.
'Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context
of global warming, but these findings suggest it may not be new.'
It is not known why Antarctic ice has grown since the 1970s.
Some scientists believe the widening hole in the atmosphere's ozone
layer has caused stronger surface winds over Antarctica and more
frequent storms in the Southern Ocean.
But the results from the 'heroic age' of polar exploration suggest this also happened earlier in the 20th century.
The log books give details of ice cover, the state of the sea, the weather and wildlife spotted from the deck.
The study implies Antarctic sea ice levels in the early 1900s were
similar to today, at between 2 million and 2.8 million square miles (5.3
million and 7.4 million square kilometres).
Estimates suggest levels were significantly higher in the 1950s.
The research, published in the European Geosciences Union journal The
Cryosphere, suggests the Antarctic is much less sensitive to the effects
of climate change than the Arctic, which has seen a dramatic decline in
sea ice.
Mr Day said: 'The Southern Ocean is largely a 'black hole' as far as
historical climate change data is concerned, but future activities
planned to recover data from naval and whaling ships will help us to
understand past climate variations and what to expect in the future.'
SOURCE
All power to energy security: Australia could learn from Trump
When US president-elect Donald Trump listed his six top priorities for
executive action this week on "day one" of becoming the most powerful
man in the world, naturally most attention was grabbed by his very first
decision: withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade
agreement.
Yet in global terms, and in Australia’s interest, his second priority was just as important.
This was Trump’s pledge to "cancel job-killing restrictions on the
production of American energy including shale energy and clean coal,
creating many millions of high-paying jobs".
Energy security was placed above national security.
The jobs of coalminers, the use of low-cost shale deposits for energy
and the creation of manufacturing jobs were placed ahead of national
security, and the withdrawal from the Obama administration’s commitment
to the Paris agreement on climate change didn’t even rate a mention.
There is global agitation about the pragmatism of protecting jobs
through energy security, providing energy at a low enough price so
people can afford to use it and producing energy when people need it,
as well as an imperative to lower carbon emissions. The hidden cost of
"intermittency" — the hallmark of wind and solar production — and the
danger of blackouts are being recognised.
Australia is fortunate in that, historically, it has had low-cost
energy, enormous natural resources, a pristine environment and the
benefit of seeing how policy parameters such as the European emissions
trading system and subsidised renewable energy programs work in
practice.
Trump’s priorities and actions on energy are vital to Australia’s own
energy future, economic growth, job creation and climate change actions
as precipitous political decisions around the world are distorting
energy markets, pushing up costs for industry, driving jobs across
borders, exporting manufacturing opportunities and perversely
affecting markets and carbon emissions.
There is also a political necessity to continue to get public support
for climate change initiatives, although Trump has demonstrated there
can be a white-hot anger about ideological climate change policies that
don’t recognise the hurt to workers.
In recent weeks in Australia the closure of the Victorian Hazelwood
coal-fired power station has been announced with the loss of 750 jobs in
the Latrobe Valley, in part because of French government climate change
policy; export coal prices have soared; coalmines have reopened; and
AGL, one of the biggest domestic gas suppliers, has set aside $17
million for a feasibility study for Australia, the biggest exporter of
liquefied natural gas, to import lower-cost LNG from suppliers in the
Middle East.
As well, South Australia experienced catastrophic power blackouts,
Victoria became a net electricity importer, with the potential for dire
shortages or blackouts at times of extreme demand, and the Victorian
Labor government introduced a bill this week to extend its existing
moratorium on conventional onshore gas exploration to 2020.
The Greens, environmental activists and the ALP are simultaneously
building a public campaign for the transition from coal and gas to a
mainly renewable energy future that is putting cutting carbon
emissions ahead of energy and job security.
It is a challenge for all sides of politics in form and substance.
According to Industry, Innovation and Science Minister Greg Hunt, the
Victorian government’s decision to continue to ban onshore natural gas
exploration is the final act in laying the foundation for a
"manufacturing crisis" with a looming shortfall in natural gas supply
because Australia is locked into long-term LNG exports, and Victoria
and NSW are banning or effectively banning gas exploration and
production.
"It is absolutely clear there is no shortage of gas resources in the
ground but there is a shortage of gas supply to homes and industry,"
Hunt tells Inquirer. "We have to be honest that the effective closure
of new supplies will risk jobs, will risk prices and will risk economic
activity.
"The sad part, over and above that, is that potentially we choose higher emissions sources of energy for electricity."
Whereas Australia is aiming to reform its energy market, upgrade its
electricity interchange, boost renewable energy, keep coal and gas as
integral parts of energy generation and job creation for decades to
come, and meet its international agreements to cut carbon emissions by
26 per cent to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, Trump is happy to
shed global obligations to provide cheap power for the US economy.
He campaigned successfully on creating American jobs and specifically on
returning the manufacturing and mining jobs lost in states such as
Pennsylvania, which he snatched from Hillary Clinton, sensing the
blue-collar fear and reality of job losses because of climate change
policies closing mines and raising costs to support renewable energy.
As for Australia, seen as one of the world’s great carbon demons because
of its coal production, it does not have the option of dumping carbon
polices as Trump intends to do, but neither should Australian
governments, state and federal, adopt distorting policies that push
costs to domestic and industry users to levels that are punitive,
unsustainable and a threat to a cohesive energy supply and security.
Without commenting on any US administration’s domestic policy, Hunt
makes the point: "American manufacturing in recent years has become
more competitive in significant measure because they have had access to
lower-cost gas; it actually brought gas on board. As a matter of
economics, if there is more natural gas available in the US, then their
manufacturing will be even more competitive."
In the past 10 years in the US, electricity generation from gas has
risen from 18.7 per cent to 32.5 per cent while coal has fallen from
49.5 per cent to 33 per cent. Coal and natural gas are now almost equal
as the producers of American electricity. During the same period,
renewable electricity energy has grown from 8.8 per cent to 13.8 per
cent and nuclear has remained steady at 19.4 per cent.
The real lesson for Australia in the US experience of the role of gas,
coal and renewables in this energy-climate change mix is not the
increased potential economic threat from Trump’s low-cost powered US
industrial base but from Europe.
Although Trump’s first priority involved ensuring the US created
American jobs by producing steel and "making cars", the threat to
Australia’s coal exports — which even Bill Shorten admits must go on for
decades — is the framing of public opinion and policy development that
puts energy security at risk.
Ideologically driven energy decisions in Europe taken years ago provide
the example of how Australia should not proceed: unrealistic renewable
energy targets, unsustainable renewable energy subsidies, rising
electricity prices, precipitously doing away with fossil fuels,
politically driven decisions to close nuclear power plants, the export
of jobs and, ironically, the start of the failure of carbon emission
reduction policies.
In the past two years Germany’s renowned world leader status on
renewable energy has started to be tarnished as political decisions to
subsidise renewables and to close nuclear power plants, coalmines and
coal-fired power plants have resulted in price rises and environmental
anomalies.
Rising costs for industry’s power have forced companies to relocate, the
government has told renewable energy producers they have to manage
without subsidies, coal-fired power stations are being commissioned,
brown coal — lignite — mines are being opened and brown "dirty" coal is
still a large part of baseload electricity generation.
Paradoxically, as Germany tries to become nuclear free, it is buying
nuclear-generated electricity from France and the French are importing
cheap lignite-powered electricity from Germany. This makes a mockery of
carbon emission and nuclear energy reductions.
France introduced a carbon tax on coal-fired electricity and cut
subsidies to coal — in part affecting the Latrobe Valley — as a climate
change policy, but higher costs forced the government to cancel the tax
within a few months.
As Europe heads into winter, there are predictions of greater demand
from Britain and The Netherlands from electricity suppliers, and some of
that will be coming from Germany’s "dirty secret" of lignite. Germany
is being attacked by industry for higher prices creating job losses and
by environmentalists for dropping its specific carbon emission reduction
targets for 2050.
Australia has the opportunity to bring a sober, pragmatic but
environmentally responsible energy security to bear in the national
interest, but at the moment the approach is fractured, ideologically
driven and not receiving the priority Trump is prepared to give energy
security.
SOURCE
CLEXIT: Harmful, Costly, Unscientific Climate Treaties should be torn up
A new international organization aims to prevent ratification of the
costly and dangerous Paris global warming treaty which is being promoted
by the EU and the present US administration.
"CLEXIT" (CLimate Exit) was inspired by the Brexit decision of the
British people to withdraw from the increasingly dictatorial grasp of
the EU bureaucracy.
Without any publicity or serious recruiting, Clexit has attracted over
60 well-informed science, business and economic leaders from 16
countries.
The secretary of Clexit, Mr Viv Forbes from Australia, said that
widespread enforcement of the Paris climate treaty would be a global
tragedy.
"For the EU and the rest of the Western world, ratification and
enforcement of the Paris Treaty (and all the other associated decrees
and Agendas) would herald the end of low-cost hydrocarbon transport and
electricity, and the exit of their manufacturing, processing and
refining industries to countries with low-cost energy.
"For developing countries, the Paris Treaty would deny them the benefits
of reliable low-cost hydrocarbon energy, compelling them to rely on
biomass heating and costly weather-dependent and unreliable power
supplies, thus prolonging and increasing their dependency on
international handouts. They will soon resent being told to remain
forever in an energy-deprived wind/solar/wood/bicycle economy.
"Perhaps the most insidious feature of the UN climate plan is the "Green
Climate Fund". Under this scheme, selected nations ("The rich") are
marked to pour billions of dollars into a green slush fund. The funds
will then be used to bribe other countries ("developing and emerging
nations") into adopting silly green energy policies.
"Naturally some smart politicians and speculators in the BRICS nations
(Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and in the small island
nations, understand that they can profit from the Paris Treaty by gaming
the rules on things like carbon credits, or milking the green fund for
"climate compensation" or "green energy technology". This will only work
for a while, and when the handouts stop, the re-adjustment to reality
will be very painful.
"This UN-driven war on carbon energy has already caused massive losses
and dislocation of western industry. If allowed to continue as envisaged
by the Paris Treaty, this economic recession will become a world-wide
depression, and all nations will suffer.
"We must stop this futile waste of community savings; cease the
destruction and dislocation of human industry; stop killing rare bats
and birds with wind turbine blades and solar/thermal sizzlers; stop
pelletising trees and shipping them across the world to feed power
stations designed to burn coal; stop converting food to motor vehicle
fuel; and stop the clearing of bush and forests for biofuel cultivation
and plantations."
"Carbon dioxide does not control the climate. It is an essential plant
food and more carbon dioxide will produce more plant growth and a
greener globe."
SOURCE
***************************************
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 November, 2015
Some matters arising from Trump's NYT interview
The Donald's Scottish golf course has been widely praised and Trump
himself seems to feel a strong connection to it. But in his NYT interview
Friedman hinted that sea-level rises might flood it. Would he
want his golf cause to be flooded? From what I can see the course
is well and truly above sea level so that claim would probably not fly
but in case parts of it are a bit low, it would be nice if someone was
on hand to draw Trump's attention to the official sea level information
for Aberdeen. The Trump International Golf Links are just 10 miles
North of Aberdeen.
The NOAA chart for Aberdeen is here.
You will see from it that the sea level rise there averages out to
about 3 inches per century and from about 1985 on there appears to be no
trend at all. That should immunize Trump against the usual
leftist lies about the oceans rising.
In the same interview
"Pinch" Sulzberger claimed that America has never had storms as bad as
ones that hit recently. So perhaps the story below could be
mentioned:
The Great New England Hurricane of 1938
On September 21, 1938, one of the most destructive and powerful
hurricanes in recorded history struck Long Island and Southern New
England. The storm developed near the Cape Verde Islands on September 9,
tracking across the Atlantic and up the Eastern Seaboard. The storm hit
Long Island and Southern Connecticut on September 21, moving at a
forward speed of 47 mph! Sustained hurricane force winds were felt
across central and eastern Long Island and southeastern Connecticut. The
hurricane produced a destructive storm surge flooding coastal
communities as well as producing three to seven inches of rainfall.
FACTS
Max Recorded Sustained Wind: 121 mph at Blue Hill Observatory, MA
Max Recorded Wind Gust: 186 mph at Blue Hill Observatory, MA
Highest Sustained Wind Measurement not Influenced by Terrain: 109 mph at Fishers Island, NY (Landsea et al 2013)
Lowest Observed Pressure: 27.94 in (946.2 mb) at Bellport, NY
Estimated Lowest Pressure: 27.79 in (941 mb) near Brentwood, NY as the
wind and pressure centers were slightly displaced due to its fast speed
and extra-tropical transition (Landsea et al. 2013, National Hurricane
Center; Hurricane Research Division Re-Analysis Project)
Speed at landfall: 47 mph (Landsea et al. 2013, National Hurricane Center; Hurricane Research Division Re-Analysis Project)
Peak Storm Surge: 17 ft. above normal high tide (Rhode Island)
Peak Wave Height: 50 ft. at Gloucester, MA
Deaths: 700
Homeless: Approx. 63,000
Homes/Buildings Destroyed: Approx. 8,900
Trees Destroyed: Approx. 2 Billion
Boats Lost or Destroyed: Approx. 3,300
Cost: $620 million (1938 Dollars); Equivalent to approx. $41 billion
using 2005 inflation, wealth, and population normalization then
estimated to 2010 Dollars (Blake and Gibney 2011).
SOURCE
Satellites Show The Global Warming ‘Pause’ Is Back
Satellite-derived temperature data suggests the "pause" in global
warming is back as the recent El Nino fades and cooler temperatures
prevail, according to a new analysis.
Land temperatures have declined to pre-El Nino levels, according to Dr.
David Whitehouse, suggesting the El Nino warming event may not have a
big impact on the long-term global warming trend.
"The decrease is seen in the land only data," wrote Whitehouse, the
science editor for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. "Data from the
sea shows a decline but not as much. This is expected given the ocean’s
thermal lag."
"Data from the RSS group that provides satellite temperature services
show that late-2016 temperatures have returned to the level it was at
post-1998," he wrote. "This clearly shows the recent El Nino for what it
is – a short term weather event. Now that it is over it can easily be
seen that the lower Tropospheric temperature displays no long-term trend
between 1999 – 2016."
The recent El Nino that began in late 2015, was incredibly powerful and
boosted global average temperature to record levels. El Nino actually
broke the so-called "pause" in global warming — a more than two-decade
period in the satellite record with no statistically significant
warming.
Whitehouse also pointed out it’s uncertain if satellite data will
undergo a "step-change" to warmer temperatures, like it’s done in the
past. Outside of these "step-changes," global temperature remains stable
in the satellite record, suggesting the warming is largely driven by El
Ninos and La Ninas.
"Many have noticed that the strong El Nino of 1998 resulted in a
‘step-change’ in lower atmospheric temperature," Whitehouse wrote.
"There is no reliable statistical evidence for an increase before it in
the satellite data that was available in 1979," he wrote. "After 1998
the temperature did not return to its previous level but remained at a
higher, stable level. It remains to be seen if the temperature will
undergo another step-change. It’s very early days but on the sparse data
available I think it seems unlikely."
Scientists and some media outlets sounded the alarm on man-made global
warming as El Nino drove February temperatures to their highest level on
record.
"We are in a kind of climate emergency now," Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate
scientist at the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, said in
February.
"This is really quite stunning" and "it’s completely unprecedented," he said.
But satellites temperatures are especially sensitive to El Ninos, and
temperatures peaked in February, but began to rapidly decline in the
following months — though not fast enough to avoid 2016 likely becoming
the warmest year on record.
Experts still predict a somewhat weak La Nina cooling event to persist
through the rest of the year and bring "drier and warmer weather in the
southern U.S. and wetter, cooler conditions in the Pacific Northwest and
across to the northern tier of the nation this winter," according to
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
SOURCE
NASA Climate Scientists Threatens To Resign If Trump Cuts Funding
A hollow threat, methinks -- but welcome
NASA’s top climate scientist urged President-elect Donald Trump to keep
paying for global warming programs, but threatened to resign if Trump
censored his science.
Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space
Studies, told the Independent he and other government scientists are
"not going to stand" for any funding cuts or other interference in their
work.
"The point is simple: the climate is changing and you can try to deny
it, you can appoint people who don’t care about it into positions of
power, but regardless nature has the last vote on this," Schmidt, told
The Independent Thursday. "It’s something we’re going to have to deal
with sooner or later, and it’s better sooner rather than later. We don’t
have a choice if we’re going to deal with it."
Trump has called global warming a "hoax," "mythical," a "con job,"
"nonexistent," and "bullshit." Trump views policies created to fight
global warming as hurting U.S. manufacturing competitiveness with China.
When The Independent asked Schmidt what he would do if Trump told him
global warming was a hoax, Schmidt replied: "With respect, that’s not
actually true."
Schmidt went on to say he’d consider resigning if Trump didn’t embrace
his vision of NASA as an environmental research institution or
threatened to censor him.
Trump’s space policy focuses on eliminating bureaucratic waste and
cutting back on environmental science research so the agency can pursue
more ambitious goals, like sending humans to Mars.
NASA’s budget includes more than $2 billion for its Earth Science
Mission Directorate, which works to improve climate modeling, weather
prediction and natural hazard mitigation. NASA’s other functions, such
as astrophysics and space technology, are only getting a mere $781.5 and
$826.7 million, respectively, in the budget proposal.
Spending on the directorate has increased by 63 percent over the last
eight years, making it the largest and fastest growing budget of any
NASA science program. Over the same time period, the general NASA budget
grew only by 10.6 percent — just enough to account for inflation. The
Directorate’s goal is to help NASA "meet the challenges of climate and
environmental change." The organization is also responsible for global
warming models proven to be inaccurate when checked against actual
temperature observations.
Industry analysts suspect that Trump will likely modestly increase
NASA’s overall budget while slashing many of the environmental science
programs originally instituted by President Barack Obama.
The top scientific question Schmidt claimed that NASA wants to answer in
its budget justification is "How are Earth’s climate and the
environment changing?" The more typical space questions, such as "Are we
alone?" and "How does the universe work?," were at the very bottom of
the list.
Even global warming alarmist Bill Nye the "Science Guy," who’s also the
CEO of the Planetary Society, has criticized Obama’s attempts to cut
NASA’s space exploration and planetary science programs in favor of
global warming. NASA’s planetary science program has previously held car
washes and bake sales to gain political support to maintain funding.
SOURCE
UK: Bid to Retain Subsidies Crushed by Court of Appeal
The greatest Ponzi scheme of all time is on the brink of collapse.
In America, Trump’s ‘deplorables’ have crushed the wind industry’s hopes
of carpeting the United States in millions of these things; shares in
wind turbine makers, like Denmark’s Vestas have plummeted.
In Australia, the wind industry is like a wandering zombie; quite
apparently lifeless, but unwilling to yield to death’s strengthening
grip. The Large-Scale RET on which it depends is bound to be scrapped,
as it will never be met and the political cost of lumping $1.5 billion
each year in a Federal penalty tax on top of all Australian power
consumers’ retail power bills will force the Liberal Coalition and the
Labor opposition to slash the annual target, once again.
In the UK, David Cameron went to an election promising to scrap
subsidies to onshore wind power and to give a right of veto to local
communities over proposed wind power projects (no prizes for guessing
how locals in Britain have chosen to exercise their power of veto).
Accordingly, with the exception of Scotland, the wind industry in
Britain is on its knees. The decision to back the Hinkley Point nuclear
power plant hasn’t helped them much, either.
Proving that the wind industry is always and everywhere about
maintaining massive subsidies until kingdom come, in response to the
Cameron government’s legislation slashing renewable subsidies, the wind
industry cried foul and took their grievance to Court. The thrust of
their argument was that the Government was bound to honour throwaway
promises about backing wind power with subsidies filched from taxpayers
and/or power consumers until the end of time.
The Court of Appeal thought otherwise.
More
HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)
A diagnosis of the real problem
The two issues are apparently unrelated:
* There is no scientific evidence linking the warming in the 2oth
century to CO2 and there is clear evidence from long term records that
show that such changes occur quite naturally.
* There is no historical evidence that anyone in Britain was ever called
a celt, ever knew themselves as a celt; in contrast, the Roman texts
make it very clear that the Britons considered themselves to be distinct
from the Gauls and Romans and that the Celts were a subgroup of the
Gauls.
However, despite the overwhelming evidence in both cases, there persists
a false belief amongst academia that the "politically correct" idea is
unequivocally true.
In both areas, but for very different reasons, I started with a naive
belief in the status quo, then found it increasingly difficult to
reconcile the facts with what I was told, and then as any sceptic would
do, I went to check the raw facts myself to try to determine what a
reasonable assessment of the facts would suggest and in both cases I
have found that far from being a very nuanced debate, it turns out that
the evidence is overwhelmingly against what has become the "political
correct" myth within academia.
What is the problem?
Let me first explain the issue with science in academia. The problem
academics have with real sceptic science, is that science doesn’t work
by consensus, it is not some democracy where we all vote for which
theory we want to work, nor is it some beauty contest where we decide
which theory is most attractive.
Instead, using the political analogy, science is a dictatorship of the
facts. There is no compromise, if the facts say something is true, then
no number of people wanting something else to be true can make it true.
And often the truth science reveals is uncompromising even brutal and
often not at all Politically Correct.
So, if the facts say that some racial group have a lower IQ or another
are more athletic, or that Homosexual activity increases the risk of
Aids, then irrespective of whether it is or is not Politically Correct
(to e.g. infer one race is superior or inferior or to suggest that some
sexual persuasion is bad) science requires the real scientist to tell
the truth. However, that is not acceptable within academia. Because
academia is an overwhelmingly politically "liberal" (PC, left of centre)
But the bigger problem is not that academics tend to be liberal, but
that the system of peer review within academia creates a vicious cycle
whereby certain views become more and more correct and all other views
become unacceptable.
The problem stems from what academics call: "peer review", but which
increasingly know outside as "buddy review". This and the way academia
forces those writing for it, to "cite" "reliable" sources creates a huge
compulsion to be "politically correct".
Because as anyone who has ever tried editing Wikipedia on climate knows,
by "reliable" what is really meant is "the politically correct
view of liberal public-sector academia". As such anyone who wants to be
cited, must in turn be politically correct which means they must be
liberal, anti-private sector and pro-establishment academia. The result,
is a huge compulsion on those writing papers within academia to conform
to the politically correct norm. And because the system is
re-enforcing, it has become a vicious cycle of increasing political
correctness distrust of outside views and conservatism.
Because, by politically correct, I don’t just mean lying about lack of
significant differences (if they exist) in race or gender, or promoting
"nannyism" in all its various forms, but also political within academia
itself, in that new ideas must respect the internal politics of academia
and not step on the toes of other academics.
The result, I think, having observed their appalling behaviour on global
warming, is that academia has become one of the most conservative and
repressive cultures in the world, and I think I would include in that
comparison even extremist Islamic groups.
From industrial revolution to industrial pariah
Academics always like to think of themselves as being at the forefront
of change. That unfortunately is another of their delusions and again
based on a historical lie. The reality is very different.
The industrial revolution in Britain didn’t start with academic science
as most children are now being taught in what has become a "religion of
science". Instead as the name implies, the industrial revolution started
with engineers and industrialists, who used their practical skills,
experience and understanding to build better and better machines; to
build pumps to allow mining deeper and deeper; to observe the
progressive layers of geology and their relationship in different areas
to understand the 3D geological map under our feet and thereby locate
new coal seams; doctors who used their knowledge to understand the body,
and navigators who built better instruments and clocks to measure
longitude.
They were the ones who literally created the modern world. They mapped
the world, they worked out the progression of fossils which provide the
key to unlock the geological time-line beneath our feet and from
that sequence work out where the coal layers would surface; they created
the modern industrial society with all its benefits, they created
modern medicine & sanitation that means we all live longer.
The truth is that if academics played any role at all, it was secondary.
As far as I can see, it wasn’t until well after the success of the
industrialists, navigators, traders, etc., that academics were dragged
by the burgeoning success of industry to try to find a role for
themselves. And yes, there is not doubt their role was useful to
industry. Because codifying and publicising the knowledge of engineers
was a common good to all industrialists. But I have yet to find any
evidence that academia led this industrial revolution.
Far from supporting industry, as it once did, now because of the culture
exemplified in Lord of the Rings, academia has a vitriolic hatred of
industry and the private sector, which it freely expresses through the
proxy of CO2. Because from what I’ve seen of them on the internet,
academics really don’t seem to care at all about the global temperature
itself. It is almost a side issue compared to the much more key concern
of academics who are obsessed with global warming which is that they
want to get rid of industry, commerce and capitalism.
Or perhaps it is envy? That academia can’t stand all those upstart
industrialists who rule the world – not because they are "intellectually
superior" and so feel they can dictate what is politically correct –
but because they just supply the world’s population with the goods and
services they want. And boy do the academics seem to hate that!
Why modern academia is stagnating
So, the partnership between industry and academia is broken. But the
real beneficiary of that partnership was not industry – which as the
rest of the world shows, will steam on despite the lack of support from
academia.
Instead the real losers from that broken partnership is academia itself.
Because through that culture of hatred of industry and commerce, it has
turned in on itself and become entirely inward looking. It seems to me
that in the UK it has become excessively focussed on all that is
"politically correct". On the environment. On gender. On "racial
harmony". On social manipulation. On anti-industry CO2. On political
marxism.
But because it is so political, within that kind of environment, where
being politically correct is now a necessary requirement to being
published and then being cited – both of which dictate progresion in
academia – the pressure to conform has become so great that (if global
warming is typical of academia) then in many areas progress is all but
impossible.
Progress requires change. Change requires overturning old ideas. And a
conservative institution inward looking culture like academia is
challenged by new ideas. Thus, no academic can now challenge the
established views of academia.
Instead, because academia can’t criticise itself, it must now find easy
targets outside academia. This explains why people like Lewandowsky pick
on sceptics. We are not part of the "in crowd". We do not have huge
coffers to afford to sue the shirt off his back for his lies. So
Lewandowsky not only feels free to attack sceptics, it seems he feels
compelled to attack us for just daring to not accept his politically
correct views.
So, I have no doubt, that this kind of attitude and culture is now
prevalent throughout academia. So that it is now standard practice to
find external groups to attack & vilify (ironically at the same time
as preaching harmony and tolerance to everyone).
But the one group who can never be challenged are academics themselves.
Academics are a taboo, their ideas are sacrosanct, not even mother
nature herself is allowed to contradict them.
And when even the clearest most unequivocal evidence contrary to the
views of academia, such as mother nature’s failure to warm, cannot be
tolerated, there is no doubt whatsoever that all new evidence is heavily
repressed. As such it is certain that this repressive culture within
academia is going to cause of stagnation.
The war is lost
After a decade and a half on global warming, where the evidence of their
failure was blatantly obvious, yet the politically correct views
dominated US and UK policy, I do not believe they have it within them to
change.
There just is not the critical faculty within academia to impartially
assess itself. And there are no other institutions in the US and UK
which can challenge its supremacy in intellectual critique.
When the evidence against the global warming obsession was clear and
unequivocally laid out in the pause and was (almost without exception)
universally rejected by academia, there is not one hope in hell that US
& UK academia could challenge itself on something so nuanced as its
own culture.
As such, it is inevitable that the stagnation and decay of both US and
UK academia and industry will continue – at least until the long term
economic decay and success of other countries so destroys our ability to
maintain the "cuckoo" in the nest and it dies from the economic decay
it itself brought about.
SOURCE
***************************************
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
*****************************************
24 November, 2016
Study sheds new insights into global warming 'hiatus' (?)
This is just an expression of opinion. No new data here. A sentence from the journal abstract
is amusing: "A review of recent scientific publications on the
"hiatus" shows the difficulty and complexities in pinpointing the
oceanic sink of the "missing heat". In other words, they have no
evidence to back up their theory. And they certainly have no
evidence that the hiatus is "temporary". That is just a statement
of faith
A new study of the temporary slowdown in the global average surface
temperature warming trend observed between 1998 and 2013 concludes the
phenomenon represented a redistribution of energy within the Earth
system, with Earth's ocean absorbing the extra heat. The phenomenon was
referred to by some as the "global warming hiatus." Global average
surface temperature, measured by satellites and direct observations, is
considered a key indicator of climate change.
In a study published today in Earth's Future, a journal of the American
Geophysical Union, lead author Xiao-Hai Yan of the University of
Delaware, Newark, along with scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and several other institutions discuss
new understanding of the phenomenon. The paper grew out of a special
U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR) panel
session at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
"The hiatus period gives scientists an opportunity to understand
uncertainties in how climate systems are measured, as well as to fill in
the gap in what scientists know," Yan said.
"NASA's examination of ocean observations has provided its own unique
contribution to our knowledge of decadal climate trends and global
warming," said Veronica Nieves, a researcher at JPL and the University
of California, Los Angeles and co-author of the new study. "Scientists
have more confidence now that Earth's ocean has continued to warm
continuously through time. But the rate of global surface warming can
fluctuate due to natural variations in the climate system over periods
of a decade or so."
Where's the missing heat?
While Yan said it's difficult to reach complete consensus on such a
complex topic, a thorough review of the literature and much discussion
and debate revealed a number of key points on which these leading
scientists concur:
* Natural variability plays a large role in the rate of global mean surface warming on decadal time scales.
* Improved understanding of how the ocean distributes
and redistributes heat will help the scientific community better monitor
Earth's energy budget.
Earth's energy budget is a complex calculation of how much energy enters
our climate system from the sun and what happens to it: how much is
stored by the land, ocean or atmosphere.
"To better monitor Earth's energy budget and its consequences, the ocean
is most important to consider because the amount of heat it can store
is extremely large when compared to the land or atmospheric capacity,"
said Yan.
According to the paper, "arguably, ocean heat content—from the surface
to the seafloor—might be a more appropriate measure of how much our
planet is warming."
Charting future research
In the near term, the researchers hope this paper will lay the
foundation for future research in the global change field. To begin,
they suggest the climate community replace the term "global warming
hiatus" with "global surface warming slowdown" to eliminate confusion.
"This terminology more accurately describes the slowdown in global mean
surface temperature rise in the late 20th century," Yan said.
The scientists also called for continued support of current and future
technologies for ocean monitoring to reduce observation errors in sea
surface temperature and ocean heat content. This includes maintaining
Argo, the main system for monitoring ocean heat content, and the
development of Deep Argo to monitor the lower half of the ocean; the use
of ship-based subsurface ocean temperature monitoring programs;
advancements in robotic technologies such as autonomous underwater
vehicles to monitor waters adjacent to land (like islands or coastal
regions); and further development of real- or near-real-time deep ocean
remote sensing methods.
Yan's research group reported in a 2015 paper that some coastal oceans
(e.g., U.S. East Coast, China Coast) responded faster to the recent
global surface warming rate change than the global ocean.
"Although these regions represent only a fraction of the ocean volume,
the changing rate of ocean heat content is faster here, and real-time
data and more research are needed to quantify and understand what is
happening," Yan said.
Variability and heat sequestration over specific regions (e.g., Pacific,
Atlantic, Indian, Southern Oceans, etc.) require further investigation,
the authors conclude. However, there is broad agreement among the
scientists and in the literature that the slowdown in the global mean
surface temperature increase from 1998 to 2013 was due to increased
uptake of heat energy by the global ocean.
SOURCE
How Trump Can Reverse Obama Climate Change Regulations
President-elect Donald Trump will come into power next year with the
authority to redefine his predecessor’s ambitious and divisive legacy on
climate and energy policy.
Just as President Barack Obama has used regulations and executive
actions to try and make the U.S. a world leader in cutting
planet-warming emissions across much of the nation’s economy—especially
targeting the coal industry—Trump can largely act alone to define his
own agenda.
"I really do think there will be some kind of reversal of Obama-era
policies, but there are legal, political, and practical constraints on
how far the Trump administration can go," said Jody Freeman, the
director of Harvard University’s environmental law and policy program,
in an interview with The Daily Signal.
Based on rhetoric in his campaign, and staffing choices he’s made, Trump
has indicated he will pursue a dramatically different direction than
Obama, one that relies on industry and market forces to continue the
U.S.’ progress toward a cleaner energy future, and removes the
government from much of that role.
Under this vision, Trump, as he has vowed to do, would "cancel" last
year’s Paris climate agreement, which commits more than 190 countries to
reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide.
Trump cannot pull out of that global agreement right away. The soonest
he can do is four years from when the deal went into effect, this
November.
But because the deal is not binding and only contains voluntary pledges
with no enforcement mechanism, Trump can undermine the U.S.’
contribution to the agreement. He could do this by dismantling the
Clean Power Plan, a set of regulations developed by the Environmental
Protection Agency created to reduce carbon emissions from electricity
generation.
The Clean Power plan, which is being contested in court and has not been
enforced, encourages utility providers to replace coal-fired power
plants with those using natural gas and renewable energy sources.
Trump has named Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute—a
leading opponent of the Clean Power Plan—to head his EPA transition
team.
Ebell, who is considered a key figure in shaping the president-elect’s
energy views, has not spoken publicly about his role helping Trump.
He provided The Daily Signal an exclusive statement about his views on
climate change. "My [Competitive Enterprise Institute] colleagues and I
agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, that greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing as a result of human
activities—primarily burning coal, oil, and natural gas—and that this
means the global mean temperature is likely to rise," Ebell said. "Where
we disagree with global warming alarmists is whether this amounts to a
crisis that requires drastic action."
Ebell continued:
"President Obama’s climate action plan and other proposed
energy-rationing policies will have negligible effects on greenhouse gas
levels, but pose a grave threat to our economy and especially to the
health and well-being of poor people. I believe that we should pursue
energy policies based on the scientifically-supported view that abundant
energy makes the world safer and the environment more livable, as well
as the humanitarian view that affordable energy should be accessible to
those who need it most, particularly the most vulnerable among us."
‘He Can Do a Lot for Us’
While Ebell did not describe specific policies he is recommending to
Trump, the president-elect has been clear about one of his agenda items:
encouraging more drilling to revive the coal industry, which has lost
68,000 jobs since 2011.
"There is no question he can do a lot for us," said Luke Popovich, vice
president of National Mining Association, in an interview with The Daily
Signal. "When people say he can’t bring all coal jobs back or restore
coal to greatness, they are making perfection the enemy of the good. He
can do a lot of good."
Popovich acknowledges the natural market forces that have contributed to the decline of coal.
The hydraulic fracturing boom in shale fields that began a decade ago
has flooded the market with natural gas, a cleaner and cheaper energy
source. Coal now makes up 30 percent of electricity generated in the
U.S., down from 50 percent in 2008.
But Popovich attributes at least some of that decline to Obama’s
regulations, mainly a EPA standard introduced in 2011 that limited
emissions of mercury and other toxins from coal plants.
He says Trump could boost coal’s prospects by canceling a new proposed
Obama administration rule restricting mining discharges in streams, and
lifting a moratorium on coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming
and Montana.
In addition, Popovich says the prospect of the Clean Power Plan pushed
utility providers to switch from coal production to natural gas, and
greener sources like wind and solar power.
Last year, according to The New York Times, 94 coal-fired power plants
were closed across the country, and this year 40 more are expected to
close by the end of December.
"Seeing the writing on the wall, utility companies have certainly not
made bets that coal would stick around," Popovich said. "Trump is not
going to be able to restart all the coal fired plants that were retired.
And we are not denying the marketplace has been a problem. But the
biggest advantage of a Trump administration is he would be reverting to
an all-of-the-above energy policy where we let the marketplace and not
government determine what fuels would be used and at what volume."
Making Coal Viable
Popovich, and other industry experts, say Trump can work with Congress
on ways to make coal more viable in the future by incentivizing
environmental improvements.
"There are several no regrets policies that could involve a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions, but also achieve some of Trump’s stated
economic goals," said Paul Bledsoe, an independent energy and climate
change consultant who advised the Clinton administration on these
issues. "There is a huge, burgeoning new economic sector in low
emissions clean energy. This is a pretty big economic opportunity for
the U.S. given our technological prowess."
Bledsoe, in an interview with The Daily Signal, says there is bipartisan
support on Capitol Hill for legislation to expand tax credits for
carbon capture and storage systems. These systems, which are expensive
and far-off from being introduced on a large scale, would attach to coal
production facilities and capture carbon emissions to sink them
permanently in the ground.
Some experts say efforts to save coal are difficult to achieve.
At least some of Trump’s proposals, these experts note, would actually
boost the fortunes of natural gas over coal, increasing its supply into
the market.
Trump has said he would ease restrictions on pipeline building,
approving the Keystone XL pipeline that Obama blocked and the Dakota
Access pipeline, a controversial project that has been delayed. He has
also said he plans to weaken rules limiting gas exploration and
production on federal land.
"There are areas where he will get in conflict with himself," said
Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the
University of Texas, in an interview with The Daily Signal. "The energy
industry is complex. No one thing makes everyone happy. So while pulling
out of the Paris Agreement would help coal, and would hurt natural gas,
some of his other proposals would do the opposite."
World Shift
Others argue that if Trump prioritizes industry at the expense of
addressing climate change, the U.S. would suffer politically as other
countries—including rivals like China—move toward limiting emissions.
Countries party to the Paris Agreement are discussing ways to punish the
U.S. if Trump reneges from the pact, like introducing a carbon tariff,
The New York Times reports.
"The Trump administration cannot change the fact that the world is
committed to solve this problem," Freeman said. "The direction of energy
composition is changing and is really baked into the private sector and
into what investors expect. I personally think you need a regulatory
foundation to drive home some of this change, and there will be a loss
if the U.S. federal government exits the field."
If international pressure forced Trump to maintain the Paris commitment,
and act less aggressively to reverse Obama policies, the
president-elect, with Congress, could take more limited action. For
example, they could press to provide financial support and retraining to
communities harmed by coal’s fall.
Popovich says coal miners would welcome any form of help, even if it has
limited impact. "It has proven to be very difficult to implement
[plans that help coal communities] in any way that’s going to help these
people get back on their feet," Popovich said. "No one is refusing it.
But these guys are making enough money to support a family with coal,
and it’s hard to know what government can do for them. They don’t want
other jobs. They want the jobs they are losing."
SOURCE
The Trump-Climate Freakout is over nothing
He will reverse a policy that isn’t working anyway
Given the emotional reactions that Donald Trump and climate change each
trigger separately, they offer an especially combustible combination.
Paul Krugman worries that Trump’s election "may have killed the planet."
Activist Bill McKibben calls Trump’s plan to reverse the Obama climate
agenda by approving the Keystone XL pipeline and other fossil-fuel
projects, repealing the Clean Power Plan, and withdrawing from the Paris
agreement "the biggest, most against-the-odds, and most irrevocable bet
any president has ever made about anything."
And let’s not forget "Zach," the DNC staffer who reportedly stormed out
of a post-election meeting upset that "I am going to die from climate
change."
A Trump presidency offers many reasonable reasons to worry. But the fear
that he will kill the planet, or even poor Zach, is at least one
anxiety we can dispel. Just listen to President Obama. His
administration developed a "Social Cost of Carbon" that attempts to
quantify in economic terms the projected effects of climate change on
everything from agriculture to public health to sea level, looking all
the way out to the year 2100. So suppose President Trump not only
reverses U.S. climate policy but ensures that the world permanently
abandons efforts to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions. How much less
prosperous than today does the Obama administration estimate we will be
by century’s end? The world will be at least five times wealthier.
Zach may even live to see it. The Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy
(DICE) model, developed by William Nordhaus at Yale University, which
has the highest climate costs of the Obama administration’s three
models, estimates that global GDP in 2100 without climate change would
be $510 trillion. That’s 575 percent higher than in 2015. The cost of
climate change, the model estimates, will amount to almost 4 percent of
GDP in that year. But the remaining GDP of $490 trillion is still 550
percent larger than today.
Without climate change, DICE assumes average annual growth of 2.27
percent. With climate change, that rate falls to 2.22 percent; at no
point does climate change shave even one-tenth of one point off growth.
Indeed, by 2103, the climate-change-afflicted world surpasses the
prosperity of the not-warming 2100.
Zach might take issue with DICE’s underlying scientific and
economic assumptions, yet the model produces cost estimates much higher
than those of the PAGE and FUND models, which are also considered by the
Social Cost of Carbon analysis. And while not every potential effect of
climate change lends itself to quantification in economic terms,
remember: This is the approach chosen by the Obama administration — not a
group often known for trying to minimize the climate threat. The Paris
agreement’s impact is at best a few tenths of a degree Celsius.
Further, Trump is not significantly altering the likelihood of incurring
these costs, because the climate agenda he intends to unravel is a
failure already. Domestically, even the EPA acknowledged that its Clean
Power Plan will have no meaningful influence on future temperatures. The
State Department said the same about blocking the Keystone XL pipeline.
The purported value of these policies was to display international
"leadership." But the global picture is no better. Even with U.S.
"leadership," the commitments made by other countries under the Paris
agreement look almost identical to the paths those countries were on
already. Thus the agreement’s impact is at best a few tenths of a degree
Celsius. MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global
Change, for instance, projected 3.9°C of warming by 2100 without the
Paris agreement and 3.7°C with it.
Proponents of the agreement argue it will nonetheless spur clean-energy
investment. "It is going to move the marketplace," said Secretary of
State John Kerry. It is "a break-away agreement which actually changes
the paradigm." It is "going to spur massive investment."
Instead, investment has plummeted. Over the first three quarters of
2016, global clean-energy investment is down 29 percent relative to
2015. Q3 investment saw a 43 percent drop from Q3 2015 — falling to its
lowest level since the George W. Bush administration.
Bizarrely, some analysts have reversed course and now argue that if the
United States abandons Paris, we will be left behind while the world
continues with climate action. Alden Meyer, director of policy and
strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Atlantic:
"China, Europe, Brazil, India and other countries will continue to move
ahead with the climate commitments they made under Paris no matter what
the next president does, because these commitments are in their own
national interest."
That only confirms the weakness of the Paris agreement and the futility
of President Obama’s climate agenda. If everyone is still just pursuing
their national interest, what has American "leadership" accomplished?
And what is really lost in the transition to a Trump agenda?
The preferred narrative is obvious: The world was so close to solving
this climate-change thing until Donald Trump came along. But in fact the
world was still on square one. If anything, activists should be
relieved that Trump’s election will prevent them from ever being held
accountable for the costly and ineffective policies they pursued.
They might also be relieved to learn that — even with no climate policy
at all — the world will continue to grow healthier and wealthier.
SOURCE
The climate cat-and-mouse game and Trump
It was all just a charade
Climate diplomacy is just war by other means. In fact, climate as
diplomacy took birth for this purpose though the pretense at the surface
is anything but. The initial momentum of the climate movement was
Malthusian – directed at overconsumption of ‘resources’ and
‘overpopulation’ of the earth by the wrong types of human beings in
developing countries.
Paradoxically however, the movement incorporated globally negotiated
treaty-making under the UN as an integral part of its design. This meant
inviting the very targets of the Malthusians to voluntarily
subject themselves to the intended curbs—in growing crops, using forests
and land, producing and using fossil fuels—essentially in all elements
of modern life. This central, unresolved paradox has remained at the
heart of the UNFCCC/IPCC process.
When things kicked off (at Rio de Janeiro) in 1992, the only way to
entice developing countries to participate in the UNFCCC was via
(a) promises of a temporary reprieve and special permissions to continue
using fossil fuels – the so-called principle of ‘common but
differentiated responsibilities,’ and (b) dangling the twin carrots of
technology transfer and financial aid to overcome the ravages of climate
change.
Developing countries like India and China, then utterly secure in their
backwardness, were eager to accept these conditions. All one had to do
was accept climate consensus formulations (‘the science’) to appear
scientific, which was an attractive proposition to the global South.
Once accepted the Rio template brought further benefits. They could band
together in berating developed countries like the US and the UK for
their ‘rampant consumerism,’ ‘capitalism,’ and ‘exploitation of
resources.’ They could pretend to ‘care’ for ‘the environment.’ The ball
of ’emission reduction’ was not yet in their court which made the moral
posturing easier.
To be fair, as poor nations lacked leverage, there were direct
participatory pressures on developing countries. If they chose to keep
away from the UNFCCC/COP negotiations, they could find themselves
subject to mandatory rules made in their absence. The safety valve
in all this was the knowledge that the US was neither about to transfer
nuclear technology nor freely part with gobs of cash. The developed
countries had their safety valves, too. For a good while, countries like
Germany and Russia double-counted incidental large dips in their GDP
toward the Kyoto protocol.
In the US, the Senate proved to be an insurmountable barrier for climate
activist legislation. Ironically, in climate circles, the
knowledge/belief that neither India nor China would accept verifiable
mandatory emission reduction targets has itself served as an inhibitory
force. In other words, each party depends on the other to act in their
self-interest in order to protect themselves from self-harm in the name
of climate!
Developed countries use ‘the science’ to pursue Malthusian dreams of
their environmentalist cohorts. Developing countries pretend at
believing in the science to play at being the global left. Skepticism at
the whole charade drops between the cracks. This has been the climate
story over the past 22 years – of pantomime fools dancing around a
Gordian knot.
