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30 November, 2020
Fears of climate change 'apocalypse' are stopping young people having children and 60 percent say they are worried their kids could ADD to the crisis, new study claims
I love to hear these stories. Idiots removing themselves from the gene pool can only be good for our future
The study, published in the Climatic Change journal last week, surveyed 607 Americans aged between 27 and 45 about global warming and the impacts it would have on their decision to start families.
A staggering 59.8 percent of respondents say they are 'concerned about the carbon footprint of procreation', while 96.5 percent of those surveyed admit to worrying 'about the well-being of their existing, expected, or hypothetical children in a climate-changed world'.
Some say they are so anxious about the negative impacts of the climate crisis that they have decided not to become parents.
'I feel like I can't in good conscience bring a child into this world and force them to try and survive what may be apocalyptic conditions,' one 27-year-old woman told researchers.
'Climate change is the sole factor for me in deciding not to have biological children. I don't want to birth children into a dying world [though] I dearly want to be a mother,' one 31-year-old respondent stated.
A number of those surveyed were already parents, six percent of whom say they even regret having kids. 'I regret having my kids because I am terrified that they will be facing the end of the world due to climate change,' a 41-year-old mother wrote.
One father, aged 42, claimed the world in 2050 would be 'a hot-house hell, with wars over limited resources, collapsing civilization, failing agriculture, rising seas, melting glaciers, starvation, droughts, floods, mudslides and widespread devastation'.
Another person surveyed stated that they believed global warming 'would rival World War I in its sheer terror'.
Lead researcher Matthew Schneider-Mayerson said the respondents' quotes prove that younger generations are incredibly concerned about climate change.
'It is an unprecedented window into the way that [some people] are thinking and feeling about what many consider to be the most important decision in their lives,' he told The Guardian.
'Fears about the lives of existing or potential children were really deep and emotional. It was often heartbreaking to pore through the responses – a lot of people really poured their hearts out.'
Paris Climate Treaty Puts America Last
Here we are in the midst of the second wave of a once-in-a-half-century pandemic, with the economy flattened and millions of Americans unemployed and race riots in the streets of our major cities. And Joe Biden says that one of his highest priorities as president will be to ... reenter the Paris Climate Accord.
Trump kept his America First promise and pulled America out of this Obama-era treaty. Biden wants us back in -- immediately.
Why? Paris is an unmitigated failure. You don't have to take my word for it. National Geographic, a supporter of climate change action, recently ran the numbers and admits in its recent headline: "Most Countries Aren't Hitting 2030 Climate Goals." That's putting it mildly. Most haven't even reached half their pledged target for emission reductions.
Robert Watson, the former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, laments: "Countries need to double and triple their 2030 reduction commitments to be aligned with the Paris target."
Gee, this sounds like a treaty we definitely should be part of and pay the bills for.
The one country making substantial progress in reducing carbon emissions is the U.S. under President Donald Trump. Even though our gross domestic product is way up over the past four years, our carbon dioxide emissions are DOWN. Our air pollution levels and emissions of lead, carbon monoxide and other pollutants are at record-low levels.
Meanwhile, Beijing is far and away the largest polluter. Year after year, it makes hollow promises to stop climate change while they build dozens of new coal plants. India and its 1 billion people are hooked on coal, too.
Here is Paris in nutshell: We put our coal miners out of their jobs and cripple our $1 trillion oil and gas industry while China and India keep polluting and laugh at us behind our back.
These nations have bigger and more immediate development priorities than worrying about climate change models and their guestimates of the global temperature in 50 years.
China has much deeper and sinister ambitions. Those don't involve cleaning up the planet. The communists in Beijing's are obsessed with seizing world superpower status away from the U.S. The China 2025 plan for technology domination doesn't involve switching to expensive and unreliable energy sources. Their plan is to goad the U.S. into doing that.
The tragedy of all this is that we have a clean and efficient source of energy. Thanks to the shale oil and gas revolution, the cost of fossil fuels has fallen by 70% to 80% -- and the costs will continue to fall, thanks to the superabundance of these energy sources. The U.S. has more fossil fuel energy than virtually any other nation. We are technologically ahead of the rest of the world in drilling productivity and have become a net exporter.
Gas is the planet's wonder-fuel. It should be the 21st-century power source. It makes no sense economically or ecologically to switch to windmills and solar panels, unless you are an investor in these expensive 19th-century energy sources.
Across the globe, world leaders are overjoyed that under a Biden administration, the U.S. will reenter the Paris Accord. Why wouldn't they be? We pay the bills. We hang our booming free market economy on a cross of climate change regulation. We pretend that the world is complying -- when their actions speak much louder than their words. We trust, but we don't verify.
If Paris is one of Biden's first official acts as president, he will be announcing to the world that putting America First has been replaced with putting America Last.
Millions in Africa Being Sacrificed to Extreme Poverty, Premature Death on Altar of ‘Green Energy’
Obama-era policies that favor so-called green energy over coal-fired electricity are dooming millions of Africans to lives of extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and increased risk of early death, according to a new analysis by the CO2 Coalition.
The study by the Arlington, Virginia-based coalition of 60 climate scientists and energy engineers contends that inadequate access to electricity is one of the key reasons for Africa’s grinding poverty.
Economic growth in a competitive, global market requires reliable, universal electrification. Without sufficient electricity for heating and cooking, Africans are exposed to high levels of indoor pollution from dirty fuels, the world’s greatest environmental health risk, according to the World Health Organization.
Globally, the WHO estimates that 3 billion people still cook and heat and illuminate their homes with solid fuels—wood, charcoal, and dried animal dung.
The poisons and particulate matter from burning solid fuels kill almost 4 million people a year from pneumonia, heart disease, pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer, and a variety of impaired immunities. Half of pneumonia deaths in children under age 5 are from soot in the house.
UNICEF estimates that the African share of those 4 million untimely deaths is 400,000.
Dangerous levels of indoor air pollution are almost guaranteed for families without access to electricity.
They also report that 352 million African children live in homes with solid-fuel cooking. Millions of women and children continue to walk many miles a day to gather not just water, but also wood for indoor burning, adding to deforestation.
The illnesses, deaths, and misery that are the result of energy poverty in Africa are improving only slowly compared with the rest of the world.
In 1960, those living in China and sub-Saharan Africa had a nearly equal life expectancy, 44 years. Today, China is at 77, which is only slightly less than the U.S. figure of 79. Regrettably, the African average is 61, better than it was 60 years ago, but still lagging behind much of the rest of the world.
According to the new research, that means that the 1 billion sub-Saharan Africans have a combined loss of 16 billion years of life compared with the Chinese.
Extreme generational poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is endemic, with 41% of the population living in absolute poverty, defined by the World Bank as an income of less than $1.40 per day.
A lack of access to reliable electricity is one of the primary reasons for this lack of economic growth.
Even in electrified areas of Africa, access is not reliable, since the grid is often down, sometimes on a daily basis.
That has led to a “dieselization” of the continent in recent decades. Soot-spewing diesel-fueled backup generators are in place for homes of the wealthy, factories, and government buildings. The reliance on this dirty source of power is so great that it’s estimated that many African nations spend more on diesel generation than on the electricity grid itself.
Is the answer to this energy poverty a complete reliance on wind and solar power? Not at all, as the unreliability of renewables would mean even more blackouts and brownouts, leading to even more “dieselization.”
The solution for providing dependable, affordable electricity may lie beneath the Africans’ feet in the form of cheap, abundant coal reserves that could be developed using American clean coal technology.
South Africa controls nearly 70% of the continent’s reserves, but substantial coal deposits are also found in East Africa and in the Sahel of West Africa. More than 100 new coal-fired plants are on the drawing board in 11 African nations, and almost half of those are being financed and built by China.
In spite of Africa’s deadly health crisis, the World Bank now bars lending to maintain or build new coal-fired power plants. Instead, it is lending to countries to assist them in closing mines and replacing the existing power plants with renewables.
According to Akinwumi Adesina, the African Development Bank’s president, “Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future.” He added: “There’s a reason God gave Africa sunlight.”
But that’s exactly the wrong formula.
No matter who sits in the Oval Office after Jan. 20, the president should consider rolling back the restrictions on African energy development to improve the lives of millions of our African brothers and sisters.
Australia: Electricity supplies under pressure due to heatwave, energy market operator warns
This is a complete nonsense. I live in central Brisbane in SEQ and when I looked at my thermometer at mid-afternoon, it showed only 32 degrees, where a normal summer temperature at that time is 34 degrees. So any blackouts are clearly NOT blamable on a "heatwave". Greenie pressures on traditional generators are the real problem
In parts of northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, the Bureau of Meteorology says it is looking like a five or six-day heatwave for millions of people.
Overnight, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said there might not be enough reserve capacity (Lack of Reserve Level 1) in New South Wales this afternoon between 3.30pm and 5.30pm.
Earlier in the week, it also said Queensland would likely be affected on Wednesday.