There is, however, great danger even in play-acting in a Malthusian
drama. At regular intervals, countries have found themselves paying a
real price for the indulgence. The Climate Change Act in the UK is one
such example. Written entirely by a college-level activist, the passage
of the CCA exposed the weakness of ‘checks and balances’ in the UK and
showed how trivial it was to being gamed.
The EPA coal rules – the so-called ‘Clean Power Plan’ of the Obama
administration in the US are a second example of calculated harm
inflicted by a government on its own citizens.
With Copenhagen, the UNFCCC/COP system entered an unstable phase. Here a
hastily assembled alliance of countries BASIC fended off a binding
agreement. But the wall of ‘common but differentiated
responsibilities’ was crumbling fast with the growth of the Indian,
Brazilian and Chinese economies. Post-Copenhagen, the United States went
to work breaking down the BASIC alliance and by 2015 had largely
succeeded. Stung by failure, climate activists were under pressure to
show the world they could succeed. India did not want to be seen as a
lone villain obstructing a treaty. The Paris agreement was born.
With Paris, there were only two safety valves left standing. One, that
developed countries would not actually cough up billions of dollars
annually for ‘climate adaptation.’ Two, the US Senate or the political
system would not ratify and implement an internationally imposed mandate
of emissions reduction.
It is at this juncture that Donald Trump has been elected. As Benny
Peiser points in the Financial Post, if Trump carries out what he has
proclaimed, there would be no free cash flowing toward developing
countries in the guise of a climate fund. The Obama-era climate
regulations could see themselves dismantled completely. These should
provide enough excuses for developing countries—if they have the sense
to recognize the opportunity—to disengage from economic self-harm and
walk away from the precipice. The abysmal failure of the Indian
position at Marrakech should serve as yet another example that moral
posturing on the climate brings zero tangible benefits to countries.
With Trump, and open climate skepticism, a global era of countries
depending on others to act in self-interest in order to protect their
own can finally come to a end. The chapter of fake collective
global climate guilt can be closed.
SOURCE
Pipeline anarchy
Trump win fuels more rampant theft and destruction – and North Dakota citizens pay the price
Paul Driessen
Is this to be our future? Last week’s elections will soon end autocratic
rule via executive fiat, the war on coal and hydrocarbons, IRS agents
targeting conservative groups, government SWAT teams invading businesses
and homes, and numerous other Abuses and Usurpations.
But now we’re getting leftist anarchy and riots – with mindless,
incoherent radicals smashing Portland storefronts, beating a Chicago
motorist, and pummeling a ninth grade Woodside, CA Trump supporter.
Amid it all, the epitome of nihilist, watermelon environmentalist,
criminal, sore-loser fury is raging south of Bismarck, North Dakota,
where thousands of "peaceful protesters" are camping illegally on
federal and private lands, "venting their anger" over the Dakota Access
Pipe Line.
This $3.8-billion, 1,172-mile, state-of-the-art, 30-inch conduit will
carry 470,000 barrels of oil daily from the state’s Bakken oil fields to
Illinois. It’s about 85% complete, and the only segment left to be
finished in North Dakota is a 1,000-foot passage under Lake Oahe, a
manmade reservoir on the Missouri River. DAPL runs parallel to the
existing Northern Border natural gas pipeline, through the same area and
under the lake.
The pipeline would replace 700 railroad tanker cars or 2,000
semi-trailer highway tanker trucks per day. It has created thousands of
manufacturing and construction jobs. Bakken’s light, sweet crude oil
replaces imports, fuels our vehicles, powers our economy, and provides
raw materials for many essential products.
Since it is underground, once it is installed and grasses are planted,
the pipeline will be invisible except for occasional pumping stations,
valves and other facilities. Modern metals, warning systems, automatic
shutoff valves, 24/7/365 monitoring and other safeguards minimize the
risk of spills – and nearly 140 revisions rerouted the DAPL around
populated areas and sensitive ecological, archaeological, sacred and
historic sites. The pipeline is 99.98% on private land and is covered by
easements and other agreements.
All these and other issues were addressed repeatedly and thoughtfully
during a three-year, 389-meeting review and approval process.
Landowners, communities, environmentalists and citizens provided input,
and 55 Native American groups were consulted. Prominent in their refusal
to participate were the Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation is a
half-mile from Lake Oahe, where the pipeline is set to cross.
Only now are Standing Rock tribal leaders and members voicing
opposition. Not surprisingly, they have been joined by Indians from
across America, and by a motley assortment of activists, agitators and
anarchists whom friendly media and politicians insist on praising as
"peaceful resisters" against an industrial intrusion that "threatens"
the climate, tribal culture, drinking water, historic artifacts and
sacred sites. A United Nations "special rappoteur" on human rights
claims law enforcement officials are using "violent" tactics against
arrested protesters and subjecting them to "inhuman and degrading"
conditions!
These claims are "tonka chesli" – Lakota for BS.
These thousands of militants are trespassing. They’ve wiped out forage
that ranchers were depending on to feed their cattle and bison during
fall and winter months. They blockade roads and rail lines, set fires to
make passage impossible, and harass reporters who question their
actions. One tried to shoot a deputy. They have burned bridges,
destroyed millions of dollars of construction equipment, chased
livestock until they lose their calves or die of exhaustion – and
killed, maimed or eaten cattle, horses and domesticated buffalo. They’ve
promised far more destructive actions, and even issued death threats
against their critics.
A favorite tactic employs "peaceful dissidents" and "prayer groups" to
block and distract ranchers and sheriff’s deputies from an area, while
others destroy nearby fence wire and posts. One rancher told me
repairing just the fence on the ranch where they graze buffalo will cost
at least $300,000 and weeks of hard work. The anarchists obviously
don’t care about innocent people who are caught in the middle.
Other ranchers’ lost forage and animals, time and fuel spent on repairs,
and other expenses will cost well over $500,000. No one has offered any
compensation, even though the militants have millions of dollars.
Washington Times journalist Valerie Richardson reports that, as of
November 1, the militants’ Sacred Stone camp alone raised $1.3 million
for supplies on GoFundMe and $1.2 million on FundRazr for legal defense.
The Red Warrior Camp quickly collected $142,000 via GoFundMe and
$105,000 in legal defense cash on IndieGogo, even though the Standing
Rock council is frustrated and wants them gone.
Rumors run rampant that the "protesters" are also raking in bundles of
welfare checks, plus "charitable and educational contributions" from
"progressive" billionaires like Tom Steyer (coal), George Soros
(currency speculation), Warren Buffett (railroads and tanker cars);
outfits they fund, such as the Tides Foundation, 350.org, EarthJustice
and Indigenous Environmental Network; and various Russian, Saudi and
other foreign sources that would like to keep US oil and gas locked up.
Perhaps the abundant cash will attract corporate and pro bono lawyers,
legal foundations and attorneys general who can freeze the assets and
pursue individual or joint and several liability claims, plus punitive
damages, to compensate ranchers, other locals and companies – and
dissuade future lawlessness.
Last January, 26 peaceful ranchers who encamped on federal wildlife
refuge property in Oregon were arrested, one was shot and killed, and
the survivors were charged with, tried for (and found not guilty of)
theft, conspiracy and weapons violations. Many wonder why these North
Dakota militants and criminals are getting a free pass, glowing press
coverage, and millions of dollars from crime-financing enablers.
The nearly completed DAPL has to cross the river somewhere and will pose
the same low pollution risks wherever it goes. But it will be built
with the utmost care, with the best technologies and materials.
So what is actually driving these destructive, vindictive, violent protests against this convenient "poster child" pipeline?
* True-believers are obsessed with "dangerous manmade climate change" –
to justify and obscure their real agenda: a new world economic order to
replace capitalism, global wealth redistribution, and UN control of
development, livelihoods and living standards, for rich, poor and
emerging nations alike.
* The "keep it in the ground" anti-hydrocarbon movement prefers
blanketing the USA and planet with billions of solar panels, wind
turbines and biofuel fields, to produce expensive, subsidized,
unreliable energy – while killing birds, bats and other wildlife by the
millions – rather than producing affordable energy-dense fossil fuels
from holes in the ground, and transporting them by pipeline. (Standing
Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II supports much greater emphasis
on renewable energy.)
* Radical elements among Native Americans (and Canadian Indigenous
Peoples) want to control the land, water, energy and lives of white
people whose predecessors took their ancestral lands. Their feelings are
understandable. But imagine the chaos this would cause and the
precedent their success would set for Europe, Latin America, China,
Hawaii, the Middle East and beyond, as PC politics rewrite history.
* The anarchists think they have a right to vilify and void laws,
processes, approvals and property rights – even threaten lives. 90% of
those arrested have been out-of-state agitators, and many get paid to
raise hell.
* And of course, they are outraged, inconsolable and defiant over Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump.
They have no grasp of basic facts. Pipelines are safer than trucks or
rail cars. This low-pressure line is state-of-the-art and will be
monitored constantly and inspected regularly. High-cost renewable energy
impacts small businesses, hospitals, blue-collar workers, and poor and
minority families the hardest. And President Obama’s refusal to accept a
court order or speak out against the crime is fueling the insanity.
Hopefully, President Trump, governors, AGs, other elected officials, and
publicly spirited lawyers and judges will do the right thing: shut
these anarchists down, compensate ranchers and other victims – and award
punitive damages against the Big Green operatives who have caused so
much damage, under the guise of freedom of speech (for them only) and
phony concern for Native culture and the environment.
Then finish the pipeline, renew our focus on energy we can count on, and put America back to work.
Via email
***************************************
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
*****************************************
23 November, 2016
RSS – Satellite Temperatures Back to Where they Were Before El Nino
RSS is one of the two satellite temperature data sets. They show the EL Nino "peak".
I wonder how far the La Nina will drop?
SOURCE
Carbon is not the enemy
Nature has published a provocative essay entitled Carbon is not the enemy (full text available online). Excerpts:
Carbon has a bad name.
But carbon — the element — is not the enemy. Climate change is the
result of breakdowns in the carbon cycle caused by us: it is a design
failure. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make airborne
carbon a material in the wrong place, at the wrong dose and for the
wrong duration.
Rather than declare war on carbon emissions, we can work with carbon in
all its forms. To enable a new relationship with carbon, I propose a new
language — living, durable and fugitive — to define ways in which
carbon can be used safely, productively and profitably. Aspirational and
clear, it signals positive intentions, enjoining us to do more good
rather than simply be less bad.
It is easy to lose one’s way in the climate conversation. Few of the
terms are clearly defined or understood. Take ‘carbon neutral’. The
European Union considers electricity generated by burning wood as carbon
neutral — as if it releases no CO2 at all. Their carbon neutrality
relies problematically on the growth and replacement of forests that
will demand decades to centuries of committed management.
Such terms highlight a confusion about the qualities and value of CO2.
In the United States, the gas is classified as a commodity by the Bureau
of Land Management, a pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency
and as a financial instrument by the Chicago Climate Exchange.
A new language of carbon recognizes the material and quality of carbon
so that we can imagine and implement new ways forward. It identifies
three categories of carbon — living, durable and fugitive — and a
characteristic of a subset of the three, called working carbon. It also
identifies three strategies related to carbon management and climate
change — carbon positive, carbon neutral and carbon negative.
Carbon is at the heart of soil health. In healthy ecosystems, when
plants convert CO2 into carbon-based sugars — liquid carbon — some flows
to shoots, leaves and flowers. The rest nourishes the soil food web,
flowing from the roots of plants to communities of soil microbes. In
exchange, the microbes share minerals and micronutrients that are
essential to plants’ health. Drawn into the leaves of plants,
micronutrients increase the rate of photosynthesis, driving new growth,
which yields more liquid carbon for the microbes and more micronutrients
for the fungi and the plants. Below ground, liquid carbon moves through
the food web, where it is transformed into soil carbon — rich, stable
and life-giving. This organic matter also gives soil a sponge-like
structure, which improves its fertility and its ability to hold and
filter water.
This is how a healthy carbon cycle supports life. This flow kept carbon
in the right place in the right concentration, tempered the global
climate, fuelled growth and nourished the evolution of human societies
for 10,000 years.
Let’s keep those carbon bridges open on all landscapes — rural and
urban. Let’s use carbon from the atmosphere to fuel biological
processes, build soil carbon and reverse climate change. Let’s adopt
regenerative farming and urban-design practices to increase
photosynthetic capacity, enhance biological activity, build urban food
systems, and cultivate closed loops of carbon nutrients. Let’s turn
sewage-treatment plants into fertilizer factories. Let’s recognize
carbon as an asset and the life-giving carbon cycle as a model for human
designs.
More
HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)
10,000 fly in for doomed climate talks
More than 10,000 people are flying to Marrakesh for a UN climate change
conference despite officials admitting that they will make little or no
progress on key issues.
The two-week meeting, which begins in the Moroccan city on Monday, was
declared as the "conference of action", where 195 countries were
supposed to reveal how they will fulfil pledges made a year ago to cut
their emissions. Instead, they are likely to agree to suspend talks
until 2018.
Previous conferences have produced communiqués with grand titles named
after their location, including last year’s Paris Agreement. A UK
government source said: "Will there be a Marrakesh Something? There will
have to be a decision that basically says we agree to reconvene with a
date."
However, delegates will be able to stay busy thanks to a Michelin guide
to the conference supplied by the UN. It lists top hotels, "beauty and
wellness spas", as well as the best beaches.
SOURCE
Trump Should Let Senate Kill Obama’s Paris Climate Treaty
By Phil Kerpen
When is a treaty not a treaty? According to the Obama
administration, whenever the president says so. This claim is
especially dubious with respect to the Paris agreement on global
warming, which as Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute
has shown, is more ambitious than predecessor agreements that were
universally accepted to be treaties.
Surely if President Obama possesses an asserted authority to declare an
agreement identical in form and more ambitious in substance than
previous treaties to be a non-treaty, then President Trump will have the
authority to reach the opposite, more plausible conclusion.
There is little doubt that the Trump administration will reject the
Paris agreement, but the option of properly recognizing it as a treaty
and allowing the Senate to formally reject it has several advantages.
First, it prevents the dangerous precedent of a president binding the
country and his successor to international commitments without the broad
support that the Constitution requires through the advice and consent
process. Secondly, it sidesteps the question of whether the
withdrawal provision of the Paris treaty itself forces us to wait four
years before withdrawal is effective. Finally, it exposes as false
the talking point that skepticism of the Paris agreement is outside the
political mainstream.
John Kerry, who infamously declared global warming a greater threat to
the United States than terrorism, gave his final speech on the subject
this week to the UN functionaries in Marrakech, Morocco. He offered a
soothing fantasy.
"No one should doubt the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the
United States who know climate change is happening and who are
determined to keep our commitments that were made in Paris," Kerry said
to applause.
Last week’s election emphatically showed the opposite. The
Midwest delivered the White House to Trump, who dominated among the
working class voters who care far more about how much they are paying to
fill up the gas tank and keep their lights on than they do about what
United Nations computer models predict about the climate in decades or
centuries – the results of which show minimal change anyway.
Appalachian voters in particular preferred Trump in a stunning 469 of
490 counties.
The Paris treaty is a magnificent example of the bad deals made for
America that ultimately paved Donald Trump’s path to the White House.
Specifically, the Paris treaty effectively bans coal-fired power plants
in the United States while China has 368 coal plants under construction
and over 800 in the planning stage. India's coal production under
the deal is projected to double by 2020. Even Europe is allowed to
build coal plants. It forces Americans to endure painful cuts
while the rest of the world continues with business as usual.
Even worse, American taxpayers will be forced to cough up $100 billion
in climate-related foreign aid by 2020, with the promise of much more to
follow.
Which brings us to the Senate.
Trump can submit the Paris treaty in full confidence that it will not
pass with the required 67 votes in a body that has just 48
Democrats. The interesting question: how low can the vote total
for this rotten deal go?
With ten Senate Democrats sitting in states Trump carried, many senators
will be forced to choose between their green billionaire donors out in
San Francisco and the voters they need to survive in 2018. And
when the Senate votes the Paris treaty down, it will send an emphatic
message to the world that – despite what John Kerry told his friends in
Marrakech – the American people are with Trump on this, not Obama.
SOURCE
Obama rescinds Arctic offshore drilling proposal
President Obama has rescinded a proposal to allow new oil and natural
gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean as part of a five-year plan for leasing
released on Friday.
Obama's move takes drilling rights sales off the table through 2022.
The Interior Department had previously proposed limited drilling rights
sales to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas north of Alaska, where there has
never been oil and natural gas production from traditional mobile
drilling rigs.
But officials, citing environmental concerns and low industry interest,
rescinded that proposal on Friday in releasing the new plan.
The decision all but bans Arctic drilling for that time period, since
oil companies have let almost all of their leases in the Arctic expire
or have surrendered them.
It’s a major win for environmentalists, Alaska Natives and others who
feared the environmental consequences of opening the frigid, unforgiving
Arctic waters to drilling, especially in the case of a spill.
President-elect Donald Trump could seek to amend the five-year drilling
plan to add more sales. But he would have to go through a long
regulatory process to do so, potentially taking years, and could
encounter problems like President George W. Bush did when he attempted a
similar strategy.
Trump pledged during the campaign to open vast areas of public land and
water to fossil fuel production that had not been allowed before.
Since the plan is being released late in Obama’s time in office,
congressional Republicans could try legislatively to overturn the plan
or open the Arctic or Atlantic to drilling.
The oil industry and its allies have pushed Obama to keep Arctic
drilling on the table and let market forces decide if drilling should
happen in the Arctic seas.
"Given the unique and challenging Arctic environment and industry’s
declining interest in the area, foregoing lease sales in the Arctic is
the right path forward," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a
statement.
The final version of the five-year offshore leasing plan released Friday
allows up to 10 drilling rights sales in the Gulf of Mexico, the
country’s main offshore drilling areas, and up to one plan in the Cook
Inlet in south-central Alaska.
"The plan focuses lease sales in the best places — those with the
highest resource potential, lowest conflict, and established
infrastructure — and removes regions that are simply not right to
lease," Jewell said.
"The proposal makes available more than 70 percent of the economically
recoverable resources, which is ample opportunity for oil and gas
development to meet the nation’s energy needs," said Abigail Ross
Hopper, director of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Obama in March took Atlantic Ocean drilling out of consideration, after
floating a small set of drilling rights sales off the coasts of an area
between Virginia and Georgia.
Despite the possibility of the plan being overturned, Democrats and greens cheered Obama’s decision.
"I appreciate that the Interior Department considered the greater risk
posed while operating in dynamic and challenging offshore environments
in choosing to remove future leasing in the Arctic," said Sen. Maria
Cantwell (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee.
"We need to ensure that we can drill safely and respond to spills before
exploration moves forward in ecologically sensitive areas," she said.
Despite the possibility of the plan being overturned, greens cheered
Obama’s decision. "Oceana applauds President Obama and Secretary Jewell
for their leadership in protecting our coasts from dirty and dangerous
offshore drilling," Jacqueline Savitz, senior vice president for the
United States at Oceana, said in a statement.
"Today’s announcement demonstrates a commitment to prioritizing common
sense, economics and science ahead of industry favoritism and politics
as usual," she said.
Republicans and the oil industry slammed Obama.
"The Arctic has become nothing more than a prop for the president’s
legacy," said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop
(R-Utah).
"Today’s plan will chart a path of energy dependency for decades to
come," he said. "We should be building on our position as a global
energy leader, but we are punting it to Russia as Obama appeases the
environmentalists pulling his strings."
American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard called the move "a
short-sighted decision that ignores America’s long-term energy security
needs," and said he is hopeful that Trump would reverse Obama’s removal
of the Arctic.
Greens had asked Obama to go further, and invoke a rarely-used legal
provision in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that they say would
allow him to permanently protect the Arctic and Atlantic from drilling.
The Friday release did not include any use of that provision.
Interior referred questions about that proposal to the White House, which said it had no news Friday on the request.
SOURCE
***************************************
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
*****************************************
22 November, 2016
7 Ways Climate Change Is Impacting Your Life Right Now (Even If You Haven't Noticed Them)
Just the first part below of an intellectually impoverished article
by BECCA SCHUH, a materially impoverished artist. Why are so
many artists these days Leftist lamebrains? Is it because most
artists have to be lamebrains to do what they do? Some pretty
strange things pass as art these days
She references below the
increasing frequency of hurricanes and storms but offers no statistics
to back up her assertion that they are increasing. Official
statistics show that the frequency of hurricanes has markedly DECLINED in recent years but what does that matter when you have got virtue on your side?
Typical Warmist crap. I could fisk the rest of her article but that would be unkind to dumb animals
By this point, you probably know that climate change is a very real and
persistent threat to our future quality of life — a 2016 Gallup poll
found that 64 percent of Americans described themselves as "worried a
great deal" or "fair amount" about global warming; it also found that 41
percent of us felt global warming will become a "serious threat" to our
lives or way of life, and only 10 percent of Americans believing that
the effects of global warming will never make an impact in our lives.
Despite all this, it can be hard to connect the scientific facts, or the
news from far regions of the world, to our daily lives — but as people
with power continue to deny the impact of climate change (exemplified by
the news that President-elect Trump has picked climate change skeptic
Myron Ebell to lead his EPA transition team), being aware of the real
impact of climate change has become more important than ever. And we
don't have to wait to see what that impact is — with each passing month,
climate change affects more things about how we operate, from the
minutiae of daily living to our long-term plans.
1. Hurricanes Are Increasingly Severe
Recently, Hurricane Matthew joined the ranks of recent hurricanes like
Sandy and Katrina that reached new highs of catastrophe. Destructive
hurricanes are not a new phenomenon in the Southeastern United States,
and no individual hurricane can be directly attributed to climate
change, but the increasing frequency and severity of these storms is
directly correlated to global warming — as temperatures rise from the
surplus of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the ocean heats up, and
warm tropical waters create more powerful hurricanes.
Scientists predict that global warming will also cause increased
rainfall in the eye of hurricanes, which will increase flooding — which,
in turn, creates some of the most drastic long term effects on daily
life after a hurricane, from damaged roads to loss of property. For
people who live in areas that are susceptible to hurricanes, this means a
great deal of future planning for protecting assets and loved ones.
However, Southern coastal states aren't the only ones that have to worry
about the severe weather of climate change.
SOURCE
Donald Trump expected to slash Nasa's climate change budget
US President-elect Donald Trump is set to slash Nasa's budget for
monitoring climate change and instead set a goal of sending humans to
the edge of the solar system by the end of the century, and possibly
back to the moon.
Mr Trump, who has called climate change a "Chinese hoax", is believed to
want to focus the agency on far-reaching, big banner goals in deep
space rather than "Earth-centric climate change spending".
According to Bob Walker, who has advised Mr Trump on space policy, Nasa
has been reduced to "a logistics agency concentrating on space station
resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring".
Mr Walker, a former congressman who chaired President George W. Bush's
Commission on the Future of the US Aerospace Industry, told The
Telegraph: "We would start by having a stretch goal of exploring the
entire solar system by the end of the century.
"You stretch your technology experts and create technologies that
wouldn't otherwise be needed. I think aspirational goals are a good
thing. Fifty years ago it was the ability to go to the moon."
This year Nasa's Earth Science Division received $1.92 billion in funding, up nearly 30 per cent from the previous year.
Its funding has gone up 50 per cent under President Barack Obama. At the
same time Mr Obama proposed cutting support for deep space exploration
by $840 million next year.
The money for earth sciences goes to projects like the Cyclone Global
Navigation Satellite System, a constellation of eight satellites
intended to monitor surface wind speed on the oceans.
Speaking hours after Mr Trump's election win Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasa's
science administrator, defended the work. He said: "Nasa's work on Earth
science is making a difference in people’s lives all around the world
every day. Earth science helps save lives."
But Republicans have complained the agency that sent men to the moon
should not be spending billions of dollars on "predicting the weather".
SOURCE
An 850-Year hydroclimatic history of Northwestern China reveals no trend suggestive of a CO2 influence
Paper Reviewed: Gou, X., Gao, L., Deng, Y., Chen, F., Yang, M. and
Still, C. 2015. An 850-year tree-ring-based reconstruction of drought
history in the western Qilian Mountains of northwestern China.
International Journal of Climatology 35: 3308-3319.
In explaining the rationale for their work, Gou et al. (2015) state that
it is necessary to produce long-term drought reconstructions "for the
purposes of accurately understanding current as well as predicting
future hydroclimatic changes." This is because long-term records can
provide historical context and shed critical light on important climate
forcings, feedbacks and processes, as well as provide a means to test
climate model projections that forecast changes due to anthropogenic
increases in atmospheric CO2. Against this backdrop, and hoping to fill a
regional data void, Gou et al. thus set out to reconstruct the
hydroclimatic history of the western Qilian Mountains of northwestern
China.
Their proxy record originated from juniper tree-ring cores, which after
proper analysis and calibration, produced an 850-year (AD 1161-2010)
reconstruction of drought (May-July self-calibrating Palmer Drought
Severity Index). As shown in the figure below (and confirmed by spectral
analysis), there are several interannual, inter-decadal and centennial
cycles present in the record, but no trend in the data that would
suggest an obvious recent influence from greenhouse gases. In contrast,
however, the scientists report that three periods of mega-drought (AD
1260s-1340s, 1430s-1540s and 1640s-1740s) "corresponded to the Wolf,
Spörer and Maunder solar activity minimum periods," while adding that
"results of the multi-tape method analysis and wavelet analysis further
confirmed the relationship between hydroclimate variability and solar
activity forcing."
SOURCE
Global Warming: Policy Hoax versus Dodgy Science
by Dr. Roy W. Spencer
In the early 1990s I was visiting the White House Science Advisor, Sir
Prof. Dr. Robert Watson, who was pontificating on how we had
successfully regulated Freon to solve the ozone depletion problem, and
now the next goal was to regulate carbon dioxide, which at that time was
believed to be the sole cause of global warming.
I was a little amazed at this cart-before-the-horse approach. It really
seemed to me that the policy goal was being set in stone, and now the
newly-formed United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) had the rather shady task of generating the science that would
support the policy.
Now, 25 years later, public concern over global warming (aka climate
change) is at an all-time low remains at the bottom of the list of
environmental concerns.
Why is that? Maybe because people don’t see its effects in their daily lives.
1) By all objective measures, severe weather hasn’t gotten worse.
2) Warming has been occurring at only half the rate that climate models and the IPCC say it should be.
3) CO2 is necessary for life on Earth. It has taken humanity 100 years
of fossil fuel use to increase the atmospheric CO2 content from 3 parts
to 4 parts per 10,000. (Please don’t compare our CO2 problem to Venus,
which has 230,000 times as much CO2 as our atmosphere).
4) The extra CO2 is now being credited with causing global greening.
5) Despite handwringing over the agricultural impacts of climate change,
current yields of corn, soybeans, and wheat are at record highs.
As an example of the disconnect between reality and the climate models
which are being relied upon to guide energy policy, here are the yearly
growing season average temperatures in the U.S 12-state corn belt
(official NOAA data), compared to the average of the climate model
projections used by the IPCC:
Yes, there has been some recent warming. But so what? What is its cause?
Is it unusual compared to previous centuries? Is it necessarily a bad
thing? And, most important from a policy perspective, What can we do
about it anyway?
The Policy Hoax of Global Warming
Rush Limbaugh and I have had a good-natured mini-disagreement over his
characterization of global warming as a "hoax". President-elect Trump
has also used the "hoax" term.
I would like to offer my perspective on the ways in which global warming
is indeed a "hoax", but also a legitimate subject of scientific study.
While it might sound cynical, global warming has been used politically
in order for governments to gain control over the private sector. Bob
Watson’s view was just one indication of this. As a former government
employee, I can attest to the continuing angst civil servants have over
remaining relevant to the taxpayers who pay their salaries, so there is a
continuing desire to increase the role of government in our daily
lives.
In 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was given a
legitimate mandate to clean up our air and water. I remember the
pollution crises we were experiencing in the 1960s. But as those
problems were solved, the EPA found itself in the precarious position of
possibly outliving its usefulness.
So, the EPA embarked on a mission of ever-increasing levels of
regulation. Any manmade substance that had any evidence of being harmful
in large concentrations was a target for regulation. I was at a
Carolina Air Pollution Control Association (CAPCA) meeting years ago
where an EPA employee stated to the group that "we must never stop
making the environment cleaner" (or something to that effect).
There were gasps from the audience.
You see, there is a legitimate role of the EPA to regulate clearly dangerous or harmful levels of manmade pollutants.
But it is not physically possible to make our environment 100% clean.
As we try to make the environment ever cleaner, the cost goes up
dramatically. You can make your house 90% cleaner relatively easily, but
making it 99% cleaner will take much more effort.
As any economist will tell you, money you spend on one thing is not
available for other things, like health care. So, the risk of
over-regulating pollution is that you end up killing more people than
you save, because if there is one thing we know kills millions of people
every year, it is poverty.
Global warming has become a reason for government to institute policies,
whether they be a carbon tax or whatever, using a regulatory mechanism
which the public would never agree to if they knew (1) how much it will
cost them in reduced prosperity, and (2) how little effect it will have
on the climate system.
So, the policy prescription does indeed become a hoax, because the
public is being misled into believing that their actions are going to
somehow make the climate "better".
Even using the IPCC’s (and thus the EPA’s) numbers, there is nothing we
can do energy policy-wise that will have any measurable effect on global
temperatures.
In this regard, politicians using global warming as a policy tool to
solve a perceived problem is indeed a hoax. The energy needs of humanity
are so large that Bjorn Lomborg has estimated that in the coming
decades it is unlikely that more than about 20% of those needs can be
met with renewable energy sources.
Whether you like it or not, we are stuck with fossil fuels as our
primary energy source for decades to come. Deal with it. And to the
extent that we eventually need more renewables, let the private sector
figure it out. Energy companies are in the business of providing energy,
and they really do not care where that energy comes from.
SOURCE
Australia's Senator Roberts was right about "adjusted" temperature data in Greenland
Shifty Peter, official Greenie writer for the Fairfax press, has
written below that Senator Roberts got it wrong in claiming that
NASA/GISS concealed high temperatures in Iceland during the late 30's
and early 40s.
But what is the proof Roberts got it wrong?
There is none. All that has happened is that the head of NASA/GISS
has asserted that the adjustments were reasonable and reflrected
reality. But he would say that, wouldn't he? Is he going to
admit to being a fraud? Given the chronic mendacity of the Green/Left,
his word means nothing.
But the NASA head is given some support from the head of historic Icelandic meteorolgy, Trausti Jónsson.
Problem: A few years ago the same Trausti Jónsson energetically condemned the NASA/GISS adjustments.
Given the pressures put on climate scientists by the Warmist
establishment, it seems clear that Trausti Jónsson has now been bullied
into supporting the NASA/GISS fraud.
Additionally, news reports
from the late '30s reported ferocious heating in the Arctic. No
wonder Warmists "adjusted" it to non-existence.
All of which tends to show that Senator Roberts was right and we are up against crooked scientists when we deal with Warmists
A senior NASA official has taken the extraordinary step of personally
rejecting the claims of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts that the
agency had falsified key data to exaggerate warming in the Arctic.
Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
told Senator Roberts he was "mistaken" in his assertion that the US
agency had "removed" Arctic data to mask warming in the 1940s.
"You appear to hold a number of misconceptions which I am happy to
clarify at this time," Dr Schmidt told Senator Roberts in letters and
emails obtained by Fairfax Media. "The claim that GISS has 'removed the
1940s warmth' in the Arctic is not correct."
In his letter to NASA dated November 14, Senator Roberts explained his
interest in the agency's temperature calculations, saying they had
"influenced" the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's warnings on
global warming that in turn had informed Australian government policy.
Iceland weighs in
"In Australia, we have considerable concern about temperature
adjustments made by NASA over many years," Senator Roberts wrote,
including charts from Icelandic stations at Vestmannaeyjar and
Teigarhorn.
"In dropping the temperatures for the early period, the [Arctic] warmth
for the 1930s and 1940s appears to have been removed," he said. "What is
your specific reason for doing this?"
In an email, Truasti Jonsoon, senior meteorologist with a specialty in
historical climatology at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, told
Senator Roberts that the temperature "adjustments" are "quite sound".
"During this early period there was a large daytime bias in the
temperature data from Iceland as presented in this publication," which
accounted for much of the "discrepancy" at Teigarhorn and less so at
Vestmannaeyjar, Mr Jonsoon said.
For the latter station, it was relocated in October 1921 to a higher
elevation. "Comparative measurements at both sites have shown that the
later location is about 0.7 degrees Celsius colder than the former –
this relocation has to be 'adjusted' for," he said.
"I assure you that these adjustments are absolutely necessary and well
founded although the finer details of the resulting series shown in your
letter differ slightly from my own version," he told Senator Roberts.
SOURCE
***************************************
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
*****************************************
21 November, 2016
Warmist fanatic Bill McKibben on Trump
In the excerpt below, he makes assertions that are unreferenced and
unargued for and ignores large facts that don't suit him. Take the
following assertion: "This year has been the hottest year recorded in
modern history, smashing the record set in 2015"
There's some
small truth in that but it's what McKibben "forgets" to say that
matters. He forgets to say that CO2 levels did not match the
warming. I quote fron the journal article appended below:
"For
year 2015 alone, the growth in EFF [EFF = emissions of CO2 from fossil
fuels] was approximately zero ... For 2016, preliminary data indicate
the continuation of low growth in EFF"
So the CAUSE of the
warming is not as McKibben would have you believe. The 2015 warming was
clearly NOT an effect of an anthropogenic CO2 rise -- because there was
no CO2 rise. So his whole story is totally undermined. Even if we allow
as real and warming-caused all the dire phenomena he lists, they are NOT
caused by a CO2 rise. So restrictions on CO2 are irrelevant to
the warming and Trump's actions will cause no harm.
President-elect Donald Trump has already begun to back off some of his
promises: Maybe not all of Obamacare has to go. Maybe parts of his wall
will actually be a fence. Maybe it’s okay to have some lobbyists running
the government after all.
But I fear he won’t shrink from the actions he has promised on climate
change: withdrawing the United States from the Paris accord, ending
President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and okaying every new fossil-fuel
plan from the Keystone XL pipeline on down. He won’t back down because
those are hard-to-hedge choices and because he’s surrounded by
climate-change deniers and fossil-fuel insiders who will try to ensure
that he keeps his word.
So let’s be entirely clear about what those actions would represent: the
biggest, most against-the-odds and most irrevocable bet any president
has ever made about anything.
It’s the biggest because of the stakes. This year has been the hottest
year recorded in modern history, smashing the record set in 2015, which
smashed the record set in 2014. The extra heat has begun to steadily
raise sea levels, to the point where some coastal U.S. cities already
flood at high tide even in calm weather. Global sea ice levels are at
record lows, and the oceans are 30 percent more acidic. And that’s just
so far. Virtually every scientific forecast says that without swift
action in the next few years to cut carbon emissions, this crisis will
grow to be catastrophic, with implications for everything from
agriculture to national security that dwarf our other problems.....
If you don’t think poor people should get subsidized medical care,
that’s ugly, but it’s an opinion you’re entitled to hold. Science isn’t
like that: The heat-trapping properties of the carbon dioxide molecule
simply a reality. Which is why, even if we fail in our efforts to stop
Trump from making his bet, it’s important for history to note what’s
going on. One man is preparing to bet the future of the planet in a
long-shot wager against physics.
SOURCE
Global Carbon Budget 2016
Corinne Le Quéré et al.
Abstract.
Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and
their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial
biosphere – the "global carbon budget" – is important to better
understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate
policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets
and methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon
budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a
range of data, algorithms, statistics, and model estimates and their
interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes
compared to previous estimates and consistency within and among
components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions
from fossil fuels and industry (EFF) are based on energy statistics and
cement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use
change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from
land-cover change data, fire activity associated with deforestation,
and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured
directly and its rate of growth (GATM) is computed from the annual
changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is based on
observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are
estimated with ocean models. The variability in SOCEAN is evaluated with
data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global
residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated by the difference of
the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of
independent dynamic global vegetation models. We compare the mean land
and ocean fluxes and their variability to estimates from three
atmospheric inverse methods for three broad latitude bands. All
uncertainties are reported as ±1?, reflecting the current capacity to
characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon
budget. For the last decade available (2006–2015), EFF was
9.3?±?0.5?GtC?yr?1, ELUC 1.0?±?0.5?GtC?yr?1, GATM 4.5?±?0.1?GtC?yr?1,
SOCEAN 2.6?±?0.5?GtC?yr?1, and SLAND 3.1?±?0.9?GtC?yr?1. For year 2015
alone, the growth in EFF was approximately zero and emissions remained
at 9.9?±?0.5?GtC?yr?1, showing a slowdown in growth of these emissions
compared to the average growth of 1.8?%?yr?1 that took place during
2006–2015. Also, for 2015, ELUC was 1.3?±?0.5?GtC?yr?1, GATM was
6.3?±?0.2?GtC?yr?1, SOCEAN was 3.0?±?0.5?GtC?yr?1, and SLAND was
1.9?±?0.9?GtC?yr?1. GATM was higher in 2015 compared to the past decade
(2006–2015), reflecting a smaller SLAND for that year. The global
atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 399.4?±?0.1?ppm averaged over
2015. For 2016, preliminary data indicate the continuation of low growth
in EFF with +0.2?% (range of ?1.0 to +1.8?%) based on national
emissions projections for China and USA, and projections of gross
domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of
the economy for the rest of the world. In spite of the low growth of
EFF in 2016, the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 concentration is
expected to be relatively high because of the persistence of the smaller
residual terrestrial sink (SLAND) in response to El Niño conditions of
2015–2016. From this projection of EFF and assumed constant ELUC for
2016, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach 565?±?55?GtC
(2075?±?205?GtCO2) for 1870–2016, about 75?% from EFF and 25?% from
ELUC. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data
sets used in this new carbon budget compared with previous publications
of this data set (Le Quéré et al., 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). All
observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide
Information Analysis Center (doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP_2016).
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 8, 605-649, 2016
NOAA September Temperature Fraud
NOAA claimed record heat in numerous locations is September, like these ones in Africa and the Middle East.
This is a remarkable feat, given that they don’t have any actual
thermometers in those regions. In fact, NOAA doesn’t have any
thermometers on about half of the land surface.
Satellite temperatures showed that September was close to normal in those regions which NOAA declared to be record hot.
The global surface temperature record is garbage. This is the 21st
century, and it needs to be replaced by satellite temperatures which
show little or no warming this century.
More
HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)
Wipe the EPA entirely
The $4-trillion-per-year federal government works incessantly against
the private sector. Likely no wing is more pernicious than the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
On his way to prison for defrauding taxpayers out of more than $1
million, former high-level EPA official Jon Beale said that while at the
agency he was: "working on a ‘project’ examining ways to ‘modify the
DNA of the capitalist system.’ He argued that environmental regulation
was reaching its ‘limits’…so he began working on his plan."
Which, thankfully, was eventually scrapped. But how obnoxious is the EPA
– and how much free time does it have – to even consider, let alone
work on, such a plan?
Idle bureaucrat hands are the Devil’s playground. There are more than
800,000 federal government employees – that the employer its own self
deems "non-essential." Get that? The Feds have hired almost a million
people – they themselves say are totally superfluous.
We have far too many bureaucrats – with nigh nothing to do. So they
start looking for things to do – like trying to "modify the DNA of the
capitalist system."
Rather than assigning them things to do, or allowing them to go on these
regulatory spelunking forays – how about we scrap their gigs? And while
we’re at it – the agencies in which they work? Because if these
agencies green light these sorts of regulatory search-and-destroy
missions, they have no productive work to do – and thus shouldn’t exist.
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’d all-but-shutter
the EPA: "‘Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every
week they come out with new regulations. They’re making it impossible…’
(Fox News’ Chris) Wallace interjected, ‘Who’s going to protect the
environment?’ ‘They – we’ll be fine with the environment,’ Trump
replied. ‘We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy businesses.’"
Trump, by the way, also wants to close the Department of Education: "‘I
believe that we should be – you know, educating our children from Iowa,
from New Hampshire, from South Carolina, from California, from New York.
I think that it should be local education.’"
Trump is, of course, absolutely right. And that local solution for
education – is the same solution for the environment. Nigh all fifty
states have some bureaucratic iteration of both Education and the EPA.
So why are there completely redundant, fifty-first entities in
Washington?
Iowa’s version of the EPA and Hawaii’s version know how to handle their
respective issues far better than does the bureaucracy in far-off DC.
The fifty states can each tailor their policies to their very different
climates, topographies and industries.
DC’s EPA can only issue one-size-fits-all mandates – which never fit
anyone anywhere. And these mandates have to be overreaching enough to
consume and cover the biggest states – which of course crushes all the
rest.
Trump should thus realize – we don’t even need to "leave a little bit" of the federal EPA.
Also because as happens with all things DC, the "little bit" you leave
behind – will eventually grow back into the monstrosity with which we
are currently afflicted. So end it – don’t mend it.
All the while, the DC EPA continues to inexorably stray ever further
from any tether to legislation passed by Congress. But one example is
its repeated, vast unilateral expansions of its powers under the Waters
of the United States (WOTUS) law. Courts have repeatedly rebuked the EPA
– but why would bored bureaucrats allow either the law or the courts to
rein them in? So they’ve expanded yet again – even further than ever
before.
Trump gets this too: "‘The President can go in and tell the director of
the EPA to eliminate the Waters of the U.S. rules,’ he says. ‘We will
get through the abuse of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, which is
taking place through the EPA, and we will eliminate those abuses. We
think the Waters of the U.S. is an enormous overreach, and it needs to
be eliminated.’"
Hundreds of millions of Americans will be thrilled. Farmers in particular will be ecstatic.
President Trump should absolutely shut down these WOTUS abuses – but he
shouldn’t stop there. He should shut down entirely the agency engaged in
this obnoxiousness. The EPA absolutely needs to go. And, thankfully, it
will be one of the easiest of all of them to close.
Team Trump has brilliantly named Myron Ebell as leader of their EPA
transition. Ebell is no fan of the EPA and its egregious assaults on the
private sector. All the right anti-capitalism people loathe him.
President-elect Trump should have Ebell transition the EPA – right out of existence.
The nation, its people and its economy will all be dramatically better for it.
SOURCE
The Facts About the Dakota Access Pipeline That Protesters Don’t Want You to Know
For more than three months, thousands of protesters, most of them from
out of state, have illegally camped on federal land in Morton County,
North Dakota, to oppose the construction of a legally permitted oil
pipeline project that is 85 percent complete.
The celebrities, political activists, and anti-oil extremists who are
blocking the pipeline’s progress are doing so based on highly charged
emotions rather than actual facts on the ground.
This 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline will deliver as many as 570,000
barrels of oil a day from northwestern North Dakota through South Dakota
and Iowa to connect to existing pipelines in Illinois. It will do this
job far more safely than the current method of transporting it by 750
rail cars a day.
The protesters say they object to the pipeline’s being close to the
water intake of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, this
should be of no concern as it will sit approximately 92 feet below the
riverbed, with increased pipe thickness and control valves at both ends
of the crossing to reduce the risk of an incident, which is already low.
Just like the companies that run the 10 other fossil-fuel pipelines
crossing the Missouri River upstream of Standing Rock, Energy Transfer
Partners—the primary funder of this pipeline—is taking all necessary
precautions to ensure that the pipeline does not leak.
But even if there were a risk, Standing Rock will soon have a new water
intake that is nearing completion much further downstream near Mobridge,
South Dakota.
From the outset of this process, Standing Rock Sioux leaders have
refused to sit down and meet with either the Army Corps of Engineers or
the pipeline company.
The Army Corps consulted with 55 Native American tribes at least 389
times, after which they proposed 140 variations of the route to avoid
culturally sensitive areas in North Dakota. The logical time for
Standing Rock tribal leaders to share their concerns would have been at
these meetings, not now when construction is already near completion.
The original pipeline was always planned for south of Bismarck, despite
false claims that it was originally planned for north of Bismarck and
later moved, thus creating a greater environmental danger to the
Standing Rock Sioux.
The real reasons for not pursuing the northern route were that the
pipeline would have affected an additional 165 acres of land, 48 extra
miles of previously undisturbed field areas, and an additional 33
waterbodies.
It would also have crossed zones marked by the Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration as "high consequence" areas, and would
have been 11 miles longer than the preferred and current route.
North Dakotans have respected the rights of these individuals to protest
the pipeline, but they have gone beyond civil protesting.
Though these protesters claim to be gathered for peaceful prayer and
meditation, law enforcement has been forced to arrest more than 400 in
response to several unlawful incidents, including trespassing on and
damaging private land, chaining themselves to equipment, burning tires
and fields, damaging cars and a bridge, harassing residents of nearby
farms and ranches, and killing and butchering livestock. There was even
at least one reported incident where gun shots were fired at police.