The Queensland prediction was serious enough to prompt it to issue an official Lack of Reserve level 2 (LOR2) forecast, meaning the possible shortfall could be enough to require the AEMO to ask big energy users to use less power.
"LOR2 means we are one contingency away from load shedding," said Ben Skinner, the general manager of policy at the Australian Energy Council.
But by Thursday, the AEMO had downgraded the forecast risk to LOR1.
"That is mild in terms of reserves, and they're largely being met at the moment, but we'll watch that very carefully to manage that over the coming days," said Michael Gatt, the AMEO's chief operations officer.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-29/heatwave-pushes-power-grid-to-the-limit-electricity/12930308
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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29 November, 2020
A very angry Belgian
Climatologist Dr. Prof. Jean-Luc Edouard Germain Michel Mélice recently sent the following threatening comment to climate skeptic Marc Morano
Old fart,
You must must remember me...if your brain is not completely fucked...
I am going to write you in french, remember that french is the language of every educated gentleman... which is not your case.
Je suis français et spécialiste en modélisation du climat et des océans, est-tu capable de comprendre ce que j'écris ?
You are getting very old now, your also bald, looking more and more like the Donnie the con, the orange agent.
In fact, you are typically an old mafiosi-type italian immigant.
Of course, you have no scientific training, your brain is to small to understand science, your IQ is under 100 (I have that information).
My scientist friends here in France welcoming you ... with a baseball bat....
Funny, we are all waiting for you if you have the stupid idea to travel to Europe...
I am a NASA expert and travel many times in the USA...I know the addresses of your kids and of of yourself. So, try to be very careful...
Donnie the don is terminated, this will be he case with yourself and the oil industry...
Too bad for you.
Dr. Prof. Jean-Luc Edouard Germain Michel Mélice
He wrote in a similar vein some years ago. See http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-very-strange-french-warmist-his.html
His personal history as lodged with the U.N. may be of interest
2. Date of birth: 12 07 1953
3. Place of birth: Jemappes, Belgium
4. Nationality(ies) at birth: Belgium
5. Present nationality(ies) Belgium, South Africa
9. Marital status: Single
11. Permanent address: 96, avenue des Combattants, B-1332 Genval, Belgium
13. Office Telephone No. +3226541555
15, Have you any dependents? NO
So he appears to be an old guy (67) who has never married. Being as angry-natured as he is, one can understand that no woman wanted him as a husband. So he has diverted the passions and energies that might have gone into raising a family into defending the absurd theory of catastrophic global warming. So it is no wonder that he gets angry at anyone who pokes holes into his central life belief
He certainly has ego problems. His assertion that "French is the language of every educated gentleman" is a hoot. Anglo-Saxons rarely use French so are none of them gentlemen? It is a really desperate claim to virtue which he himself undermines: After a very simple sentence in French he immediately lapses back into bad English, thus illustrating the supremacy of English
Slight, beneficial warming from more carbon dioxide!
Exhaustive study finds more CO2 and water molecules will not cause dangerous warming
David Wojick, Ph.D.
Precision research by physicists William Happer and Willem van Wijngaarden has determined that the current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor are “saturated.” In radiation physics that means adding more CO2 or water molecules will bring modest warming that will benefit plant growth, and thus all life on Earth. More CO2 and H2O will not cause dangerous warming.
From this point forward, emissions from burning fossil fuels will bring little additional global warming, and what does occur will improve forests, grasslands and agriculture. There is no climate emergency.
This finding is astounding, paradigm shattering, contrary to what alarmist scientists have told us for decades. Scientifically, it resolves a huge uncertainty that has plagued climate science for over a century: How should saturation be measured, and what is its extent regarding the primary greenhouse gases?
Just as “the greenhouse effect” is nothing akin to how greenhouses work, in radiation physics “saturation” is nothing like the simple, everyday concept of saturation. Your paper towel is saturated when it won't pick up any more spilled milk. Greenhouse gases are saturated when adding more water, methane or carbon dioxide molecules has no significant further effects on planetary warming and climate.
Dr. Happer is known as a leading skeptic of “dangerous human-caused climate change.” He co-founded the prestigious CO2 Coalition and served on the National Security Council, advising President Trump. But his career has been as a world-class radiation physicist at Princeton. Dr. van Wijngaarden teaches and conducts research in pure and applied physics at York University in Canada. Happer’s numerous peer-reviewed journal articles have collectively garnered over 12,000 citations by other researchers.
In their study, Professors Happer and van Wijngaarden (H&W) analyzed saturation physics in painstaking detail. Their preprint, “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases,” goes far beyond any work done previously on this complex problem.
To begin with, standard studies examine the absorption of solar radiation by greenhouse molecules using crude absorption bands of radiation energy. H&W go far beyond this, to analyze the millions of distinct energies, called spectral lines, that make up these bands. Their detailed line-by-line approach is an emerging field that often yields dramatically new results – and here contradict prevailing climate theory.
Moreover, H&W do not look only at absorption. As Dr. Happer explained it to me: First, thermal emission of greenhouse gases is just as important as absorption. Second, how the atmosphere’s temperature varies with altitude is just as important as its concentration of greenhouse gases.
The two physicists therefore looked hard, not just at absorption, but also at emissions and atmospheric temperature variation. The work is far more complex than I, most non-physicist scientists, and certainly most citizens and politicians can understand. However, the conclusions are simple and dramatically clear.
Happer and van Wijngaarden’s central conclusion is this: For the most abundant greenhouse gases, H2O and CO2, the saturation effects are extreme, with per-molecule forcing powers suppressed by four orders of magnitude at standard concentrations. (Forcing power means effects on atmospheric temperature.)
Their graphs are especially compelling: Figure 9 and Tables 2 and 4 show that, at current concentrations, the forcings from all greenhouse gases are saturated. The saturations of the most abundant greenhouse gases, H2O and CO2, mean the per-molecule forcing is weakened by a factor of 10,000.
The other greenhouse gases analyzed are ozone, nitrous oxide and methane. These are also nearly saturated, but not as completely as water vapor and carbon dioxide. They are also even less significant components of the atmosphere than CO2 (0.0415% or 415 ppm), which in turn is tiny compared to H2O (3% or less). At just 0.00019% methane truly has minuscule influence on climate.
The climate science community clearly needs to consider this work very carefully. This may not be easy since three major physics journals have refused to publish it. Their reviews have been defensive and antagonistic, instead of thoughtful, science-based or helpful. Climate alarmism seems to control these journals, and they tend to censor contrary findings. That’s why H&W released the preprint version.
Undaunted, H&W are now extending their analysis to include clouds. Alarmist climate science bases its “dangerous manmade” global warming, not on the CO2 increase alone, but also on incorporating positive water vapor and cloud feedbacks: emphasizing heat-trapping properties of clouds, while largely ignoring the degree to which clouds also block or reflect incoming solar radiation. Because carbon dioxide and water vapor are both saturated, it is highly unlikely that any positive cloud feedbacks can do much damage. However further careful analysis is needed to know this for sure. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, America and the world are forced to ponder only “permissible” climate science – which is being used to justify demands that we eliminate the fossil fuels that provide 80% of all US and world energy, and replace that energy with enormous numbers of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, new transmission lines ... and mines to produce their raw materials ... all with major environmental impacts.
“Permissible” climate science is also being used as the basis for computer models that purport to predict planetary warming and weather 50 to 100 years from now. The models have not gotten anything correct up to now, which is understandable since the physics on which they are based is so faulty.
The good news, says Science and Environmental Policy Project president Ken Haapala, is that humanity’s use of fossil fuels and addition of CO2 to the atmosphere are not causing a climate crisis. Cutting existing atmospheric CO2 levels in half would have little effect on climate – but would harm plant growth and the ability of forests, food crops and grasslands to survive droughts and other stress. “Carbon capture” (actually carbon dioxide capture) is of little value, and would just increase electricity prices.
As to climate “tipping points” – at which the Earth gets inexorably hotter, never to cool down – the very notion is laughable. Over the ages, our planet has swung back and forth from moderate to very warm periods; from ice ages and mile-high glaciers across half of North America and Europe to interglacial periods, like the one we are in now; from the Medieval warm period to the Little Ice Age, 1350-1810, Haapala notes. (The LIA was ending just about the time the fossil fuel and industrial era began.)
Put another way, because greenhouse gases are already saturated, there is no reason we should accept IPCC or other claims that planetary temperatures could rise more than 3.0 ? C (5.4? F) without compelling empirical evidence of strong atmospheric warming. That evidence is totally lacking in IPCC reports, and satellite measurements find no strong warming. Accepting alarmist claims is science denial.
In reality, according to atmospheric temperature trends measured by satellites and weather balloons, and tracked by the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama-Huntsville, the warming trend is modest. Since January 1979, it has remained at +0.14?C/decade (+0.12?C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18?C/decade over global-averaged land areas). That’s just 0.25?F per decade, or 2.5?F per century – modest, beneficial warming; certainly nothing remotely catastrophic.