The recent vandalization of graves in a Bismarck cemetery and the
unconscionable graffiti marking on the North Dakota column at the World
War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., are examples of how the protesters’
actions do not match their claims of peaceful demonstration.
Equally disturbing is the meddling by the Obama administration in trying
to block this legally permitted project through executive policymaking.
This has encouraged more civil disobedience, threatened the safety of
local residents, and placed an onerous financial burden on local law
enforcement—with no offer of federal reimbursement for these increasing
costs.
All that remains for the pipeline project to be completed is for the
Army Corps of Engineers to issue a final easement to cross the Missouri
River at Lake Oahe. With no legal reason remaining to not issue it, I am
confident the Trump administration will do what’s right if it’s not
settled before President Donald Trump takes office.
The simple fact is that our nation will continue to produce and consume
oil, and pipelines are the safest and most efficient way to transport
it. Legally permitted infrastructure projects must be allowed to proceed
without threat of improper governmental meddling.
The rule of law matters. We cannot allow lawless mobs to obstruct projects that have met all legal requirements to proceed.
SOURCE
Global freezing: 15-year ice age predicted to hit in only 4 years as sun prepares to 'hibernate'
The world could be facing a 15 year winter
A 15-YEAR long mini ice age could be due to hit the Northern hemisphere
in just FOUR years as the sun prepares for 'hibernation' - triggering a
barrage of cataclysmic events.
A team of experts have warned that huge seismic events, including
volcanic eruptions, plunging global temperatures and destabilization of
the Earth's crust will become more common after worrying changes to the
surface of the Sun were recorded.
It could take up to 15 years for solar activity to return to normal with
extreme weather and freezing temperatures continuing until 2035.
The warning will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030
the world faces increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at
the poles.
Solar activity, measured by the appearance of sun spots, has been
declining at a greater rate than at any other time in history, it has
emerged.
The Sun is now without spots for the first time in five years after 21
days of minimal activity were observed through the course of 2016.
Although spots reappeared sporadically during the summer, repeated slumps of no activity were recorded through the year.
The trend has prompted scientists to warn that the world is hurtling
towards a historic solar minimum event with output potentially dropping
to an all-time low.
The phenomena are thought to drive extreme cold weather in Europe,
including Britain, Northern America and across the lower southern
hemisphere affecting New Zealand and parts of South America.
They have also been linked to major earthquakes in tremor hotspots
igniting fears that major cities including Tokyo and Los Angeles could
be facing the next 'big one'.
It could take 15 years for solar activity to return to normal
Research by the The Space and Science Research Center in Florida
revealed a strong link between low solar activity and seismic events.
The study looked at volcanic activity between 1650 - 2009 and earthquake
activity between 1700 - 2009 comparing it to sunspots records.
It revealed a terrifying correlation between reduced solar activity and
the largest seismic and volcanic events in recorded history.
Researchers at Japan's Institute for Cosmic Ray Research concluded there
is a link between global volcanic activity and solar activity lows.
Study author Toshikazu Ebisuzaki said: "Volcanoes with silica-rich and
highly viscous magma tend to produce violent explosive eruptions that
result in disasters in local communities and that strongly affect the
global environment.
"We examined the timing of 11 eruptive events that produced silica-rich
magma from four volcanoes in Japan (Mt. Fuji, Mt. Usu, Myojinsho, and
Satsuma-Iwo-jima) over the past 306 years (from AD 1700 to AD 2005).
"Nine of the 11 events occurred during inactive phases of solar magnetic
activity (solar minimum), which is well indexed by the group sunspot
number.
"This strong association between eruption timing and the solar minimum
is statistically significant to a confidence level of 96.7 per cent."
The frequency of sunspots is expected to rapidly decline over the next four years reaching a minimum between 2019 and 2020.
Solar expert Piers Corbyn of forecasting group WeatherAction warned the
Earth faces another mini ice age with potentially devastating
consequences. He said: "We are now in a decline of solar activity and
are on course for a very quiet period. "This can cause a shift in the
jet stream making it move further south and as a result it turns very
cold in temperate latitudes including Europe, Britain and North America.
"We are anticipating temperatures to drop leading to ocean water
freezing and ice drifts washing up around the coasts in Europe - we
expect the next mini ice age."
He said the link between huge changes in solar activity and earthquakes
is down to a reduction in the strength of magnetic fields around the
Earth.
Japan, America, the Philippines and quake prone regions of the Middle
East and Asia are about to be put on high alert, he warned.
He explained fewer solar flares associated with a minimum period reduce the magnetic pull over the surface of the Earth.
This stops all movement of tectonic plates, even the frequent harmless
shifts which go unnoticed, allowing huge pressure to build up underneath
the Earths crust.
The result, Mr Corbyn said, is much like a pressure cooker with any slightest movement triggering a massive earthquake.
"Think of it like comparing two bags of sugar being filled," he said.
"If you have one with a small hole in the bottom it is constantly
emptying while more is being added so there is no overall effect.
"The other has no hole so it gets fuller and fuller until eventually it bursts, this is the sort of thing we are taking about.
"What we expect is fewer earthquakes overall, but more extremely severe
ones in at risk regions, and this is very worrying. "Tokyo, Los Angeles
and other big cities could all be looking at the next big one."
Scientists predict the number of observed sun spots will continue to
decline over the next few years in the run up to 2020. Eventually the
'blank period' will stretch into months triggering the start of the next
Solar Minimum likely to last 15 years..
It will mark the 24th cycle since 1755 when solar activity was first
recorded and the link made to climate and changes in terrestrial
conditions.
In Britain, the main threat is of a repeat of the last significant solar
minimum which triggered the infamous little ice age in the 1600s.
The so-called maunder minimum saw exceptionally harsh winters ravage the
UK and northern Europe and led to the River Thames freezing over.
A Met Office-led study published last year claimed although the effect
will be offset by recent global warming, Britain could see cooler than
average winters in years to come.
A spokesman at the time said: "A return to low solar activity not seen
for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and
eastern parts of the United States but wouldn't halt global warming.
"Return of 'grand solar minimum' could affect European and eastern US winters."
Solar physicist David Hathaway, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre,
added: "The solar minimum is coming, and it's coming sooner than we
expected."
SOURCE
***************************************
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
*****************************************
20 November, 2016
Pesky glaciers
Something a reader sent me reminded me of something I had forgotten. He wrote:
A glacier is a river of ice flowing slowly to the sea, fed by the
head waters due to a build up of pressure, the same as a river of liquid
water. They even have currents and flow around boulders that will not
break loose and the bottom and sides flow slower than the middle. A
glacier that has receded is due to a lack of new moisture at the
source.
The central point in that is that glacial advance and retreat is
primarily a function of precipitation. Which means that a lack of
snowfall is what causes a glacier to shrink/retreat.
Warmists, by contrast, regularly attribute glacial retreat to warming,
completely ignoring the fact that glaciers around the world wax and wane
all the time, even when temperatures are plateaued.
And the really interesting thing about that is what causes fluctuations
in snowfall. There are many local factors but if we are
talking about global influences, what causes reduced snowfall is
COOLING. A warming world evaporate more water off the oceans and
that water vapor would fall again as rain/snow. Conversely, a cooler
world would evaporate less ocean water, leading to reduced
precipitation.
Greenies rarely these days talk about melting glaciers except in the
case of Greenland but next time you hear a Greenie talking about a
shrinking glacier somewhere say to them: "So we are having global
cooling now, are we?" It won't help your friendship, though.
I was once on quite good terms with a man who had a solid scientific
background when some shrinking glaciers came up in conversation. I
started to explain to him the role of precipitation but he cut the
conversation rather short and I have never heard from him again.
Warmists are fragile souls. How sad is it that some simple
scientific facts can upset someone!
Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club is having fun
He is just fundraising but it helps to have a villain. So guess who got elected as the villain? We read:
Breaking: In an organized stunt, a lackey of Myron Ebell - the head
of Trump's EPA transition - just ripped up a copy of the Paris Climate
deal next to a cardboard cutout of Trump. These people are laughing
about the future of our planet. We cannot let them win. Fight back. Make
a membership donation
Marc Morano seems peeved that he was not named. He was just a
"lackey". He comments: "Tell Brune we are coming after the Sierra
Club's nonprofit status .."
Green Elites, Trumped
Cautious praise from the WSJ
The planet will benefit if the climate movement is purged of its rottenness.
Hysterical, in both senses of the word, is the reaction of greens like
Paul Krugman and the Sierra Club to last week’s election. "The planet is
in danger," fretted Tom Steyer, the California hedge funder who spends
his billions trying to be popular with green voters.
Uh huh. In fact, the climate will be the last indicator to notice any
transition from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. That’s because—as climate
warriors were only too happy to point out until a week ago—Mr. Obama’s
own commitments weren’t going to make any noticeable dent in a putative
CO2 problem.
At most, Mr. Trump’s election will mean solar and wind have to compete more on their merits. So what?
He wants to lift the Obama war on coal—but he won’t stop the epochal
replacement of coal by cheap natural gas, with half the greenhouse
emissions per BTU.
He probably won’t even try to repeal an egregious taxpayer-funded rebate
for wind and solar projects, because red states like this gimme too.
But Republican state governments will continue to wind back subsidies
that ordinary ratepayers pay through their electric bills so upscale
homeowners can indulge themselves with solar.
Even so, the price of solar technology will continue to drop; the
lithium-ion revolution will continue to drive efficiency gains in
batteries.
Mr. Trump wants to spend on infrastructure, and the federal research
establishment, a hotbed of battery enthusiasts, likely will benefit.
In a deregulatory mood, he might well pick up an uncharacteristically
useful initiative from the Obama administration. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission quietly is revisiting a scientifically dubious radiation risk
standard that drives up the cost of nuclear power.
What a Trump election will do is mostly dismantle a green gravy train
powered by moral vanity that contributes nothing to the public welfare.
A phenomenon like Trump, whatever its antecedents, is an opportunity—in
this case to purge a rottenness that begins at the commanding heights.
The New York Times last year published a feature entitled "short answers
to the hard questions about climate change" that was notable solely for
ignoring the hardest question of all: How much are human activities
actually affecting the climate?
This is the hardest question. It’s why we spend tens of billions
collecting climate data and building computerized climate models. It’s
why "climate sensitivity" remains the central problem of climate
science, as lively and unresolved as it was 35 years ago.
Happily, it only takes a crude, blunderbussy kind of instrument to
shatter such a fragile smugness—and if Mr. Trump and the phenomenon he
represents are anything, it’s crude and blunderbussy.
As with any such shattering, the dividends will not be appropriated only by one party or political tendency.
Democrats must know by now they are in a failing marriage. Wealthy
investors like George Soros,Nat Simons and Mr. Steyer, who finance the
party’s green agenda, have ridden the Dems into the ground, with nothing
to show for their millions, and vice versa.
On the contrary, the WikiLeaks release of Clinton campaign chairman John
Podesta’s emails only dramatizes what a liability they’ve become,
demanding attacks on scientists and even loyal Democrats who don’t
endorse their climate-disaster scenarios. Their anti-coal,
anti-pipeline, anti-fracking stance especially hurts Dems with union
households, which turned out in record numbers for Mr. Trump.
It was always crazy to believe in an unprecedented act of global central
planning to wean nations away from fossil fuels, but equally idiotic
not to notice that our energy economy is ripe slowly to be transformed
by technology anyway.
One greenie who is beyond the need for handouts is Bill Gates, who has
made himself non grata by saying the current vogue for subsidizing power
sources that will always need subsidies is a joke—an admission of
defeat.
Honest warriors like Mr. Gates and retired NASA alarmist James Hansen
insist real progress can’t be made without nuclear. Why haven’t others?
Because the Tom Steyers and Bill McKibbens would sacrifice the planet 10
times over rather than no longer be fawned over at green confabs.
That’s rottenness at work.
There’s a reason today’s climate movement increasingly devotes its time
and energy to persecuting heretics—because it’s the most efficient way
to suppress reasoned examination of policies that cost taxpayers
billions without producing any public benefit whatsoever.
The theory and practice of climate advocacy, on one hand, has been
thoroughly, irretrievably corrupted by self righteousness—blame Al Gore,
that was his modus. Yet, on the other, it has allowed itself to become
the agent of economic interests that can’t survive without pillaging
middle-class taxpayers and energy users—exactly the kind of elitist
cronyism that voters are sick of.
Without attributing any special virtue to Mr. Trump, he represents a
chance for a new start. He might even turn out to be good for the planet
SOURCE
The unhinged Steyer-funded CAP campaign against @RogerPielkeJr was a very great scandal
Pielke comments:I haven’t had a chance to update this
blog with anything related to the surprise (to me at least) at finding
myself the subject of an email in the John Podesta email leaks from
Wikileaks. That email revealed that an organization that was fouinded
and led by Podesta, the Center for American Progress, engaged in a
successful effort to have me removed as a writer at 538, the "data
journalism" site created by Nate Silver.
The Boulder Daily Camera
has a very good series of articles about the revelation that there was
an organized political effort against me.
The multi-year campaign
against me by CAP was partially funded by billionaire Tom Steyer, and
involved 7 writers at CAP who collectively wrote more than 160 articles
about me, trashing my work and my reputation. Over the years, several of
those writers moved on to new venues, including The Guardian, Vox and
ClimateTruth.org where they continued their campaign focused on creating
an evil, cartoon version of me and my research.
Collectively,
they were quite successful. The campaign ultimately led to me being
investigated by a member of Congress and pushed out of the field.
One
example of CAP’s campaign involved a series of over-the-top
protestations against a paper that I wrote in 2008 with climate
scientist Tom Wigley and economist Chris Green. In it, we argued that
the IPCC had baked in too much assumed decarbonization in its scenarios
of future emissions and policies.
CAP responded with multiple
posts, such as the unhinged, "Why did Nature run Pielke’s pointless,
misleading, embarrassing nonsense?" There were many more.
I am
happy to report that sometimes good science wins out in the end. Our
paper has now been cited almost 250 times (Google Scholar). More
importantly, our analysis now shows up in the scenarios being used for
the 6th assessment of the IPCC. Here is a key figure from our paper (on
the left) and a virtually identical one from the recent IPCC scenario
paper
It is not important to understand the details here (but if
you’d like to, our paper is here in PDF), but it is abundantly clear
that our analysis was the basis for that used by those who have created
the next generation of IPCC scenarios. Our paper is not cited by the
IPCC authors – that apparently would be a step too far, given how deeply
the campaign of destruction against me has influenced how I am
perceived.
But no matter. The ideas that we first presented in
2008, trashed by those who for whatever reason were intent of a campaign
of personal destruction, now show up in 2016 as being core to those of
the IPCC.
That is pretty sweet.
More
HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)
Three Climate Policy Executive Orders the President-Elect Should RepealPresident-elect
Donald Trump has vowed to "cancel immediately" all of President Obama’s
"illegal and overreaching executive orders," and he strongly opposes
Obama’s climate agenda. Will Obama’s climate policy executive orders be
among the first on Trump’s chopping block?
Here are three prime targets for repeal, beginning with the most recent.
*
Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade (March 19,
2015). This order requires federal buildings to obtain at least 30
percent of their electricity from renewables by 2030. All new federal
buildings constructed in that year must be "energy net-zero," meaning
their energy consumption must be "balanced by onsite renewable energy."
Also in 2030, 50 percent of all new passenger vehicles in agency fleets
must be zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles. To carry out those
and many other requirements, agencies must establish "chief
sustainability officers" to implement "green supply chain management"
under the tutelage of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
In addition to using our tax dollars to expand the federal trough for
green special interests, the order is a consciousness-raising exercise.
If kept in place, it will help perpetuate climate-centric groupthink in
federal agencies.
*
Climate Resilient International Development (September 23, 2014). "This
order requires the integration of climate-resilience considerations into
all United States international development work to the extent
permitted by law." The main problem here is that development is the best
strategy for making poor countries more resilient, and affordable
energy is critical to development. Elevating "climate-resilience
considerations" too easily becomes an excuse to deny poor countries
access to affordable energy, ignore the real causes of poverty
(corruption, lack of strong property rights), and legitimize phony
grievances against the fossil energy-rich United States.
*
Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change (November
1, 2013). This order requires federal agencies to promote "engaged and
strong partnerships and information sharing at all levels of government"
to help "safeguard our economy, infrastructure, environment, and
natural resources" from climate change impacts. Agencies are to "support
and encourage smarter, more climate-resilient investments by States,
local communities, and tribes, including by providing incentives through
agency guidance, grants, technical assistance, performance measures,
safety considerations, and other programs, including in the context of
infrastructure development." In other words, the order directs agencies
to recruit, indoctrinate, bankroll, and coordinate climate activists at
all levels of government. Perhaps a better title for the order is
"Mobilizing the Long March through the Institutions."
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
18 November, 2016
Greenland Blowing Away All Records For Ice GrowthGreenland’s
surface has been gaining about 3.5 billion tons of ice per day since
the first of September. This is about 50% above normal.
Meanwhile government funded
experts fraudsters are telling the press that
Greenland is melting at catastrophic speedOne of the top priorities of the Trump administration should be to root those responsible for this fraud out of government.
SOURCE Job one for Trump: Dismantle EPA regulatory assault on economyPresident-elect
Donald Trump must begin unraveling the Obama legacy immediately. As
harmful regulations continue to cripple economic growth, rescinding EPA
regulations on coal is the first necessary step for the Trump
administration to get America back to work and end the big government
policies Obama instituted.
Since the 2007 Supreme Court decision
in Massachusetts v. the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that
agency has been able to regulate carbon emissions as "harmful
pollutants" under the terms of the Clean Air Act.
Under the Obama
administration that is exactly what the EPA did with the 2009 Carbon
Endangerment Finding. This rulemaking in turn has been used to justify
the continual implementation of regulations that expand the agency’s
power and wage a war on coal.
The Trump administration must now
begin rescinding these regulations under the terms of the Administrative
Procedures Act, a process that could take up to two years. Best to get
started now.
Currently under the EPA’s regulations published at
80 Fed. Reg. 64,510 and 80 Fed. Reg. 64,662, the EPA has the ability
regulate both existing and developing power plants for excessive carbon
emissions. This overreach was granted by the Obama administration and
has worked to make coal electricity uneconomical.
By rescinding
these regulations, Trump could provide a tangible opportunity for blue
collar job growth in by beginning the rebuilding of the American coal
industry.
But this is only the start. President Obama did not
only put in place regulations which cripple businesses and make coal
uneconomical, he also put in place regulations which disempowered
citizens and state government eager to push against the EPA’s
interjection.
Using sue and settle arrangements, environmental
groups sue the EPA or local governments demanding to have issues
addressed. To avoid further litigation, the parties settle the suit and
the EPA is given permission to address the issue with newly expanded
powers, even if previously the EPA had not jurisdiction or authority
over the issue. Sue and settle provides them with new oversight.
While
the Obama administration has used sue and settle arrangements
throughout the last 8 years to expand overreach, rescinding prior sue
and settle arrangements under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act
would prevent the EPA from continuing to destroy local employment
opportunities. Stop it where it stands.
This could be the first
show of unity by the Trump administration and Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) after a hard-fought campaign where Trump and
McConnell did not always see eye to eye.
Despite having control
over both houses in Congress, Trump could face barriers to the
implementation of his agenda with McConnell. At one point in the
campaign Trump pegged McConnell as the "epitome of an establishment
Republican." However, now, with a narrow lead in the Senate, Trump must
rely on McConnell to deliver his platform.
While the two have
argued on issues such as immigration reform, ending the Obama
administration war on coal has been a pillar for the McConnell Senate.
And surely Congress can act, by defunding harmful regulations. Where
that is not possible or fails, rescinding regulations via the executive
process is up to Trump.
This is one area Trump will be able to
work together with McConnell, making the most of Republican majorities
in both houses of Congress the next two years.
Trump gained the
support from Americans left unemployed from the regulations of the Obama
Administration placed on industry growth, now he can show them why his
win was worth it, by dismantling the EPA assault on the U.S. economy and
getting the job-creating engine back up and running.
Through the
rescinding and defunding of harmful regulations and the barring of sue
and settle arrangements, Trump and Congress can rein in the EPA while
promoting job growth and free enterprise; something the Obama
administration could never accomplish.
SOURCE Skeptics Thrown Out Of UN Climate Summit After Holding Pro-Trump EventThree
global warming skeptics were thrown out of the United Nations (U.N.)
summit in Morocco after holding a pro-Donald Trump event where one of
them tore up a copy of the Paris climate agreement.
"UN Security
escorted three members of an Non-Governmental Organization called the
Competitive Enterprise Institute off the premises today, and removed
badges for the duration of the week, after an unregistered
demonstration," U.N. spokesman Nick Nuttall told The Daily Caller News
Foundation.
One of those skeptics was Marc Morano, the publisher
of Climate Depot, who was tossed out of the Marrakech summit after
shredding a copy of a climate deal signed by nearly 200 countries last
year. Morano was taken off the premises and won’t be allowed back in,
the U.N. said.
Morano, wearing a red Trump hat, said "the
delegates here seem to be in deep denial about President-elect Trump’s
policies" before being escorted off the premises by security, according
to ABC News.
The Rebel Media, a conservative Canadian news site, snapped a photo of Morano being forcibly moved by U.N. security guards.
Morano
was holding an event near the U.N. summit’s media center that featured a
giant poster of President-elect Trump behind him. Morano already made
waves after publishing a lengthy report challenging the very foundation
on which the U.N. summit was built: man-made global warming.
The U.N. apparently thought his "unregistered" demonstration went too far.
"Members
of this NGO have attended previous UN climate conferences and there is a
well-publicized code of conduct for NGOs," Nuttall said. "This requires
them to register a planned demonstration with UN security for approval.
All peaceful demonstrations within the conference are approved and
roughly 10-15 are happening every day at the Marrakesh conference.
Approval is not based on the message demonstrators wish to send,
political or otherwise, but on the safety of delegates. This is
especially relevant with Heads of State still present on the premises."
"The
UNFCCC is one of the most tolerant UN bodies in respect to permitting
demonstrations at its conferences but we need demonstrators to respect
this well-established code for their own safety and the safety of all
participants," Nuttall said.
Morano’s event attracted a large crowd of reporters and photographers before being shut down.
U.N.
delegates are in Marrakech to hash out an implementation plan for the
so-called Paris agreement that was ratified by enough countries to come
into effect this year. But delegates were disheartened by Trump’s recent
election win.
President-elect Donald Trump vowed to "cancel" the
Paris deal. Trump also promised to stop funding U.N. global warming
programs, despite being called a "climate denier" by left-wing
activists.
SOURCE "PEAK" OIL? The USGS Just Found 20 Billion Barrels of OilThanks in part to frackingIn
what seems to becoming a weekly occurrence, the oil industry just
produced another stunning example of its ability to find new reserves in
the 21st century. A new assessment of the so-called "Wolfcamp shale"
formation near Midland, Texas estimates that the region contains some 20
billion barrels of crude and another 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas
liquids. Take that, "peak oil" doomsayers. The Texas Tribune reports:
[The
Wolfcamp shale estimation is] three times higher than the amount of
recoverable crude the agency found in the Bakken-Three Forks region in
the upper midwest in 2013, making it "the largest estimated continuous
oil accumulation that USGS has assessed in the United States to date,"
according to a statement.
"The fact that this is the largest
assessment of continuous oil we have ever done just goes to show that,
even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is
still the potential to find billions more," said Walter Guidroz, program
coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program.
The fact that
the USGS is now—in 2016—making its largest-ever estimate of a single
oil resource speaks volumes about the state of American energy security,
and the speed at which our country’s oil landscape has changed over the
past decade as a result of the shale revolution.
To be
clear, without technological advances like hydraulic fracturing and
horizontal well drilling—two practices that have only been deployed en
masse over the past eight years or so—we wouldn’t be counting these 20
billion barrels of crude as recoverable.While OPEC struggles
to stay afloat in a market where crude struggles to break $50 per
barrel, U.S. shale producers are surprising analysts and petrostates
alike with their ability to keep the oil flowing at these bargain
prices. This resiliency can largely be put down to their relentlessly
innovative spirit and the dogged pursuit of technological advances to
help streamline drilling processes and bring breakeven costs down. But
new technologies aren’t just keeping shale firms afloat, they’re also
uncovering new reserves of oil and gas that will continue to buoy
America’s position as a major energy supplier for years to come.
SOURCE Thanks to shale, the US is flush with a record amount of natural gas— just in time for winterThe
United States has never entered a winter with more natural gas at the
ready, according to the latest data from the Energy Information
Administration (EIA). During the warmer months of the year, countries
pump drilled natural gas into storage, anticipating a cyclical spike in
demand when temperatures start falling. As we head into those colder
months now, the amount of natural gas in storage here in the United
States has just hit an all-time high, as the EIA reports:
Working
natural gas in storage reached a record high of 4,017 billion cubic
feet (Bcf) as of November 4, according to EIA’s latest Weekly Natural
Gas Storage Report. Inventories have been relatively high throughout the
year, surpassing previous five-year highs in 48 of the past 52
weeks…The injection season for natural gas storage typically runs from
April through October, although net natural gas injections sometimes
continue for several weeks during November. In fact, the previous record
for natural gas storage was set at 4,009 Bcf for the week ending
November 20, 2015.
So what does this mean for American families
looking to heat their homes with natural gas this winter? Well, as the
EIA explains, that all depends on the weather:
Based on the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) winter
forecast, EIA expects U.S. average household natural gas consumption to
increase 8% this winter, with the largest increases in the Northeast and
Midwest census regions. Under this scenario, EIA expects inventories to
end the winter at slightly below 1,900 Bcf. However, temperatures so
far this winter have consistently been at or above weekly average normal
levels, and NOAA’s latest three-month temperature outlook forecasts
that December–February temperatures will be higher than normal. In a
scenario with temperatures 10% warmer than forecast, U.S. average
household natural gas consumption would be 1% lower this winter compared
to last winter, with inventories at winter’s end near 2,300 Bcf.
But
while the exact rate at which households and businesses consume natural
gas in the United States this winter remains to be seen, we do know
that we’ve never been in a better position with respect to natural gas.
This abundance isn’t just a boon to energy security, it also corresponds
to cheaper prices, a development that is especially helpful for poorer
families for whom their heating bills make up a larger slice of the
monthly budget.
We’d be remiss to not give credit where credit is
due for this unprecedented hoard of natural gas: Hydraulic fracturing
and horizontal well-drilling of shale formations around the country are
entirely responsible for this resurgence in oil and natural gas
production over the past eight years. It is hard to overstate the impact
fracking has had on the U.S. energy landscape, and this latest glut of
gas is just the latest example of its ability to shore up U.S. energy
security.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
17 November, 2016
It’s Time to Stop Spending Taxpayer Dollars on Elon Musk and CronyismFrom
Enron to Bernie Madoff, at the end of every great American financial
scandal, the totality of the perpetrators’ greed seems to be matched
only by the public’s incredulity at how such a thing could be allowed to
happen.
And thanks to Elon Musk, there’s a good chance we may all be asking this question again soon.
The
Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have
launched a probe into tax incentives paid to solar companies, according
to The Wall Street Journal. The committee probes, led by their
respective Republican chairmen, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas and Sen. Orrin
Hatch of Utah, have found an appropriate and disturbing target to begin
this work.
SolarCity, a solar installation company set to be
purchased by Tesla Motors Inc., is one of the seven companies named in
the initial investigation.
Already grossly subsidized, Musk’s
SolarCity has become an albatross of waste, fraud, and abuse of tax
payer dollars. As legitimate earnings and cash become even scarcer for
SolarCity, its entanglement in the Tesla empire suggests that a drastic
reckoning not only is imminent, but in fact emboldening Musk to become
more outlandish and reckless.
Notably, SolarCity is run by Musk’s
cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive. During his chairmanship at SolarCity,
Musk’s family enterprise has taken in billions of taxpayer dollars in
subsidies from both the federal and local governments. But the subsidies
and sweetheart deals were not enough, as losses and missed projections
continued to mount.
Ultimately, rather than endure the
embarrassment of collapse and further damage to the public image of Musk
and Tesla, the cousins conspired to have Tesla simply purchase
SolarCity this year. The conditions of the deal screamed foul play.
To
say nothing of what sense it might make for an automaker to purchase a
solar installation company, Tesla stockholders were being forced to
absorb a failing, cash-burning company and pay top dollar to do so.
While
cost cutting and corporate restructuring should have been the priority
for a company swimming in debt and burning through available cash,
SolarCity in fact has been doubling down on the failed model of taxpayer
support. The desperate thirst for handouts has manifested itself in
some of the murkiest political waters imaginable.
Thanks to
Musk’s cozy relationship with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat,
the state has granted at least $750 million of its taxpayers’ money to
SolarCity, building the company a factory and charging it only $1 per
year in rent.
It would be hard to imagine such an operation would
not be lucrative for its shareholders. And yet somehow, SolarCity never
has made a profit.
It’s not just in New York. In this year’s
race for Arizona Corporation Commission, the state’s public utilities
overseers, only one outside group funneled cash into the contest.
All
of the $3 million donated by that group, Energy Choice for America,
came from SolarCity. The beneficiaries are candidates who have signaled
their willingness to be part of the "green machine" that greases the
skids for lucrative government subsidies.
Burning through
taxpayer dollars, buying elections, and expanding a network of crony
capitalism has become so inherent to the SolarCity model that $3 million
to a public commissioner’s race, brazen though it may be, is only a
drop in the bucket for Musk and SolarCity.
In 2013 alone,
SolarCity received $127.4 million in federal grants. The following year,
in which it received only $342,000 from the same stimulus package,
total revenue was just $176 million and the company posted a net loss of
$375 million.
Despite an expansion of operations and claims to
be the leader in the industry, SolarCity never has been able to survive
without serious help from government subsidies and grants. The failure
to responsibly turn taxpayer dollars into a profitable renewable energy
provider has led to SolarCity’s collapse into the welcoming arms of
Tesla.
And with Tesla, SolarCity in fact will be right at home,
compounding a disastrous shell game that Elon Musk is playing with
government resources.
It has been widely reported that among
SolarCity, Tesla, and the rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk’s confederacy
of interests has gotten at least $4.9 billion in taxpayer support over
the past 10 years.
This is almost half of Musk’s supposed net
worth—taken from the pockets of American citizens and put into companies
that can survive only by cannibalizing each other, spending without
end, and promising that success is always just beyond the horizon and
yet never arrives.
The American people are being taken on a ride
by SolarCity, Tesla, and Musk. The ride is fueled by a cult of
personality in Musk. And it costs billions of taxpayer dollars as he
promises us not only the moon, but to harness the power of the sun and
send us all to Mars.
In the cases of Enron and Bernie Madoff, in
the end the cheated victims wished to have woken up sooner to the hubris
that enabled such a downfall—or that at least regulators had pulled
their heads out of the sand before the full impact of the collapse was
realized.
We’ve seen this story before and we know how it ends.
The
congressional investigations underway not only are necessary but a
signal that more must be done, and soon. We may not be able to help Elon
Musk stop himself from failing again, but we certainly shouldn’t be the
ones to pay for it.
It’s past time for the American people to
stand up to Musk and demand that our legislators and other elected
officials bring him back to earth before spending one more dollar of our
money. He’s wasted enough of it already.
SOURCE Climate Report to UN: Trump right, UN wrong – Skeptics Deliver Consensus Busting ‘State of the Climate Report’ to UN SummitKey climate data highlights:
Global
temperatures have been virtually flat for about 18 years, according to
satellite data, and peer-reviewed literature is now scaling back
predictions of future warming
The U.S. has had no Category 3 or larger hurricane make landfall since 2005 – the longest spell since the Civil War.
Strong F3 or larger tornadoes have been in decline since the 1970s.
Despite claims of snow being ‘a thing of the past,’ cold season snowfall has been rising.
Sea level rise rates have been steady for over a century, with recent deceleration.
Droughts
and floods are neither historically unusual nor caused by mankind, and
there is no evidence we are currently having any unusual weather.
So-called
hottest year claims are based on year-to-year temperature data that
differs by only a few HUNDREDTHS of a degree to tenths of a degree
Fahrenheit – differences that are within the margin of error in the
data. In other words, global temperatures have essentially held very
steady with no sign of acceleration.
A 2015 NASA study found Antarctica was NOT losing ice mass and ‘not currently contributing to sea level rise.’
In
2016, Arctic sea ice was 22% greater than at the recent low point of
2012. The Arctic sea ice is now in a 10-year ‘pause’ with ‘no
significant change in the past decade.
Polar bears are doing fine, with their numbers way up since the 1960s.
Introduction:
CO2
is not the tail that wags the dog. CO2 is a trace essential gas, but
without it life on earth would be impossible. Carbon dioxide fertilizes
algae, trees, and crops to provide food for humans and animals. We
inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Slightly higher atmospheric CO2 levels
cannot possibly supplant the numerous complex and inter-connected forces
that have always determined Earth’s climate. As University of London
professor emeritus Philip Stott has noted: "The fundamental point has
always been this. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or
variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change
predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one
politically selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets." "It’s
scientific nonsense," Stott added.
Even the global warming
activists at RealClimate.org acknowledged this in a September 20, 2008
article, stating, "The actual temperature rise is an emergent property
resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors."
The UN
Paris climate change agreement claims to able to essentially save the
planet from ‘global warming’. But even if you accept the UN’s and Al
Gore’s version of climate change claims, the UN Paris agreement would
not ‘save’ the planet.
University of Pennsylvania Geologist Dr.
Robert Giegengack noted in 2014, "None of the strategies that have been
offered by the U.S. government or by the EPA or by anybody else has the
remotest chance of altering climate if in fact climate is controlled by
carbon dioxide."
In layman’s terms: All of the so-called
‘solutions’ to global warming are purely symbolic when it comes to
climate. So, even if we actually faced a climate catastrophe and we had
to rely on a UN climate agreement, we would all be doomed!
The
United Nations has publicly stated its goal is not to ‘solve’ climate
change, but to seek to redistribute wealth and expand its authority
through more central planning. UN official Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of
the IPCC Working Group III, admitted what’s behind the climate issue:
"One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth
by climate policy … One has to free oneself from the illusion that
international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost
nothing to do with environmental policy anymore."
EU climate
commissioner Connie Hedegaard revealed: Global Warming Policy Is Right
Even If Science Is Wrong. Hedegaard said in 2013, "Let’s say that
science, some decades from now, said ‘we were wrong, it was not about
climate,’ would it not in any case have been good to do many of things
you have to do in order to combat climate change?"
The UN is
seeking central planning. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres declared
in 2012 that she is seeking a "centralized transformation" that is
"going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different." She
added: "This is a centralized transformation that is taking place
because governments have decided that they need to listen to science."
The
UN and EPA regulations are pure climate symbolism in exchange for a
more centrally planned energy economy. The UN and EPA regulations are
simply a vehicle to put politicians and bureaucrats in charge of our
energy economy and ‘save’ us from bad weather and ‘climate change.’
Climatologist
Dr. Roy Spencer in 2016: "Global warming and climate change, even if it
is 100% caused by humans, is so slow that it cannot be observed by
anyone in their lifetime.
Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods,
droughts and other natural disasters have yet to show any obvious
long-term change. This means that in order for politicians to advance
policy goals (such as forcing expensive solar energy on the masses or
creating a carbon tax), they have to turn normal weather disasters into
"evidence" of climate change."
While the climate fails to behave
like the UN and climate activists predict, very prominent scientists are
bailing out of the so-called "consensus."
Renowned Princeton
Physicist Freeman Dyson: ‘I’m 100% Democrat and I like Obama. But he
took the wrong side on climate issue, and the Republicans took the right
side’ – An Obama supporter who describes himself as "100 per cent
Democrat," Dyson is disappointed that the President "chose the wrong
side."
Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere does more good than
harm, he argues, and humanity doesn’t face an existential crisis. ‘What
has happened in the past 10 years is that the discrepancies between
what’s observed and what’s predicted have become much stronger.’
Nobel
Prize Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever: ‘Global warming is a
non-problem’ – ‘I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but
you’re wrong. Dead wrong.’ ‘Global warming really has become a new
religion.’ – "I am worried very much about the [UN] conference in Paris
in 2015…I think that the people who are alarmist are in a very strong
position.’
Green Guru James Lovelock reverses belief in ‘global
warming’: Now says ‘I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy’ – Condemns
green movement: ‘It’s a religion really, It’s totally unscientific’ –
Lovelock rips scientists attempting to predict temperatures as ‘idiots’:
"Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an
idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly."
While
these scientists take another look at the climate data, efforts to
transform economies away from fossil fuels underway but even proponents
admit they are purely symbolic.
EPA Chief Admits Obama Regs Have
No Measurable Climate Impact: ‘One one-hundredth of a degree?’ EPA Chief
McCarthy defends regs as ‘enormously beneficial’ – Symbolic impact
Former
Obama Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Charles McConnell: ‘The
Clean Power Plan has been falsely sold as impactful environmental
regulation when it is really an attempt by our primary federal
environmental regulator to take over state and federal regulation of
energy.’ – ‘What is also clear, scientifically and technically, is that
EPA’s plan will not significantly impact global emissions.’ – ‘All of
the U.S. annual emissions in 2025 will be offset by three weeks of
Chinese emissions. Three weeks.’
And energy use has not really
changed all that much in over 100 years. Reality check: In 1908, fossil
fuels accounted for 85% of U.S. energy consumption. In 2015, more or
less the same
SOURCE Trump Regulatory Rollback: Auto Fuel Efficiency StandardsActivists howl in outrage and frustration
The
Obama Administration imposed fuel efficiency standards on the
automobile industry requiring them to increase fuel efficiency standards
to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Now carmakers are reportedly asking
the incoming Trump administration for a "a pathway forward" on setting
final fuel efficiency standards through 2025 and calling on the next
administration to "harmonize and adjust" the rules.
Predictably,
any hint that regulations might be rolled back brings forth howls of
protest from activists. And so it has. Public Citizen, the self-styled
"people's voice in the nation's capital" issued a press release decrying
the notion that corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards might
be loosened:
"In 2009, in the aftermath of financial losses
that stemmed from poor sales of inefficient fleets and higher oil
prices, American taxpayers rescued the auto industry after it nearly
went out of business. Now, this same industry sent a memo to Trump's
lobbyist-staffed transition team asking for permission to ease off
improved fuel economy standards.
"Let's not forget that the
reason the auto industry had to be bailed out was because automakers
built a fleet of gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles that they could no
longer sell. More fuel efficient cars would have saved them and
taxpayers the trouble, but now it appears that the auto industry has
learned nothing from its recent mistakes.
"Federal regulators
raised fuel efficiency standards because they save consumers money and
are an important part of our effort to combat climate change"
Back
in 2009, I criticized Obama's proposed CAFE standards as an inefficient
stealth tax on driving. It's inefficient because drivers pay more, car
companies make less money, and state and federal governments don't get
any extra revenues. If activists and politicians want Americans to drive
more fuel-efficient cars, the simple and honest thing to do would be to
substantially raise gasoline taxes concluded a 2002 National Academy of
Sciences report.
Ultimately, I argued, setting CAFE standards
is just a way for cowardly politicians to avoid telling their fellow
citizens that they should pay more for the privilege of driving.
SOURCE Ecological impact assessments fail to reduce risk of bat casualties at wind farmsPaul R. Lintott et al.
Summary
Demand
for renewable energy is rising exponentially. While this has benefits
in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there may be costs to biodiversity
[1]. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are the main tool used
across the world to predict the overall positive and negative effects of
renewable energy developments before planning consent is given, and the
Ecological Impact Assessments (EcIAs) within them assess their
species-specific effects. Given that EIAs are undertaken globally, are
extremely expensive, and are enshrined in legislation, their place in
evidence-based decision making deserves evaluation. Here we assess how
well EIAs of wind-farm developments protect bats. We found they do not
predict the risks to bats accurately, and even in those cases where high
risk was correctly identified, the mitigation deployed did not avert
the risk. Given that the primary purpose of an EIA is to make planning
decisions evidence-based, our results indicate that EIA mitigation
strategies used to date have been ineffective in protecting bats. In the
future, greater emphasis should be placed on assessing the actual
impacts post-construction and on developing effective mitigation
strategies.
SOURCE Finally, Warmists Find a Real ThreatComment from AustraliaWhatever
else he does, President-elect Donald Trump can be counted on to shoo
those green snouts out of the climate-scare trough -- first by repealing
Obama's executive orders, then by re-directing from the UN to domestic
environmental concerns. It's a beautiful thing
"I’m feeling very
flat today," snuffled Amanda McKenzie, CEO of Tim Flannery’s
crowd-funded Climate Council. As she should, given that
President-elect Trump will end the trillion-dollar
renewable-energy scam so beloved by the council.
McKenzie
continues, "Progress on climate change can feel hopeless and it’s
tempting to give up and turn away." But instead, she rattles the tin for
donations of $10 a month "to allow us to undertake some massive
projects next year that will power communities and everyday Australians
to spearhead our renewable energy transition." Good luck with that,
Amanda.
Throughout the Western world, green lobbies are likewise oscillating between despair and self-delusion over the Trump election.
Trump’s agenda – as per his election website – includes
Unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves.
Declare American energy dominance a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States.
Become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.
Rescind all job-destroying Obama executive actions.
Reduce
and eliminate all barriers to responsible energy production, creating
at least a half million jobs a year, $30 billion in higher wages, and
cheaper energy.
Trump says Obama’s onslaught of regulations has
been a massive self-inflicted economic wound denying Americans
access to the energy wealth sitting under their feet: "This is the
American People’s treasure, and they are entitled to share in the
riches."
Other than that, the president-elect’s
common-sense policies make the 20,000 climate careerists and activists
in Marrakech, led by Vice-President John Kerry, seem comically
irrelevant. They were supposed to be implementing the feeble Paris
climate accord – notwithstanding that China has just announced a 19%
expansion of coal capacity over the next five years.
But with the
US leadership no longer concerned about climate doom, the rationale for
these annual talk-fests (22 to date) has evaporated. Robert
McNally, energy consultant and former George W. Bush adviser, says
climate change policy "is going to come to a screeching halt. The Paris
Agreement from a U.S. perspective is a dead agreement walking."
The
agreement now has only the EU’s backing in terms of actual and
significant cuts to emissions, although Australia is also now pledging
to do its tiny bit for foot-shooting insanity. The EU’s continued
subsidies to renewables will merely worsen its competitiveness vis a vis
the new energy powerhouse across the Atlantic.
Trump has pledged
not only to rip up the Paris deal, but to withdraw all US climate
funding to the UN. The UN climate fund is supposed to build to $100b a
year for Third World mendicants. Obama has given $500m so far and
pledged $3 billion to the UN climate fund, but Trump will divert
those billions to domestic environmental projects such as the Florida
Everglades. As he told supporters, "We’re spending hundreds of
billions of dollars. We don’t even know who’s doing what with the
money."
Obama, unable to get his climate legislation through the
Republican-controlled Congress, used regulatory powers instead to get
the job done. Trump can now neutralize those efforts simply by reversal
or non-enforcement of the regulations.
One of the climate war’s
best-kept secrets is that there is no real constituency for renewables,
other than vested interests and noisy green groups.[1] That’s why both
candidates gave global warming so little prominence in the campaign.
Nearly a third of Americans think the global warming scare is a total
hoax.
It’s a similar story internationally: a UN annual poll last
month (9.7m respondents) had "action on climate change" rating dead
last among 16 issues, with top ratings going to education, health care
and jobs. Even people from the richest nations rated climate action only
10th. The poll in 2015 got the same result.
Trump’s personal
view on climate-change science is that CO2 is probably
causing some warming but the scare is vastly exaggerated.[2] He will
therefore reverse Obama’s assault on the coal and coal-fired power
sectors and give them a better chance to compete with natural gas.
Trump’s
choice of key climate advisers is a nightmare for the warmist
establishment. To transition the US Environmental Protection Agency from
climate activism, he’s picked outspoken skeptic Myron Ebell, director
of the Center for Energy & Environment at the conservative
Competitive Enterprise Institute . The CEI is equivalent to Australia’s
Institute of Public Affairs.
Ebell laughs at his leftist critics
and cites to congress his Greenpeace listing as a leading "climate
criminal". He thinks warming will not be a problem for one or two
centuries; meanwhile we should expand access to all types of energy – on
an unsubsidized basis.
Canadian climate scientist Tim Ball told a
Melbourne seminar this week that Trump is getting science advice from
satellite meteorologist Dr Roy Spencer. Spencer’s data has
demonstrated that orthodox climate models have exaggerated actual
warming by a factor of two to three. His own readings from satellites
showed no significant warming for the 21 years up to the 2015-16 El Nino
spike. He emphasises the vast uncertainties about climate forecasting
and the still-unknown roles of natural forces.