Some of that warming is likely to be manmade. But most of it is natural and not at all unprecedented.
Moreover, the atmospheric “hot spot” above the tropics predicted by climate models is nowhere to be found. Put another way, for carbon dioxide to have significant impacts on global temperatures, humanity would have to burn more fossil fuels than are known to exist on our planet, Haapala concludes.
It’s no wonder climate alarmists, computer modelers, Green New Deal proponents, and wind turbine, solar panel, battery and concrete salesmen want to silence Happer and van Wijngaarden – or at least keep their work out of scientific journals. It’s also not surprising that China is happy to see the H&W science suppressed: its companies will be the ones selling us turbines, panels and batteries. Follow the science!
Via email
Pebble Mine project in Alaska dealt blow as Army Corps of Engineers determines it’s against public interest
It's not the role of the courts to determine what is in the public interest. That is the role of governments
The Trump administration on Wednesday effectively killed a contentious proposed mine in Alaska, a gold and copper prospect envisioned to be nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon and could fill an NFL stadium nearly 3,900 times with waste — all near the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.
The Army Corps of Engineers “concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest” and denied a permit to build the Pebble Mine under both the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act, the agency said in a statement.
The rejection was a surprise. It’s at odds with President Donald Trump’s efforts to encourage energy development in Alaska, including opening up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and other moves nationwide to roll back environmental protections that would benefit oil and gas and other industries.
The Corps of Engineers also seemed to signal just a few months ago that Pebble Mine was on a fast track to approval, a reversal from what many had expected under the Obama administration.
But unlike drilling elsewhere in Alaska, the mine proposed for the southwestern Bristol Bay region could have negatively affected the state’s billion-dollar fishing industry. Conservationists and even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., sounded the alarm on the project before the administration changed course again.
Alaska’s two Republican U.S. senators, who support oil and gas development and mining, hailed the rejection of the Pebble Mine permit.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the decision affirmed her position that it’s the wrong mine in the wrong place. “It should validate our trust and faith in the well-established permitting process used to advance resource development projects throughout Alaska. It will help ensure the continued protection of an irreplaceable resource — Bristol Bay’s world-class salmon fishery,” she said.
Sen. Dan Sullivan said he would remain an advocate for good-paying jobs derived from resource development. “However, given the special nature of the Bristol Bay watershed and the fisheries and subsistence resources downstream, Pebble had to meet a high bar so that we do not trade one resource for another,” he said. “Pebble did not meet that bar.”
The CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, the mine’s developers, said he was dismayed by the decision, especially after the corps had indicated in an environmental impact statement in July that the mine and fishery could coexist.
“One of the real tragedies of this decision is the loss of economic opportunities for people living in the area,” CEO John Shively said in a statement. The environmental review “clearly describes those benefits, and now a politically driven decision has taken away the hope that many had for a better life. This is also a lost opportunity for the state’s future economy.”
He said they are considering their next steps, which could include an appeal of the corps’ decision.
Solar and Wind Power Struggle as California Faces Blackouts
Rolling electric power blackouts afflicted roughly 2 million California residents in August as a heat wave gripped the Golden State. At the center of the problem is a state policy requiring that 33 percent of California's electricity come from renewable sources such as solar and wind power, rising to a goal of 60 percent by 2030. Yet data showed that power demand peaks just before the sun begins to go down, when overheated people turn up their air conditioning in the late afternoon. Meanwhile, the power output from California's wind farms in August was erratic.
Until this summer, California utilities and grid operators were able to purchase extra electricity from other states. But the August heat wave stretched from Texas to Oregon, so there was little to no surplus energy available. According to the San Jose Mercury News, California electricity grid operators warned in September 2019 that power shortages might become increasingly common when heat waves hit in the coming years.
California still has some natural gas power plants that can be ramped up to supply energy when renewable supplies fail. But "some folks in the environmental community want to shut down all the gas plants," Jan Smutny-Jones, CEO of the Independent Energy Producers Association, a trade association representing solar, wind, geothermal, and gas power plants, told The Mercury News in August. "That would be a disaster. Last night 60 percent of the power in [the California Independent System Operator electricity network] was being produced by those gas plants. They are your insurance policy to get through heat waves."
Union of Concerned Scientists analyst Mark Specht, by contrast, told NPR that "the solution is definitely not more natural gas plants. Really, if anything, this is an indication that California should speed up its investments in clean energy and energy storage."