Spencer, who holds
a NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for global temperature
monitoring, believes the near-universal funding of climate
research by governments causes a bias towards catastrophic forecasting,
since governments won’t fund non-problems. He wants funding to be at
arm’s length from political interests. For the Department of Energy,
Trump has picked energy lobbyist Mike McKenna, with ties to the
industry-backed American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy
Research.
Trump’s election is rocking the climate-scare industry to its foundations. Four decades of madness is coming to an end.
SOURCE ***************************************
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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16 November, 2016
Does the World Need Climate Insurance? The Best Scientific and Economic Evidence Says NOExecutive Summary
President
Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers asserts that climate insurance,
like fire insurance, is just common sense. Their analogy, however, is
fundamentally wrong. House fires are not only serious, but also common.
We know what causes them, how often they occur, and the amount of damage
that results. For a few hundred dollars a year, a homeowner can protect
himself against a known risk of a catastrophic incident. Yet there is
no empirical evidence that catastrophic climate change is a risk at all.
Many people refer to carbon dioxide (CO2 ) as a "pollutant;" in
reality, CO 2 gas is a natural part of the ecosystem—and essential to
life on Earth. CO2 levels are currently at record low levels compared
with those that prevailed over most of the Earth’s history. The modest
increases in CO2 levels that have occurred over the past century—thanks,
in part, to the combustion of fossil fuels—have led to a pronounced and
well-documented greening of the Earth. Plants grow better and are more
drought resistant with more CO2 . This greening has benefited—and will
continue to benefit—human society, particularly the world’s poor, whose
lives depend on productive agriculture. The actions necessary to reduce
CO 2 emissions by any meaningful amount as "insurance" against climate
change would be painful for Western countries and devastating for poor
countries. Sensible people spend their insurance dollars carefully to
protect their families against real risks. "Climate insurance" would
simply be a waste of scarce resources
SOURCE Dakota Access—Legal, Beneficial & Necessary With
its recent decision to deny the temporary injunction requested by the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed what
supporters of the Dakota Access Pipeline have maintained fervently all
along: the more-than-halfway finished pipeline satisfied every one of
the myriad state and federal regulations that govern its construction
and eventual operation. That alone should be enough for the Obama
administration to comply with its own permitting process, and allow the
project to resume.
Equally compelling are Dakota Access’s real benefits to America’s economy, our domestic infrastructure and national security.
North
Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois—the four states traversed by
the 1,172-mile DAPL—engaged in a meticulous two-plus-yearlong project
review. So, too, did the United States Army Corp of Engineers. All five
of these public bodies determined, conclusively, that Dakota Access was
safe, that its route did not disrupt any areas of cultural significance,
and that it fell well within the compliance parameters of the
individual states’ laws, as well as those of the federal government.
From
the beginning, Dakota Access emphasized commitment to consulting its
Native American neighbors and to transparency. All available
evidence—very much including the 389 meetings with 55 tribes arranged by
the USACE— supports those claims. So, too, do the more than 140
modifications made voluntarily to the pipeline’s route itself. This is
why even neutral observers can make the case that Dakota Access not only
merited favorable certification, permitting and full approval, but
earned them as well.
And speaking of earning, the economic
benefits of Dakota Access are significant. Not just to the four states
involved—all of which already have received millions in new revenue
thanks to the construction phase alone, along with more than $150
million in additional sales and income taxes—but also to the U.S.
economy at large.
To date, the $3.8 billion DAPL has incurred
more than $2 billion in construction and development costs and will
create between 8,000 and 10,000 jobs.
Dakota Access is not just a
welcome job-creator and tax-revenue-producing machine. It is also one
of the largest American infrastructure investments to come along in some
time. Once completed, it will utilize a safe, environmentally sound,
state-of-the-art pipeline to transport domestically produced light,
sweet crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota to major refining
markets throughout the country.
The reality is that America’s
economy—everything from manufacturing and agriculture to food production
and transportation, and even the development of newer, more sustainable
energy resources—depends hugely on crude oil. Today, much of that crude
oil is shipped across the country by rail or by truck, both of which
represent much greater accident-related risks to public safety and to
the environment. In fact, pipelines like Dakota Access are the safest
mode of transportation on the globe.
At today’s production
levels, Dakota Access will transport half of the total output of the
Bakken region, generating royalties for the landowners and states along
the route, very much including the Native Americans who hold oil and gas
leases on reservation property. It will also reduce America’s reliance
on foreign—often hostile and unstable—sources of oil.
Dakota
Access was approved after extensive—and intensive—regulatory review. The
Obama administration should green light its operation immediately. And
the people still protesting and disrupting the pipeline’s completion,
many of whom failed to participate in public hearings, should go home.
SOURCE Wind Power: Our Least Sustainable Resource?
"A single 1.7 MW wind turbine, like the 315 Fowler Ridge units,
involves some 365 tons of materials for the turbine assembly and tower,
plus nearly 1,100 tons of concrete and rebar for the foundation. Grand
total for the entire Fowler wind installation: some 515,000 tons; for
Roscoe, 752,000 tons; for Shepherds Flat, 575,000 tons. Offshore
installations of the kind proposed for Lake Erie would likely require
twice the materials needed for their onshore counterparts."
The
alter ego of climate change in these renewable energy debates is
sustainability: the argument that wind and other "renewable" energies
are sustainable, whereas oil, gas and coal are not.
This
assertion may have had some merit a few years ago, when it could
plausibly be claimed that the world was running out of fossil fuels.
However, it is now clear that several centuries of economically
recoverable coal remain to be tapped – and the horizontal drilling and
hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process ensures that at least one or two
centuries of oil and natural gas could be recovered from shale deposits
around the world. "Imminent resource depletion" is no longer a
plausible or valid argument.
Indeed, fracking provides abundant
natural gas that can fuel power plants, lower carbon dioxide emissions
and keep electricity prices low. Heavy reliance on wind energy (offshore
and onshore) would raise electricity prices, while doing nothing to
reduce CO2 emissions, since backup generators running on standby but
ramping up repeatedly all day long run inefficiently and emit more
carbon dioxide.
However, there is another aspect to
sustainability claims, and when common environmental guidelines,
policies and regulations are applied, it is clear that wind energy is
our least sustainable energy source.
Land. Wind turbine
installations impact vast amounts of habitat and crop land, and offshore
wind turbines impact vast stretches of lake or ocean – far more than
traditional power plants.
Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant
generates 3,750 megawatts of electricity from a 4,000-acre site. The
600-MW John Turk ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in Arkansas
covers a small portion of 2,900 acres; gas-fired units like Calpine’s
560-MW Fox Energy Center in Wisconsin require several hundred acres. All
generate reliable power 90-95% of the year.
By contrast, the
600-MW Fowler Ridge wind installation (355 turbines) spans 50,000 acres
of farm country along Indiana’s I-65 corridor. The 782-MW Roscoe project
in Texas (627 turbines) sprawls across 100,000 acres. Oregon’s
Shepherds Flat project (338 gigantic 2.5 MW turbines) covers nearly
80,000 wildlife and scenic acres along the Columbia River Gorge, for a
"rated capacity" of 845 MW.
The 625 to 1,600 turbines planned for
Lake Erie will impact hundreds of thousands of acres, planting bird and
bat killing machines across miles and miles of lake habitat – while
future Canadian wind farms on the Ontario side of the lake will affect
hundreds of thousands more acres, and millions more birds and bats.
Raw
materials. Wind installations require enormous quantities of steel,
copper, rare earth metals, fiberglass, concrete and other materials for
the turbines, towers and bases.
A single 1.7 MW wind turbine,
like the 315 Fowler Ridge units, involves some 365 tons of materials for
the turbine assembly and tower, plus nearly 1100 tons of concrete and
rebar for the foundation. Grand total for the entire Fowler wind
installation: some 515,000 tons; for Roscoe, 752,000 tons; for Shepherds
Flat, 575,000 tons. Offshore installations of the kind proposed for
Lake Erie would likely require twice the materials needed for their
onshore counterparts.
To all that must be added millions of tons
of materials for thousands of miles of new transmission lines – and
still more for mostly gas-fired generators to back up every megawatt of
wind power and generate electricity the 17 to 20 hours of each average
day that the wind does not blow.
Money. Taxpayers and consumers
must provide perpetual subsidies to prop up wind projects, which cannot
survive without steady infusions of cash via feed-in tariffs, tax breaks
and direct payments.
Transmission lines cost $1.0 million to
$2.5 million per mile. Direct federal wind energy subsidies to help
cover this totaled $5 billion in FY 2010, according to Energy Department
data; state support added billions more, and still more billions were
added to consumers’ electric bills. The Other People’s Money well is
running dry, and voters and consumers are getting fed up with
cash-for-cronies wind schemes.
Energy. It is extremely
energy-intensive to mine, quarry, drill, mill, refine, smelt and
manufacture the metals, concrete, fiberglass, resins, turbines and heavy
equipment to do all of the above. Transporting, installing and
repairing turbines, towers, backups and transmission lines requires
still more energy – real energy: abundant, reliable, affordable … not
what comes from wind turbines.
Some analysts have said it
requires more energy to manufacture, haul and install these Cuisinarts
of the air and their transmission systems than they will generate in
their lifetimes. However, no cradle-to-grave analysis has ever been
conducted, for the energy inputs or pollution outputs.
Health.
Environmentalists regularly make scary but wildly speculative claims
about health dangers from hydraulic fracturing. However, they and wind
energy companies and promoters ignore and dismiss a growing body of
evidence that steady low frequency noise from wind turbines causes
significant human health problems, interferes with whale and porpoise
navigational and food-finding systems, and affects other wildlife
species.
Sudden air pressure changes from rapidly moving turbine
blades can cause bird and bat lungs to collapse. In addition, serious
lung, heart, cancer and other problems have been documented from rare
earth mining, smelting and manufacturing in China and Mongolia, under
those countries’ far less rigorous health, workplace safety and
environmental regulations.
To date, however, very few health or
environmental assessments have been required or conducted prior to
permit approval, even for major wind turbine installations, much less
the grand "visions."
Environment. Raptors, bats and other
beautiful flying creatures continue to be sliced and diced by wind
turbines. However, government regulators continue to turn a blind eye to
the slaughter, and the actual toll is carefully hidden by wind
operators, who treat the data as trade secrets and refuse to allow
independent investigators to conduct proper studies of bird and bat
mortality. Furthermore, wind turbines are increasingly being installed
in sensitive wildlife habitat areas, like Lake Erie and onshore areas
like Shepherds Flat, as they are often the best remaining areas for
relatively abundant, consistent wind.
Jobs. The myth of "green
renewable energy jobs" is hitting the brick wall of reality. While
turbines installed and maintained in the USA and EU create some jobs,
many of them short-term, the far more numerous mining and manufacturing
jobs are in China, where they are hardly "green" or "healthy." Moreover,
as Spanish and Scottish analysts have documented, the expensive
intermittent electricity generated by wind turbines kills 2.2 to 3.7
traditional jobs for every "eco-friendly" wind job created.
Electricity
costs and reliability. Even huge subsidies cannot cure wind power’s
biggest defects: its electricity costs far more than coal, gas or
nuclear alternatives – and its intermittent nature wreaks havoc on power
grids and consumers. The problem is worst on hot summer afternoons,
when demand is highest and breezes are minimal. Unable to compete
against cheap Chinese and Indian electricity and labor, energy-intensive
industries increasingly face the prospect of sending operations and
jobs overseas.
All of this is simply and completely unsustainable.
SOURCE Breaking: 1920’s Brit ‘fatally infected’ All Government Climate ModelsA
sensational new study shows western government climate models rely on a
fatally flawed 1920’s algorithm. Scientists say this could be the
breakthrough that explains why modern computers are so awful at
predicting climate change: simulations "violate several known Laws of
Thermodynamics."
British climate researcher Derek Alker presents
an extraordinary new paper ‘Greenhouse Effect Theory within the UN IPCC
Computer Climate Models – Is It A Sound Basis?’ exposing previously
undetected errors that government climate researchers have unknowingly
fed into multi-million dollar climate computers since the 1940s. [1]
Alker explains:
"This paper examines what was originally calculated as the greenhouse
effect theory by Lewis Fry Richardson, the brilliant English
mathematician, physicist and meteorologist.
In
1922 Richardson devised an innovative set of differential equations.
His ingenious method is still used today in climate models. But
unbeknown to Richardson he had inadvertently relied upon unchecked (and
fatally flawed) numbers supplied by another well-known British
scientist, W. H. Dines."
Unfortunately, for Richardson Dines
wrongly factored in that earth’s climate is driven by terrestrial
(ground) radiation as the only energy source, not the sun. Richardson
had taken the Dines numbers on face value and did not detect the error
when combining the Dines numbers to his own. Alker continues: "The
archives show Richardson never double-checked the Dines work (see below)
and the records do not show that anyone else has ever exposed it."
The
outcome, says Alker, is that not only has the original Richardson &
Charney computer model been corrupted – but all other computer
climate models since. All government researchers use these core numbers
and believe them to be valid even though what they seek to represent can
be shown today as physically impossible.
Alker adds:
"My paper specifically describes how the theory Dines calculated in his
paper violates several of the known Laws of Thermodynamics, and
therefore does not describe reality.
The
greenhouse effect theory we know of today is based on what Richardson
had formulated from the Dines paper using unphysical numbers created by
Dines. But Dines himself later suggested his numbers were probably
unreliable."
Unfortunately, Dines died in the mid-1920’s and did
not inform Richardson about the error. Thereupon, in the late 1940’s,
Richardson began working with another world figure in climate science –
Jule Charney as the duo constructed the first world’s first
computer climate model. It was then the dodgy Dines numbers infected the
works.
Alker, who studied the archives scrupulously for his
research reports that there is no published evidence that Richardson
understood Dines’s calculation method. And we think he and Charney put
the Dines numbers into the world’s first computer model verbatim.
In
essence, the ‘theory’ of greenhouse gas warming from the Dines numbers
can be shown to start with a misapplication of Planck’s Law, which
generates grossly exaggerated ‘up’ and none existent ‘down’ radiative
emissions figures. Then, layer by layer, part of the downward radiation
is added to the layer below, which is in violation of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics.
Thereby, like a domino effect, this bogus
calculation method becomes GIGO ("garbage in, garbage out") to all
computers that run the program. Alker adds:
"What the climate simulations are doing is creating energy layer by
layer in the atmosphere that shouldn’t be there (it has no other source
than of itself). It is then destroyed layer by layer (it is absorbed and
then discarded – in effect destroyed). This is all presented in such a
way to give the appearance that energy is being conserved, when it is
not being conserved,"
SOURCE Myron Ebell is perfectly suited to lead the transition to a new EPAPresident-elect
Donald Trump has named Myron Ebell to head up his transition team for
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The news was met with
name-calling, even though Ebell agrees with the same position taken by a
former top scientist with the Obama administration, Steve Koonin
(formerly of Cal Tech) namely, that scientists simply do not know what
fraction of observed global warming is due to manmade CO2 emissions.
Consequently,
Ebell has expressed concern about EPA positions, including the Clean
Power Plan. The EPA’s controversial power plan is based on an inadequate
understanding of global warming and should not drive our middle class
into energy poverty against congressional will.
Based on my
experience as the secretary of a State Environmental Department, here
are some observations I’d like to offer Ebell for his consideration.
It
is critical to understand that while the federal government, through
Congress, establishes the overall goals of environmental protection
through laws like the Clean Air and Water acts, the implementation of
those laws is by state governments.
Consequently, America has
made tremendous strides in environmental protection over the last
decades. We are breathing cleaner air and have cleaner water than ever
before.
State governments and their citizens have demonstrated
the ability to implement programs that protect our environment without
destroying the very thing that makes environmental protection possible: a
strong economy.
Over the last eight years the Obama
administration has abandoned this successful approach to environmental
protection as envisioned by Congress. Instead, they have turned to
special interest groups to drive centralized planning. Prime examples
include the 2015 EPA Power Plan and the Waters of the United States
(WOTUS) rule.
These rules contain illusory flexibility to states
when in reality they represent a huge shift of control from states to
the federal government. Even the current administration acknowledged
that the power plan was symbolic and would do little to improve air
quality.
The power plan would be expensive and shut down energy
plants that have not yet been paid for, thereby stranding those costs
with ratepayers. It would harm the industrial sector by significantly
increasing electricity rates, which would throttle manufacturing
industries that require low energy prices to compete.
Similarly,
under WOTUS land use decisions would be federalized. Our nation’s
agricultural industry would be hamstrung by costly and unnecessary land
use restrictions, which would stifle growth opportunities. The expansion
of manufacturing, commercial and residential development would be left
to federal bureaucrats.
Fortunately, dozens of states and state
agencies stood their ground against the federal government and won stays
against these rules. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Supreme Court
reached down into an appeals court to place the power plan on hold until
the legal challenge against it could be resolved. The waters of the
United States (WOTUS) rule was also stayed. We hope the Trump EPA
will review existing rules and base its policy decisions on sound data
and measurable results.
History has demonstrated time and again
that just as "all politics is local," so is environmental protection.
State and local governments know best how to apply the many tools
available to protect the environment and public health. In fact, states
are responsible for the vast majority of enforcement and write nearly
all the permits through which the private sector protects us and our
environment. We still need the EPA, but not the EPA of the past.
Research
should target specific problems and challenges. We need coordination on
industry-level initiatives that cross state lines. However, we must end
the idea that more regulation is automatically good and allow state and
local experts, not Washington bureaucrats, to improve the environment.
It is time to return to the cooperative federalism that Congress
intended when writing these laws.
Returning control of our
environment to the states also limits the dark money from self-serving
lobbyists and deep-pocketed special interest groups masquerading as
environmentalists. Almost every major rulemaking under the Obama
administration was driven by a sue-and-settle scheme that is designed to
allow special interest and federal appointees to write rules in private
and exclude citizen involvement. This was evident by the EPA’s shameful
use of secret emails whereby high-ranking EPA officials used fictitious
email accounts to communicate with special interest groups to avoid the
reach of public records.
A thoughtful and knowledgeable
individual like Myron Ebell appears to be perfectly suited to lead the
transition to a new EPA. His position on climate change is simply one
example of his suitability. The EPA does play a role in environmental
protection. However, that role, like all federal government, should be
limited in order to maximize freedom.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
15 November, 2016
Report: carbon emissions flat in last 3 yearsThis
fun on several levels. If the trend (or lack of it) continues the
"fight" is over. CO2 levels have been stabilized and there is now
no further need for action on the global warming front. We have
arrived at where we are going and the temperature is fine.
Keep the coalfires burning!
Needless to say, the Warmists
are once again taking refuge in prophecy. Instead of extrapolating
from the present situation, which is the only data we have, they are
saying: No, No, No -- Anything but that! You can't take our game
away from us like that! So on the basis of nothing at all they are
prophesying a resumption of CO2 rises. No science there:
Just faith. They haven't got a clue about climate but they do have
faith.
But there's another level on which this is fun. The
Warmists have been proclaiming for the same three years that
temperatures are leaping -- with 2015 showing a temperature of a whole
degree above the reference period. And there is an element of
truth in that. But what CAUSED the recent warming? If there
was no increase in CO2 the increase in temperature cannot be due to
CO2! The connection which is the very basis of Warmist theory just
did not happen -- again.
The increases which the Green/Left have
been proclaiming as proof of a global emergency CANNOT have been due to
human activity and must have been due to normal natural phenomena like
the El Nino climate cycle. What a teeth grinder!
But will
they really grind their teeth over it? Unlikely. They
already ignore so many inconvenient facts that ignoring this one will be
a breeze Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon
dioxide have flattened out in the past three years, a new study showed
Monday, raising hopes that the world is nearing a turning point in the
fight against climate change.
However, the authors of the study
cautioned it's unclear whether the slowdown in CO2 emissions, mainly
caused by declining coal use in China, is a permanent trend or a
temporary blip.
"It is far too early to proclaim we have reached a
peak," said co-author Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center
for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
The
study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global
CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by
just 0.2 percent this year.
That would mean emissions have
leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even
though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds
between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed.
"This
could be the turning point we have hoped for," said David Ray, a
professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was
not involved with the study. "To tackle climate change those bonds must
be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least
starting to loosen."
The authors of the study attributed the
slowdown mainly to a decrease in Chinese coal consumption since 2012.
Coal is a major source of CO2 emissions.
Chinese emissions were
down 0.7 percent in 2015 and are projected to fall 0.5 percent in 2016,
the researchers said, though noting that Chinese energy statistics have
been plagued by inconsistencies.
Peters said it remains unclear
whether the Chinese slowdown was due to a restructuring of the Chinese
economy or a sign of economic instability.
"Nevertheless, the
unexpected reductions in Chinese emissions give hope that the world's
biggest emitter can deliver much more ambitious emission reductions," he
said.
China, which accounts for almost 30 percent of global
carbon emissions, pledged to peak its emissions around 2030 as part of
the global climate pact adopted in Paris last year. Many analysts say
China's peak is likely to come much earlier — and may already have
occurred.
"The continued decline of China's CO2 emissions,
combined with knowledge of structural change in the energy system, does
indicate that CO2 emissions from China may have peaked, however a few
more years of data is needed to confirm this," said Bill Hare, of
Climate Analytics, a separate group that monitors global emissions.
However,
even if Chinese emissions have stabilized, emissions in India and other
developing countries could push global emissions higher again. India's
emissions rose 5 percent in 2015, the study said.
The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States — the world's No. 2 carbon polluter — could also have an impact.
U.S.
emissions fell 2.6 percent last year and are projected to drop 1.7
percent this year, as natural gas and renewables displace coal in power
generation, the study showed. But it's unclear whether those reductions
will continue under Trump, who has pledged to roll back the Obama
administration's environmental policies, including the Clean Power Plan,
which was meant to reduce carbon pollution from U.S. power plants.
Other
researchers not affiliated with the study stressed that it's not enough
for global emissions to stabilize; they need to drop toward zero for
the world to meet the goals of the Paris deal.
"Worryingly, the
reductions pledged by the nations under the Paris Agreement are not
sufficient to achieve this," said climate scientist Chris Rapley of
University College London.
The agreement calls for limiting
warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or even 1.5
degrees C (2.7 degrees F) compared with pre-industrial times.
SOURCE Global warming is already changing genesThis
is utter rot. They cannot know just which influences are behind
any selective pressure. It could be fishing, mining, tourism or
whatever. The article is just an exercise in speculationGlobal
climate change has already impacted every aspect of life on Earth, from
genes to entire ecosystems, according to a new study in Science.
"We
now have evidence that, with only a ~1 degree Celsius of warming
globally, major impacts are already being felt in natural systems," says
study lead author Brett Scheffers, an assistant professor in the
department of wildlife, ecology and conservation at the University of
Florida.
"Some people didn’t expect this level of change for decades."
"Genes
are changing, species’ physiology and physical features such as body
size are changing, species are shifting their ranges, and we see clear
signs of entire ecosystems under stress, all in response to changes in
climate on land and in the ocean."
Scheffers and researchers from
10 countries found that more than 80 percent of ecological processes
that form the foundation for healthy marine, freshwater, and terrestrial
ecosystems already show signs of responses to climate change.
"Some
people didn’t expect this level of change for decades," says coauthor
James Watson of the University of Queensland. "The impacts of climate
change are being felt with no ecosystem on Earth being spared."
Many
of the impacts on species and ecosystems affect people, according to
the authors, with consequences ranging from increased pests and disease
outbreaks, unpredictable changes in fisheries, and decreasing
agriculture yields.
Why our grandkids will encounter different plants
"Many
of the responses we are observing today in nature can help us determine
how to fix the mounting issues that people face under changing climate
conditions," Scheffers says. "For example, by understanding the adaptive
capacity in nature, we can apply these same principles to our crops,
livestock, and aquacultural species."
"Current global climate
change agreements aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius," says
Wendy Foden, coauthor and chair of the IUCN Species Survival
Commission’s Climate Change Specialist Group. "We’re showing that there
are already broad and serious impacts from climate change right across
biological systems."
SOURCE Republicans plan multi-billion dollar climate budget raid The
winds of change following the US election are about to blow through the
well-funded – up to now at least – world of climate-related
bureaucracy, as CCN mournfully reports.
US Republicans are expected
to axe billions of dollars in climate finance when they take the White
House and Congress in January.
Funds to help poor countries adapt
to the impacts of global warming and develop sustainably will be
redirected to domestic priorities.
"We are going to cancel
billions in payments to the UN climate change programmes and use the
money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure," said
President-elect Donald Trump in his 22 October Gettysburg address. With a
Republican majority in the Senate and House of Representatives, there
appears to be little standing in his way.
Rachel Kyte, head of
the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All programme, said Trump did not have a
mandate to reverse US climate finance commitments. "All developed
countries made promises," she said. "A promise made has to be a promise
kept."
Notably, the US promised $3 billion towards the UN-backed
Green Climate Fund, of which just $500m has been delivered. The
outstanding sum is a major chunk of the $10bn seed money donated to the
flagship scheme.
UN institutions are also vulnerable. The
Republicans have been gunning for the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) since it accepted Palestine as a full party earlier
this year.
They say continuing to fund it clashes with domestic law supportive to Israel – an argument Barack Obama rejected.
"It
would be illegal for the President to follow through on his intention
to provide millions in funding for the UNFCCC and hundreds of millions
for its Green Climate Fund," says the Republican platform.
A US exit would leave a $4m hole in the UNFCCC’s annual budget, more than a fifth of the total.
—
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which periodically
compiles a mass of scientific evidence on the dangerous impacts of
global warming and its human causes, also comes under attack.
It
is "a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution", says
the Republican manifesto. "Its unreliability is reflected in its
intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy.
We will evaluate its recommendations accordingly."
Contributing
$5m over the past five years, the US is the biggest backer of the IPCC.
While the Republicans don’t explicitly threaten to end that, their
hostility does not bode well.
SOURCE Record Global Cooling Over The Last Eight MonthsOver
the last eight months, global temperatures over land have cooled a
record 1.2 C. November is seeing record cold in Russia and South
Australia, so we should see the record cooling trend continue.
As temperatures cool at a record pace, experts say global warming is now unstoppable.
People in Russia might tend to disagree with this assessment.
SOURCE New Regs Ignore Fact Fracking Doesn't Taint Well WaterEnergy:
New federal regulations on fracking on public land ignore a study
documenting that methane found in well water is unrelated to the
location of hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells.
When the
Obama administration recently released its new regulations on fracking —
regulations that it said were needed to keep up with the advance and
success of the decades-old technology to meet public safety needs — the
Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance
immediately filed suit, saying that the new regs were based on
"unsubstantiated concerns" that lacked any scientific basis.
"Hydraulic
fracturing has been conducted safely and responsibly in the United
States for over 60 years," noted IPAA president Barry Russell, who also
pointed out the impact of the new regulations on job and economic
growth. Fracking has produced an oil and natural gas boom, making them
energy sources of the future, not the past.
The Obama
administration doesn't like fracking and wishes that fracking would just
go away so it can go on subsidizing the Solyndras of the world. But
Russell is right: Fracking is safe, and the new study proves that any
concerns are politically motivated fear-mongering.
Published
online in late March in Environmental Science and Technology, the study
focused on 11,309 drinking wells in northeastern Pennsylvania. It found
that background levels of methane in well water are unrelated to the
location of oil and gas wells drilled using fracking technology.
The
study calls into question the validity of studies released in 2011 and
2013, touted by the White House and its environmentalist base as proving
the dangers of fracking. But these studies involved selected groups of
only 60 and 141 domestic well samples from wells near Dimock, Pa.
As
we noted in June of 2013 ("EPA Covers Up The Safety Of Fracking"),
Dimock was the centerpiece of "Promised Land," a film financed by a
company owned by the United Arab Emirates that did nothing to alter
Hollywood's stereotype of businessmen — particularly energy-industry
executives — as greedy plunderers of the planet.
The oil and
natural gas boom from the shale of the Bakken Formation in North Dakota
and the Marcellus in, yes, Pennsylvania, threatens the Emirates and
other OPEC members.
Critics of the new study will point out that
Chesapeake Energy, which has large oil and gas interests in
Pennsylvania, provided the database for the researchers. But they did
not provide the conclusions, and we think a study from a team led by
hydrologist Donald Siegel of Syracuse University has more credibility
than a film starring Matt Damon and financed by OPEC.
Siegel does
not dispute that there may be occasional individual instances of well
contamination due to poor construction and faulty casings. But he points
to a 2014 study that found that just 0.24% of the thousands of wells in
northeast Pennsylvania were ever given citations for well water
contaminated with methane.
Speaking of his mega-study vs. the
2011 and 2013 selected samplings, Siegel says: "I would argue that (more
than) 10,000 data points really tell a better story."
Shale
formations in which fracking is used are thousands of feet deep.
Drinking-water aquifers are generally only a hundred feet deep. There's a
lot of solid rock in between. And as we've said, the technology is not
new, with the first well employing fracking being drilled in Oklahoma in
1947.
As noted by Energy in Depth, a petroleum-industry
research, education and outreach campaign, CO2 emissions are at their
lowest in 20 years due to greater use of natural gas from fracking —
part of an energy boom creating thousands of jobs and enhancing energy
security.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
14 November, 2016
Elitist Journal Rejects Skeptic Study As ‘Not Helpful’ To Climate CultA
scientific study which suggests global warming has been exaggerated was
rejected by a respected journal because it might fuel climate
scepticism, it was claimed last night.
The alarming intervention,
which raises fears of ‘McCarthyist’ pressure for environmental
scientists to conform, came after a reviewer said the research was ‘less
than helpful’ to the climate cause. professor
Professor Lennart
Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of
five authors of the study, said he suspected that intolerance of
dissenting views on climate science was preventing his paper from being
published.
‘The problem we now have in the climate community is
that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a
climate activist,’ he told the Times.
Prof Bengtsson’s paper
suggests that the Earth’s environment might be much less sensitive to
greenhouse gases than previously thought. If he and his four co-authors
are correct, it would mean that carbon dioxide and other pollutants are
having a far less severe impact on climate than green activists would
have us believe.
The research, if made public, would be a huge
challenge to the finding of the UN’s Intergovernmental panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), that the global average temperature would rise by up to
4.5C if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were allowed to double.
The
paper suggested that the climate might be less sensitive to greenhouse
gases than had been claimed by the IPCC in its report last September,
and recommended that more work be carried out ‘to reduce the underlying
uncertainty’.
The five contributing scientists submitted the
paper to Environmental Research Letters – a highly regarded journal –
but were told it had been rejected. A scientist asked by the journal to
assess the paper under the peer review process reportedly wrote: ‘It is
harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of "errors" and
worse from the climate sceptics media side.’
Prof Bengtsson, 79,
said it was ‘utterly unacceptable’ to advise against publishing a paper
on the political grounds. He said: ‘It is an indication of how science
is gradually being influenced by political views. The reality hasn’t
been keeping up with the [computer] models.
‘If people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system we must have much more solid information.’
Next
year the UN hopes to broker an international agreement on reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol which
would impose legally binding targets on every country. The last attempt,
at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, ended in disaster, with
recriminations flying and all chances of a deal in tatters.
The
Paris conference in December 2015 is thought by many politicians to be
the last realistic chance for a deal to be made if disastrous climate
change is to be averted. A controversy at this stage risks putting the
science which underpins the negotiations at doubt, something many – not
least politicians in Britain and the US – will be keen to avoid.
The
publisher of the Environmental Research Letters journal last night said
Professor Bengtsson’s paper had been rejected because it contained
errors and did not sufficiently advance the science.
A spokesman
for IOP Publishing said: ‘The paper, co-authored by Lennart Bengtsson,
was originally submitted to Environmental Research Letters as a research
Letter.
‘This was peer-reviewed by two independent reviewers,
who reported that the paper contained errors and did not provide a
significant advancement in the field, and therefore failed to meet the
journal’s required acceptance criteria.
‘As a consequence, the
independent reviewers recommended that the paper should not be published
in the journal which led to the final editorial decision to reject the
paper.’
SOURCE Now comes the hard, fun and vital part"Making America great again" requires deep-sixing punitive energy and environmental rulesPaul Driessen
The
American people have roundly rejected a third Obama term and legacy of
deplorable policies that were too often imposed via executive edicts,
with minimal attempts to work with Congress or the states.
This
election shows that hard-working Americans do not want their country and
its constitutional, energy and economic systems "fundamentally
transformed." They want America to be great and exceptional again. They
want all people to live under the same laws and have the same
opportunities, rights and responsibilities for making their lives,
families, communities and nation better than they found them.
We
the People also made it clear that we have had a bellyful of unelected,
unaccountable bureaucrats, media moguls and intellectual elites
dictating what we can read, think and say, how we may worship, what
insurance and doctors can have, what rules, jobs and living standards we
must live with.
With the elections over, the truly difficult
tasks lie before us. Filling Supreme Court vacancies with jurists who
believe in our Constitution, repealing and replacing ObamaCare,
reforming the politicized IRS, DOJ and FBI, immigration issues, and
fixing the VA and incomprehensible tax code are all high on every list.
However,
abundant, reliable, affordable energy remains the foundation of modern
civilization, jobs, health and prosperity. So these suggestions for
President Trump’s first years focus on critical tasks that can be
accomplished by his Executive Branch alone or in conjunction with
Congress and the states.
As you read them, thousands of
politicians, regulators, scientists and activists are gathered for yet
another "climate conference," this time in Marrakech, Morocco. They are
shocked and despondent over the election results, and worried that the
Trump Administration won’t support their agenda. They’re right.
Under
the guise of preventing "dangerous manmade climate change" and
compensating poor countries for alleged "losses and damages" due to
climate and weather caused by rich country fossil fuel use, they had
planned to control the world’s energy supplies and living standards,
replace capitalism with a new UN-centered global economic order, and
redistribute wealth from those who create it to those who want it. So:
Job
One) Let the assembled delegates and world know America has a president
– and a Congress – not a king. Suspend and defund any initiatives and
orders issued under the Paris climate treaty, and send it to the Senate
for Advice and Consent (and assured rejection) under Article II of the
Constitution. Its impacts are so onerous and far-reaching that it is
clearly a "treaty" within the meaning of our founding document, even if
President Obama prefers to call it a "nonbinding agreement" to avoid
Senate review.
2) Review the assertions, models, "homogenized"
data, science and research behind the multitude of climate and renewable
energy mandates – to see if they reflect Real World empirical evidence.
Many, most or all will be found to be biased, wildly exaggerated,
faulty, falsified or fraudulent.
The recent listing of polar
bears as "endangered" was based on junk science and GIGO computer models
that claim manmade global warming will send the bears’ record
population numbers into oblivion. EPA’s Clean Power Plan assumes
shutting down US coal-fired power plants will stop climate change, even
if China, India and other countries build thousands of new coal-fueled
generators over the next 20 years.
The all-encompassing "social
cost of carbon" scheme attributes every imaginable harm to carbon
dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. It ignores the incredible benefits
of carbon-based energy, and dismisses the horrendous impacts that
abandoning these fuels would have on human health and welfare.
Every
one of these EPA, Interior and other regulatory diktats assumes that
CO2 has suddenly replaced the powerful natural forces that have driven
climate fluctuations throughout Earth’s history – and ignores this
miracle molecule’s role in making crops, forests and grasslands grow
faster and better, with less water.
As reviews are completed,
agenda-driven rules and executive orders should be suspended, rescinded
and defunded, so that they are no longer part of the $1.9 trillion
regulatory drag on job and economic growth.
Grants for biased
research can be terminated, agency personnel assigned to climate
programs can be reassigned, and those found falsifying data or engaging
in other corrupt practices should be punished.
3) A recent White
House report lists $21.4 billion in annual spending on climate research
and renewable energy programs. That’s in addition to EPA and other
federal agency regulatory budgets – and on top of the burdensome impacts
the programs have had on families, businesses, jobs and our future.
Terminating
biased, needless or punitive programs would go a long way toward
balancing the budget and getting our nation back on track. Ending crony
corporatist deal-making, power grabbing and enrichment schemes would
ensure that The Billionaire’s Club and its government and industry
allies no longer have access to taxpayer billions, no longer have a
stranglehold on our energy and economy, and no longer get still richer
on the backs of American workers, taxpayers and consumers.
4)
Revise Endangered Species Act provisions and regulations to require that
any listings, permit denials or penalties reflect honest empirical
science – not computer models or baseless assertions. Exemptions for
bird and bat-killing wind turbines must no longer be permitted, and ESA
rules must be applied with equal force to all projects, not just
drilling, mining, pipelines, power plants, grazing and timber cutting.
5)
Approve the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines; end the
obstructionism and finish the projects. Standing Rock Sioux Indians had
multiple opportunities to participate in the review process, but refused
to do so. Now they and Soros-supported radicals are preventing work,
destroying expensive equipment, butchering ranchers’ cattle and bison,
and harassing local families. This can no longer be tolerated.
6)
Prohibit and terminate sue-and-settle lawsuits, under which activists
and regulators collude to secure a sympathetic judge’s order
implementing regulations that they all want. (Or initiate a series of
sue-and-settle actions by energy and manufacturing interests against
Trump agencies – and then stop the practice!)
7) Reform the 1906
Antiquities Act. Intended to protect small areas of historic or scenic
value, it has been abused too often to place millions of acres off
limits to energy development and other economic uses, by presidential
edict. Losing Senate candidate Katie McGinty engineered a massive land
lock-up in Utah that double-crossed the state’s governor and
congressional delegation, and even President Clinton.
Congress
must more clearly define its purposes, limit the acreage that can be
designated by presidential decree, and provide for congressional review
and approval of all decisions.
8) Reform the Environmental
Protection Agency, and devolve many of its powers and responsibilities
back to the states, under a consortium representing all 50 state EPAs.
We have won the major pollution battles that EPA was created to address.
Now we must devote appropriate funding and personnel to real remaining
environmental problems – and shrink or terminate Obama-era agenda-driven
programs.
Recent EPA actions on climate, air quality, human
experiments, the Clean Power Plan, the war on coal, and "waters of the
United States" were used to expand its budget, personnel, and powers
over the nation’s environment, energy and economy. EPA needs a shorter
leash, less money and a smaller staff.
9) Shrink the renewable
energy programs, and jumpstart onshore and offshore leasing, drilling,
fracking and mining on federally managed lands. America can again
produce the fossil fuel blessings that lifted billions out of poverty,
disease and early death – and created jobs, prosperity, health, living
standards and life spans unimaginable barely a century ago. We should
also encourage other nations to do likewise.
10) If President
Obama finishes his term with a tsunami of regulations and executive
orders, it should be met with similar suspend, defund and rescind
reactions. Mr. Obama, congressional Democrats and their riot-prone base
should understand that programs and rules imposed with the stroke of a
pen, and without the support of Congress and the American people, can
and should also be undone with the stroke of a pen.
Without these difficult but necessary (and fun) steps, it will be very hard to make America great again.
Via emailTears, angst as EPA workforce braces for Trump takeoverU.S.
EPA employees were in tears. Worried Energy Department staffers were
offered counseling. Some federal employees were so depressed, they took
time off. Others might retire early.
And some employees are in downright panic mode in the aftermath of Donald Trump's victory.
"People
are upset. Some people took the day off because they were depressed,"
said John O'Grady, president of American Federation of Government
Employees Council 238, a union that represents thousands of EPA
employees. After Election Day, "people were crying," added O'Grady, who
works in EPA's Region 5 office in Chicago. "They were recommending that
people take sick leave and go home."
EPA employees stand to see
some of the most drastic changes under the Trump administration, and
they may be taking things a bit harder than other government workers.
The
president-elect has vowed to repeal some of the rules they've toiled on
for the last eight years during the Obama administration, including the
Clean Power Plan rule to cut power plants' greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump
has even suggested abolishing the agency entirely, although that would
be an uphill political climb. Trump has picked a top climate change
skeptic to lead his EPA transition team — Myron Ebell of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute — and has promised sweeping reforms in the agency
that's long been a target for industry groups and Republicans who say
its rules overreach.
"If you look at the seven stages of grief,
I'm still in denial. I will not look at the news. I will not read the
news," said an EPA career employee.
Another EPA staffer said, "I
don't actually know anybody here that was supporting Trump." That person
said people are "worried" that their work over the last eight years
will be unraveled. "It's always a time of uncertainty" when a new
administration comes in, the employee said, and there were fears when
the George W. Bush administration came into office, too. But "people are
more worried this time," the person added.
Silvia Saracco, head
of a union chapter that represents EPA employees in North Carolina's
Research Triangle Park, said, "There is a lot of angst out there,
nervousness."
Some DOE employees are feeling glum, too.
"I
think it's a sadness and a worry about just how far someone will go,
especially when you never believe anything he says," said one longtime
Energy Department employee. "Many of us have worked in both the Bush and
the Obama administrations, and I don't think that we feel like it will
be like just going back to Bush again."
The DOE employee added,
"We know that now more than ever, it is important to do whatever we can
to do a good job in the areas that we care about. ... What we can do is
not lose sight of whatever ideals brought us to this work in the first
place."
One Fish and Wildlife Service employee witnessed
"business as usual" after the election, although, "obviously, there was
some surprise."
Most federal employees "will work for whomever is
elected," that person said. "That's just part of what I've always
believed, that we should not be extremely emotional about it, certainly
not in our public life."
Mass exodus?
There's been speculation that many of Trump's critics in the federal workforce might opt to leave or retire early.
"If
[Trump] starts doing rotten things, then people will say, 'Enough of
this crap,'" said O'Grady. "You might see retirements from people who
say, 'Why bother working there anyway?'"
Saracco worked at EPA during the Reagan administration. "There was a big exodus" then, she said.
Several
also noted that EPA has an aging workforce like other government
agencies — about 31 percent of the federal workforce is eligible to
retire. In addition, according to this year's Federal Employee Viewpoint
Survey, 3.57 percent of EPA employees plan to retire within the year,
while another 10.76 percent plan to retire within one to three years.
"Whenever
there is a change of administration, career officials that are
retirement eligible take stock and decide what to do next, even if you
agree with the party coming in," said Joe Edgell, senior vice president
of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 280, which also represents
EPA employees.
"Do I think a lot of people are going to retire?
Well, yeah," Edgell said. "Could it be higher than normal? We have to
see what happens."
Government workers have expressed worry about a
Trump victory in the past. A poll by the Government Business Council
released earlier this year found that 14 percent of responding federal
employees said they would consider leaving government service if the GOP
nominee won, while another 11 percent answered "maybe" (Greenwire, Feb.
1).
By and large, agency employees say they and their colleagues are planning to stick around — at least for a while.
"They're
going to try to work from within as much as possible and do their job,"
Saracco said. "That's what we're supposed to do as civil servants, ...
not have people who politically are going back and forth."
She's been trying to console worried workers by reminding them that they've lived through changing administrations before.
"We
all have to keep in mind that we are federal employees, we swear
allegiance to the Constitution, and we are executive branch employees.
Whoever wins the election is who gives us the direction that we're to go
in. That's our job," Saracco said.
She also cautioned that it isn't clear yet what exactly a Trump administration will do in office.
"There's
a lot of rhetoric that takes place on the campaign trail. We all have
to remember that," she said. "Let's not assume we know. We need to see
what's going to happen."
EPA managers have stressed to staff to
stay professional and work with Trump's transition team. In an
agencywide email after the election, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy
emphasized that there should be a smooth transition
After
Trump's inauguration in January, "I will be coming to work and continue
to be paid for the work that I do," said the career EPA employee.
"Whether I like it, whether they like it, that remains to be seen."
Another EPA career employee said the agency has been able to function under prior Republican administrations.
"We have been through Reagan, got through [George W. Bush]. We will get through this."
SOURCE Defy 'Stalinist' global warming rules and burn much more coal, says Trump's key economic adviser Regulations
on climate change are ‘Stalinistic’. And America can earn more than
$100billion from global companies by cutting their tax rates.
If
this sounds like the extreme rhetoric of America’s President-elect
Donald Trump, that’s because they are the words of his senior economic
adviser, Stephen Moore.
A former adviser to the Reagan administration, Moore has the ear of ‘The Donald’ on economic issues.
Speaking
to The Mail on Sunday just hours after Trump’s election victory, he
outlined a vision for the US and world economy that will fuel fury among
critics, but may also calm fears that the planet’s biggest economy may
be about to close its doors on the world. And there was good news for
Britain as he hailed the idea of a US-UK trade deal.
As well as
having worked for Reagan when he was only in his 20s, Moore has sat on
the board of the Wall Street Journal and is chief economist for the US
think-tank the Heritage Foundation.
And he is in no doubt that
the rest of the world will be affected by Trump’s Presidency. ‘If we get
it wrong, the whole world gets it wrong,’ he declares. ‘But I think
this is going to be like the 1980s. We are going to get it right. And
the rest of the world will follow. Britain and France and Spain and
other nations will say, "Ah, that’s what you do! You cut taxes. You get
regulations off the back of business."
‘This could be the start
of an expansion like we saw in the 1980s and 1990s – the greatest period
of wealth creation and poverty reduction in the history of mankind.’
SOURCE Washington State voters reject carbon taxWashington
voters gave an overwhelming thumbs down Tuesday to a citizen initiative
to impose a direct tax on carbon emissions. But that doesn’t look to be
the end of the story on regulating global warming pollution at the
state level.
With much of the vote now tallied in Washington
state, the nation’s first voter initiative to create a carbon tax is
going down 59 to 41 percent. The campaign director for the opposition to
Initiative 732 said the discussion on climate and energy policy is not
over in the state.
"We believe that we have an obligation to act
and to do what is right," said Brandon Houskeeper from the Association
of Washington Business. "The question is how do we come up with a
pathway that is commensurate with Washington’s contribution to a global
problem. I think it requires us having a broad table."
In the
short term, the action shifts to the courtroom. Industry associations
are hoping to strike down separate Inslee administration global warming
pollution regulations. The main feature of the state’s new Clean Air
Rule is a gradually tightening cap on emissions from the state’s biggest
sources.
Further down the road, another initiative that taxes
carbon pollution is a possibility, but an alliance behind that said in a
statement Wednesday that it will first take a stab at passing something
through the 2017 Washington Legislature.
The labor and
environmental group-backed Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy posted a
summary of a revised legislative proposal Tuesday. It would put an
escalating price on carbon emissions and use the proceeds to support
alternative energy projects as well as "investments" to mitigate effects
of climate change on forests and vulnerable communities.
"With
everything else the legislature has on its plate … the climate proposal
will face an uphill battle," Washington Environmental Council President
Becky Kelley acknowledged.
But in light of the election of
climate change skeptic Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, "State level
action is where it’s going to be at," Kelley said.
If there were
to be another ballot measure, Washington State Labor Council President
Jeff Johnson said he would target the general election two years hence.
"2017 would be nearly impossible to pull off," Johnson said in an
interview. "2018 is more appropriate time wise."
"It’s a dark
moment for the climate landscape," said state Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, a
Democrat from Seattle, reflecting on the election fallout Wednesday. In a
subsequent email, Fitzgibbon shed some of his glumness.
"Voters
have shown, by reelecting Gov. Inslee and electing a pro-climate action
majority in the (state) House, that we are ready for climate action in
Washington," Fitzgibbon wrote.
"Carbon Washington will continue
as an organization," said Joe Ryan, co-chair of the group that sponsored
the failed Initiative 732. "Our grassroots base is our strength. We are
energized to continue our work on carbon pricing in the state
legislature, and to promote effective, equitable, economically sound and
politically viable carbon pricing in other states and in Washington,
D.C."
SOURCE ***************************************
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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the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
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-- 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*****************************************
13 November, 2016
Behind the Furious Green/Left protests at the Trump triumphThe
screaming will get louder. The Greenies know full well that the Trump
win means that we have bought 8 or more years of time to study Climate
Change. The truth will be determined and it will not be too late to
react if indeed the world has to do something to counter Climate Change.
Many of the pundits screaming for CO2 reductions will be gone,
having given up or dead. This world wide movement to suppress the
expansion of wealthy, healthy countries will end. Cheap available energy
is the single most important element to the reduction of poverty.
Why the death of coral reefs could be devastating for millions of humansIt
certainly would be detrimental, though well within the human capacity
to adapt. But will it happen? Coral recovers quickly from
bleaching and at Bikini atoll it even survived a thermonuclear hit on
it! If an H-bomb didn't kill it off, what would? Coral reefs have
been around for millions of years and in some cases are today right
where they always were.
They are however surrounded by Green/Left
lies. Australian Greenies claim that reef damage is caused by
agricultural runoff. Problem: The current bleaching event on
the Great Barrier Reef is on its Northern third, along the coast of the
Cape York Peninsula -- and there are virtually no farms
there. Isn't reality pesky?
Coral does undergo bleaching from time to time in response to various stressors but bleaching is a defence mechanism, not death.
And
even the first sentence below is a laugh. Oceans CANNOT be both
warmer and more acidic at the same time. Warmer oceans outgas CO2,
which is the alleged cause of the acidity. Just open a warm can of Coke
someday if you doubt it. Physicists call it Henry's law. There's
no such thing as an honest Greenie as far as I can see. You
believe anything they say at your perilCoral reefs
around the globe already are facing unprecedented damage due to warmer
and more acidic oceans. It’s not a problem that just affects the marine
life that depends on them or deep-sea divers who visit them.
If
carbon dioxide emissions continue to fuel the planet’s rising
temperature, the widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 could have
devastating consequences for tens of millions of people, according to
research published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS.
To
better understand where those losses would hit hardest, an international
group of researchers mapped places where people most need reefs for
their livelihoods, particularly for fishing and tourism, as well as for
shoreline protection. They combined those maps with others showing where
coral reefs are most under stress from warming seas and ocean
acidification.
Countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia,
Thailand, and Philippines would bear the brunt of the damage, the
scientists found. So would coastal communities in western Mexico and
parts of Australia, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. The problem would affect
countries as massive as China and as small as the tiny island nation of
Nauru in the South Pacific.
In many places, the loss of coral
reefs would amount to an economic disaster, depriving fishermen of their
main source of income, forcing people to find more expensive forms of
protein, and undermining the tourism industry.
"It means jobs for
lots of people," said Linwood Pendleton, the study’s lead author and an
international chair at the European Institute of Marine Studies.
In
addition, many countries depend on coral reefs as a key barrier to
guard against incoming storms and mitigate the damage done by surging
seas. Without healthy reefs, "you lose what is essentially a moving,
undersea sea wall," said Pendleton, who estimated that about 62 million
people live less than 33 feet above sea level and less than two miles
from a coral reef. "The waves just come into shore full force. That can
cause loss of life. It can cause loss of property."
Some of the countries most dependent on coral reefs are also among the largest polluters.
"Some
of the places that have the most to lose . . . are also among the
biggest carbon emitters," Pendleton said. "They really have it in their
power to bring down the levels of carbon" they emit into the atmosphere.
Other
countries that rely heavily on reefs, such as Fiji or Papua New Guinea,
have relatively small carbon footprints. Still, Pendleton said they can
take other measures — including not overfishing and avoiding pollution —
to prevent putting further pressure on already stressed reefs.
The
researchers acknowledged more study is needed to better understand both
what is happening to coral reefs around the globe and how that will
affect humans. But it can be difficult, they noted, because "carrying
out science and data collection in many of the coral reef regions most
at risk of global environmental change is a challenge." Many regions
lack the capacity to do routine data collection, and scientists often
have trouble getting permission to sample in coastal areas or where
maritime jurisdictions are disputed.
While coral reefs
traditionally have been resilient in the face of environmental
pressures, mounting evidence suggests their ability to bounce back is
limited.
This fall, scientists reported that substantial swaths
of the Great Barrier Reef — the world’s largest coral reef system,
located off Australia —might have died in the wake of a historic
coral-bleaching event.
"The mortality is really devastating,"
Andrew Hoey, a senior research fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence
for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Queensland, told the
Post last month as scientists worked to catalog the damage. "It’s a lot
higher than we had hoped."
Earlier This spring, researchers
discovered that parts of Florida’s coral reef tract — the largest reef
in the continental United States and the third-largest barrier reef
ecosystem in the world — are actually dissolving into the water, likely
because of the effects of ocean acidification.
Meanwhile, reefs
around the US territory of Guam and other nearby islands, in what is
known as the Marianas archipelago, have suffered from coral-bleaching
events every year since 2013.
And there’s been no sign of a break
this summer. After a recent dive in Guam’s Tumon Bay, coral ecologist
Laurie Raymundo took to Facebook to describe her shock at the
devastation.
"I consider myself to be fairly objective and
logical about science," wrote Raymundo, of the University of Guam. "But
sometimes that approach fails me. Today, for the first time in the 50
years I’ve been in the water, I cried for an hour, right into my mask,
as I witnessed the extent to which our lovely Tumon Bay corals were
bleaching and dying."
SOURCE Trump win opens way for China to take climate leadership role (?)This
is a lot of wishful thinking. China will do what is in the best
interests of China: Nothing more, nothing less. China's apparent
agreement with global warming in recent years is a clever game.
What just about ALL Chinese want is a reduction in particulate and
acidic pollution. And to get there the best way is to reduce
reliance on coal and build nukes instead -- which is what China is
doing.
So China harvests good will by doing what the Greenies
want -- reducing coal usage -- but doing it for Chinese reasons, not
Greenie reasons. Any CO2 reduction is in fact completely
incidental to China's policy. Reducing coal usage fits Chinese
aims and just coincidentally fits Greenie aimsThe
election of climate change skeptic Donald Trump as president is likely
to end the U.S. leadership role in the international fight against
global warming and may lead to the emergence of a new and unlikely
champion: China.
China worked closely with the administration of
outgoing President Barack Obama to build momentum ahead of the 2015
Paris Agreement on climate change. The partnership of the two biggest
greenhouse gas emitters helped get nearly 200 countries to support the
pact at the historic meet in France's capital.
By contrast, Trump
has called global warming a hoax created by China to give it an
economic advantage and said he plans to remove the United States from
the historic climate agreement, as well as reverse many of Obama's
measures to combat climate change.
He has appointed noted climate
change skeptic Myron Ebell to help lead transition planning for the
Environmental Protection Agency, which has crafted the administration’s
major environmental regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and
efficiency standards for cars and trucks.
Beijing is poised to
cash in on the goodwill it could earn by taking on leadership in dealing
with what for many other governments is one of the most urgent issues
on their agenda.
"Proactively taking action against climate
change will improve China's international image and allow it to occupy
the moral high ground," Zou Ji, deputy director of the National Centre
for Climate Change Strategy and a senior Chinese climate talks
negotiator, told Reuters.
Zou said that if Trump abandons efforts
to implement the Paris agreement, "China's influence and voice are
likely to increase in global climate governance, which will then spill
over into other areas of global governance and increase China's global
standing, power and leadership."
Chen Zhihua, a representative of
the Chinese delegation and official in the climate change division of
the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economic
planning agency, said Chinese and other countries' efforts will not
change if the United States withdraws from the agreement.
SOURCE Donald Trump Follows on Promise to Gut the Environmental Protection Agency With His Choice of Transition LeaderFabulous. Ebell is as good a skeptic as you getIn
debates and speeches leading up to the election, President-elect Donald
Trump had promised to "get rid of [the Environmental Protection Agency]
in almost every form" and to "cancel" the United States’ commitment to
the international Paris Agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. signed the Paris Agreement earlier this year.
Now that
he’s won, how serious is Trump about accomplishing these goals? In his
pick to lead the administration transition for the EPA— unearthed in
September by Energy & Environment Daily—it seems he’s intent on
keeping his word. Trump chose Myron Ebell, director of the Center for
Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Here’s
how Energy & Environment Daily describes him:
Ebell is a
well-known and polarizing figure in the energy and environment realm.
His participation in the EPA transition signals that the Trump team is
looking to drastically reshape the climate policies the agency has
pursued under the Obama administration. Ebell’s role is likely to
infuriate environmentalists and Democrats but buoy critics of Obama’s
climate rules.
Ebell, who was dubbed an "elegant nerd" and a
"policy wonk" by Vanity Fair, is known for his prolific writings that
question what he calls climate change "alarmism." …
Ebell has
called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases
illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty "is clearly
an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority."
Trump
has also chosen Ebell’s counterparts for the Department of Energy and
the Department of the Interior, Energy & Environment Daily reports.
Mike
McKenna, a Republican lobbyist and veteran of George H.W. Bush’s
Department of Energy, will assist Trump. David Bernhardt, a natural
resources lawyer who has worked in the George W. Bush administration,
will transition the Department of the Interior.
SOURCE Is EPA's Clean Power Plan "Transformative"?In
an October 31st letter to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,
National Mining Association attorney Peter Glaser provides new evidence
that "EPA far understated the effects of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) by
exaggerating the amount of coal generation that will retire even without
the rule." Ironically, the smoking gun is the agency’s own updated
modeling, albeit for a different regulation—the Cross State Air
Pollution Rule (CSAPR).
Glaser’s argument may be summarized as follows:
The
Environmental Protection Agency’s "base case" (the future absent the
CPP) indicated that "in 2016, 20 percent of U.S. coal capacity would
disappear even if the rule were not adopted, reducing coal generation to
214 gigawatts (GW)."
However, the agency’s just-published CSAPR
Update eliminates the "phantom retirements" assumed in the CPP base
case. Agency modeling "now shows 268 GW of coal generation for 2016."
EPA
is now pretty much on the same page as the Energy Information
Administration (EIA), which recently reported 272 GW of coal generation
in service as of August 2016.
EPA estimates coal generation "must decline to 174-183 GW to meet CPP requirements."
That means coal capacity must decline by "about one third."
The
new data confirm Obama administration boasts—denied, however, in EPA’s
briefs before the Court—that the CPP "will transform the power sector."
For
links and documentation, see my post on GlobalWarming.Org. For a witty
debunking of EPA’s fuzzy math, see Stephen Eule’s commentary on the
Institute for 21st Century Energy blog.
Why does this matter? At
the outset of the CPP oral argument, Judge Thomas Griffith challenged
West Virginia Solicitor General Elbert Lin to explain why the CPP is
"transformative." The term harks back to the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling
in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014), a case also dealing with
the scope of EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2).
In
Utility Air, the Court ruled that EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule
was "unreasonable because it would it would bring about an enormous and
transformative expansion in EPA’s regulatory authority without clear
congressional authorization." There is obviously no clear congressional
authorization for the Power Plan, but Griffith and his colleague Judge
David Tatel suggested the absence of a "clear statement" by Congress is
irrelevant unless the CPP is "transformative."
Judge Griffith
cited EPA’s estimate that the Power Plan would reduce coal generation
"only . . . five percent" below baseline projections:
How
is it transformative when the change to the coal industry will actually
only be a five percent difference between the rule being administered
and there being no rule at all? By 2030, apparently 32 percent of power
plants will be coal operated without the rule, 27 percent will be coal
operated with the rule; that hardly sounds transformative [p. 6].
Glaser’s
letter provides a partial rejoinder. EPA’s current modeling indicates
the CPP will shut down an additional 11-13 percent of current coal
generation capacity, more than double what the agency told the court.
However,
Griffith was dismissive when Mr. Lin, citing EIA modeling, argued the
Power Plan would reduce coal capacity by 10 percent below baseline
projections: "[Y]ou’re talking about a marginal difference, some experts
say a five percent difference, your experts say 10 percent difference,
by 2030, that doesn’t seem to me to be transformative."
With all
due respect, Judges Griffith and Tatel miss the point. To begin with, an
unauthorized regulation does not have to be "transformative" to be
unlawful. "Transformative" just makes an "unauthorized" rulemaking a
more egregious case of bureaucratic overreach. Any legislative rule
lacking an express or clearly implied delegation of power from Congress
is unlawful.
In the second place, a rule need not have large
short-term material or financial impacts to be "transformative." Far
more important are the rule’s lasting impacts on national policy, the
economy, and constitutional balances.
In Utility Air, the Court elaborated on the meaning of "transformative" as follows:
When
an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded
power to regulate "a significant portion of the American economy," Brown
& Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159, we typically greet its
announcement with a measure of skepticism. We expect Congress to speak
clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast "economic
and political significance."
EPA’s adoption of the Power Plan is
clearly a matter of vast "economic and political significance." For
starters, the CPP is not just a rule, it is a regulatory framework. The
2022-2030 CPP compliance period is just Phase 1. Subsequent rulemakings
will surely marginalize if not eliminate fossil generation. As
petitioners point out in their core issues reply brief (p. 7), "EPA
claims the power to require States to enforce emission reductions that
are premised on changing the nation’s mix of electric generation—a power
that would permit EPA to effectively ban the sources of generation it
disfavors."
That assessment is not alarmist. The CPP’s
prerequisite rulemaking, EPA’s so-called "carbon pollution standards"
for new power plants, effectively bans investment in new coal
generation. It does so by basing the standards on a technology—carbon
capture and storage—that is prohibitively costly and plagued with
technical problems. EPA acknowledges the CPP’s current requirements will
have no discernible climate impact. That obviously implies the need for
more aggressive action down the road.
So the transformative
character of the CPP should not be assessed by coal market shares in
2030. What matters is the precedent it sets, the policy dynamic it
unleashes, and the economic developments the new policy trajectory
permits and precludes. Under the CPP, coercive de-carbonization becomes
the central organizing principle of federal and state regulation of
electricity. Is that not a momentous change in national policy? The CPP
as a framework will channel and constrain untold billions of dollars in
energy-related investment.
The CPP also entails a
fundamental shift in political power from Congress and the states to
EPA. The CPP mandates the replacement of fossil energy with renewables
regardless of the policy preferences of Congress, state legislatures,
governors, and state electorates. The rule usurps states’ authority over
power-sector resource planning and development and Congress’s authority
to determine national policy on energy and the environment. A rule that
undermines both federalism and the separation of powers is by
definition "transformative."
SOURCE Nobody really takes global warming seriouslyA partly realistic Warmist writes belowOne
of the morbidly fascinating aspects of climate change is how much
cognitive dissonance it generates, in individuals and nations alike.
The
more you understand the brutal logic of climate change — what it could
mean, the effort necessary to forestall it — the more the intensity of
the situation seems out of whack with the workaday routines of
day-to-day life. It’s a species-level emergency, but almost no one is
acting like it is. And it’s very, very difficult to be the only one
acting like there’s an emergency, especially when the emergency is
abstract and science-derived, grasped primarily by the intellect.
This psychological schism is true for individuals, and it’s true for nations. Take the Paris climate agreement.
In
Paris, in 2015, the countries of the world agreed (again) on the moral
imperative to hold the rise in global average temperature to under 2
degrees Celsius, and to pursue "efforts to limit the temperature
increase to 1.5 degrees." To date, 62 countries, including the United
States, China, and India, have ratified the agreement.
Are any of the countries that signed the Paris agreement taking the actions necessary to achieve that target?
No. The US is not. Nor is the world as a whole.
The
actions necessary to hold to 2 degrees, much less 1.5 degrees, are
simply outside the bounds of conventional politics in most countries.
Anyone who proposed them would sound crazy, like they were proposing, I
don’t know, a war or something.
So we say 2 degrees is unacceptable. But we don’t act like it is.
This
cognitive dissonance is brought home yet again in a new report from Oil
Change International (in collaboration with a bunch of green groups).
It’s about fossil fuels and how much of them we can afford to dig up and
burn, if we’re serious about what we said in Paris. It’s mostly simple
math, but the implications are vast and unsettling.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Scientists
have long agreed that warming higher than 2 degrees will result in
widespread food, water, weather, and sea level stresses, with
concomitant immigration, conflict, and suffering, inequitably
distributed.
But 2 degrees is not some magic threshold where
tolerable becomes dangerous. A two-year review of the latest science by
the UNFCCC found that the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees means
heat extremes, water shortages, and falling crop yields. "The
‘guardrail’ concept, in which up to 2°C of warming is considered safe,"
the review concluded, "is inadequate."
The report recommends that
2 degrees be seen instead as "an upper limit, a defense line that needs
to be stringently defended, while less warming would be preferable."
This
changing understanding of 2 degrees matters, because the temperature
target we choose, and the probability with which we aim to hit it,
establishes our "carbon budget," i.e., the amount of CO2 we can still
emit before blowing it.
Many commonly used scenarios (including
the International Energy Agency’s) are built around a 50 percent chance
of hitting 2 degrees. But if 2 degrees is an "upper limit" and "less
warming would be preferable," it seems we would want a higher than 50-50
chance of stopping short of it.
So the authors of the Oil Change
report choose two scenarios to model. One gives us a 66 percent chance
of stopping short of 2 degrees. The other gives us a 50 percent chance
of stopping short of 1.5 degrees.
As you can see, in either
scenario, global emissions must peak and begin declining immediately.
For a medium chance to avoid 1.5 degrees, the world has to zero out net
carbon emissions by 2050 or so — for a good chance of avoiding 2
degrees, by around 2065.
After that, emissions have to go
negative. Humanity has to start burying a lot more carbon than it throws
up into the atmosphere. There are several ways to sequester greenhouse
gases, from reforestation to soil enrichment to cow backpacks, but the
backbone of the envisioned negative emissions is BECCS, or bioenergy
with carbon capture and sequestration.
BECCS — raising,
harvesting, and burning biomass for energy, while capturing and burying
the carbon emissions — is unproven at scale. Thus far, most
demonstration plants of any size attaching CCS to fossil fuel facilities
have been over-budget disasters. What if we can’t rely on it? What if
it never pans out?
"If we want to avoid depending on unproven
technology becoming available," the authors say, "emissions would need
to be reduced even more rapidly."
There’s no happy win-win story
about that scenario, no way to pull it off while continuing to live US
lifestyles and growing the global economy every year. It would require
immediate, radical shifts in behavior worldwide, especially among the
wealthy — a period of voluntary austerity and contraction.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
11 November, 2016
Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be 'game over', scientists warnAll
that this shows is that if you make extreme assumptions you will get
extreme results. I have added the journal abstract to the summary
below. Once again we see a reliance on the 8.5 Representative
Concentration Pathway -- meaning that the most extreme estimate of CO2
in the atmosphere was used. So it's basically just guessworkIt is a vision of a future so apocalyptic that it is hard to even imagine.
But,
if leading scientists writing in one of the most respected academic
journals are right, planet Earth could be on course for global warming
of more than seven degrees Celsius within a lifetime.
And that,
according to one of the world’s most renowned climatologists, could be
"game over" – particularly given the imminent presence of climate change
denier Donald Trump in the White House.
Scientists have long
tried to work out how the climate will react over the coming decades to
the greenhouse gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere.
According
to the current best estimate, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), if humans carry on with a "business as usual" approach
using large amounts of fossil fuels, the Earth’s average temperature
will rise by between 2.6 and 4.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels by
2100.
However new research by an international team of experts
who looked into how the Earth’s climate has reacted over nearly 800,000
years warns this could be a major under-estimate.
Because, they believe, the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases when it is warmer.
In
a paper in the journal Science Advances, they said the actual range
could be between 4.78C to 7.36C by 2100, based on one set of
calculations.
Some have dismissed the idea that the world would
continue to burn fossil fuels despite obvious global warming, but
emissions are still increasing despite a 1C rise in average thermometer
readings since the 1880s.
And US President-elect Donald Trump has said he will rip up America’s commitments to the fight against climate change.
Professor
Michael Mann, of Penn State University in the US, who led research that
produced the famous "hockey stick" graph showing how humans were
dramatically increasing the Earth’s temperature, told The Independent
the new paper appeared "sound and the conclusions quite defensible".
Dr
Tobias Friedrich, one of the authors of the paper, said: "Our results
imply that the Earth’s sensitivity to variations in atmospheric carbon
dioxide increases as the climate warms.
"Currently, our planet is
in a warm phase – an interglacial period – and the associated increased
climate sensitivity needs to be taken into account for future
projections of warming induced by human activities.
"The only way out is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible."
Dr
Andrey Ganopolski, who was involved in the research and on the IPCC’s
latest report, admitted their work was controversial with some
scientists disagreeing and others agreeing with their findings.
"In
our field of science, you cannot be definite by 100 per cent. There are
always uncertainties and we discuss this in the paper," he said.
SOURCE Nonlinear climate sensitivity and its implications for future greenhouse warming
Abstract
Global
mean surface temperatures are rising in response to anthropogenic
greenhouse gas emissions. The magnitude of this warming at equilibrium
for a given radiative forcing—referred to as specific equilibrium
climate sensitivity (S)—is still subject to uncertainties. We estimate
global mean temperature variations and S using a 784,000-year-long field
reconstruction of sea surface temperatures and a transient paleoclimate
model simulation. Our results reveal that S is strongly dependent on
the climate background state, with significantly larger values attained
during warm phases. Using the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5
for future greenhouse radiative forcing, we find that the range of
paleo-based estimates of Earth’s future warming by 2100 CE overlaps with
the upper range of climate simulations conducted as part of the Coupled
Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Furthermore, we find
that within the 21st century, global mean temperatures will very likely
exceed maximum levels reconstructed for the last 784,000 years. On the
basis of temperature data from eight glacial cycles, our results provide
an independent validation of the magnitude of current CMIP5 warming
projections.
Science Advances 09 Nov 2016: Vol. 2, no. 11, e1501923. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501923‘JUST SCRAP’ OBAMA’S ENERGY RULES, TRUMP ADVISER SAYSThe
man that Donald Trump calls the "king of energy" in the U.S. predicts
quick action by the next president to roll back Obama administration
policies opposed by the oil and natural gas industry.
"There are
so many of them. You just scrap them," Harold Hamm, the billionaire CEO
of Continental Resources, said Wednesday, hours after Trump’s surprising
win over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
"There’s five times the
regulation on our industry than there was before the Obama
administration," Hamm said in an interview. "I mean, it’s just been a
pile-on."
Among the policies opposed by Hamm and other producers
is a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to curb emissions
of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide, from oil
and gas operations.
"It’s like we’re out to pollute the world
with methane gas," Hamm complained, disputing assertions by advocates of
the policy that the industry hasn’t done enough to capture the
emissions.
"That’s not the case," he said. "It’s never been the case."
That’s
just one of many energy policies that Trump, a climate skeptic, could
target quickly using his executive authority, ClearView Energy Partners,
a Washington consulting group, said in a note Wednesday.
For
example, the Trump administration could come to the rescue of two
controversial oil pipeline projects, including granting an easement to
the Dakota Access pipeline, a $3.7 billion project that would carry
crude oil from North Dakota, where Continental Resources is a major
player, to an Illinois refinery.
The project is stalled in North
Dakota in the face of opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and
its supporters, who say the project would destroy ancient tribal
artifacts and potentially pollute waterways.
Likewise, Trump’s
administration could approve a new cross-border permit for the Keystone
XL pipeline, a TransCanada Corp. initiative to ship oil from Canada to
the U.S. that Obama rejected last year.
Other potential
pro-industry actions at the disposal of the new administration include
resuming periodic oil and gas leasing on federal lands, revising or
abandoning Energy Department requirements for exporting liquefied
natural gas and suspending Securities and Exchange Commission rules
requiring companies to disclose risks posed by climate change, according
to ClearView.
"People are going to use oil and gas," Hamm said. "So, if we don’t develop our own, you’re back on foreign oil."
As
for oil price prices, Hamm expects "stability" as Trump aims to open
more federal land and offshore waters to drilling, curb regulations and
support exports of U.S. crude.
As Hamm spoke, the price of West
Texas Intermediate crude oil was on a rollercoaster ride, falling 2.6%
to $43.80 a barrel just after midnight Wednesday, then rising 4.2% to
$45.67 at noon.
Hamm’s remarks come as speculation continues that he may be a candidate for energy secretary in the Trump administration.
SOURCE Trump Victory Threatens Green Investors And Subsidy SharksRepublican
victories in Tuesday’s election inject new risks into investments in
sustainable energy and clean tech companies, according to one top
analyst.
"[Donald] Trump’s surprise victory last night, in tandem
with Republicans maintaining majority control of both houses of
Congress, constitutes in our view a material negative for the majority
of our stocks under coverage," said Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch, in a
research note Wednesday.
Rusch covers a number of solar energy
firms, companies that develop technologies for energy efficiency, waste
and recycling companies, as well as alternative transportation companies
such as Tesla.
"We expect shares broadly to trade off today at
higher magnitude than equity indices and believe the election outcome
injects significant policy uncertainty into the growth outlook for
multiple verticals, with solar/alternative transportation plays the most
impacted," Rusch said in the note.
Elsewhere, Rusch’s outlook is
likewise not uniformly negative, but he identifies a few policy issues
that could pose trouble for some of the companies he covers.
First,
the election places the Clean Power Plan at risk. A Trump presidency
and Republican control of Congress could lead to a rollback of the plan,
adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2014, as a means to
combat climate change by limiting emissions from power plants. Rolling
back the CPP could pose "contagion risk to global renewable and energy
efficiency investments," Rusch’s note said.
Trump has repeatedly
expressed skepticism over climate change, once famously calling it a
Chinese hoax designed to undermine U.S. manufacturing.
Along
these lines, Rusch and his colleagues said they "would not be surprised
to see a Trump administration attempt to block federal support for EV
buyers but could provide support for companies such as TSLA that are
creating US manufacturing jobs."
Tesla shares were recently trading down more than 4 percent, at $186.38.
Rusch’s
concerns are particularly striking, given the fact that Tesla Chairman
and CEO (and SolarCity Chairman) Elon Musk said in an interview with
CNBC on Nov. 4 that he did not think the outcome of the election would
"make much of a difference one way or the other" to Tesla’s business.
Residential
solar power companies could face a more challenging regulatory climate
as well as weakened demand due to greater support for coal power. This
could have implications for companies such as First Solar and SunPower,
as well as others.
Solar stocks also were lower Wednesday with
SolarCity down 5.7 percent, First Solar down 2.7 percent and SunPower
shedding nearly 15 percent.
SOURCE Trump Victory: Shock And Disbelief At Marrakech UN Climate TalksMARRAKECH
(MOROCCO): Daylight broke in the ochre city with the news of Donald
Trump’s decisive victory in the US elections. Trump’s victory came as a
shock to most, who were prepared for a tight race with the expectation
that Secretary Hillary Clinton would make it to the finish line with a
slim margin.
Shock and disbelief marked Bab Ighli, the venue of
the UN-sponsored climate meet. Even as delegates sought to retain an air
of normalcy virtually every conversation turned to Trump, and what the
elevation of a climate denier to the White House meant for the global
efforts to tackle climate change.
Throughout his campaign, Trump
repudiated climate change. He described it as a Chinese hoax, denied
the science, described climate change funding as wasteful. While
candidate Trump has been categorical about his views on climate change,
it is unclear if as president he will follow through. Observers from the
United States and other countries stressed that it was too soon to say
what the Trump Administration would do.
This isn’t diplomatic
sidestepping of the question. The fact is that it is too early to
determine what President-elect Trump will do.
He could well
follow through on his promise to pull out from the Paris Agreement, but
since the treaty is already in force, the United States is locked in for
three years, with another year or so for the process of withdrawal from
the treaty. Observers at Marrakech have consistently stressed that US
participation in the Paris Agreement is guaranteed for what would be the
first term of a Trump presidency.
While the US would continue to
be a party to the Paris Agreement, its participation in the process of
finalising the rulebook for the treaty would change. Some delegates
stressed therefore it was important to agree at Marrakech to complete
the rule making process by 2018.
The other cause of concern is
the US contribution to climate finance. Trump has said that he would
"cancel billions in climate change spending for the United Nations". The
US pledged $3 billion over a four year period to the Green Climate
Fund. So far only $500 million has been provided. Republican lawmakers
had objected to the pledge made by the Obama administration, arguing
that it wasn’t legal as it was done without specific congressional
authorization. Providing financial support is one of the key commitments
of industrialised countries under the UN Convention on Climate Change,
has been reiterated in the Paris Agreement. The Green Climate Fund was
set up to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The other cause of
concern is in the area of domestic policies. Domestic climate action
lies at the heart of the Paris Agreement. This could well mean a
reversal of many of the decisions, most of which were carried out
through executive orders, of the Obama administration. The Clean Power
Plan, which is central to the US national climate action plan. This
could well mean that the US doesn’t adhere to commitments made in the
national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement, and this would
make it difficult to meet the goal of restricting temperature rise to
well below 2 degrees Celsius.
SOURCE EPA wants your wood-burning stoveIn
a blow to innovation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
has denied a petition to reconsider a restrictive regulation dealing
with wood stoves and the types of wood burned in
them.obama-net-neutrality-fcc-title-ii-100529803-primary.idge
The
regulation, finalized by the EPA last year, made changes to the
emission standards applicable to residential wood stoves, in
bureaucratic speak, "residential wood combustion devices."
The
petition was filed by Richard S. Burns & Company, Inc., a
Philadelphia waste management firm that challenged the EPA’s prohibition
on making wood pellets and chipped wood from the "clean wood" which is
removed from construction sites. The EPA’s regulation does not allow
clean wood from "construction or demolition" to be used because it is
considered a "prohibited fuel."
The company asserted that it has
the ability to separate out wood from other materials, and that this
wood could be recycled into products suitable to be burned in wood
stoves. The EPA denied the petition, and effectively bigbrothermandated
that these materials be sent to landfills instead. In its denial, the
EPA claimed that the cost to those like the petitioner to make "clean
wood" fuels as requested would be expensive. "The EPA does not believe
this cost on the industry is justified." This, despite the fact that the
costs would be borne by industry volunteers who believe they can
product a product that meets the EPA’s standards.
The EPA is saying, in essence, "we don’t believe you can, so we’re not going to let you try."
The regulation at issue is a long and complex, but a couple other areas are worth noting.
If
you manufacture a wood stove that is to be sold in Canada or Russia,
the regulation does not affect you. "Affected wood heaters manufactured
in the United States for export are exempt from the applicable emission
limits." So, the Canadians and Russians can get an affordable wood stove
from a U.S. manufacturer, but a North Carolinian can only buy one that
complies with the 83 page regulation which is further explained by the
203 page regulatory impact analysis.
obama-fingerAccording to the
EPA, the average price for a wood stove is $848. In its regulatory
analysis the EPA noted that commenters had suggested that this
regulation would increase the cost to bring a new model to market by up
to 25% driving price well above $1,000.00. That is a significant
increase that must be passed along to the homeowner in order for the
manufacturer to survive as the EPA estimates that they have profit
margins of a little over 4%.
Representative David Rouzer of North
Carolina has offered legislation which would repeal the wood stove
regulation arguing, "The EPA has no business meddling with how wood
heaters are made — much less putting in place new regulations that would
effectively price them out of the market. More and more families are
using wood heaters to help lower their energy costs during these tough
economic times. That’s why, it’s imperative Congress continue
working together to strike down these unnecessary regulations."
The
regulation applies testing standards that must be met before any new
wood stoves can be sold. Old wood stoves are not covered by the
regulation, so if your house has an existing one you do not have to
worry unless you need or want to replace it.
Evidencing the EPA’s
desire to micro-manage personal behavior, the regulation even places
personal prohibitions on homeowners who use one of these new stoves. "No
person is permitted to burn any of the following materials in an
affected wood heater…. paper products…"
There is an exception;
you are allowed to use paper to start a fire. "The prohibition against
burning these materials does not prohibit the use of fire starters made
from paper." If you use the paper to start a fire you are fine, but if
the fire is already burning it is illegal for you to use paper any
longer. While the EPA goes to great lengths to describe the emission
standards, they do not provide any explanation as to the exact moment
when the fire is large enough so that the continued use of paper to make
the fire larger is prohibited. There are also
BLOG-FIRE-bigstock-Fire-119560371restrictions on the types of wood
homeowners can use. They "will be required to use only the grades of
pellet fuels and wood chips that are included in the owner’s manual
based on the heater/stove certification tests."
How prohibitions
on homeowners regarding paper and wood are to be enforced is not exactly
clear from the regulation, but expect the EPA to find a way.
This whole thing is absurd. Federal government, leave our wood stoves alone.
SOURCE ***************************************
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 November, 2016
Trump winsPolar
bears celebrate. Al Gore goes into hiding. The Global Warming and
Climate Change agenda has now been put on hold. The USA will lead the
world away from this fanatical religion
Last 5 years were hottest on record: UNThe
usual dishonesty. The real news is that temperatures have in fact
plateaued, except for a minor blip in 2015 caused by the El Nino weather
cycle. Here are the actual global mean temperature anomalies in
degrees Celsius as given by GISS for the 5 years concerned:
2011 .61; 2012 .64; 2013 .66; 2014 .75; 2015 .87
You
will see that the temperatures for the first three years in the series
differed only in hundredths of a degree, essentially meaning no change.
And the remaining two differed only in tenths of a degree. It's
essentially a picture of stasis: no change worth talking about
Note
also that the temperatures for 1998 (.63), 2002 (.63), 2003 (.62) and
2005 (.69) were very similar to the recent temperatures, again
indicating no change
And the 2011, 2012 and 2013 temperatures
were DOWN on the 2010 figure (.72). Handy that they took 2011 as
their starting point, isn't it? Wouldn't want to upset a neat
picture of rises, would we?
And isn't is wonderful what you find
when you look at the actual numbers? You would guess none of what I
have just pointed out from the alarmist guff belowThe
past five years were the hottest on record with mounting evidence that
heat waves, floods and rising sea levels are stoked by man-made climate
change, the United Nations weather agency says.
Some freak
weather events would have happened naturally but the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Tuesday said greenhouse gas
emissions had raised the risks of extreme events, sometimes by a factor
of 10 or more.
"We just had the hottest five-year period on
record, with 2015 claiming the title of hottest individual year. Even
that record is likely to be beaten in 2016," WMO Secretary-General
Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
Among the worst extremes, a
2011-12 drought and famine in the Horn of Africa killed more than
250,000 people and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines killed 7800 in
2013, the WMO said.
Superstorm Sandy caused $US67 billion ($A87
billion) of damage in 2012, mostly in the United States, it said in a
report issued to a meeting of almost 200 nations in Morocco tasked with
implementing a 2015 global agreement to combat climate change.
The last five-year period beat 2006-10 as the warmest such period since records began in the 19th century.
The
heat was accompanied by a gradual rise in sea levels spurred by melting
glaciers and ice sheets. The changes "confirmed the long-term warming
trend caused by greenhouse gases", the WMO said of the report.
And
the amount of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, reached 400
parts per million in the atmosphere for the first time in records in
2015, it said.
Last year was the first in which temperatures were
one degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, partly because of an El
Nino weather event that warmed the Pacific.
The 2015 Paris
Agreement set an overriding target of limiting warming to "well below" 2
degrees above pre-industrial times, ideally just 1.5 degrees.
But pledges so far to curb greenhouse gas emissions are too weak and put the globe on target for about 3 degrees, UN data shows.
SOURCE Extensive flooding of coastal cities on the way?The
stuff below is the most total and utter rubbish. It is all based
on the expected level of CO2 in the atmosphere. They assume
exactly what is never found: That temperatures will rise in
synchrony with CO2 levels
I append the journal Abstract to the
article below. Note: The "Representative Concentration Pathway"
refers to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. There are 4
such pathways, all assuming very different levels of CO2. It's all
guesswork, in other words. The authors below have mostly used the most
extreme estimate (8.5).
It's a deliberate attempt at
alarmism, not the sort of cautious and balanced presentation one
normally expects in an academic journal article. They had to use
extreme estimates in order to have anything at all to sayWith
global climate talks kicking off in Marrakech, Morocco on Monday, a new
study provides a sobering warning about what may happen to coastal
mega-cities if decisive global emissions cuts are not made soon.
Based
on a scenario in which countries fail to sharply rein in emissions of
global warming pollutants, coastal cities are likely to see the fastest
rate of sea level rise in human history before the end of the current
century, the study found.
This damaging scenario is not just limited to a future generation in the year 2100 but has already begun.
What's
more striking is that the study shows that more than more than 90
percent of the world's coastal areas will see more than the global
average sea level rise.
The study paints a particularly dark
scenario for the densely populated cities of South and Southeast Asia,
where low-lying coastal cities could be eaten away by the sea,
displacing millions.
The study, published Monday in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that if global
warming pushes past 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above
preindustrial levels, about 80 percent of the global coastline may see
more sea level rise than the global average.
The study is the
first to make specific sea level rise projections for 136 coastal cities
starting with 2 degrees Celsius of warming and above, according to lead
author Svetlana Jevrejeva of The National Oceanography Center in
Liverpool.
Jevrejeva and her colleagues found that 2 degrees of
warming would yield an average global ocean rise of 0.6 feet. But in the
sprawling city of Lagos, Nigeria, for example, that much warming would
likely cause 0.7 feet of sea level rise with a worst-case-scenario of
1.1 feet.
Two degrees Celsius is also defined as the upper limit
to global warming under the Paris Climate Agreement, which went into
effect on Nov. 4, but that limit is likely to be reached by 2045, based
on emissions trends.
"If the Paris Agreement fails and the
worst-case scenario comes to pass, South Florida and the boot of
Louisiana would not likely survive this century. Many more places, from
Boston to Shanghai, would be gravely threatened," said Ben Strauss, a
sea level rise researcher at the nonprofit group Climate Central who is
unaffiliated with the new study.
The meeting in Marrakech is
aimed at speeding up emissions cuts and generating more ambitious
targets so that the Paris goal is met.
This study asks what would happen to global sea levels if we blow past the target.
If
the climate were to warm by 5 degrees Celsius, or 9 degrees Fahrenheit,
above preindustrial levels by 2100 — which is roughly the path we're on
now — New York City could see more than a meter, or about 3.6 feet, of
sea level rise with an even higher upper limit, when factoring in
sources of uncertainty.
"If warming continues above 2 degrees
Celsius, then, by 2100, sea level will be rising faster than at any time
during human civilization," the study says.
SOURCE Coastal sea level rise with warming above 2 °CSvetlana Jevrejeva et al.
Abstract
Two
degrees of global warming above the preindustrial level is widely
suggested as an appropriate threshold beyond which climate change risks
become unacceptably high. This "2 °C" threshold is likely to be reached
between 2040 and 2050 for both Representative Concentration Pathway
(RCP) 8.5 and 4.5. Resulting sea level rises will not be globally
uniform, due to ocean dynamical processes and changes in gravity
associated with water mass redistribution. Here we provide probabilistic
sea level rise projections for the global coastline with warming above
the 2 °C goal. By 2040, with a 2 °C warming under the RCP8.5 scenario,
more than 90% of coastal areas will experience sea level rise exceeding
the global estimate of 0.2 m, with up to 0.4 m expected along the
Atlantic coast of North America and Norway. With a 5 °C rise by 2100,
sea level will rise rapidly, reaching 0.9 m (median), and 80% of the
coastline will exceed the global sea level rise at the 95th percentile
upper limit of 1.8 m. Under RCP8.5, by 2100, New York may expect rises
of 1.09 m, Guangzhou may expect rises of 0.91 m, and Lagos may expect
rises of 0.90 m, with the 95th percentile upper limit of 2.24 m, 1.93 m,
and 1.92 m, respectively. The coastal communities of rapidly expanding
cities in the developing world, and vulnerable tropical coastal
ecosystems, will have a very limited time after midcentury to adapt to
sea level rises unprecedented since the dawn of the Bronze Age.
SOURCE Solar Radiation Sufficient! No Greenhouse Effect Of Certain Atmospheric Gases!Written by Dr Jerry L Krause
Since
its inception Principia Scientific International (PSI) has published
many articles attempting to discredit, if not refute, the hypothesis
termed the greenhouse effect of certain atmospheric gases (GHE).
Recently there has been a fury (too many to cite) of articles which seem
to be getting closer to accomplishing this feat. However, most
all these articles are based upon reasoned arguments. I do not
consider the Science founded by Galileo and Newton to have be based upon
reasoned argument. The science founded by Galileo and Newton is
based upon scientific laws.
What is a scientific law?
First, before defining a scientific law, it seems useful, no necessary,
to consider a bit of confusion which seems to exist as to what Science
is, or does. This confusion possibly exists because Galileo,
Newton, and their commentaries were better known to be natural
philosophers instead of simply as being scientists.
Since a
common definition of a philosopher is one who seeks to learn the Truth,
some consider Science to be a method used to discover the Truth.
William M. Briggs, in a recent PSI
article—http://principia-scientific.org/no-scientific-method/—stated:
"There is no method particular to Science to discover the Truth."
Richard Feynman, in an address at the 1955 fall meeting of the National
Academy of Sciences reminded his audience that "scientific knowledge is
a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty—some most unsure,
some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
A scientific law
is merely a summary of similar observations for which there has never
been observed an exception. It is not a hypothesis, not a theory,
not an explanation; it merely predicts what will be observed in specific
circumstances. It cannot be proven by reason and it can only be
disproved by an observation that is an exception to the summary.
Hence, as Einstein stated: "No amount of experimentation can ever
prove right, a single experiment can prove me wrong." So, it seems no
amount of observation (experimentation) can ever prove a scientific law,
a hypothesis, a theory, an explanation to be the Truth, but a single
observation (experimental result) can prove each of them to be False.
Given
this input from scientists, Karl Popper, a 20th Century philosopher of
Science, concluded that any proposed Scientific hypothesis has to have a
testable prediction (result) to be a viable hypothesis. The GHE
hypothesis has such testable result which is well-accepted by its
proponents. It is that if there were no greenhouse gases capable
of absorbing the radiation being emitted by the earth’s surface due to
its temperature, the earth’s average temperature would be about 33oC
less than its observed average temperature. So, all one has to do
to prove the GHE hypothesis to be false is to refer to observations of
the earth’s natural system which demonstrate that the earth’s average
temperature cannot be less that which is observed.