An important fact is missing from this debate: California has been bringing the hammer down on a huge source of safe, reliable, always-on, non-carbon-dioxide-emitting electricity: nuclear power. In 2013, state regulators forced the closing of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, which supplied electricity to 1.4 million households. By 2025, California regulators plan to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which can supply electricity to 3 million households.
The problem of climate change, along with the blackouts resulting from the vagaries of wind and solar power, suggests that California should not only keep its nuclear power plants running but also build more innovative reactors designed to flexibly back up variable renewable electricity generation.
https://reason.com/2020/11/16/solar-and-wind-power-struggle-as-california-faces-blackouts/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
*****************************************
27 November, 2020
Joe Biden has said that he will use his first 100 days in the White House to roll back President Trump’s environmental orders and expand citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants
“I made a commitment,” Mr Biden told NBC News in his first interview as president-elect. “In the first 100 days I will send an immigration bill to the US Senate with a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people.”
He noted, however, that the Senate was likely to be controlled by Republicans, unless Democrats can win the two Georgia seats up for grabs early next year. “Some of it is going to depend on the kind of co-operation I can or cannot get from the United States Congress,” he said.
Mr Biden will not need congressional approval for another cornerstone of his initial agenda – undoing “damaging executive orders” signed by Mr Trump on environmental and climate issues.
He said that the Environmental Protection Agency watchdog had been “eviscerated” over the past four years.
The Great American Outdoors Act
This crown jewel of the Trump Administration’s environmental record will bring many benefits
Duggan Flanakin
To the surprise of most Americans, and the consternation of many in the “mainstream” media, Vice President Mike Pence highlighted the Trump Administration’s environmental record during the recent VP debate. Citing the President’s signing of the historic bill, Mr. Pence lauded the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) as “the largest investment in our public lands and public parks in 100 years.”
The Associated Press said the GAOA is the “most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century.” The National Parks Conservation Association called it “a conservationist’s dream.”
Harvard Business School professor Linda Bilmes agreed, calling the GAOA “the biggest land conservation legislation in a generation.” Bilmes, who served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration, marveled that the Trump Administration won broad bipartisan support in a polarized Congress, after the President reevaluated his own stance on this groundbreaking environmental and conservationist initiative.
Bilmes explained that the new law has two major effects. First, the new National Park and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund will provide up to $9 billion over the next five years to address deferred maintenance issues in national parks, wildlife refuges, forests and other federal areas, with $6.5 billion earmarked specifically to the 419 National Park units. Second, the GAOA guarantees the statutory maximum of $900 million per year in perpetuity for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Bilmes explained that Congress has been stingy with parks funding, despite a doubling of annual park visitors since 1980 (excluding the COVID-marred 2020 season). Thanks to the GAOA, the $12 billion backlog of maintenance to repair roads, trails, campgrounds, monuments, fire safety, utilities and visitor center infrastructure will finally be addressed. Similarly, the LWCF, established in 1964 with an annual maximum authorization level of $900 million, has typically received less than half of that amount.
The flagship LWCF conservation program is paid for with royalty payments from offshore oil and gas production in federal waters. It helps fund the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management. It also provides grants to state and local governments to acquire land for recreation and conservation. Yet many self-described environmental advocates want to shut down offshore oil activities.
An early beneficiary of the GAOA is the state of California, which will benefit from GAOA funding that provides the 50% federal share of a new program aimed at reducing wildfire risks. Both California and the U.S. Forest Service will treat at least half a million acres of forest land per year under a 20-year plan for forest health and vegetation – by reducing the fuel buildups that lead to monstrous conflagrations.
The Agreement for Shared Stewardship of California’s Forest and Rangelands, lauded by President Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom, is a joint state-federal initiative to reduce wildfire risks, restore watersheds, and protect habitat and biological diversity. Sadly, Congressional bickering delayed its passage such that it came too late to help mitigate this summer’s wildfires, which caused major damage to endangered and threatened species and their habitat in California and other Western states.
The California-federal agreement requires prioritizing public safety, using real science to guide forest management, coordinating land management across jurisdictions, increasing the scale and pace of forest management projects, removing barriers that slow project approvals, and working closely with all stakeholders: local and tribal communities, environmental groups, academics, timber companies and others. Additional activities under the agreement include recycling forest byproducts to avoid burning slash piles, improving sustainable recreation opportunities, and stabilizing rural economies.
Bilmes credited the strong bipartisan support (3 to 1 margins in both houses of Congress) to the political and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. She noted that in normal years park visitor spending contributes about $40 billion to the U.S. economy and supports nearly 350,000 jobs. The GAOA will give a huge shot in the arm to communities struggling due to the loss of tourism-related jobs and income, by creating over 108,000 new jobs for repairing park infrastructure, including lodges, trails, access roads and bridges in the adjacent communities.