In a previous
article—http://principia-scientific.org/new-scientific-law-greenhouse-effect/—I
had called attention to a scientific law of meteorology that had not
yet recognized as being a scientific law. It was: "The
surface temperature of an object, at thermal equilibrium with the
atmosphere in contact with it, can be no lower than the dewpoint
temperature (the temperature at which the atmosphere is saturated with
water vapor) of the atmosphere in contact with it." Since the
average dewpoint temperature of the atmosphere has to be equal to,
greater than the average temperature of the earth and this dewpoint
temperature had nothing to do with water’s ability to absorb a portion
of the radiation being emitted by the earth’s surface, I momentarily
considered that is scientific law proved the GHE hypothesis to be false.
However,
the proponents of the GHE quickly pointed out that the current dewpoint
temperature was only due to the earth’s greater than expected
temperature. Which I had to accept to be valid argument.
Then
I discovered that I and many others had overlooked something much more
obvious than the scientific law involving the atmosphere’s dewpoint
temperature. Another quote attributed to Einstein is: "The
secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." I have
no desire to hide the fact that Carl Allen Brehmer drew my attention to
an observed fact about which Anthony Bright-Paul later wrote:
"Let’s take the Sahara. The Sun shines down and the radiation passes
through the Oxygen and Nitrogen that makes up 99% of the atmosphere and
encounters the surface of the Planet – in this case sand. We all know
that radiation has to encounter mass to produce heat. So the sands get
pretty hot. You can see David Attenborough in one of his films standing
there and saying that the temperature of the sand was circa 70ºC and the
air above it was 40ºC. Pretty damn hot, eh?"
(http://principia-scientific.org/facebook-physics-heat-retention/)
Actually,
there are two observed facts which are overlooked; one is commonly
known and the other not so commonly known. The first is the
maximum diurnal air temperature of 40ºC (104oF) which has been observed
at many locations as a record temperature for a given day of the
year. But does anyone doubt that it could be common every day
maximum temperature for the Sahara Desert? The second is the
maximum temperature, 70ºC (158ºF), of the desert sand.
Carl, an
amateur scientist, did an experiment in which he measured the air
temperature and the topsoil temperature continuously from mid-June to
mid-July in 2012 somewhere in the vicinity of Chino Valley, AZ,
USA. During this period he observed an average maximum diurnal
topsoil (surface?) temperature of about 55ºC (131ºF) and an average
maximum diurnal air temperature of about 34ºC (93ºF).
There can
be little doubt that the maximum temperatures referred to by Anthony and
observed by Carl are solely due to the incident solar radiation upon
the earth’s surface at these two different locations. Hence, there
can be little doubt that these maximum temperatures could not be 33ºC
less if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It seems
clear that maximum temperature of a day is due to ‘sunshine’ and the
minimum possible temperature of a day is due to the atmosphere’s
dewpoint temperature. Hence, common observations prove the GHE
hypothesis to be absolutely false. And there can be no argument
about this.
SOURCE America needs to use more energy, not lessDuring
the 2016 election, both candidates promised to bring manufacturing back
to the U.S. Donald Trump made the recovery of jobs lost to China and
Mexico a cornerstone of his campaign. Hillary Clinton’s website states:
"While too many politicians and experts in Washington gave up on
American manufacturing, Hillary never did."
"The rhetoric,"
reports US News, "has struck home with Americans across the
country—particularly those currently or formerly employed in the
embattled U.S. goods-producing and manufacturing sectors, who have
repeatedly borne the brunt of corporate efforts to move work overseas."
Because
many of the lost jobs are due to automation and technological
improvements—which have enabled more production from fewer workers—there
is skepticism on both sides of the aisle as to whether these lost jobs
can actually come back. However, I believe, most Americans don’t want to
see more of our jobs disappear. Harry Moser, founder and president of
the Reshoring Initiative, which aims to bring manufacturing back home,
is optimistic. He told me that we are now losing about as many jobs to
offshoring, as we are recovering: "We’ve gone from losing somewhere
around 200,000 manufacturing jobs a year in 2000 to 2003 to net breaking
even. Balancing the trade deficit will increase U.S. manufacturing by
about four million jobs at current levels of productivity"
According
to MarketWatch.com, the percentage of people who work in manufacturing
is at a record low of 8.5 percent—which compares to "20 percent in 1980,
30 percent in 1960 and a record 39 percent during World War Two."
While
there are many factors driving offshoring, lower wages give countries
like China and Mexico a competitive advantage. Energy costs, however,
give the U.S. an advantage as "manufacturers need a lot of energy to
make their processes work," stated Gary Marmo, director of sales for New
Jersey’s Elizabethtown Gas. He says: "A typical office building will
use 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 therms a year. A good sized manufacturing
plant will probably use that same amount in just a couple of days."
Electricity frequently represents one of the top operating costs for
energy intensive industries such as plastics, metals, chemicals, and
pharmaceuticals—and, according to a recent study comparing costs in the
U.S. and China, electricity is about 50 percent higher in China.
Because
manufacturing is energy intensive, bringing industry back to the U.S.
and/or attracting businesses to relocate here, will increase our energy
consumption. As my column last week on the Clinton Foundation and Haiti
makes clear, industry needs energy.
President Obama has derided
U.S, energy use: "The U.S. uses far more electricity than its North
American neighbors combined," but the U.S. also does more with our
energy. Comparing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and energy
consumption numbers for the U.S. and Canada, for example, both use a
similar volume of energy but the U.S. has substantially higher GDP. A
study of global energy consumption versus GDP found: "energy is so
intrinsically linked to GDP that energy policy more or less dictates how
our economy performs."
Mike Haseler, the study’s author,
explains: "rising GDP is an indication of a prosperous economy"—which is
why economic commentators cite GDP number when they say: "President
Barack Obama may become the first president since Herbert Hoover not to
serve during a year in which the growth in real GDP was at least 3
percent. Yet, in the name of climate change, through government
policy, many countries are trying to discourage energy use by forcing
costs up. Haseler states: "They are cutting energy use as the economy of
Europe collapses because European industry can no longer compete with
countries where energy prices are not artificially raised by senseless
‘green’ policies."
The energy advantage is not just an issue
between countries, it is a factor in where companies locate within the
U.S. "High electricity bills are a strong disincentive to create new
jobs associated with a new or expanded product line," writes Don Welch,
president of New Hampshire based Globe Manufacturing Co, LLC. New
Hampshire’s electric prices are 55.6 percent higher than the national
average. Welch’s company is the leading producer of firefighting turnout
gear. He explains: "higher electricity costs not only add hundreds of
thousands of dollars to the cost of making our products—firefighting
suits and equipment—but it’s money we could otherwise re-invest in the
business, including creating new jobs here in New Hampshire. New
Hampshire’s high electricity prices are a drag on our economy. It puts
New Hampshire companies like mine at a competitive disadvantage compared
to companies in other parts of the country." Because Globe also has
plants in three different states, he clearly sees the difference energy
costs make in doing business. Welch says: "I already know that the
electric bill I am paying at my facility in Oklahoma is half of what I
pay in New Hampshire." If he is going to add a product line, energy
costs are a big factor in deciding where to expand.
John F.
Olson, president and CEO of Whelen Engineering Company, of Charlestown,
NH, and Chester, CT agrees. In a letter to the editor, Olson wrote:
"Manufacturers are in competition with other U.S. manufacturers, or even
worse, offshore competition in China. New Hampshire manufacturers have
the most expensive electricity in the country."
If we can bring
back manufacturing jobs—or at least stem the flow of them from our
country—we need to be encouraging low-cost energy and making more of it
available. Moser believes: "balancing the trade deficit should be the
number 1 national priority." He told me that would take a 25 percent
increase in manufacturing—which would require about a 10 percent
increase in energy usage. Yet, climate change policies demand that we
take greater cuts than the developing countries like China and India. If
our energy costs continue to go up, as they have in New Hampshire,
we’ll lose the best competitive advantage we have.
Moser
explains: "Manufacturing has the highest multiplier effect among the
major sectors. Every job created in manufacturing creates additional
jobs in other sectors that supply, support and service manufacturers."
To
bring manufacturing back to the U.S., or encourage expansion, we need
energy that is abundant, available and affordable — and we’ll need to
use more, not less. If we want to balance our trade deficit, boost GDP,
and have a prosperous economy, energy is the key. As I am known for
saying: "energy makes America great!"
SOURCE Risk estimates from climate models are largely political, not scientificResulting in biased advice to insurance companiesWhile
catastrophe modeling may seem an objective science that relies on data
to tell the story, more often than not politics plays a role on loss
projections and sets the tone for both the insurance and reinsurance
market, according new research co-authored by Roger Pielke, Jr.
According
to a study "The Truthiness about Hurricane Catastrophe Models," Pielke
and his co-author Jessica Weinkle argue that catastrophe models are
"politically stylized views of the intractable scientific problem of
precise characterization of hurricane risk."
Citing examples from
past events and outcomes, the paper published last month says that
model creators "use choice and preference for outcomes to develop a
model" when they are faced with conflicting scientific theories.
Those choices, in turn, include "political positions on relevant knowledge and the risk that society ought to manage."
Specifically,
Pielke says that the most obvious example of this effect is "the
invention" of the RMS 2006 "medium term" forecast that predicted an on
average 40% increase in hurricane damage on for the Gulf Coast, Florida
and the U.S. Southeast over 5 years.
That forecast, along with
the 2011 update, created huge changes to insurers’ and reinsurers’
probable maximum loss [PML] and, as a result, their capitalization even
though Pielke’s argument that various shifts in modeled estimates of
risk since that time.
"As we show in an example in the paper,
using an idealized portfolio and 2011 models, the PML varied by a factor
of 6. All loss estimates within that huge range have a legitimate
scientific basis. Science alone did not narrow that range –
extra-scientific factors would need to play a role," Pielke says. "The
simplest way [to prevent politicizing models] is to accurately
characterize the modeled solution space."
We should not be afraid to show uncertainties; it is valuable information.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
9 November, 2016
The Weather Channel video uses young kids to promote ‘global warming’ fearsThe
Weather Channel released a climate change video featuring young
children attempting to convince their parents of the seriousness of the
issue. The video, entitled ‘When Kids are Talking Climate – Maybe it’s
Time to Listen!’ was released on November 1, 2016.
Excerpts:
Kids: ‘Dear Mom and Dad: ‘The science is clear’
‘It rains harder now’
‘Sea levels are rising’
‘This is about our families health’
‘Climate change is real, it’s bad and it’s caused by humans.’
‘97% of scientists agree that global warming started decades ago.’
‘Dear Mom and Dad, science says that the impact of climate change could be very catastrophic during my lifetime.’
‘Rising sea levels would displace millions.’
‘A major threat to national security.’
‘Hottest year on record.’
Note:
All of these climate change claims put forth by the kids (and the
adults) are easily debunked. Here is Climate Depot’s official climate
talking points file, just released.
CLIMATE TRUTH FILE: 2016: Skeptical Talking Points from A-Z on Global Warming – Point-By-Point
And all of these climate claims are addressed in the new skeptical film ‘Climate Hustle’ out on DVD now. www.ClimateHustle.com
SOURCE The Battle for our Grasslands and LivestockBy Viv Forbes, Albrecht Glatzle and others
Grasslands
and arable land cover just 10% of Earth’s surface but (with the oceans)
they produce all of our food and fibre. But the productivity and health
of our grasslands, farms and livestock are under threat from global
warming alarmists and green preservationists.
We are afflicted by
climate crazies and methane madness. It is poor public policy that
condones restrictions on grazing operations, or taxes on grazing
animals, based on disputed theories that claim that bodily emissions
from farm animals will cause dangerous global warming.
New
Zealand was the first cattle country to propose a "livestock fart tax".
Four hundred farmers then drove 20 tractors to the Parliament in
Wellington waving placards and banners saying "STOP THE FART TAX". The
proposal was laughed out of Parliament. But the war on farmers and
livestock continues.
Ruminants such as sheep, cattle and goats
cannot make long-term additions to the gases in the atmosphere - they
just recycle atmospheric carbon and nitrogen nutrients in a
cycle-of-life that has operated for millennia.
Grazing ruminant
animals with their emission products have always been part of healthy
grasslands. Only when large numbers of animals are fed artificially and
confined on the one patch of land do pollution problems appear.
Many
otherwise genuine environmentalists are assisting the destruction of
grasslands with their native pastures and endangered grass birds.
Blinded by their love for the trees, they neglect the grasses, legumes,
herbs and livestock that provide their food. In Australia they pass laws
to protect weedy eucalypts invading the grasslands but ignore the
valuable and declining Mitchell grass that once dominated Australia’s
treeless plains.
Grasslands are also under threat from
cultivation for biofuel crops, from subsidised carbon credit forests and
from the remorseless encroachment of fire-prone government reserves and
pest havens.
Trying to control atmospheric carbon-bearing gases
with taxes is futile and anti-life. Even if carbon dioxide levels in the
atmosphere doubled, or more, the climate effect if any, is probably
beneficial (warmer at night and near the poles and with more moisture in
the atmosphere). More importantly, all life on Earth already benefits
from the additional CO2 plant nutrient in the atmosphere, and would
benefit even more were CO2 levels to double.
Nitrogen is the most
abundant natural gas in the atmosphere, inhaled in every breath and an
essential component of all protein. Grazing livestock merely recycle a
few compounds of nitrogen, all of which either return to the atmosphere
or provide valuable nitrogen fertilisers for the plants they graze on.
We
also have the modern methane madness. Mobs of grazing ruminants have
been roaming the grasslands since cave-man days. Methane has also been
seeping from marshes, bubbling out of oceans, leaking from coal seams
and oil seeps and being released in huge quantities from volcanoes. So
what more can a few domestic cows and sheep do to affect this? Methane
from domestic ruminants is a non-problem.
It is a foolish and
costly fantasy to believe that Earth’s climate can be controlled by
passing laws, imposing taxes, attempting to manipulate the bodily
emissions of farm animals or trying to prevent farmers from clearing
woody weeds invading their pastures.
SOURCE Germany says coal to remain relevantGermany’s
economy minister says his country will not be phasing out brown coal
before 2040, as the government looks to ways to ensure minimisation of
job losses in coal regions.
This reinforces the message coming
from the government in early summer. In June Berlin distanced itself
from initial proposals to set out a timetable to exit coal-fired power
production "well before 2050" as part of a national climate action plan.
Now
it plans to set up a committee for climate protection and structural
change that will deal with how to exit brown coal production while
ensuring jobs for the affected regions.
The committee will be asked to come up with proposals by 2018.
The German government has pledged to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 95 per cent compared to 1990 by the middle of the century.
Domestic
hard coal mining are expected to cease in 2018 and Germany's coal
miners and users expect the country's last brown coal mines to close by
around 2045.
SOURCE House science chairman gets heat in Texas race for being a global warming skepticIn
the race for the White House, the climate change debate has been more
or less missing in action. In the race for a central Texas House seat,
the Democrat hoping to topple 30-year incumbent Republican Lamar Smith
has made global warming his top campaign issue.
Democrat Tom
Wakely is campaigning as a champion of climate science in a year when
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — and most other candidates for
Congress, for that matter — have barely touched on the issue, in what is
shaping up to be the hottest year on record.
Wakely has seized
on a theme that has defined Smith’s run in Washington as chairman of the
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology: He’s a climate change
skeptic.
Smith, 68, an attorney from San Antonio who’s
represented the area northwest of the city since 1987, rejects the
scientific consensus that man-made pollution is behind global warming.
He’s used his perch as committee chairman to subpoena federal climate
scientists to discredit their research, issuing a record number of legal
summonses this Congress and turning a panel that was once a sleepy
backwater into an aggressive attack dog.
This has made Smith a
polarizing figure in Washington, beloved by oil and gas interests who
give generously to his campaigns and vilified by those fighting to
reduce global warming pollution.
Now his attacks on scientists
are percolating back home in a district buffeted in recent years by
drought and water shortages. And while Smith does not often highlight
his views on climate change on the campaign trail, Wakely, a
little-known Democratic activist, saw an opening this year.
"Lamar
Smith is the major impediment to anything being done on climate change
in Congress and absolutely nobody is talking about it," said the
63-year-old Air Force veteran and former union organizer who supported
Bernie Sanders. "People in this district are slowly getting the message
that climate change is not a far left wing conspiracy."
Wakely has little shot at unseating Smith, who is running for a 16th term in a safely red district.
But
his campaign isn’t the only sign that Smith’s stance on global warming
is raising some eyebrows back home. Smith has long won the support of
local newspapers. But this year, his hometown paper, the San Antonio
Express-News, refused to endorse him for re-election, citing his
"bullying tactics" on climate change.
"We’ve argued that Smith’s
undeniably conservative credentials have been a good fit for the 21st
congressional District," the editorial board wrote on Oct. 17. "However,
Smith’s actions have developed more transparently this term into an
issue that goes beyond the boundaries of his district. A particular
issue is his abuse of his position as chairman of the House Science,
Space and Technology Committee. Specifically, it is his bullying on the
issue of climate change that should concern all Americans." The
Express-News is one of Texas’s largest newspapers.
The editorial
cited Smith’s threat to Kathryn Sullivan, chief of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration of criminal charges if she did not
release her scientists’ internal communications about a landmark study
they released last year refuting the long-held view of a global
warming pause.
The Express-News did not endorse Wakely, though, saying he is not a good fit for the conservative district.
Texas’s
21st, which stretches from parts of San Antonio to parts of Austin
through rural Hill Country, has been safely red for years, thanks to
redistricting that has given Republicans a generous electoral advantage.
Smith
was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump and
has stood by the nominee, who is favored to win central Texas. Like
Trump, he says the U.S. has not done enough to secure the border with
Mexico and is co-sponsoring legislation to keep out Syrian refugees.
This
Congress, Smith has shown a willingness to go beyond the boundaries of
the science committee’s traditional jurisdiction, subpoenaing attorneys
general and environmental groups investigating whether oil giant
ExxonMobil covered up what it knew of the dangers of climate change and
launching an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email
server as secretary of state. He has also demanded records from the
Environmental Protection Agency to undermine President Obama’s
regulations to reduce emissions from power plants.
"As Chairman, I
have an obligation to conduct vigorous oversight of agencies and
programs within my jurisdiction," Smith said in a statement to the Post.
"Under that umbrella, I work to ensure that federal agencies base their
regulations and policy decisions on the best available science and not
on partisan politics."
SOURCE Another big Australian power station closes -- with a big impact on costs and another threat to system reliabilityEven
after watching what South Australia did to itself – pushing for
renewable energy, increasing electricity prices, shutting down
coal-fired power stations, reducing energy security, and triggering a
statewide blackout – the Big V is rushing headlong down the same path.
Confirmation
the Hazelwood coal-fired power station will close early next year
guarantees power prices will increase by at least 8 per cent in Victoria
next year.
Given SA imports huge amounts of power from that state, the increases will flow across the border.
The La Trobe Valley plant has 1600 megawatts of baseload capacity and has supplied up to 25 per cent of Victoria’s power.
Victoria
has been an exporter of electricity, sending power to SA, Tasmania and
even NSW at times but now will need to import power at peak times –
mainly coal-fired electricity from NSW.
Instead of cheap reliable
coal-fired power, Victoria is following SA with increased reliance on
subsidised, unreliable wind and solar energy. Good luck.
Just
like SA, Victoria has seen car manufacturers and other companies close,
with jobs shed in the steel and aluminium sectors. Power prices have
been a major factor.
More job losses will come – this is deliberate policy leading to inevitable deindustrialisation.
It is bad news for SA because, as industry shrinks across the border, local suppliers will be hit.
And,
as Victoria’s electricity becomes more expensive and less reliable, it
will increase SA’s exposure, given the state’s dangerous reliance on the
Victoria’s Heywood interconnector – as everyone discovered on September
28.
SA’s biggest user of electricity is the Olympic Dam mine – one of the world’s largest uranium and copper operations.
BHP-Billiton
shelved its huge open-cut expansion a few years ago but now plans to
massively expand its underground mining, more than doubling copper
output from 200,000 tonnes a year to 500,000 tonnes over the next
decade.
This is vital for a struggling state economy – Olympic Dam has helped to keep SA above water since the State Bank disaster.
Yet
the mismanagement of the power situation could kill the plans, as the
head of BHP-Billiton’s Australian operations, Mike Henry, told me on
television last week.
Olympic Dam refines copper on site,
requiring vast amounts of "stable, affordable energy" and the company is
deeply worried about a repeat of September’s blackout (that shut it
down for two weeks) and ongoing price spikes.
"Left unresolved,
that sort of thing will start to put at risk some of the investments we
have planned for Olympic Dam," Henry said.
That is a stark
warning. It should create shockwaves in SA and have the Weatherill
government urgently looking at ways to increase baseload power.
Instead, the situation is getting worse because of what the Victorians are doing.
It is difficult to overstate the madness that is afoot – we must be approaching peak lunacy.
In
the name of climate change policies, the two states most reliant on
manufacturing have deliberately chosen policies to increase power prices
and make energy less reliable; and then have mourned the loss of
manufacturing jobs.
And to assuage their deep concerns about
climate change both states have also spent billions of dollars building
desalination plants that are mothballed.
Labor politicians in
both states and federally are now publicly expressing concern about
workers who have lost their jobs in coal-fired power stations when the
policies they have implemented are deliberately designed to shut down
these very generators.
Remember, every time these politicians
mourn a job loss in the energy or manufacturing sectors, this is exactly
what those same politicians have tried to achieve through their climate
policies.
Renewable energy targets and other prices on carbon
are about driving out so-called "dirty" industries and replacing them
with "green" and "clean" jobs – you’ve heard the politicians say that.
They just don’t seem to trumpet these aims so loudly when real people are actually laid off.
And, of course, the real idiocy of all this is that it is doing precisely nothing for the environment.
While
we deliberately make ourselves less competitive, impose higher prices
on ourselves and toss our compatriots out of work, global emissions
continue to rise.
In China and India, they are building more coal-fired power stations that will burn coal mined in NSW and Queensland.
But
in Victoria and SA the unemployed can huddle together in the darkness,
perhaps using a desalination plant as a windbreak, and try to convince
themselves they are saving the planet.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
8 November, 2016
A bullet to the head of WarmismJamal
Munshi shows below that a basic asumption of Warmism is
wrong. Fossil fuel use does NOT bump up atmospheric CO2 levelsResponsiveness of Atmospheric CO2 to Fossil Fuel Emissions
Jamal Munshi
Abstract:
This
short note is a validation of a previous work which found no
correlation between changes in atmospheric CO2 and fossil fuel emissions
at an annual time scale. In this work, this result is tested for
robustness with respect to sample period selection within a range of
data availability. A resampling procedure similar to bootstrap is used.
Resampling ensures that the failure to find a correlation is not an
artifact of the sample period chosen. The results validate the
robustness of the previous finding and imply that here is no evidence
that atmospheric CO2 is responsive to fossil fuel emissions at an annual
time scale net of long term trends. This result is robust. It holds for
all possible combination of years in the study period 1958-2015.
SOURCE Below is about as explicit an "ad hominem" attack as you will find"Attack the man not the message" is a strategy of desperation -- a strategy of no logical or intellectual meritBrendan DeMelle, Executive Director, DeSmog
A
colorful cast of characters has made a living out of denying the
science of climate change. These so-called "experts" often start out
their statements with "I’m not a climate scientist, but…" before
launching into a series of carefully rehearsed talking points meant to
confuse the public on the climate change issue. Many of them are
well-paid operatives of organizations like The Heartland Institute,
CFACT, and Americans for Prosperity, which take contributions from
fossil fuel corporations — including ExxonMobil,the Koch Brothers and
their company Koch Industries — who seek to delay or block any
substantial government policy initiatives meant to curb fossil fuel
emissions or hasten the rapid growth of cheaper, cleaner sources of
energy like wind and solar power.
Below is a list of ten of the most
prominent climate deniers working actively to mislead the public and
delay policy action to address climate change.
SEN. JAMES INHOFE
Senator
James Inhofe (R-OK) is the chairman of the Senate Committee on
Environment and Public Works. According to Oil Change International,
Inhofe has received over $2 million in political contributions from the
fossil fuel industry. He once compared the Environmental Protection
Agency to the Gestapo, and brought a snowball onto the Senate floor to
‘disprove’ global warming. Sen. Inhofe, author of the 2012 book The
Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future,
once claimed on the Senate floor that "man-made global warming is the
greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
MARC MORANO
Executive
director of ClimateDepot.com and communications director for the
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), an anti-science think
tank that has received funding from ExxonMobil, Chevron, as well as
hundreds of thousands of dollars from foundations associated with
Richard Mellon Scaife. Morano previously worked for Sen. James Inhofe
and began his career with Rush Limbaugh.
More
HERE Leaked Speech: Bill Clinton Calls ‘Coal Country’ Most ‘Anti-Immigrant’ Part Of AmericaPlaying the race cardFormer
president Bill Clinton, who previously took flack for mocking the "coal
people" in West Virginia and Kentucky, accused "coal country" of being
the "most anti-immigrant" part of America while speaking at a private
fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.
As he did when criticizing the
"coal people," Clinton again singled out Kentucky and West Virginia
while speaking to the audience of wealthy Democratic donors in November
2015.
Bill and Hillary Clinton (Photo: Mike Segar-Pool/Getty
Images) Bill and Hillary Clinton (Photo: Mike
Segar-Pool/Getty Images)
"One of the reasons I’m for immigration
reform is that on balance immigrants add to the employment base, not
take away from it," Bill said, according to a leaked transcript of the
speech
He added that housing problems "in the most anti-immigrant
parts of America, like in coal country, West Virginia and Kentucky,
don’t have anything to do with immigrants." (RELATED: Bill Clinton
Mocked Working Class Voters At Private Fundraiser)
The transcript
of the speech was published by anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks
among thousands of other documents from the email of Clinton campaign
chair John Podesta.
Bill’s comments are just the latest coal-related gaffe for the Clinton campaign.
Hillary was forced to play damage control earlier this year after promising to put coal miners "out of business."
In September, Bill Clinton mocked the "coal people" of West Virginia and Kentucky for supporting Trump
SOURCE GM wheat shows massive rise in yieldGenetically
modified wheat crops could see a leap in yields after glasshouse trials
showed a massive 40% increase in grain output.
Researchers
focusing on making the photosynthesis process in wheat plants more
efficient are hoping to have the first field trial of this new wheat
crop drilled next spring.
The new wheat plants – with genes added
from a grass called stiff brome – have been showed to assimilate carbon
dioxide better than conventional wheat which led to a big jump in crop
biomass.
Three UK research bodies are joining forces, including
the Universities of Essex and Lancaster together with Rothamsted
Research, to look at the use of GM technology for the first time to
increase crop yields.
"We have seen yield increases of 20 to 40%
in greenhouse pots, although this in not a yield indication for the
field," Christine Raines from the University of Essex told a briefing on
Friday (4 November).
Yield delight
The researchers said
even if they saw half that yield rise they would be delighted, as there
is a need to break through the barrier to wheat yields which has been
seen in recent years.
"Even a relatively modest increase would be
a major advance, even a 5% increase would be amazing," said Malcolm
Hawkesford from Rothamsted.
The research project applied on
Thursday (3 November) to Defra for the go-ahead to grow the wheat trial
which would amount to just under 100sq m of the crop being grown in
Rothamsted’s fenced GM-dedicated 3.2ha growing area.
They are
planning to use the technology in the spring wheat variety Cadenza at
Rothamsted in 2017 and also in 2018 if the trial is improved.
"This
is the only way we can determine whether we can get a yield increase in
the field, and this yield increase could be huge," said Dr Hawkesford.
The
researchers identified that the process of photosynthesis can be
limited by the lack of the enzyme SBPase, so they are looking to
increase the level by engineering wheat plants by introducing a SPBase
gene from stiff brome.
Extra gene copies
They have
produced two types of plants one in which two extra copies of the SBPase
gene are added and another in which six extra copies of the SBPase gene
are introduced.
"We are improving photosynthesis to improve the yield of wheat," said Elizabete Carmo-Silva of Lancaster University.
If
this technique does work then this trait could be transferred to other
crops, while wheat yields could be further increased by looking at other
enzyme levels which might be boosted, the researchers said.
Currently,
only GM maize is grown commercially in the EU. This is grown largely in
Spain and is used to protect the crop against a weevil pest, called the
European corn borer.
Such is the level of opposition across
Europe to GM technology there have been no other GM crops approved and
subsequently grown since 1998.
Last week, UK farm minister George
Eustice hinted British farmers may be able to grow GM crops once the UK
leaves the EU, following the Brexit vote in June.
A recent trial
at Rothamsted looking at GM wheat designed to repel aphids disappointed
researchers as the crop was seen to be no better protected than
conventional wheat.
This trial in 2012 and 2013 was targeted by
anti-GM campaigners and the wheat plots had to be protected by a high
fence, with the cost of the whole trial subsequently rising to nearly
£3m.
The cost of the current GM trial is about £866,000, with
nearly £700,000 coming from the UK government funded Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council and the rest by the US Department
of Agriculture.
SOURCE Science says Australia's record hot summers will become normal (?)Totally
dishonest. No mention that the high 2015 temps were an effect of a
natural El Nino weather pattern -- nothing to do with CO2
Look at the CO2 levels from Australia's Cape Grim climate observatory over the heart of the El Nino period.
Within
an accuracy of parts per billion, there was NO increase in CO2 levels
at all! The warming over the El Nino period was ENTIRELY natural, with
NO contribution from a CO2 rise. CO2 levels did NOT rise so they CANNOT
be responsible for the higher temperatures.
Below we see where the peak of the El Nino effect was. High temps coinciding with NO rise in CO2
So, it was during a period of no CO2 rise that temperatures peaked. Super pesky
Australian
scientists say the hottest year on record globally in 2015 could be an
average year by 2025 if carbon emissions continue to rise at the same
rate.
The latest study has tried to define the concept of what is a new normal when talking about climate change.
Dr
Sophie Lewis of the Australian National University says human
activities have already locked in higher temperatures but immediate
action could prevent record extreme seasons year after year.
"If
we continue with business-as-usual emissions, extreme seasons will
inevitably be the norm within decades and Australia is the canary in the
coal mine that will experience this change first," says Dr Lewis.
"If
we don’t reduce our rate of emissions the record hot summer of 2013 in
Australia — when we saw temperatures approaching 50 degrees Celsius in
some areas — could be just another average summer season by 2035."
The
recent State of the Climate report by the peak science body, the CSIRO,
and the Bureau of Meteorology also says severe fire seasons fueled by
increasingly hot days will continue for Australia.
Australia’s
climate has warmed by around 1 degree celsius since 1910. Extreme fire
weather, and a longer fire season, has increased across large parts of
Australia since the 1970s.
And 2015 was the warmest year since
modern record-keeping began in 1880, according to analysis by NASA’s
Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
However, the latest Australian research shows record-breaking temperatures can be prevented from becoming average.
"Based
on a specific starting point, we determined a new normal occurred when
at least half of the years following an extreme year were cooler and
half warmer," says Dr Lewis. "Only then can a new normal state be
declared."
Using the National Computational Infrastructure
supercomputer at ANU to run climate models, the researchers explored
when new normal states would appear.
The research team looked at temperatures from December to February across Australia, Europe, Asia and North America.
"The
results revealed that while global average temperatures would
inevitably enter a new normal under all emissions scenarios, this wasn’t
the case at seasonal and regional levels," says Dr Lewis.
"We
found that with prompt action to reduce greenhouse gases a new normal
might never occur in the 21st century at regional levels during the
Southern Hemisphere summer and Northern Hemisphere winter."
The research is published in the Bulletin of the American Meterological Society.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
7 November, 2016
Warmist believes in funny moneyThe
guy excerpted below has fallen for the old Douglas credit
fallacy. "Social Creditors" did quite well in Canada for a while,
particularly in B.C., if I remember rightly. And aside from their
misunderstanding of the financial system, I think they were fairly
conservative. So it is amusing that the enthusiastic young Warmist
below has rediscovered it and got it published in the Guardian.
It made my day to read it anyway.
The thing he knows nothing
about is the velocity of circulation but I am not going to try to give a
lesson in Economics 101 in this post. Most amusing of all is that
the "new idea" he has in the final paragraph below is exactly what
happens now. I am pretty sure that the Guardian will be
embarrassed into deleting this article soon so check it out
The
writer below is Jason Hickel, a young professor of anthropology at the
London School of Economics, which has been Left-leaning for just about
the whole of its existence. They do however have a distinguished
record in economics so will certainly be embarrassed by the ignorance
below emanating from their hallowed halls
What is it about Warmism that fries the brains of even quite smart people?How
can we redesign the global economy to bring it in line with the
principles of ecology? The most obvious answer is to stop using GDP to
measure economic progress and replace it with a more thoughtful measure –
one that accounts for the ecological and social impact of economic
activity. Prominent economists like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz
have been calling for such changes for years and it’s time we listened.
But
replacing GDP is only a first step. While it might help refocus
economic policies on what really matters, it doesn’t address the main
driver of growth: debt. Debt is the reason the economy has to grow in
the first place. Because debt always comes with interest, it grows
exponentially – so if a person, a business, or a country wants to pay
down debt over the long term, they have to grow enough to at least match
the growth of their debt. Without growth, debt piles up and eventually
triggers an economic crisis.
One way to relieve the pressure for
endless growth might be to cancel some of the debt – a kind of debt
jubilee. But this would only provide a short-term fix; it wouldn’t get
to the real root of the problem: that the global economic system runs on
money that is itself debt.
This might sound a bit odd, but it’s
quite simple. When you walk into a bank to take out a loan, you assume
that the bank is lending you money it has in reserve – money that it
stores somewhere in a vault, for example, collected from other people’s
deposits. But that’s not how it works. Banks only hold reserves worth
about 10% of the money they lend out. In other words, banks lend out 10
times more money than they actually have. This is known as fractional
reserve banking.
So where does all that additional money come
from? Banks create it out of thin air when they make loans – they loan
it into existence. This accounts for about 90% of the money circulating
in our economy right now. It’s not created by the government, as most
people assume: it is created by commercial banks in the form of loans.
In other words, almost every dollar that passes through our hands
represents somebody’s debt. And every dollar of debt has to be paid back
with interest. Because our money system is based on debt, it has a
growth imperative baked into it. In other words, our money system is
heating up the planet.
Once we realise this, the solution comes
into view: we need banks to keep a bigger fraction of reserves behind
the loans they make. This would go a long way toward diminishing the
amount of debt sloshing around in our economy, helping reduce the
pressure for economic growth.
But there’s an even more exciting
solution we might consider. We could abolish debt-based currency
altogether and invent a new money system completely free of intrinsic
debt. Instead of letting commercial banks create money by lending it
into existence, we could have the state create the money and then spend
it into existence. New money would get pumped into the real economy
instead of just going straight into financial speculation where it
inflates huge asset bubbles that only benefit the mega-rich.
SOURCE Warmist muscle-head confuses CO2 with carbon monoxideIn
a new online video, actor and former California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger once again threatened climate skeptics with death.
Schwarzenegger made the carbon monoxide threat to political leaders who want to stop the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide.
Schwarzenegger
declared in the video: "Some politicians even want to shut down the
EPA’s ability to regulate carbon. I would like to strap their mouth to
the exhaust pipe of a truck, turn on the engine and let’s see how long
it would take them to tap out."
Schwarzenegger also threatened death to skeptics in 2013:
Arnold
Schwarzenegger on global warming ‘deniers’: ‘Strap some
conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they
will agree it’s a pollutant!’
SOURCE Roundup the corrupt fear mongersDeceit and collusion drive campaigns to ban a vital, popular, safe, affordable herbicide
Paul Driessen
Do
we really need more collusion, corruption and deceit in the service of
renegade regulators, organic food interests, anti-chemical activists,
and policies that carry harmful or even lethal consequences?
Glyphosate,
the active ingredient in Roundup, is one of the most widely used
herbicides on Earth. Numerous farmers use it in conjunction with
Roundup-Ready seeds, to grow crops that thrive in fields sprayed to
eliminate weeds – while also being insect-resistant and
drought-tolerant, thanks to other traits built into their DNA. Such
crops significantly reduce the need to spray pesticides and irrigate
fields.
They also permit no-till farming, which eliminates
mechanical weeding, thereby greatly reducing erosion and enabling soils
to retain their stores of carbon, carbon dioxide and other nutrients.
Glyphosate
is also better, safer and less expensive than "organic" alternatives.
On a volume basis, it is much less toxic than salt or vinegar, which are
often combined for homemade weed killers. Farmers also have to use far
more salt-vinegar concoctions and apply them more often than they would
glyphosate, and even then the S-V mix is not nearly as effective.
Industrial-strength organic herbicides also exist.
However, when
ultra-green Sonoma County, California tried one of these "natural
alternatives" to glyphosate, the "organic" product cost 17 times more
than Monsanto’s oft-vilified chemical to cover the same acreage.
Moreover, sprayers had to use hazmat suits and respirators when applying
the natural chemical mix, because it irritated eyes and nasal passages.
Glyphosate/ Roundup requires no protective gear. The "organic" mixture
is also toxic to bees and other beneficial insects; Roundup is not.
These
hard realities force many organic farms to rely on mechanized or hand
weeding. But tractors crush closely planted crops, and even full-sized
hoes don’t offer enough control to avoid damaging sensitive plants. That
means poorly paid migrant farm workers must bend over all day, using
short-handled hoes. So California banned the little hoes, and then
banned "unnecessary hand weeding" since it also causes serious to
permanent back problems – but exempted organic farms from the ban.
With
people having safely eaten trillions of servings containing one or more
GMO ingredients, and hundreds of scientific organizations having
determined that genetically modified foods are perfectly safe, radical
anti-technology groups like Greenpeace have increasingly focused on
glyphosate as their substitute villain. They’ve also enlisted a number
of regulatory agencies, by helping to get anti-chemical activists in
their ranks and launching high-pressure campaigns to secure desired
agency decisions.
Among them is the International Agency for
Research on Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization (WHO) bureau
headquartered in France. IARC simply reviews existing research and
classifies chemicals as definitely, probably, possibly or not likely to
cause cancer in humans at extremely high doses. It does not conduct its
own studies or determine which exposure levels do not actually pose
cancer risks.
Considering that coffee, alcohol, salted fish, and
many nutritious fruits and vegetables are carcinogenic in high doses,
this is not a very useful approach. In fact, since 1965, IARC has
reviewed over 900 chemicals and concluded that only one is "probably not
carcinogenic to humans."
All too often, IARC uses its
classifications to justify chemical bans, without considering other
factors. As a 2016 Toxicology and Pharmacology journal paper by ten US
and EU toxicology and cancer experts demonstrates, this methodology is
outmoded, unworkable and likely to reach erroneous conclusions. Even
worse, IARC is now controlled by anti-chemical activists who have
multiple conflicts of interest and often collude with other activists in
regulatory agencies and extreme environmentalist groups.
What is
really needed, these experts emphasize, is "risk assessment," which
requires evaluating human exposure to a chemical in terms of its avenue
(topical, inhalation or ingestion) and the duration, frequency and
magnitude of exposure, to assess maximum safe doses. Evaluations must
also determine whether substances that cause cancer in animals also do
so in humans. For instance, statins and many other pharmaceuticals are
carcinogenic for animals, but safe for humans. Only after all this is
done can proper risk management and mitigation measures be developed.
However, IARC does none of this.
The IARC hazard-identification
method can lead to crazy results. For instance, it puts processed meat
in the same "definitely carcinogenic" category as poisonous mustard gas.
The paper’s authors ask: Should we treat processed meats the same way
we do mustard gas: reduce exposure to zero? Or should we treat mustard
gas the way we handle red or processed meat: as part of a healthy
lifestyle, in moderation?
Addressing these and other
considerations, the European Food Safety Authority recently concluded
that glyphosate "is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans."
IARC labeled glyphosate "a probable human carcinogen" and vigorously
lobbied Brussels officials for a ban, threatening its approval in the
EU.
This unprecedented political activism raises serious
questions about collusion, dishonesty and lack of transparency at the
IARC, US Environmental Protection Agency and NIH’s National Institutes
of Environmental Health, which is led by anti-chemical activist Linda
Birnbaum. University of Illinois emeritus professor Bruce Chassy, risk
evaluation blogger David Zaruk, the US House of Representatives
Oversight Committee, the Reuters News Agency and others have documented
all of this, and more:
IARC cherry-picked both the studies it
relied on, and data from within those studies, to support conclusions
sought by activists like former NIEH staffer Chris Portier. He drove the
IARC review process, influenced who would be on its evaluation panels,
and campaigned across Europe for a ban – while receiving paychecks from
the anti-pesticide pressure group Environmental Defense Fund. IARC hid
those connections and failed to disclose similar conflicts of interest
by other review panel members.
Now IARC is refusing to release
data and documents used in reaching its conclusions and advising
panelists not to disclose materials requested under FOIA. It claims IARC
is the "sole owner" of all such materials, even though they were
developed using US and EU tax money, and peer review by independent
outside experts is essential for ensuring honest, accurate, scientific
decisions that serve the public interest.
Meanwhile, IARC insists
that its practices are "widely respected for their scientific rigor,
standardized and transparent process and freedom from conflicts of
interest." You cannot make this stuff up.
Meanwhile, EPA has
again delayed its final decision on glyphosate safety, removed a
supportive memo from its website, and given contradictory and deceptive
testimony on the issue to Congress. House Science, Space and Technology
Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has sent a letter to EPA
Administrator Gina McCarthy, demanding explanations and corrections.
One
question involves the relationship between EPA and Chris Portier’s
brother Ken, who was recently added to EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel
on glyphosate. The two served on multiple NIEH and EPA panels and
meetings, without disclosing their relationship, even when Ken reviewed
Chris’s work.
The National Institutes of Health has given tens of
millions of dollars to IARC. And yet, when the House Oversight
Committee questioned its officials about glyphosate decisions and ties
to EPA, NIH agreed to appear only if any hearing was off limits to the
press and public. What are the agencies trying to hide?
Worst of
all, this war on GMO food and glyphosate has lethal consequences. As
former UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has noted, Vitamin A
Deficiency causes 500,000 children to go blind and half of them to die
every year. VAD also causes nutritionally acquired immune deficiency
syndrome, which results in another two million children dying annually
from diseases they would otherwise survive. Nutrient-fortified "Golden
Rice" could prevent VAD – but Greenpeace and other radicals oppose its
use.
That means their 15-years-long war on Golden Rice alone has
killed 30 million children. Tens of millions more have died because the
same extremist groups oppose DDT, other pesticides and fossil fuels.
They are more worried about far-fetched risks from glyphosate and GMO
foods than about this death toll. That is outrageous. This
eco-manslaughter, this crime against humanity, can no longer be
tolerated.
We need to use Roundup on the corruption, collusion, cronyism and callous disregard for human lives.
Via emailCorruption in academeMost
scientists have personalities that are not conducive to being the rock
in the current. They just want to do their research and be left alone.
Furthermore, PhD's are much like military officers. They rise in the
ranks by going along to get along. Show me an officer who told his
superiors they were wrong - and proved it - and I will show you a career
junior officer. Show me an academic going for his doctorate who tells
his professors their theories are all wrong and has a dissertation
clearly demonstrating it - and I will show you someone who will have to
be in love with a masters degree.
This pattern repeats over and
over again. During the years Stalin was slaughtering his people in the
Soviet Union with his insane agricultural policies one scientist became
his favorite, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.
Lysenko believed that
"amassing of evidence was substituted for casual proof as the means
demonstrating the "correctness" of the underlying hypotheses" and those
who failed to conform to the tenets of the new biology could be silenced
or suppressed as enemies of the truth. It also did not concern him if
his followers "manipulated" somewhat their data or their experimental
results, since minor falsifications could still support the ideological
cause, which represented a higher level of truth than the precise
reporting of facts", and for almost 30 years some of the finest minds in
Russian biology either "became infected with....[the] madness" or
"converted" to it. Many if not most scientists in America are now
converts to the insanity because the holy grail of science is no longer
truth but grant money.
In Russia, "scientists, who were
skeptical, were threatened with loss of their working and publishing
opportunities if they did not conform to these views. As a result they
were forced to adjust the direction of their research or to contribute
some kind of work which was in accord with the Stalinist ideology." Some
got around this by publishing entirely in Latin …of which the
commissars were ignorant. Some refused to bend to the madness of the new
biological ideology at all, and were permanently silenced.
We
don't send people to gulags or execute them out of hand for having
differing scientific views but those who don't accept the "consensus"
have been silenced or suppressed as enemies of the truth, and have been
threatened with loss of their working and publishing opportunities if
they did not conform to the acceptable politically correct standards of
"the higher truth".
The left still demands total obedience and
obeisance no matter how insane their positions may be. Stalin and his
favorite scientists caused millions to starve to death, and no one dared
complain! One New York Times reporter, Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer
Prize for lying about Stalin's atrocities claiming no one was starving
Russia.