Bilmes estimates that the American people value national park land, waters and programs at $92 billion per year – at least 30 times the annual budget they receive from Congress. Yet, like many critics of other Trump land management decisions, she fails to appreciate that reopening small sections of public lands with lower aesthetic value to income producing activities will provide the revenue needed to pay for the increased budgets for these national treasures.
Similarly, cutbacks in offshore oil and gas activities would drastically shrink the very federal revenues needed to pay $900 million per year to the LWCF, to support federal land management programs.
Critics of Trump policies also ignore the fact that the United States is reducing carbon dioxide emissions at an annual rate of more than 2% and has lowered emissions of criteria pollutants by 7% since the beginning of 2017, primarily because fracking is producing low-cost natural gas to replace coal in generating electricity, Mr. Pence pointed out during his debate.
Reducing wildfire infernos is another excellent way to reduce CO2 emissions, as well as real pollution like smoke and fine particulates (soot). Emissions from these forest fires are astronomical and can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles from the fires.
Pence also cited a record number of completed Superfund cleanups during the four years he and President Trump have been in office, along with a record number of recovered endangered species.
Reflecting the President’s view that parks are for the people, the Vice President also lauded the Interior Department’s opening of over 4 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Service lands for hunting and fishing, and relocating the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Grand Junction, CO, much closer to the vast majority of the vast federal lands it administers, nearly all in the western states.
Lastly, Pence cited the Modern Fish Act, signed in January 2019, which for the first time in federal law recognizes the differences between recreational and commercial saltwater fishing. The act also adds more appropriate management tools for policymakers to use in managing diverse federal recreational fisheries.
The popular legislation “provides an opportunity for significant, positive change on behalf of millions of recreational anglers who enjoy fishing in federal waters,” noted Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation president Jeff Crane.
Despite the bipartisan nature of these major accomplishments, and their importance to America and its magnificent natural heritage, media coverage of the GAOA signing made it quite clear that mainstream reporters were loath to give any credit to President Trump. That’s sad but not unexpected.
Whether acquiring more and more federal land is a good thing, in view of the often less than stellar way existing landholdings have been managed in recent years, only time will tell. But these new laws and joint federal-state-local-tribal land management initiatives are a solid step in the right direction.
Via email
Boris’s green agenda is just plain wrong
Our fearless leader has descended from the mountain with a 10-commandment plan for a green industrial revolution. At a cost of £12 billion, he will have all Britons driving electric cars powered by North Sea wind turbines and giving up their gas boilers to heat their homes with ground-source heat pumps. He will invent zero-emission planes and ships. This vast enterprise will create 250,000 jobs. I am a loyal supporter of the prime minister, but this Ed Miliband policy makes no sense any way you look at it. Here are 10 reasons why.
First, if it’s jobs we are after then spending £48,000 per job is a lot. Cheaper, as Lord Lawson put it, to create the same employment erecting a statue of Boris in every town. Anyway, it’s backwards: it’s not jobs in the generating of energy that count but jobs that use it. Providing cheap, reliable energy enables the private sector to create jobs for free as far as the taxpayer is concerned.
Second, he misreads how innovation works, a topic on which I’ve just written a book. Innovation will create marvellous, unexpected things in the next 10 years. But if you could summon up innovations to order in any sector you want, such as electric planes and cheap ways of making hydrogen, just by spending money, then the promises of my childhood would have come true: routine space travel, personal jetpacks and flying cars. Instead, we flew in 747s for more than 50 years.
Third, he is hugely underestimating the cost. The wind industry claims that its cost is coming down. But the accounts of wind energy companies show that both capital and operating expenditures of offshore wind farms continue to rise, as Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University and John Aldersey-Williams of Aberdeen Busines School have found. Wind firms sign contracts to deliver cheap electricity, but the penalties for walking away from those contracts, demanding higher prices from a desperate grid in the future, are minimal and their investors know it. Britain already has among the highest electricity prices for business in Europe because of the £10 billion a year that electricity-bill payers spend on subsidising the rich capitalists who own wind farms; raising them further will kill a lot more than 250,000 jobs.
Fourth, these policies will not significantly reduce the nation’s emissions, let alone the world’s. It takes a lot more emissions to make an electric car than a petrol one because of the battery. This is usually made in China. If the battery lasts for 100,000 miles – which is optimistic – and the electricity with which it is recharged is made partly with gas, then there is only a small saving in emissions over the lifetime of the car, according to Gautam Kalghatgi of Oxford University.