Yes, the media is part and parcel of this outrage, and
have been since they were infiltrated and infested with communists and
Stalinist agents starting in the 20's. And yes - I might as well really
tick someone off - Joe McCarthy was right! Also, McCarthy didn't go
after Hollywood! That was done by the House on Un-American Activities
Committee - and that was run by the Democrats. And we also know along
with government and Hollywood, these agents infested the unions,
academia, newspapers and radio.
Well, it's time honest scientists
organized, stood up on their hind legs and started suing these misfits
of academia, science, sanity and reality, otherwise they may find out
this nation will become a scientific gulag.
The Soviet Union and
their viperous agents may be gone, but these misfits in academia are
the offspring of vipers, and they're just as deadly in their desires and
intentions as was Stalin was to destroy the United States, one
institution at a time.
SOURCE Businesses Try Not to Sweat New Global Climate Change RuleThe air conditioning and refrigeration industries are accustomed to change.
Indeed,
manufacturers had been bracing for an international climate regulation
targeting them, and representatives of the industries even had a seat at
the negotiating table.
Global leaders last month celebrated
completion of a deal to phase down worldwide emissions of chemical
coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, used in air conditioners
and refrigerators. Manufacturers already investing in new solutions were
hopeful consumers would not experience significant cost increases.
"We
are manufacturers trying to deal with realities of making these things
work," said Kevin Messner, senior vice president of policy and
government relations at the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.
In
interviews with The Daily Signal, representatives of sectors in the
appliance industry described the challenges and opportunities ahead in
complying with the terms of a new global climate deal that Secretary of
State John Kerry called "the single most important step" taken so far to
limit climate change.
On Oct. 15, in Kigali, Rwanda, more than
170 countries, including the U.S., China, and India, agreed to limit the
use of HFCs. They account for a small percentage of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere, but are considered more powerful than carbon dioxide.
The phasedown would begin in 2019, with the goal of a global reduction of 80 percent in the use of HFCs by 2047.
The
agreement came in the form of an amendment to the 1987 Montreal
Protocol, an international treaty ratified during the Reagan
administration and designed to protect the Earth’s ozone layer.
This
means the deal is legally binding, unlike a higher-profile
international climate change accord approved in Paris last year. That
agreement targeted carbon emissions and required only voluntary pledges
from countries to comply.
While the HFC deal has received little
criticism from business interests or Republicans in Congress, at least
one leading skeptic of climate change says the agreement should require
Senate approval. The State Department is reviewing whether the HFC
amendment requires approval as a treaty.
"Should the Obama
administration proceed to formalize acceptance of the latest amendment
to the Montreal Protocol, the Senate must be involved," Sen. Jim Inhofe,
R-Okla., told The Daily Signal in a written statement, adding:
The
Montreal Protocol has been formally amended four times since it entered
into force with each one going through the advice and consent process
in the Senate. Despite the message from the Obama administration, the
limitations of Senate-granted authority to the Montreal Protocol have
not changed.
‘Writing on the Wall’
In response to the
original Montreal Protocol, which phased out use of chlorofluorocarbons,
the ozone-depleting coolants known as CFCs, manufacturers transitioned
to a replacement chemical: HFCs.
While HFCs are healthier for the
ozone layer, many scientists say they, like CFCs, are a strong agent
that produces climate change.
In anticipation of the regulations,
companies collectively have spent billions of dollars researching a
replacement for HFCs and redesigning manufacturing equipment.
"It’s
not normal for industries to ask to be regulated," said Frances Dietz,
vice president of public affairs at the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and
Refrigeration Institute, a major industry group. Dietz added:
But
if you look at it from a business perspective, predictability is very
important. Even if it’s something you’d rather not have to do, at least
if I know what’s coming I can prepare for it. We saw the writing on the
wall and set ourselves up, so we were not surprised. It’s an interesting
story that everybody is on the same page.
Sergio Chayet,
director of a master’s program in supply chain management at Washington
University in St. Louis, says suppliers such as Chemours, Honeywell,
Arkema, and Daikin have invested in research and development on what
they call HFOs, or hydrofluoroolefins. An alternative to HFCs, they
quickly degrade in the atmosphere, limiting how much heat they trap.
These
suppliers have been actively securing patents and building production
facilities in the U.S., China, and Japan, some of which already are
operational.
Making a Change
Some alternatives to HFCs are
in use. For example, a coolant called HFO-1234yf is becoming the
standard chemical used to air-condition new cars in the U.S. and
European Union.
But other alternatives have not been approved in the U.S.
Critics
of HFO-1234yf question its safety and cost. The New York Times reports
the alternative coolant is at least 10 times more expensive than the one
it replaces.
Costs are higher, Chayet said, because the HFO
industry is highly concentrated and protected by patents, giving the
limited participants pricing power.
But, he said, HFOs require
little up-front capital investment because the cooling process is
similar to that of HFCs. That is, it’s relatively easy to retrofit
manufacturing equipment to produce the new coolant.
HFOs also are considered flammable, although not as much so as hydrocarbon, another potential alternative coolant.
Nick
Richards, a spokesman for General Motors Co., told The Daily Signal
that the Detroit-based company has produced more than a million
light-duty vehicles globally with the new refrigerant, HFO-1234yf, since
2013.
Richards referred to HFO-1234yf as the "most highly tested
refrigerant ever to be developed," and said prices for the coolant have
reduced "significantly" in the past few years.
"The refrigerant
remains a cost-effective way to meet environmental standards around the
globe," Richards said. "Vehicle hardware changes required to use the new
refrigerant do not add any significant cost to the overall product."
‘Design to Reality’
Some
industry groups question whether alternative coolants can be proved
safe and effective in the timeline required by regulations.
Before
the international agreement, the Environmental Protection Agency issued
a rule phasing out HFCs in new appliances sold in the U.S., such as
refrigerators, by 2021.
Messner, of the Association of Home
Appliance Manufacturers, said that meeting the 2021 deadline—instead of
the 2024 date proposed by the industry—will cost an additional $230
million.
"Engineers don’t like uncertainty, and that’s where we
are right now," Messner said. "Everyone is assuming the safety standards
will change [allowing widespread use of new coolants] and that could
happen in a year, in 10 years, or it could never happen. That’s nice for
everyone to assume, but as engineers, we need to design to reality."
Industry
groups say most large companies acknowledge the short-term costs of the
transition away from HFCs, but are confident the regulations won’t
impose a significant burden on the industry—or consumers.
Consumer
prices for appliances eventually may rise as much as 2 percent, a
figure in line with previous coolant phasedowns, according to Kevin Fay,
executive director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy,
an industry group that represents chemical companies and appliance
makers. Fay told The Daily Signal:
All things considered, would
we like to be spending resources on other issues? Absolutely, but at the
same time, in terms of addressing energy efficiency and getting
products out there providing health and safety to the customer, the
agreement allows that process to move forward in something of a smoother
fashion.
Developing countries with hotter temperatures, meanwhile, could feel more of an impact.
In one, India, millions of people are on the verge of being able to afford their first air conditioner, cooled by HFCs.
Under
the deal, India and other hotter countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran,
and Pakistan have a more lenient timetable to reduce HFC levels.
"For
developing countries, the increased costs due to patents could end up
making refrigeration and air conditioning unaffordable for many
entry-level consumers," Chayet said.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
6 November, 2016
The Dakota pipeline as an example of government malfunctionUncertainty.
Perhaps the worst of words for private sector investors. The free
market is filled to the brim with it. One rarely if ever knows how
things will transpire. You measure twice – if not three, four or five
times. And then you cut your deal. Then you cross your fingers – and
hope for the best.
And with all of that – eight out ten businesses fail. Ouch.
But
that’s the nature of the private sector. If you want a successful,
vibrant economy – you have to acknowledge and accept this uncertainty as
a part of the deal.
What you don’t need – is all sorts of additional, superfluous, ridiculous uncertainty piled on top of you by government.
And the Barack Obama Administration is Team Uncertainty.
What
you want from government is an orderly process for new laws.
Thankfully, the Constitution sets that up. Elected members of the
Legislative Branch debate bills. We the People can lobby members of
Congress to redress our grievances. Making the bills better – or,
failing that, making Congress better by electing new members.
The
Obama Administration has bypassed all of this. And has instead governed
by a massive flood of regulatory fiats – issued by unelected
bureaucrats. Whom we can’t lobby. Of whom we can’t rid ourselves in the
next election. (In fact, we can’t get rid of them just about ever.)
This
is the very definition of uncertainty. You never know when or where the
next government anvils are going to fall. And you have zero say in any
of it. It is thus impossible to measure twice, thrice or more – and
you’ll never feel comfortable cutting any deal. So fewer and fewer
people do.
Because for all you know your entire business model
may the very next day be irreparably damaged or even deemed illegal – by
some unnamed bureaucrat somewhere within the Gigantism of the
$4-trillion-per-year federal government.
All of this (and more)
is why President Obama will be the first chief executive in our history
to never have a year of even 3% economic growth.
Speaking of –
sometimes, the economy-killing bureaucrat does have a name. And a very
recognizable face. Behold President Obama his own self – throwing an
ocean-sized bucket of government water on the private sector.
Obama
Says Army Corps is Considering Ways to ‘Reroute’ Controversial Dakota
Access Pipeline: "On Tuesday, President Obama weighed in on the Dakota
Access pipeline being constructed to transport oil from North Dakota to a
refinery outside Chicago."
Get that? The Dakota Access Pipeline
(DAPL) is "being constructed." Which means – it’s already been approved.
By FIVE different governments.
The pipeline will run through
four states. And all four of those states’ governments approved the
pipeline. And guess who else approved it? The Barack Obama
Administration – via its aforementioned Army Corps of Engineers.
So
the DAPL folks did exactly what they were supposed (forced) to do. They
played Mother-May-I with five different governments – and received five
go-aheads.
And now President Obama has after-the-fact, retroactively pulled the rug out from under them. Hello, uncertainty.
And in so doing, is siding with the liars and thugs who have been blocking the already-approved project.
Up
to and including the ridiculous New York Times’ ridiculous Bill
McKibben – who last week defended the indefensible in a ridiculous
screed entitled "Why Dakota Is the New Keystone." The title isn’t even
true. DAPL was approved by the Feds (and everyone else) – the Keystone
Pipeline was not.
McKibben having joined with the liars and thugs
in word – word is he will today be joining with them in deed. In
person, in North Dakota, helping to continue to block lawful commerce
from being conducted.
Who are the these liars and thugs? The
Standing Rock Sioux Indian Tribe – and their environmentalist-radical
trail lawyers from EarthJustice.
How are they liars?
The
Disingenuous Duo has filed a lawsuit to block the pipeline, in which
they claim: "Neither [Dakota Access] nor the Corps ever consulted with
the Tribe…or had invited their participation as the Tribe had repeatedly
requested."
Except: "A basic examination of documents provided
by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state utility boards, as well as
filings by the Corps of Engineers and Dakota Access in the United
States District Court for the District of Columbia shows the (Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe) and environmental allies met with regulators multiple
times, and filed over a hundred comments throughout state and federal
review periods. Filings also show that Dakota Access made seven attempts
to meet with the tribe directly but were rejected every time."
So, they’re liars.
How are they thugs?
The
Morton County (North Dakota) Sheriff’s Department has issued a
statement (and offered up some pictures) in which they catalog the very
peaceful protesters’ very peaceful protests. Up to and including:
A woman firing multiple gun shots at the police line,
Protesters throwing Molotov Cocktails at officers,
Two officers receiving minor injuries after being hit by logs and other debris,
Protesters
setting numerous fires to vehicles and other debris; at least nine
vehicles plus construction equipment was torched. (For reference,
the photos that show the burned out vehicles on the bridge are located
at Backwater Bridge on Highway 1806.),
142 people were arrested
on Thursday and Friday bringing the number of protesters who have been
arrested in the County for illegal acts since August 10 to 411.
So, they’re thugs.
All of this lying and thuggery – now tacitly endorsed by the President of the United States.
All in opposition to a pipeline – already approved by the President of the United States.
Yet
another federal-government-sized dose of uncertainty – heaped upon a
private sector already suffering from pronounced crush syndrome.
SOURCE Making The Rogue EPA Obey The Law, One Case At A Time The
Obama administration's war on coal was dealt a setback by a recent
decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West
Virginia. The court held that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
failed to follow the law and did not properly evaluate the job losses
caused by its regulations.
Plaintiffs, including Murray Energy
Corp., a large coal producer, sued the EPA regarding its failure to
comply with the Clean Air Act, which instructs the EPA to "conduct
continuing evaluations of potential loss or shifts of employment which
may result from the administration or enforcement of the provision of
this Act and applicable implementation plans."
The EPA argued
that because there is no specified date by which evaluations should be
completed, there is no enforceable duty to perform any evaluations. The
court, noting the "continuing" language used in the statute, didn't
agree. The EPA here is like a child who after being told by a parent to
"keep your room clean" argues that the absence of a deadline means that
they do not really have to clean the room.
Only in a federal
bureaucracy could the term "continuing" be construed as "never." As the
court noted, the "Blacks's Law Dictionary" definition of "continuing" is
"uninterrupted."
The court stated that "while the EPA may have
discretion as to the timing of such evaluations, it does not have the
discretion to categorically refuse to conduct any such evaluations."
The
court further noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has held "it is
rudimentary administrative law that discretion as to the substance of
the ultimate decision does not confer discretion to ignore the required
procedures of decision-making."
Thus, while Congress gave the EPA
discretion to determine the structure of "continuing evaluations," that
discretion cannot be translated into discretion to not conduct the
evaluations.
The EPA also had the gall to assert that the
plaintiff coal companies had no standing to sue, arguing that no injury
to the plaintiffs could be traced to the failure to perform evaluations.
On
this point the court disagreed, stating, "while the EPA argues that
such (injury) would only be traceable to the earlier actions of the EPA
rather than the failure of the EPA to conduct employment evaluations,
this Court cannot agree. The claimed injuries, while in part traceable
to the prior actions of the EPA, may also be fairly traceable to the
failure of the EPA to conduct the evaluations."
The court then
gets to the real reason why the EPA does not want to perform these
continuing evaluations: Doing so "may have the effect of convincing the
EPA, Congress, and/or the American public to relax or alter EPA's prior
decisions." In other words, the EPA knows that the only way to be sure
it can succeed in its war on coal is to keep the effects secret as long
as possible.
Keeping the effects secret will also help keep
Congress from asking the EPA uncomfortable questions. Here the court,
quoting the U.S. Supreme Court, stated that the "continuing evaluation
requirement 'will allow the Congress to get a close look at the effects
on employment of legislation such as this, and will thus place us in a
position to consider such remedial legislation as may be necessary to
ameliorate those effects.' "
The court ordered the EPA to provide
it with a plan on how it would perform the evaluations. After the EPA
begins performing the required evaluations, Congress should take up the
court's invitation and "get a close look at the effects on employment."
Those effects should be taken into consideration when considering how
much taxpayer money the EPA gets from Congress next year.
SOURCE The "Voluntary" Component of EPA's Clean Power Plan Makes It Even More UnlawfulToday
I filed a comment letter on the Environmental Protection Agency’s
proposed rule titled "Clean Energy Incentive Program Design Details."
The comment period closes today at the stroke of midnight.
As the
title suggests, EPA’s proposal is designed to flesh out the details of
the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP), a major program element of
the agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), on which the D.C. Circuit
Court of Appeals recently held oral argument.
The gist of my
comment letter is that the CEIP makes the Power Plan even more unlawful,
enlarging EPA’s already formidable power grab to pick energy market
winners and losers and rig the electricity marketplace against fossil
fuels.
The CEIP is what’s known in regulatory parlance as an
"early action credit" scheme. In a generic early action credit program,
companies that reduce emissions before the start of a compliance period
receive credits they can later use during the compliance period to meet
part of their obligations. They can also sell the credits in emissions
trading markets.
A key point to bear in mind is that all early
action credit programs transfer wealth, in the form of tradable emission
credits, from those who don’t take early action to those who do. Both
the environmental integrity of the associated emissions reduction
program and the monetary value of the credits demand that each early
credit be subtracted from, rather than added to, the supply of credits
available in the mandatory period. Otherwise credit inflation would
devalue the credits as tradable assets and the total supply of
regulatory allowances would exceed the emissions reduction target or
cap.
Thus, although often touted as "voluntary" and "win-win,"
early action crediting is a coercive, zero-sum game. For every company
that gains a credit in the early action period, there must be another
than loses a credit in the compliance period. Early actors profit at the
expense of companies that don’t participate. That is not an unintended
consequence but the very purpose of such programs. The intent is to
"incentivize" early reductions by imposing windfall losses on those who
do not "volunteer."
The CEIP includes two novel
features not included in any previous early action program or proposal
of which I am aware. First, EPA will create a federal "matching pool"
equivalent to 300 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) to provide bonus
federal credits in addition to early credits awarded by States. Second,
participation is restricted to investors in renewable energy and
demand-side energy efficiency projects. No credits will be awarded to
utilities that achieve early CO2 reductions by improving the heat-rate
efficiency of coal power plants or by shifting baseload generation from
coal to gas.
In short, the CEIP is the first greenhouse gas early
credit program ever adopted or proposed to discriminate against classes
of early reducers based on their fuel source or core technology, and
the first to intensify the zero-sum dynamic of an early action program
by means of a federal-state "matching pool."
A major criticism of
the Power Plan generally is that it is a strategy to expand the market
share of renewables rather than to improve the "environmental
performance" (lower the emissions rate) of existing coal and gas power
plants. The CPP sets performance standards for existing fossil-fuel
power plants that EPA acknowledges are infeasible and unaffordable even
for new sources using state-of-the-art control technology.
To
meet the CPP’s unachievable standards, owners of fossil-fuel power
plants have the "choice" to produce less power from coal or gas
facilities, shut down the plants, or invest in new renewable units,
which are not even "sources" (emitting facilities) under the pertinent
statutory provision, section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. The CPP is
transparently designed to undermine the economics of coal generation and
advantage renewables at the expense of both coal and gas.
The
CEIP will enhance EPA’s ability to suppress coal and gas generation. To
repeat, only investments in renewable energy and demand-side energy
efficiency will qualify for early credits, ensuring that all early
credits are awarded at the expense of fossil-energy interests. Plus, the
early credit "matching pool" will intensify the pain and penalty
already inflicted on fossil-energy interests by their exclusion from the
CEIP, because it will further reduce the supply of credits available to
them in the compliance period by an amount equivalent to 300 million
tons of CO2.
The logic operating here is political, not
statutory. EPA is biased against fossil fuels and seeks to rig the
marketplace against fossil fuels. There is no evidence, textual or
otherwise, that Congress enacted Sec. 111(d) to pick energy market
winners and losers or transfer wealth from fossil energy interests to
alternative energy interests.
Read the full comment letter here.
More information on CEI's legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan, CEI,
et al. v. EPA, is here.
SOURCE Paris climate deal: don’t bet on renewable energy to stop global warmingA realistic Warmist below. He understands the economics, if not the climate dataThe
Paris climate agreement has now officially come into force. Although
Donald Trump and other climate change deniers have vowed to abandon it,
most have hailed the agreement as a huge success and a significant
milestone in our quest to limit the effects of global climate change.
But
here’s the problem: many climate experts warn that the commitments made
at Paris still fall far short of what is required to halt global
warming at the 2°C mark, never mind reversing the growth of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. The simple truth is that the Paris agreement is
blind to the fundamental, structural problems that prevent us from
decarbonising our economies to the radical extent needed.
Take
renewable energy. Among the most progressive leaders in business,
government and NGOs there is a shared belief that, if only we could
switch off the fossil fuel tap and quickly transition towards renewable
energy sources, we still have a chance to save the world from runaway
climate change. All that’s needed is massive investment in wind, solar,
geothermal and other renewables. International agreements such as those
reached in Paris are what makes those investments possible, providing
business confidence and policy commitment.
While I feel part of this group of progressives, there are some hard facts that cannot be ignored.
Fossil fuel still dominates
First,
the renewable schemes to date have largely been at the expense of
unpopular nuclear installations, while the global share of fossil
fuel-generated energy consumption remains at about 80-85%: just where
it’s been since the early 1970s. Yes, massive solar and wind parks are
being built around the world, but they haven’t yet changed the business
models of Shell, BP and other fossil fuel giants. On the contrary, they
feel more secure than ever to invest in fossil fuel sources,
particularly gas, which they see as a "transition fuel" – here to stay
until at least 2050 they say.
Land shortage
Second, the
massive amounts of land required for installing gigawatts of solar and
wind power will destroy natural habitats and take away valuable
farmland. This is already evident in the way existing biomass production
schemes – forests in the US for instance, sugar cane in Brazil or palm
oil in Malaysia – have had serious environmental and social side-effects
to the extent that they have been labelled as "greenwash.
There
simply isn’t enough accessible land for all the solar or wind farms that
would be needed to transition to a renewable future. Wherever
renewables have been developed at the "mega" level, they end up
bulldozing, quite literally, people and wildlife. And generally it’s the
poorest, usually rural, communities who are disproportionately
affected, given that their land values are lowest and existing users
have little power or formal land rights. For example, large-scale
hydroelectric dam projects, currently the greatest source of renewable
energy, have destroyed many human communities and flooded irreplaceable
natural habitats.
Yes, offshore wind can fill some of the gaps,
but it is more expensive to build and maintain than onshore, and the
generated energy has to be transmitted over long distances.
Heavy on metals
Third,
as French scientist Olivier Vidal and his colleagues recently pointed
out, the shift to renewable energy will "replace one non-renewable
resource (fossil-fuels) with another (metals and minerals)." Vidal
estimates that 3,200 million tonnes of steel, 310 million tonnes of
aluminium and 40 million tonnes of copper would be needed to build the
latest generations of wind and solar facilities. Together with demand
from electric vehicle manufacturers, a worldwide renewables boom would
rely on a 5% to 18% annual increase in global production of minerals for
the next 40 years.
Similarly startling projections are made for
other materials oiling the wheels of green capitalism, including silver,
lithium, copper, silicon, gallium and the rare earths. In many cases,
supplies of these raw materials are already dwindling. The Toyota Prius,
for example, one of the greenest cars on the market, relies on a range
of very dirty rare earth minerals, the excavation and processing of
which has devastated large areas of Inner Mongolia in China.
Removing carbon
Lastly,
the climate challenge is so urgent and huge that we actually need to
remove carbon from the atmosphere, rather than just switching to
renewables. That’s the view of prominent climate scientist James Hansen,
the former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who has
shown that, even if we switched to zero-carbon energy sources today, we
would still be facing a serious climate challenge for centuries to come.
What
this all means is that the Paris agreement doesn’t go far enough. In
fact, it might give us the impression of moving in the right direction,
but actually the pledged actions are so far off what is needed, it
spreads false hope.
So, what is needed then?
A realisation that simply switching to renewables alone will not solve the climate change problem.
We need to start removing carbon from the atmosphere.
We need to tackle the demand side. We cannot simply assume that relentless economic growth is compatible with a green future.
These
points raise uncomfortable questions that only those who can think and
act against the grain dare to ask. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t
transition to renewable energy. Not at all. But that alone will not save
the climate. The world’s climate experts and leaders in business,
government and NGOs, who are about to gather in Marrakesh for yet
another UN conference, would do well in starting to engage with this
uncomfortable truth.
SOURCE Why Climate Spending Does Nothing and Should Be ScrappedComment from AustraliaThe
industrial burning of fossil fuels has released CO2 that is purported
to be responsible for .7 degrees of planetary warming over the last
century, and climate models predict it could be responsible for up to
another 2 – 6 degrees over the next 100 years. Despite the fact that
very few of the climate change predictions made since the late 80’s have
come true (think empty dams, no more snow in the UK and an ice-free
arctic) if a warmer earth is going to be problem, what can we do about
it?
Mainstream thinking tells that leaving fossil fuels in the
ground is the answer. According to the IPCC we must act now to reduce
emissions substantially in order to reduce climate risks and increase
our chances of adapting to a warmer world. Across the globe various
carbon pricing schemes, taxes and renewable energy subsidies have been
put in place in order to roll back the clock on global carbon dioxide
emissions.
In Australia we have the Emissions Reduction Fund to
which the government have allocated $2.55 billion in order to to help
achieve Australia’s 2020 emissions reduction target of five per cent
below 2000 levels by 2020. Then there is the $1 billion dollars pledged
after the Paris Climate Summit last year, $200 million pledged over 4
years for the Global Climate Fund, and also $200 million dollars pledged
to Mission Innovation, a multi-country group whose mission is to
accelerate global clean energy innovation. It has been estimated that
the overall gross cost of decarbonising Australia’s energy production
over the next 20 years will be $60 billion.
But what will we get
for those dollars and how much will it affect global temperature? With
perhaps the exception of Mission Innovation, which focuses on more on
‘clean’ energy innovation and not carbon reduction, the dollars spent
largely serve to increase energy poverty and slow economic growth, by
making energy production more expensive. Together with the Renewable
Energy Targets we are also heading towards a 23.5% reliance on
unreliable renewable energy sources by 2020, and nobody can say with any
accuracy exactly how many degrees of future warming these measures will
mitigate. Seeing as Australia emits just 1% of the total global carbon
dioxide emissions per year, and we are striving to reduce this to 5%
less than our 2000 emission levels, we can assume it’s not very much.
Meanwhile, worldwide there are 350 gigawatts of coal projects currently
under construction, and 932 gigawatts of pre-construction coal proposals
in the pipeline. Compare that to Australia’s annual coal production
capacity of 29 GWe in 2014, it becomes apparent that our efforts are not
only futile, but seriously undermined.
Consider also that global
population will continue to rise until at least mid-century, meaning
that in order for global carbon dioxide emissions to even remain
stagnant, per capita emissions must continually fall proportionate to
population growth. We are told that if fossil fuel use and carbon
dioxide emissions stabilise at today’s levels, the climate will still
warm by .6 degrees over the next 100 years. To achieve this continual
reduction in per capita emissions, it means no new cheap energy for the
developing world, and somebody would have to stop India, Indonesia and
China from building new coal powered plants. A realist knows that this
will never happen; it is more likely that globally we will continue on a
‘business as usual’ course. No number of carbon reduction schemes in
the West will have any ability to stop this growth and they certainly
won’t have any effect on the temperature.
But in rushing to
decarbonise, are we on the right track? Alex Epstein, author of The
Moral Case for Fossil Fuels outlines in his book just how much benefit
fossil fuel use has been to humanity. By every measure human well-being
is better than has ever been. We have cleaner air to breathe free from
wood smoke, clean water, sanitation, sturdy homes, modern medicine and
modern farming methods all due to the cheap reliable energy that fossil
fuels provide. To him, the planet is here for us to modify and improve
and in doing so we improve our lives. He even argues that fossil fuels
improve the environment, evidenced by the fact that richer,
industrialised nations have more measures in place to protect the
environment than poorer, non-industrialised nations. By continuing to
access cheap and plentiful energy through the burning of fossil fuels we
are further equipping ourselves to withstand extreme weather events,
and overcome and adapt to any changes a that warmer planet may bring.
Mortality rates due to extreme weather events have actually declined by
95% since 1900, due, one can assume, to the protection modern fossil
fuel powered technology affords, by way of satellite monitoring and more
powerful modes of disseminating information.
Those who hark back
to pre-industrialised societies as some sort of utopian existence where
man is at one with nature, neglect to realise that without modern
civilisation we would be faced with disease, hunger and very short and
miserable lives. Those who demonise the ‘dirty fossil fuel industry’
naively forget just how much our modern lifestyles relies on it in order
to function. They also forget that ‘clean’ energy sources have their
own negative environmental impacts, and that fossil fuels and rare
earths are required in order to produce ‘climate friendly’ solar panels
and wind turbines.
What is comes down to is risk benefit
analysis. No power source currently available is free from negative
impacts. Fossil fuels can be polluting, but newer technologies are
making it less so. Eventually fossil fuels are going to run out (but
much later than the ‘peak oil’ scare had us believe) and at that point
motivation to invest in alternatives will be at its greatest. Once
alternative energy sources become viable under their own steam, demand
for fossil fuels will decline. Our future lies in innovation, human
ingenuity and an energy market free from government subsidies and
incentives, that will provide us with the platform to develop new energy
technology that works. It helps to remember that we don’t actually know
with any certainty what the future climate will be; we need to be able
to adapt to any future climate problems we may face including rapid
warming or indeed global cooling.
Energy policies that attempt to
push a move away from fossil fuel consumption before we are really
ready have everything to do with ideology and nothing to do with common
sense. The billions of taxpayer dollars Australia is spending in order
to ‘do something’ about the climate is money down the drain and an
example of government waste. It is money that could be better spent on
any number of programs that would actually have a beneficial effect on
our environment, or on our standard of living. Our climate dollars
will have next to no impact on the climate, and are instead just very
expensive tokenism.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
4 November, 2016
Papa Gore! DiCaprio on Gore’s influence: ‘He literally took me, you know, like a child….and explained what global warming was’And he's learnt nothing sinceDiCaprio:
"I actually got to meet Al Gore, who — I asked him what was the, you
know, the most important environmental issue in the world, and he,
without hesitation, said ‘global warming’ and literally took me, you
know, like a child and wrote out a chart and explained what global
warming was and how, um, basically because of, you know, carbon
emissions in our atmosphere, we’re going to, you know, change our
climate forever." - Interview at 42:50 min. with Charlie Rose on PBS in a
2004.
SOURCE Video at link
Ecofascists Still Looking for BogeymenExxon ordered to turn over 40 years of documents on climateIn
the latest chapter of the saga regarding ecofascist persecution over
global warming, New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager ordered
ExxonMobil and its accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to provide 40
years-worth of scientific, technical and administrative documents
related to the energy company’s internal studies on the impact of fossil
fuels on climate change.
Ostrager’s ruling appears to come in
response to actions taken by state attorney general Eric Schneiderman,
who last year opened an investigation into whether ExxonMobil
deliberately misled the public and the government about the true impact
of its products on the environment. Because the Left would never mislead
about its agenda.
Schneiderman didn’t have any real proof
regarding malfeasance by the energy company, but he does have political
momentum in the form of a group called Green 20. This climate mafia of
sorts is yet another offshoot of the Left’s attempts to shut down debate
over climate change by pursuing actual criminal charges against those
who disagree with the climate alarmist crowd’s interpretation of data
and prescription for policy.
For the ecofascists and their
enablers in the judiciary (i.e., the aforementioned Ostrager), actual
proof of misdeeds is not necessary to compel ExxonMobil to produce the
documents in question. Worse still is that Ostrager’s ruling presents a
dangerous precedent, demonstrating that political will alone can drive
judicial decisions, with Rule of Law left to twist in the wind.
ExxonMobil
and PwC have claimed that any legal action against them should take
place in Texas, as that is where the company is headquartered. They also
recognize that Texas is friendlier to the relationship between
companies and their accounting firms. Unsurprisingly, Ostrager rejected
their claim, stating that New York is a perfectly good venue for this
case as ExxonMobil also does business there. He stated his belief that
ExxonMobil and PwC’s interpretation of Texas business laws is skewed,
therefore apparently giving him the right to fleece the company in the
Empire State.
ExxonMobil is sure to fight this order. It had
better do so unless it wants the government to run roughshod over its
rights. The challenge that has been laid down with this case will take
some time to wind its way through the courts, so it will be worth
watching what happens very closely. More than mere hot air is at stake.
SOURCE Trump: We Will Cancel ‘Global Warming Payments’ To The UNRepublican
presidential nominee Donald Trump told supporters at a Florida campaign
rally he would "cancel billions in global warming payments to the
United Nations" if he won the election.
"We will also cancel
billions in global warming payments to the United Nations, and use that
money to support America’s vital environmental infrastructure and
natural resources," Trump told supporters Wednesday.
Democrats
often take the opposite tact in Florida when it comes to global warming.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign has pointed
to flooding in Miami Beach as evidence of global warming’s worsening
effects.
The former secretary of state also suggested global
warming strengthened Hurricane Matthew as it devastated Florida’s
eastern coastline in October. Clinton also attacked Trump for calling
global warming a Chinese "hoax."
Trump has shaken off such
criticisms and is playing up the billions of taxpayer dollars President
Barack Obama pledged to give the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF). Obama
said he’d give the GCF $3 billion — the president’s already handed over
$500 million to the GCF.
"We’re spending hundreds of billions of
dollars. We don’t even know who’s doing what with the money," Trump
said, promising to spend that money in the U.S. instead.
"We’re
gonna work on our own environment, Trump said. "That includes repairing
the Herbert Hoover Dike in Lake Okeechobee, protecting the Florida
Everglades."
Florida is often portrayed by environmentalists as
on the frontlines of global warming, but that message doesn’t seem to be
a winning one based on recent polling.
RealClearPolitics has
Trump leading by one percentage point in Florida, based on the average
of seven October polls. For perspective, Clinton was leading by four
points in late October, according to RCP.
SOURCE Australian power station closure: Electricity bills could rise 8pc, Victorian Government modelling showsA
Greenie triumph. They have been agitating to achieve this
shut-down for a long time. Why? Because it is Victoria's
"dirtiest" power station. But Greenie dirt is different. In
this case the dirt is an invisible, tasteless and odorless gas that our
bodies create all the time up until our death: CO2Household
power bills could increase by between 4 and 8 per cent following the
closure of the Hazelwood power station, modelling released by the
Victorian Government shows.
Hazelwood's majority French owner, ENGIE, is tomorrow expected to announce the plant will close in March next year.
Hazelwood
generates up to a quarter of Victoria's energy supply, and the loss of
its cheap, brown-coal fired electricity would push up power prices.
The
ABC has obtained government-commissioned modelling that estimated the
average residential power bill would rise by about 4 per cent in 2017,
or $44 a year.
That's the equivalent of 85 cents a week.
The analysis, by Carbon + Energy Markets, is based on futures market wholesale price projections.
However
a separate analysis based on assumptions by the Department of
Environment, Land, Water and Planning, predicted the average household
bill would remain unchanged in 2017, then rise by about 8 per cent in
2018, or $86 a year. That's the equivalent of $1.65 a week.
"The reality will be that if Hazelwood closes there will be an impact on electricity pricing," Treasurer Tim Pallas said.
"How much that will be we'll need to continue to monitor."
However Mr Pallas said the closure of Hazelwood would not jeopardise Victoria's energy security.
With
continued questions about the future of the Hazelwood power station,
the next generation has its eyes set on renewable energy.
"We
have been given absolute assurances that there is more than enough
energy in the network to sustain and support the community's energy
needs," he said.
Shadow Treasurer Michael O'Brien disagreed.
"Put
it this way. Hazelwood provides 25 per cent of our electricity needs,"
he said. "If you're sitting on a four-legged chair and one leg falls
off, it's not going to stay upright for very long."
Mr O'Brien
quoted analysis by Frontier Economics which forecast retail prices for
Victorian householders would increase by up to 25 per cent immediately
after a Hazelwood shut down.
The closure of Hazelwood would cost about 800 jobs in the Latrobe Valley, which already has a high unemployment rate.
SOURCE Irresponsible peddlers of a Green/Left scare story get their just dessertsFronted
by Maryanne Demasi, the Australian ABC "Catalyst" program aired a
scare story saying that mobile phones and Wi-Fi caused health impacts
including brain tumours. That caused an immediate outcry from the
scientific community who know the evidence on such a hoary old nonsense.
The
Catalyst staff should have known better. The effect of
electromagnetic radiation on health has been a big boogeyman for many
years but the contrary evidence is huge. Notably: From the early days of
mobile phones until now there has been no upsurge in brain
cancer. Now that mobiles are very widely used, we should be
swimming in brain cancer cases by now. But we are not. High or low
levels of mobile phone use and the resultant radiation makes no
difference. It's all just attention-seekers big-noting themselvesStaff
on the ABC’s Catalyst program staff have been told by the ABC’s
director of television Richard Finlayson that they will all be made
redundant.
In a meeting at Ultimo attended by TV management and
human resources the presenters and producers were told the magazine
style program was ending.
A last-minute bid by senior ABC staff
on Wednesday to overturn the board’s decision to axe Catalyst failed,
sources told Guardian Australia.
The board had been presented with reasons why the ABC should continue to cover science properly with an in-house science unit.
An
internal review after Catalyst presenter Maryanne Demasi’s Wi-Fried?
program was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines
recommended the program be axed and Demasi and all the other staff be
made redundant.
Finlayson told staff that nine people will lose
their jobs and that the changes to Catalyst were not driven by the
Demasi incident alone.
"For 2017, Catalyst will move from the
current half-hour, magazine-style program structure to a one-hour
documentary format, focused on high-impact, single-issue programs or
series," he said.
"It will be presented by leading science
experts, chosen for the various programs. This shift will align Catalyst
with world’s best practice for science programming. An embedded digital
capability will deliver short-form content around each program and
throughout the year to increase the ABC’s digital science offering on
ABC and third party social platforms.
"Finally, we must recognise
that Catalyst and its team have served our audiences and the science
community well for many years. However, we need to do what we believe is
best for audiences, and that means adjusting our approach to best meet
their needs and the realities of a changing market. We will work closely
with those staff impacted by these changes to ensure they are treated
respectfully throughout this transition."
Under the baord’s plan
the award-winning program will be replaced by 17 one-hour science
specials, mainly from the independent production sector, commissioned by
new staff the ABC is going to hire.
The ABC staff union, the Community and Public Sector Union, was holding meetings with management and staff on Thursday morning.
A letter from the ABC section secretary, Sinddy Ealy, to management fell on deaf ears.
"Catalyst
fills a unique and important place in Australian science journalism and
we share concerns that a longer-format replacement would mean important
and exciting scientific work was ignored," Ealy said.
"It would
be a huge disservice to the Australian public if the ABC’s strategy is
to intentionally dumb down specialist content in favour of ratings.
"The
changing media landscape means the importance of ABC’s specialist
content has never been greater. We recognise that ABC should review its
programs regularly, but they also need to ensure that quality specialist
content and the staff behind that content are retained."
Senior
ABC program makers warned that ditching the weekly half-hour program and
disbanding the science unit would lead to a dumbing down of science
programming and in effect kill off Australian science on television.
Demasi
has been on leave since a review of her Wi-Fried? program – which
linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer –
was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines.
The
discredited program was the second Catalyst story by Demasi to be found
in breach of the ABC’s editorial policies and to be removed from the
website. In 2013 Demasi kept her job despite an editorial breach for a
program about statins.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
3 November, 2016
Sir David Attenborough: ‘Shoot’ Donald Trump and Leave Politics to the ExpertsWhy
not shoot David Attenborough? If he thinks murder is an
appropriate solution to political disagreements he should perhaps be
careful that someone does not apply that principle to him. Looking
at his comments below, it's hard to decide whether Sir David is a
Fascist or a Communist
UPDATE: A reader writes: "Such
a pubic declaration in USA would land you in Jail and even now it could
lead to a warrant for his arrest. A threat on a Presidential candidate
is a serious crime"Sir David Attenborough, the veteran
broadcaster and climate change alarmist, has attacked the involvement of
voters in politics beyond elections, suggesting the only way to stop
Donald Trump is to "shoot him" and that complex political questions like
Brexit should be blocked by "wiser" politicians.
Condemning Mr.
Trump’s climate-scepticism, Sir David asked: "Do we [foreigners] have
any control or influence over the American election? Of course we don’t.
We could shoot him… it’s not a bad idea."
Whilst the Radio Times
journalist conducting the interview suggested it was a joke met with
"giggles", such violent rhetoric from this liberal establishment figure
and cultural icon may bbe seen as hypocritical.
Furthermore, Sir
David went on to explain that he was deadly serious about his desire to
block popular, elected individuals and decisions via undemocratic means.
"There’s
confusion, isn’t there, between populism and parliamentary democracy,"
he told the Radio Times, one of Britain’s widest-read and oldest
magazines. "I mean, that’s why we’re in the mess we are with Brexit, is
it not?"
"Do we really want to live by this kind of referendum?" he asked of the European Union (EU) plebiscite.
"What
we mean by parliamentary democracy is surely that we find someone we
respect who we think is probably wiser than we are, who is prepared to
take the responsibility of pondering difficult things and then trust him
– or her – to vote on our behalf," Sir David continued.
He said
he was concerned by Michael Gove’s EU referendum claims that the British
people have had enough of experts. "That’s why politicians getting up
and saying, ‘We’ve had enough of experts’ is so catastrophic," he added.
Donald
Trump may not be the only person Sir David believes would be better off
dead. As a patron of the Population Matters, the veteran climate change
alarmist is a subscriber to an organisation which in 2011 stated their
goal of reducing the global population to a "sustainable" 5.1 billion.
The present population is presently an estimated 7.4 billion.
Speaking
in support of the aims of the group in 2012, the television personality
said: "I can’t think of a single problem that wouldn’t be easier to
solve if there were less people".
SOURCE Clinton's Environmental CleanupThis
sure won’t silence the chatter from the Bernie Sanders fan club that
claims the system is rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. The unearthing
of hacked emails from WikiLeaks appears to reveal evidence of more
collusion — this time courtesy of the League of Conservation Voters,
which plotted to do whatever it took to rally behind Clinton. That
conclusion is supplemented by the fact the group offered her a do-over
after she turned in a weak environmental questionnaire.
The
findings were dug up by Emily Atkin, who reports, "LCV sent the Clinton
campaign a questionnaire in May 2015, asking her position on at least 20
key issues including climate change, Arctic drilling and the Keystone
XL pipeline. The Clinton campaign replied to the questionnaire in
mid-June. But in July, the Clinton campaign received a response from LCV
executive Tiernan Sittenfeld, who said many of the answers on the
questionnaire were not good enough."
The biggest sticking point
was Clinton’s shifty position on Keystone XL. LCV executive Tiernan
Sittenfeld wrote, "It’s good to see her moving in the right direction.
But it’s hard to imagine we can move forward until she makes clear she
now opposes KXL." Despite the group’s concern, Sanders — the more
established ecofascist — was snubbed anyway. In fact, LCV gave Clinton
another chance to fortify her environmental credentials.
In
addition to demanding she "explicitly oppose Arctic Ocean and
mid-Atlantic drilling" and "support regulating existing sources of
methane," Sittenfeld said, "We very much hope that the attached
questionnaire can be strengthened." And as Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw explains,
Clinton pivoted to where the political winds were blowing: "In
September of 2015 she released a statement saying that she was against
the pipeline (a position she didn’t take as Secretary of State) and that
was after this letter was received, but two months before the LCV
endorsement. Similarly, they chided her for not opposing Arctic
drilling. She turned around in August and dutifully condemned that
practice as well."
"She’ll say anything" to get elected. That’s
what Barack Obama said of Hillary Clinton in 2008. He was right. So is
Sanders when he says the DNC and other leftist groups conspired against
him, an assertion also backed up by the WikiLeaks hack. But it certainly
doesn’t help Sanders that he endorsed his Wall Street rival anyway.
SOURCE The Phony War Against CO2Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide has helped raise global food production and reduce povertyBy Rodney W. Nichols and Harrison H. Schmitt
National
polls show that climate change is low on the list of voters'
priorities. For good reason: In the U.S., and for much of the world, the
most dangerous environmental pollutants have been cleaned up. U.S.
emissions of particulates, metals and varied gases-all of these: ozone,
lead, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and sulfur-fell almost 70%
between 1970 and 2014.
Further reductions will come from improved
technologies such as catalytic removal of oxides of nitrogen and
more-efficient sulfur scrubbers. This is a boon to human health.
But
a myth persists that is both unscientific and immoral to perpetuate:
that the beneficial gas carbon dioxide ranks among hazardous pollutants.
It does not.
Unlike genuine pollutants, carbon dioxide (CO2) is
an odorless, colorless gas. Every human being exhales about two pounds
of CO2 a day, along with a similar amount of water vapor. CO2 is
nontoxic to people and animals and is a vital nutrient to plants. It is
also a greenhouse gas which helps maintain earth at a habitable
temperature.
Fear of excessive warming from more CO2 in the
atmosphere, including that released from human activity, has caused some
people to advocate substantial and expensive reductions in CO2
emissions. But observations, such as those on our CO2 Coalition website,
show that increased CO2 levels over the next century will cause modest
and beneficial warming-perhaps as much as one degree Celsius (1.8
degrees Fahrenheit)-and that this will be an even larger benefit to
agriculture than it is now. The costs of emissions regulations, which
will be paid by everyone, will be punishingly high and will provide no
benefits to most people anywhere in the world.
In 2013 the level
of U.S. farm output was about 2.7 times its 1948 level, and productivity
was growing at an average annual rate of 1.52%. From 2001 to 2013,
world-wide, global output of total crop and livestock commodities was
expanding at an average rate of 2.52% a year.
This higher food
security reduces poverty and increases well being and self-sufficiency
everywhere, especially in the poorest parts of the developing countries.
Along with better plant varieties, cropping practices and fertilizer,
CO2 has contributed to this welcome increase in productivity.
The
increase of atmospheric CO2 following the Industrial Revolution also
has facilitated the expansion of natural vegetation into what had been
barren areas, such as the edges of the Sahara and the Arctic. According
to the U.N., the world will add 2.5 billion people over the next 30
years, most of them in developing countries. Feeding these people and
assuring them a comfortable living standard should be among our highest
moral priorities. With more CO2 in the atmosphere, the challenge can and
will be met.
National policies must make economic and
environmental sense. When someone says, "climate science is settled,"
remind them to check the facts. And recall the great physicist Richard
Feynman's remark: "No government has the right to decide on the truth of
scientific principles."
SOURCE If experts had been right about sea ice, there would be no polar bears in ChurchillThe
simple fact is that if polar bear experts had been right about the
threat to polar bears from the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic,
there would be no polar bears in Churchill this fall. No bears for
tourists to photograph, none for biologists to study, and certainly none
for the BBC to film for an upcoming three-part TV special called
"Arctic Live."
The low-ice future that biologists said would doom
polar bears to extinction by 2050 has already happened in 8 out of the
last 10 years. The sea ice future has been realized.
Polar bears
have experienced those supposedly deadly low-ice summers for almost a
decade but the global population did not drop by 2/3 as predicted and
not a single one of the ten subpopulations predicted to be extirpated
under those conditions has been wiped out.
How much more wrong
can you be than that? Will the BBC mention this conundrum in their show?
Will the polar bear experts they consult share this fact with viewers?
We’ll all have to watch and see
Yet, almost a decade of
polar-bear-destroying sea ice levels did virtually none of the damage
predicted to occur – fat polar bears still come ashore in Western Hudson
Bay and migrate through Churchill waiting for ice to form, and not a
single subpopulation (let alone ten) has been wiped out (Wiig et al.
2015).
Global polar bear numbers have not declined at all, let
alone a decline of 67% – in fact, the latest estimate of 22,000-31,000
polar bears worldwide (IUCN Red List, 2015) is the highest it’s ever
been.
More
HERE $1.2bn economic cost of environmental ‘lawfare’ in AustraliaEnvironmental
groups’ legal challenges to development projects ranging from dams and
roads to coalmines are estimated to have cost the economy up to $1.2
billion — an amount that is rising as more "vexatious and frivolous"
claims are made.
The 32 legal challenges under the environment
laws that went to court meant developers spent a cumulative 7500 days —
or 20 years — in court even though 28 of the environmental cases were
defeated and three required only minor technical changes to go ahead.
The Institute of Public Affairs estimates that the delays to the projects "cost the Australian economy as much as $1.2bn".
The
conservative think tank’s investigation into challenges to projects
under section 487 of the Environment Act, which allows anyone with a
"special interest in the environment" the right to challenge, found that
environmental groups carried out "an ideological anti-coal,
anti-economic development agenda" aimed at holding up projects to reduce
profitability and investment.
"Given the high failure rate and
frivolous nature of many of the legal challenges, it is clear it hasn’t
been applied in the way initially intended and rather has been
persistently abused by green groups whose primary motivation is an
anti-coal agenda," the IPA report says.
Drawing on Productivity
Commission calculations, the IPA finds the use of section 487, which was
introduced by the Howard government in 2000, "is estimated to have
cost the economy between $534 million and $1.2bn".
"This
estimate is likely to underestimate the total cost to Australia, as it
doesn’t capture all flow-on effects to employment, investment and higher
capital costs," the report says.
"Some projects never go ahead due to heightened risk of legal challenges and consequent higher capital costs."
The
Turnbull government is trying to amend the laws to prevent the delaying
tactics of "green lawfare" in the courts, after it was revealed a
highly orchestrated, secretly foreign-funded organisation of
environment groups was trying to stop coalmining in Australia using the
courts to undermine investor confidence.
The government is also
looking at the tax-exempt status of environmental groups that are
funded from overseas. Leaked emails, passed on to Hillary Clinton’s
election campaign chairman, John Podesta, revealed that the groups
wanted to hide its foreign funding.
The emails confirmed the
co-ordinated campaign to stop the vast Adani coal project at Carmichael
in northern Queensland and coalmining in Australia.
Resources
Minister Matt Canavan said last night the object of environmental court
cases was "not to win, but to delay" and so undermine investor
confidence and halt development.
"These activists aren’t playing
to win, they are happy to lose as long as it wastes an investor’s time
and adds to their costs," Senator Canavan said.
"They seek to
subvert our legal system for political ends … If these disruption
tactics aren’t stopped they will cause economic damage to our country
through lost investment and jobs."
Labor environment spokesman
Tony Burke said yesterday the laws should not restrict who can launch a
challenge because "for the matters that hit national environmental law
it’s accepted that every Australian has an interest in them".
"Every
Australian does have an interest in a World Heritage Area, in the Great
Barrier Reef, in a National Heritage Area or whether or not a species
is going to be wiped out," Mr Burke said.
He told ABC Radio
National in relation to the Adani coal project that, subject to
environmental approvals, federal Labor had supported it.
Mr Burke
said complaints about foreign-funding of opposition to the Adani
project went a bit far when the project was Indian and the Liberal
Party wouldn’t oppose foreign funding of political parties.
On
Sunday Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk joined the
condemnation of US funding of the campaign to block Adani’s project.
The
IPA said total projects in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland were
expected to attract more than $28bn in investment and create more than
15,000 jobs during construction and 13,000 jobs once operational.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
2 November, 2016
Warmists spell out the enormity of what they are askingThey
say, however, that only "prosperity" is in danger. Vast sea level
rises seem to be off the table now. We will just be poorer.
Better poor than the upheavals they prescribe. The upheavals will
not of course happen but they have already done a lot to make us poorerThe world's biggest gamble
Johan Rockström et al.
Abstract
The
scale of the decarbonisation challenge to meet the Paris Agreement is
underplayed in the public arena. It will require precipitous emissions
reductions within 40 years and a new carbon sink on the scale of the
ocean sink. Even then, the world is extremely likely to overshoot. A
catastrophic failure of policy, for example, waiting another decade for
transformative policy and full commitments to fossil-free economies,
will have irreversible and deleterious repercussions for humanity's
remaining time on Earth. Only a global zero carbon roadmap will put the
world on a course to phase-out greenhouse gas emissions and create the
essential carbon sinks for Earth-system stability, without which, world
prosperity is not possible.
SOURCE Living near a wind farms can cause sleep loss, stress and anxiety, government review finds Living near a wind farm can cause sleep loss, stress and anxiety, a government review has found.
A
'clear link' between the amount of noise emitted by an energy site and
irritation experienced by nearby residents was identified in a report
commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change last year.
Published
this week, the paper said there was an 'increased risk' of suffering
from sleep deprivation from turbines exceeding 40 decibels.
But
the prospect of a sleepless night was generally an 'indirect' link
caused by the frustration evoked from having a loud wind farm in your
community, it added.
The review recommended that 'excessive'
noise should be clamped down on, citing potential measures such as
modifying the turbine blade.
The findings ratcheted up pressure
on the Government to be more heavy handed with noisy farms, with one MP
calling for them to be 'shut down permanently'.
Complaints about
noise disturbance can range from the steady swishing noise from the
blade to a louder thump which can sometimes occur, the review said.
But, it added, the annoyance is not just limited to the thunderous sound a wind farm can create.
Flickering
shadows created by the swirling blade and its 'appearance in the
landscape' can similarly irk those who live near one.
Conservative MP Glyn Davies told the Sunday Telegraph: 'Where there are noisy wind farms they are hugely disruptive.
'Noisy wind farms should be shut down unless they can be changed.
'They would need to be shut down permanently.'
RenewableUK's
director of policy for consents and intelligence Gemma Grimes said:
'It's good to see that this official report confirms what every other
peer-reviewed study around the world has found - that there's no
evidence of any direct link between wind farms and health, stress or
sleep issues.
She added: 'On the rare occasions when any
questions on acoustic issues come up, our industry always works hard to
address them swiftly and effectively as a matter of course, as we're
determined to remain good neighbours with local communities. That's why
the onshore wind industry took the lead on understanding this issue and
addressing it.'
SOURCE Your Reusable Tote Bag Actually Isn't as Environmentally Friendly as You ThinkYou’d have to use your beloved cotton tote at least 327 times for it to be more carbon-friendly than plasticBring
your own bag to the grocery store. We all know this practice is good
for the planet, but even the most environmentally minded consumer might
come up to the cashier minus a carryall with one perfectly good reason:
you forgot.
Faced with this conundrum, should you:
Buy a new canvas tote that you can always reuse?
Ask—just this once!—for a disposable, landfill-clogging plastic bag?
Or, per a classic Portlandia sketch, simply don’t forget?
In a perfect world—or at least in Portlandia—the answer is of course C.
Watch what happens when Jack McBrayer forgets his shopping bag in Portlandia:
But
in the real world, where people forget all the time, you’ll want to
choose the ol’ standby, B, if you want the least eco-guilt.
Choosing
plastic might sound counterintuitive, but as The Atlantic pointed out,
canvas bags are actually much worse for the environment compared to
their flimsy, single-use counterparts.
In a U.K. Environment
Agency study, researchers crunched the environmental tally of various
carrier bags such as the standard high-density polyethylene (HDPE)
plastic bag you’d get from the supermarket, as well as paper, cotton and
recycled-polypropylene bags.
They found that reusing a HDPE bag
once (as a waste bin liner for instance) has the same environmental
impact as reusing a cotton tote bags 327 times, a recycled polypropylene
plastic 26 times and a paper bag seven times.
All told, as
Business Insider noted from the UKEA study, a conventional plastic bag
has a total carbon footprint of only 3.48 lbs.—compared to the whopping
598.6 lbs. emitted by a cotton bag.
Here’s the takeaway. Bags
that are designed to last longer require more resources—growing,
harvesting, manufacturing, transportation—which means they have a
greater environmental impact across their entire lifecycle.
Look,
we all know that plastic bags are an eco-nightmare that harms the
environment and kills wildlife. That’s why many cities and even entire
states have initiated bans or imposed fees on these non-biodegradable,
petroleum-based menaces. If they haven’t crammed up the space under your
kitchen sink, they’re getting stuck in storm drains or in the stomachs
of any number of marine animals, from fish, dolphins and whales to sea
turtles and birds.
But cotton is quite possibly a bigger
planetary scourge. According to the World Wildlife Fund, cotton crops
account for 24 percent of the global market for insecticides and 11
percent for pesticides. In 1995, contaminated run-off from cotton fields
killed more than 240,000 fish in Alabama alone.
Cotton is also
incredibly thirsty. "It can take more than 20,000 litres of water to
produce 1kg of cotton; equivalent to a single T-shirt and pair of
jeans," the WWF says. Cotton isn’t even regularly recycled—at least many
grocery stores have plastic bag recycling bins.
Thanks to the
green movement, tote bags are now as ubiquitous as the plastic bags they
were meant to replace. You’ll find them lining supermarket checkout
aisles, given away for free at clothing stores and probably resigned to a
sad pile in your closet. I did a rough inventory of how many reuseable
totes I’ve accumulated and stopped counting after 13 out of
embarrassment.
So what can you do the next time you forget
your bag at the grocery store? Besides "don’t forget," you can keep
smaller, foldable bags in your pocket or handbag, or even use the type
that can easily hook onto your keychain. As for me, I’ve decided that
from now on, my innumerable tote collection will just live in the trunk
of my car.
SOURCE The myth of green jobsJob creation alone does not equate to a benefit for the economyOne
of the claims often advanced for renewable energy is that it will lead
to a bonanza of what are called "green jobs". It is a way of justifying
the upfront costs involved in switching the nation’s energy production
to these low carbon sources. The idea is that Britain will ultimately
earn squillions from the exciting new technologies that its green
entrepreneurs will forge and sell.
The sting, of course, is that
to secure these benefits, the British public must first sluice the
industry with buckets of subsidies, expected to reach £9bn a year by
2020. Recent events in the renewables sector — including attempts to
reduce the burden of this support — have sparked concern among
participants over consumers’ declining willingness to fund this enormous
exercise in job creation.
It is why the industry is so keen to
insert itself into prime minister Theresa May’s newly proposed — but as
yet unexplained — industrial strategy. Promoters see it as a way of
ensuring the cash does not dry up.
Ministers should treat these tales of untold industrial benefits with considerable caution.
No
one denies that green technologies create employment. Figures from the
Renewable Energy Association, a trade body, suggest that 117,000 people
are already beavering away in the sector and its supply chain. But job
creation alone does not equate to a benefit for the economy. What
ultimately matters is the extra output produced by these new workers.
For the exercise to be worthwhile, its value must exceed the wider
costs, including the impact on alternative production and employment.
But
the problem with green jobs is that they are not very valuable. Take
the 17,000 people that another trade body, RenewableUK, says were
employed in the wind energy business in 2013. These jobs do not exist
because the industry is capable of competing on a level playing field
with conventional energy suppliers, but because the public has made up
for their inability to do so by giving them a large subvention. In
effect, each of those wind jobs had a subsidy cost of £98,000 in that
year alone, paid in the currency of more expensive electricity. That
raises costs for everyone, cutting consumers’ spending power and company
profits across the UK.
Of course, employment is not the only
claim made by the green proponents. They also argue that environmental
policies will promote the development of new industries, which will
become steadily more efficient. By being early into the field, Britain
can build up technical expertise that will lead to valuable export
orders when other slower countries scramble to reduce their own
emissions.
But, once again, these claims unravel on closer
inspection. They depend heavily on the idea that sales of this kit will
be driven by technological innovation, and that countries such as
Britain will be able to hang on to high market shares by dint of their
know-how. In fact, the available evidence points the other way.
Take
the case of the solar panel industry. For all their technical mastery,
and the fact that the EU was long the biggest market for installations,
European and US manufacturers lost the early lead they established in
the supply of photovoltaic cells. Customers turned out to be relatively
uninterested in driving operating efficiency. Instead, cheap and
technically unsophisticated Chinese cells cleaned up within a few years,
crushing the western competition. Of the top 10 solar-panel makers
worldwide, no fewer than seven are now Chinese.
What is more,
this sort of outcome may not be a bug, but a feature of the subsidy
culture. Guaranteed incomes attract rent-seeking behaviour that appears
to place a lower premium on efficiency. Rather than wring the maximum
from their equipment, renewable investors prefer to fill a field, or
cover a roof, with panels of inferior quality, as long as it is at the
lowest cost.
This raises serious doubts about the real chance of a
green industry pay-off. A European Commission study, EmployRES,
concluded in 2011 that economic gains from renewables policies were
dependent on the EU maintaining more than a 50 per cent market share of
the global green technology market. Attaining, let alone keeping, such a
large portion seems unlikely. Europe’s share of solar exports was less
than 20 per cent last year.
The truth is that Britain’s decision
to reduce emissions should stand on its own merits, bearing in mind the
costs and the likely success of the policy given the country’s small
contribution to emissions. It cannot be supported by spurious claims
about green jobs and the possibility of an industrial renaissance driven
by wind, sun and the tides.
SOURCE Criticism of Svensmark's theory is just more modelling rubbishHenrik Svensmark
Now
and then new results appear that suggest that the idea of cosmic ray
influence on clouds and terrestrial climate does not work.
"Sun-clouds-climate connection takes a beating from CERN" is the latest
news story which is based on a new paper from the CLOUD collaboration at
CERN
It is important to note that the new CLOUD paper is not
presenting an experimental result, with respect to the effect of cosmic
ray generated ions on clouds, but a result of numerical modeling. CLOUD
is using their experimental measurements to estimate the typical
nucleation of various aerosols of small size (1-3 nm). However, for an
aerosol to affect clouds (and climate) it must first grow to 50-100 nm,
to become cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). CLOUD then uses a numerical
model to estimate the effect of cosmic rays on the growth process, and
finds that the response of cosmic rays on the number of CCN over a solar
cycle is insignificant.
This type of numerical modeling is by no
means new, and neither is the result that ions in these models
apparently do not affect cloud formation. We have known this for about 7
years. For example the CLOUD results, with respect to cosmic rays and
clouds, are very similar to the conclusions of Pierce and Adams from
2009 [2] where they also use a numerical model to grow small nucleated
aerosols to CCN, and also find only a small change in CCN as a function
of ion changes.
In fact this result has been found a number of
times in similar models. The argument for the lack of response to ions
is the following: In the presence of ions additional small aerosols are
formed, but with an increase in the number of aerosols, there is less
gas to each particle, and they therefore grow slower. This means that
the probability of being lost to larger particles increases, and fewer
survive.
So why, in contrast to the above, do I think that the
cosmic rays cloud idea is still viable? The reason is that we have tried
to answer the same question (do ion-nucleated aerosols grow to CCN)
without using models — and get very different results.
In 2012 we
tested the growth of nucleated aerosols to CCN in our laboratory and
found that when no ions were present the response to increased
nucleation was severely damped, in accordance with the above mentioned
models; but with ions present, all the extra nucleated particles grew to
CCN sizes, in contrast to the numerical model results [3].
Now
it may be that the conditions we have in the experiment are not as in
the real atmosphere. There are complex processes in the real atmosphere
that that we cannot include, whose effect may change the experimental
result, as we have been told many times.
It is therefore
fortunate that our Sun makes natural experiments with the whole Earth.
On rare occasions "explosions" on the Sun called coronal mass ejections,
results in a plasma cloud passing the Earth, with the effect that
cosmic rays flux decreases suddenly and stays low for a week or two.
Such
events, with a significant reduction in the cosmic rays flux, are
called Forbush decreases, and are ideal to test the link between cosmic
rays and clouds. Finding the strongest Forbush decreases and using 3
independent cloud satellite data sets (ISCCP, MODIS, and SSM/I) and one
dataset for aerosols (AERONET), we clearly see a response to Forbush
decreases.
These results suggest that the whole chain from solar
activity, to cosmic rays, to aerosols (CCN), to clouds, is active in
the Earth's atmosphere. From the MODIS data we even see that the cloud
microphysics is changing according to expectations.
Figure 1
display the superposed signal in clouds (blue curve), based on the above
three satellite datasets, in the days following the minimum in cosmic
rays of the 5 strongest Forbush decreases (red curve). The delay in the
minimum of the two curves is due to the time it takes aerosols to grow
into CCN. A Monte Carlo simulation was used to estimate the significance
of the signal, and none of 104 random realizations gave a signal of
similar size. Please see our latest paper from 2016 for further evidence
[4].
Figure
1: Statistical common disturbance in clouds (1 Principal component)
based on three cloud satellite data sets (ISCCP, MODIS and SSM/I)
superposed for the five strongest Forbush decreases (blue) curve. Red
curve is the change in (%) of cosmic rays superposed for the same five
events. The thin lines are 1-3 standard deviations. Adapted from [4].
Finally,
there are a large number of studies showing that past climate changes
are closely correlated to variations in cosmic rays. For example, the
energy that goes into the oceans over 11 years solar cycle is of the
order 1-1.5 W/m2, which is 5-7 times too large to be explained by solar
irradiance variations [5].
Therefore something is amplifying the
solar cycle, and "cosmic rays and clouds" is a good candidate to
explain the observed forcing.
In conclusion, observations and experiments go against the above mentioned numerical model result.
SOURCE ***************************************
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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1 November, 2016
Leftist logicFacts
and reason are so regularly subversive to Green/Left claims that
it is always amusing to read the commentaries they put up. How do
they get around the pesky facts? Mainly by telling just half the
truth. There is a good example below. The article was
headed: "A New American Low: One Rule For The Whites, Another For Its
First Peoples". It's a desperate attempt to connect two totally
unconnected things. The article below is from "New Matilda" but
there have been similar articles in "The Guardian" and some other
Leftist organs.
The first thing covered below is the dispersal of
protesters occupying private land in order to block construction of the
Dakota access pipeline. The pipeline is an important piece of
infrastructure that will enable domestically produced crude oil from
North Dakota to reach major refining markets in a more direct,
cost-effective, safer and environmentally responsible manner. The
pipeline will also reduce the current use of rail and truck
transportation. There is of course no mention of the environmental
and safety benefits of the pipeline below.
The key claim,
however, is that the removal of the "Sioux" protesters shows bias
against these wonderful native people who mainly live on the taxpayer
these days. Whites would have been treated better, is the
claim. Again something is not mentioned -- something that
completely blows apart the accusation of bias: Most of the
protesters were white, not Sioux! And exactly the same methods
were used to disperse both groups. Both Sioux and whites were
treated equally! What a laugh! Leftists quite cheerfully lie
in their teeth.
The second event covered below is the
exoneration of the Bundy brothers. Sit-ins and protests are fine
if you are black, Leftist or some other favoured group but sit-ins and
protests by white ranchers protesting government oppression get
absolutely NO sympathy below. That good ol' double standard again.
Apparently, the wrongness of what the Bundys did arises solely from
their whiteness! Just the usual Leftist obsession with raceForget
the US presidential race. Over the weekend, two things happened in the
USA that define the nation better than a sexual assaulting Republican
candidate and a deeply corrupt Democrat ever could.
The story
goes like this: Protestors from the Sioux Nation, along with a growing
band of supporters, have been facing off with state police against the
construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, North
Dakota.
The pipeline is to carry oil, and traditional owners say
it threatens lives and livelihoods, because of its proximity to the
Missouri River, the life blood of a huge section of north and central
America and the major river system that feeds into the Mississippi.
Over
the weekend, about 250 protestors were outnumbered by more than 300
police, armed to teeth and driving armoured cars, Humvees and
helicopters.
The police moved in – dozens of protestors were
arrested, and some of them shot with rubber bullets, including this guy,
who copped one in the face.
The situation is so grave, that Amnesty International has committed to sending impartial observers.
At
the same time, a Portland (Oregon) jury came in with a verdict on the
armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Reserve, which took place in
January this year.
On January 2, dozens of heavily armed
(predominantly white) ‘ranchers’ overran the government compound, and
seized it in a coup that eventually led to one man being shot by police,
and dozens arrested.
On Friday, seven of the white nationalist
extremists, led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were acquitted of all charges
of impeding federal officers in their duties. The jury was all white.
This despite an armed stand-off that lasted weeks, and included a call out from the terrorists for people to send "snacks".
It’s
not clear what, if any, effect the two incidents will have on the US
presidential election. But more than likely, it’ll be none. Business as
usual.
SOURCE Environmental laws are for little people onlySomeone
aboard a bus chartered by the Democratic National Committee, which
depicted the Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates,
reportedly dumped sewage into a storm drain in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
A
DNC spokesperson described the sewage dump as "an honest mistake," but
it is actually a crime, and individuals have been criminally prosecuted
for similar "honest mistakes" in the past.
This incident presents
a familiar problem (one raised by the Environmental Protection Agency’s
2015 Animas River spill), that the government must choose: either stop
prosecuting ordinary citizens for "criminal negligence" or enforce the
same laws against more powerful or well-known parties.
At around 9:30 a.m., a man reported seeing someone get out of a DNC-chartered bus "and dump ‘it’s sewage into the storm drain.’"
The
witness told Fox 5, "You don’t pull up and dump raw sewage on the
street and in the storm drain. You just don’t do that." In fact, if you
do, it is a crime.
Police Capt. Jeff Smith told Fox 5, "There is a
city violation for dumping materials into the storm drain system,
obviously this feeds into streams." The Lawrenceville ordinance
prohibits dumping pollutants into the storm sewer system.
These
discharges, according to city officials, "impact waterways individually"
and "can have cumulative impacts on receiving waters. The impacts of
these discharges adversely affect public health and safety, drinking
water supplies, recreation, fish and other aquatic life, property
values, and other uses of lands and waters."
Unsurprisingly, the
discharge from the DNC bus may also be a federal crime, depending on
where that particular drain leads. Just ask Lawrence Lewis.
Prosecution
Lawrence
Lewis escaped the projects of the District of Columbia, whereas his
three older brothers were caught up in our criminal justice system and
eventually murdered. Lewis worked for the District school system as a
janitor while taking night classes, eventually becoming chief engineer
for the Knollwood military retirement center. He was also a caretaker
for his elderly mother and a role model for his two daughters.
Unfortunately
for Lewis, the retirement home had recurring problems with sewage
backup. After one backup, trying to protect the home’s patients from
harm, Lewis did what his predecessors had often done and rerouted
backed-up sewage into a storm drain. Lewis believed that the storm drain
flowed into city sewage treatment facilities, but unbeknownst to him,
the storm drain runs into Rock Creek, which flows into the Potomac
River.
The Clean Water Act makes it a federal crime to
negligently discharge sewage without a permit into "waters of the United
States," including Rock Creek and the Potomac River.
Lewis
avoided a felony conviction and a long-term jail sentence by pleading
guilty to a misdemeanor, for which he was sentenced to one year of
probation.
The Democratic National Committee says that dumping
sewage into a storm drain "was an honest mistake and we apologize … We
were unaware of any possible violations."
‘Honest Mistake’
Now,
the DNC seeks to use an "honest mistake" defense that was unavailable
to Lewis, because it is not a recognized defense under the Clean Water
Act.
It did not work for Edward Hanousek either, who was also
criminally prosecuted under the Clean Water Act for negligent discharge
without a permit after employees he supervised accidentally spilled
1,000 to 5,000 gallons of oil into Alaska’s Skagway River.
Hanousek
was off-duty and at home when the accidental spill occurred.
Nonetheless, a district court "sentenced him to six months in prison,
another six months in a halfway house, another six months on supervised
release, and imposed a $5,000 fine."
The man who reportedly saw
someone dump waste into a Lawrenceville storm drain said, "It’s wrong,
it’s absolutely wrong. I don’t care whose name is on the bus." But as
Lewis, Hanousek, and many others know, it is also a federal crime,
regardless of who is responsible for the discharge.
Federal
courts have held—as the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in West
Virginia Highlands Conservancy v. Huffman (2010)—that the provisions of
the Clean Water Act "apply to anyone who discharges pollutants into the
waters of the United States," including the folks on the DNC-chartered
bus.
As Heritage Foundation scholars have argued elsewhere, "the
government should be put to a choice: either abandon criminal liability
based on negligence," or bring charges against powerful parties "at the
scene and up through the responsible chain of command. Sauce for the
goose ought to be sauce for the gander."
Already, however, The
Washington Post reports that "Lawrenceville police told Fox 5 that they
are not filing charges, but opted to hand over the investigation to the
state’s Environmental Protection Agency."
SOURCE The Buzz: Six Reasons Not To Worry About The BeesBees
are in the news, but for all the wrong reasons—mainly, dire tales of
disappearing bees threatening a third of our food supply. Time Magazine,
opting for sensationalism over accuracy, said we were headed toward "A
world without bees," with an online video explaining, "Why bees are
going extinct." They called it the "beepocalypse" and blamed it all on
modern agricultural technologies, urging immediate and aggressive action
before it’s too late.
This would be scary stuff indeed—if it
were true. But like so many overly simplistic, sky-is-falling claims,
these predictions are misleading and false. Activist groups like Loonies
of the Earth—sorry, I mean Friends of the Earth—and the Pesticide
Action Network work tirelessly to provide the media a steady stream of
suitable doom-and-gloom material that they and other groups then use for
"save the bees" fundraising opportunities.
Bees are popular,
even iconic. The public naturally wants them to survive, but it simply
isn’t true that honeybees are about to disappear–so they don’t need
"saving." The truth about the bees turns out to be far more complex, and
far more interesting, than the alarmist headlines suggest.
1. There are billions more bees than a decade ago
In
2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture counted 2,660,000 million
honeybee colonies across the United States. A decade earlier, in 2004,
there were 2,556,000 honeybee colonies. That’s a gain of 104,000
colonies, not a loss. At around 50,000 bees per colony, that’s an
increase of five billion honeybees in the United States.
The
overall honeybee numbers in the United States have stayed steady at
about 2.5 million colonies for the last two decades, dipping slightly
when the mysterious "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) hit in 2006, then
rebounded at a healthy clip and actually reached a 20-year high in 2014.
Europe and Canada have experienced significant increases in their
honeybee populations as well, and worldwide, there are 30 million more
hives today than in 1961, an increase of about 60%. That means there
about 1.5 trillion more bees buzzing around today than there were 50
years ago. There simply is no bee-pocalypse and never was.
The
way thousands of reporters and editors of supposedly serious
publications were able to turn a massive expansion of bee populations
into a cataclysmic near-extinction event is, well, beyond bee-lief.
2. Bees are always dying–and reproducing–at an "alarming" rate
Not
so long ago, amusing photos spread across the Internet adorned with the
phrase, "bees are dying globally at an alarming rate." The first of
these memes depicted Eli Manning, the New York Giants quarterback,
purportedly pondering unhappily the fate of the pollinators. While it’s
true that beekeepers in the U.S. are having increasing trouble keeping
their hives healthy, and that hive losses have been elevated in recent
years, if it weren’t a spoof, I’d suggest that Manning should worry less
about bees being blitzed and more about the adequacy of his own
offensive line. High losses, while they may create economic hardship for
some beekeepers, don’t spell catastrophe. That’s because bees also
reproduce "at an alarming rate," or at least, very, very quickly.
Unlike
the animals we tend to be more familiar with, honeybees have an
exceptionally short lifespan–about six weeks. It is shorter during warm
weather months and in perennially warm climates where honeybees never go
into winter hibernation, or "cluster." Many generations of honeybees
are born and die within any given year, so rapid rises and falls in
population numbers within any given year are common.
Recently,
the Bee Informed Partnership–which conducts an annual survey of U.S.
beekeepers–decided to add the warm weather losses to the traditional
count of overwinter losses to come up with the startling announcement
that, "Beekeepers lost 41 percent of Bees in 2015-2016."
Bee
Informed is funded by USDA, and this change in reporting was a sure-fire
way to heighten concern and therefore increase funding dollars for the
U.S. government (pardon my cynicism), but it did little to enlighten
anyone as to what was really going on with bees. Not surprisingly, most
journalists reported this as if our entire bee population was on the
verge of being wiped out in the space of a few years. A May CBS News
headline, for example, read, "Death rate for honeybees takes turn for
the worse." As usual in "if it bleeds, it leads" journalism, there was
no mention that even with these cataclysmic-sounding losses, the U.S.
bee population was still very near a two-decade high.
3. Bees are livestock, just like cattle
Activists
spread hysteria about dying honeybees because it advances their
political aims. They want the public to think the happy little bees we
see buzzing about our gardens are about to draw their final breath, and
that their imminent disappearance will threaten the world’s ability to
feed itself. The exact opposite of this apocalyptic theory is true:
Agricultural production guarantees steady honeybee numbers because of
the potent effects of market forces.
The honeybee is a
domesticated species, imported from Europe. Like cattle and other
livestock, bees are raised in the numbers needed, in this case to
pollinate agricultural crops. Human intervention is the driving force
underlying their population numbers. Certainly, hives can experience
severe health problems, usually driven by disease caused by mites and
viruses, and those hives can collapse or die.
The rest of the
story, however, is that given the demand for bees, beekeepers adapt to
losses by "splitting" a healthy hive to grow more bees to suit their
needs. One of the most basic beekeeping skills is to divide an existing
colony and introduce (or grow) a new queen for the "new" hive. The new
queen, which can be ordered online for as little as $25, will lay enough
eggs—about 2,000 a day—so that what was once a single hive becomes two
hives. With a little help from its human friends, nature is resilient.
Honeybee
numbers fluctuate with beekeepers’ expectations about market
conditions, including domestic and overseas demand for specific types of
honey or other bee byproducts.
4. Crop pesticides aren’t killing honeybees
Activists’
political goal is to convince regulators and lawmakers to ban the
most popular agricultural chemicals, especially a class of insecticides
called neonicotinoids, or neonics for short. They have had some success
in doing so by blaming the disappearance of honeybees, which isn’t
actually happening, on neonics. This is a particularly obnoxious attack
since modern crop protection products such as neonics are actually
designed to target harmful pests while, when used according to the
instructions on the label, keeping beneficial insects like honeybees as
safe as possible. There are several ways we know neonicotinoids aren’t
killing bees.
First of all, bees aren’t attracted to the most
popular U.S. crops like corn, rice, soybean and wheat, which account for
the majority of neonic usage. Honeybees would come into contact with
neonics used on these crops only if beekeepers place their colonies
close to fields that are about to be planted so that dust from the
planting machines might drift and spread to the hive. This is a rather
simple problem to fix, by ensuring beekeepers and farmers talk to one
another so they know when to keep the bees away.
Second, 98% of
the time, neonics aren’t sprayed on crops at all but are used as seed
treatments. This high-tech approach is what makes the product friendly
to bees and other non-target organisms while still being lethal to
biting insects that attack plants at the earliest stage, when they are
most vulnerable. Bees forage much later, on nectar and pollen from
flowers. By the time bee-attracting, neonic- seed-treated crops reach
the flowering stage, the amount of neonics expressed in crop pollen
(and, for crops that produce it, nectar) is extremely low. A small
amount of the pesticide is applied to the seed, and as the plant grows,
the chemical becomes more and more diluted, to the point that it has no
significant effect on bees.
That’s why bees positively thrive in
Canada’s extensive canola fields, which are almost 100% grown from seeds
treated with neonicotinoids. A good account of the Canadian experience
can be found in the blog, "Alberta Buzzing," by Lee Townsend, one of
Alberta’s most successful beekeepers. Like other beekeepers in Alberta,
he loves neonics because they keep the canola healthy, and canola
produces a particularly tasty brand of honey.
There’s more
evidence. Since neonics arrived on the scene in the mid-1990?s, honeybee
hive numbers have climbed. Bee populations fell before neonics were
introduced. That was due in large part to the loss of small farms, with
their individual beehives, after World War II, and the devastation
wrought by the Varroa destructor mite, which hit the U.S. in the
mid-1980?s and which bee scientists recognize is the chief cause of bee
health problems.
More
HERE Vitamin A rice coming to BangladeshThe
first field trial of the Golden Rice in Bangladesh has yielded
promising results, triggering prospect of the vitamin A-rich grain's
release as early as 2018.
Two months after harvesting the
Bangladeshi version of Golden Rice line, GR2E BRRI dhan29, scientists at
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) found that rice grains
retained 10 ?g/g (micrograms/gram) beta carotene which is good enough to
address vitamin-A deficiency (VAD).
Beta carotene, also known as pro-vitamin A, is a substance that the human body can convert to vitamin A.
With
this development, a long wait is nearly over for rice breeders who have
been trying since 1999 for a varietal development and release of Golden
Rice, long being touted by the scientist fraternity as a key remedy to
acute VAD problem.
According to the World Health Organization's
global VAD database, one in every five pre-school children in Bangladesh
is vitamin A-deficient. Among the pregnant women, 23.7 percent suffer
from VAD.
BRRI scientists analysed the post-harvest data
collected from the first field test conducted on GR2E BRRI dhan29 during
the last Boro season (November 2015 - May 2016) and drew the conclusion
just recently that the results are positive.
"Two months after
harvest, we've found an average of over 10 ?g/g beta carotene in GR2E
BRRI dhan29. The amount is good enough to meet 50 percent of vitamin-A
needs of people consuming rice in their daily diet," Dr Partha S Biswas,
project leader of Golden Rice Project at BRRI, told The Daily Star.
The
vitamin A-rich rice, named Golden Rice for its golden colour, was first
developed by splicing three foreign genes -- two from daffodil and one
from a bacterium -- into japonica rice, a variety adapted to temperate
climates. It is capable of producing beta carotene. But for a better
beta carotene expression in rice, the daffodil genes were replaced by
maize genes later in 2005.
The BRRI carried out the field trial
on the campus of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) in
Gazipur to keep Golden Rice segregated from other rice varieties grown
in BRRI fields.
Provided the BRRI gets the necessary regulatory
approval, the organisation would go for multi-location field trials of
GR2E BRRI dhan29 in Boro seasons in next two years to set off the
process of its commercial release, said Partha.
None of the major
diseases like blast, sheath blight, bacterial blight and tungro was
observed in the transgenic GR2E BRRI dhan29 and the yield was as good as
that of the BRRI dhan29 (check variety) with good expression of beta
carotene, according to a paper titled "Recent Advances in Breeding
Golden Rice in Bangladesh".
The paper coauthored by Dr Partha,
and the IRRI's Golden Rice Project Coordinator Dr Violeta Villegas, and
Regulatory Affairs head Dr Donald J Mackenzie, was presented at the 4th
Annual South Asia Biosafety Conference in Hyderabad, India in late
September.
The Philippines is the only other country that is
carrying out a multi-location field trial now on their homegrown Golden
Rice line while the process of Golden Rice research remained at
laboratory and greenhouse stages in Indonesia, India and Vietnam.
Although
Bangladeshi rice scientists have been at the forefront of Golden Rice
research since the development of this transgenic rice by Swiss and
German scientists in 1999, the process gathered momentum only when then
IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) plant biotechnologist, Dr
Swapan K Datta, infused the genes responsible for beta carotene into
BRRI dhan29 in 2002-03.
The genetic engineering technology to
derive vitamin A in rice was first applied by Prof Ingo Potrykus of
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and Prof Peter Beyer of
the University of Freiburg, Germany back in 1999. All renowned journals
and news magazines, including the Nature, the Science and the Time,
covered the breakthrough in 2000.
The first generation Golden
Rice (known as GR1) was developed through infusing genes from daffodil,
but later the second generation variety (known as GR2) was developed by
taking a maize from corn as it gave much better output of pro-vitamin A.
Some
six lines of GR2 (scientifically called "events") were developed and
the IRRI chose to work on one called GR2R, which it developed and
subsequently infused in Filipino and Bangladeshi rice varieties.
After
years of lab and greenhouse tests on GR2R, the Philippines and
Bangladesh eventually stopped upon an IRRI advice that Event GR2E would
work better.
Golden Rice co-inventor Prof Peter Beyer told this
newspaper that there were some problems with the Event GR2R. He said the
new Event should work well.
Swapan K Datta, ex-IRRI scientist
who infused beta carotene-producing genes into Bangladesh's best
performing rice variety, BRRI dhan29, said he was looking forward to see
Golden Rice goes to farmers' fields.
The BRRI dhan29, developed
by BRRI in 1994, is the most productive dry season rice variety of
Bangladesh that has gone beyond national boundaries to be grown in many
other countries including India, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan and
Myanmar.
Rice does not contain beta carotene. Therefore,
dependence on rice as the predominant food source necessarily leads to
vitamin-A deficiency, most severely affecting small children and
pregnant women.
Consumption of only 150 gram of Golden Rice a day
is expected to supply half of the recommended daily intake (RDA) of
vitamin A for an adult. People in Bangladesh depend on rice for 70
percent of their daily calorie intakes.
The IRRI says VAD is the
main cause of preventable blindness in children and globally, some 6.7
million children die every year and another 3,50,000 go blind because
they are vitamin-A deficient.
In April 2011, Seattle-based Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation sanctioned a grant of over $10 million to
IRRI to fund, develop and evaluate Golden Rice varieties for Bangladesh
and the Philippines.
Officials concerned at IRRI and Gates
Foundation said as the Golden Rice inventors and subsequent technology
developer Syngenta allowed a royalty-free access to the patents, the new
rice would be of the same price as other rice varieties once released
for commercial farming in Bangladesh, and farmers would be able to share
and replant the seeds as they wish.
SOURCE Foreign-funded green groups could take whole swathes of Australia out of the productive economyHillary
Clinton and Julia Gillard have a lot in common — and it’s not just the
ladylike shoes and matching pearl earrings.
They both love to play the gender card, turning their immense privilege into victim status and dividing the electorate by sex.
Thus,
Gillard nobbled Tony Abbott with her fabled misogyny speech and
Clinton’s machine manages to drown out every Wikileaks embarrassment
with a new Donald Trump bimbo eruption.
The other thing the two
ladies have in common is the Clinton Foundation, which Wikileaks emails
now show is an influence-peddling political slush fund.
And guess which country was one of its biggest donors? Australia. Yep, we’re up there with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The
Australian taxpayer shovelled at least $88 million into the Clinton
Foundation and associated entities from 2006 to 2014, reaching a peak of
$10.3 million in 2012-13, Gillard’s last year in office.
On the
Clinton Foundation website, AusAID and the Commonwealth of Australia
score separate entries in the $10 million-plus group of donors, one rung
up from American teacher unions.
In 2009-10 Kevin Rudd handed
over another $10 million to the foundation for climate research, part of
$300 million he squandered on a Global Carbon Capture and Storage
Institute.
Gillard also donated $300 million of our money to the Clinton-affiliated Global Partnership for Education.
Lo
and behold, she became chairman in 2014 and has been actively
promoting Clinton as president ever since — in a campaign video last
December slamming Trump, in opeds trumpeting the next woman president
and in appearances with Clinton spruiking girls’ education.
The
Abbott government topped up the left-wing organisation’s coffers with
another $140 million in 2014, bringing total Australian largesse to $460
million, according to a press release from Foreign Minister Julie
Bishop.
And yet, apart from the beautiful friendship with
Gillard, what did Australia get from the Clintons for all that cash? A
whole lot of trouble is what.
The latest treasure trove of
Wikileaks emails released last week shows that Australian green groups
have been secretly funded to destroy our coal industry by environmental
activists connected to the Clinton campaign.
The email account of
Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta reveals extraordinary details
of the sabotage of the $16 billion Adani coalmine in Queensland, which
has damaged Australia’s national interest and denied cheap electricity
to millions of poor Indians.
Last August John Hepburn, former
Greenpeace activist and founder of Australian anti-coal group the
Sunrise Project, sent a crowing email to his American paymasters, the
Sandler Foundation, which is also a major donor to the Clinton
Foundation. (Founder Herb Sandler and mate George Soros funded another
Clinton-aligned progressive group, the Centre for American Progress,
previously chaired by Podesta.)
"The Adani Carmichael mine and
the whole Galilee Basin fossil fuel industrial complex is in its death
throes," Hepburn wrote in the email forwarded to Podesta.
"I am
going to buy a few bottles of bubbly for a celebration with the
(Environmental Defenders Office) legal team, our colleagues at GetUp,
Greenpeace, 350.org, ECF, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Mackay
Conservation Group, Market Forces and the brilliant and tireless Sunrise
team."
In another email forwarded to Podesta, Hepburn panics
about an Abbott government inquiry into environmental charities and
discusses hiding Sunrise’s sources of funding to safeguard its
charitable tax status.
Hepburn boasts about the latest legal blow
to Adani, when the Federal Court overturned its approval and the
Commonwealth Bank quit the project. In it he now wants to "escalate the
campaign towards the other 3 big Australian banks".
And he mocks
miners who "try to claim that there is some kind of foreign-funded and
tightly orchestrated conspiracy to systematically destroy the
Australian coal industry. (I seriously don’t know where they get these
wacky ideas from!)"
As if it’s not bad enough that foreign-funded
activists are meddling with our largest export earner, Podesta’s emails
also detail their insidious influence on indigenous land owners who
blocked the Adani mine using powerful native title rights.
This
alliance of green groups with native title owners is a frightening
development detailed in a new book by historian Keith Windschuttle, The
Break-up of Australia: The Real Agenda behind Aboriginal Recognition.
He
reveals the imminent expansion of native title claims, either approved
or quietly being processed, stretch across a whopping 60 per cent of
the Australian continent, an area twice the size of Western Europe.
Already
6000sq km of the Kidman cattle empire in the Kimberley has been given,
via native title, to green activists to be converted from productive
cattle country to a wildlife conservation area.
"In return, the
Yulumbu people get a paltry $50,000 a year royalty," Windschuttle
writes. "As a flora and fauna sanctuary it is economically defunct for
the foreseeable future."
At worst, writes Windschuttle, the
upcoming referendum for indigenous constitutional recognition, proposed
by Gillard in 2012, could pave the way for a separate Aboriginal state
on native title land, funded by taxation, royalties and lease payments —
passive welfare in another guise.
At the very least, the
alliance between foreign-funded green groups and indigenous owners
gives environmentalists the opportunity to take whole swathes of
Australia out of the productive economy and shut down industries they
don’t like, from coal mines in Queensland to cattle farms in Western
Australia.
Thanks for nothing, Hillary and Julia.
SOURCE ***************************************
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*****************************************
IN BRIEF
Home (Index page)
Context for the minute average temperature change recorded: 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
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
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."
WISDOM:
"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." --- Richard P. Feynman.
Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough - Michael Crichton
"The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement" -- Karl Popper
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
"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
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.”
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
Here's how that "97% consensus" figure was arrived at
97% of scientists want to get another research grant
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
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)
Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite
copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions
here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair
use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights
protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that,
when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market
for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education
or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.
DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:
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To be continued ....
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Paralipomena (3)
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My alternative Wikipedia
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Socialized Medicine
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QANTAS -- A dying octopus
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Obama Watch
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Paralipomena (2)
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