Fifth, the plan will make the electricity supply less reliable. Already this autumn there have been power-cut near misses and there was a bad blackout in 2019. Costly diesel generators came to our rescue, but keeping the grid stable is getting harder, and in both Australia and California, blackouts have become more common because of reliance on renewables. Smart meters that drain your electric car’s battery to help keep other people’s lights on may help. But if you think that will be popular, Boris, good luck, and wait till the lights go out or the cost of heating your home goes through the roof.
Sixth, Mr Johnson is depending on impractical technologies. Ground-source heat pumps can work, though they deliver low-grade heat and can’t cope on a freezing night. Air source heat pumps have not proved so far to be nearly as efficient as promised. They need electricity, make a noise and take up outside space that is not there in a terrace of houses. Forcing us to use compact fluorescent light bulbs, when LEDs were coming, proved a costly mistake.
Seventh, hydrogen is not an energy source; it first has to be made, using energy, then stored and transported. Making it from natural gas is expensive and generates emissions, but making it with electricity is vastly more expensive. Its minuscule molecules can slip through almost any kind of hole, so the natural gas pipe network is not suitable. Leaks will happen at hydrogen fuelling stations, as one did in Norway in June last year, resulting in a massive explosion.
Eighth, this industrial revolution is anything but green. To generate all our electricity from wind in the North Sea, taking into account the increased demand for electricity for heat pumps, electric cars and hydrogen manufacture, would require a wall of turbines 20 miles wide stretching from Thanet to John O’Groats, says Andrew Montford of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The effect on migratory birds would be terrible.
Ninth, nobody is following Britain’s example. China has announced that its use of fossil fuels will not even peak till 2030. China has more coal-fired power now under development than the entire coal power capacity of the United States. It will use coal to make the turbines and cars and batteries we use, laughing all the way to the bank. The world still generates 93% of its energy from CO2-emitting combustion (coal, oil, gas and wood) and just 1.4% from wind and solar.
Tenth, while climate change is a real issue and must be tackled, Extinction Rebellion is simply wrong about the urgency. If it’s extinction they worry about, let’s tackle invasive alien species, responsible for most extinctions. By contrast, there is no confirmed extinction of a species due to climate change. Nor has global warming resulted in more or fiercer storms or droughts. The extremists’ claims otherwise simply ignore the scientific evidence. Emissions have so far increased crop yields and made all ecosystems greener.
Yes, we need to address the issue, but we would be better off funding research to bring down the cost of carbon capture, nuclear power and fusion. Nuclear is the one form of carbon-free energy that can generate reliable power from a tiny footprint of land. The reason nuclear electricity costs so much today is because we have made innovation in nuclear design all but impossible by devising a byzantine regulatory process of immense cost. Let’s reform that. Small, modular molten-salt reactors are an innovation within reach, unlike electric planes.
My fear is that we will carry out Boris’s promised 10-point plan, cripple our economy, ruin our seascapes and landscapes, and then half way through the 2030s along will come cheap, small, safe fusion reactors. The offshore wind industry, by then so stuffed with subsidies they can afford to lobby politicians and journalists even more than they do to today, will suck their teeth and say: “no, no, no – ignore the fusion crowd. We’re on the brink of solving the reliability issue, and don’t worry, the cost will come down eventually. Promise!”
Boris, this is not the way to the promised land, especially when the government is borrowing £300 billion because of covid. High-cost electricity will prevent the United Kingdom making a success of Brexit. It will bankrupt us in the short run, make us less competitive in the long run and not cut emissions much anyway.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/boris-s-green-agenda-is-just-plain-wrong/
Australia: Cheap, abundant gas cooks the green guilt industryThe conviction that global warming requires us to find new ways to burn other people’s money is hard-baked into the narrative of environmentalism.
Last week, the Grattan Institute took to cooktop shaming to make that case for switching to electricity. If you’re cooking with gas, we were told, you’re playing with fire.
Banning the installation of gas in new homes is “a prudent, no-regrets option” as a prelude to phasing out gas altogether.
“It may be painful for some in the short term,” Australia’s richest think-tank concedes, “but neither wishful thinking nor denial will serve us well.”
Installing electric cooking and water heating appliances adds $2500 to the price of a new house, and retro-fitting an existing house will cost $3800 more. What about the poor people? No problem. Electricity companies can pay for new electric appliances and recover the cost over time through additional electricity charges, says Grattan.
Electricity may one day be cleaner than gas, but to force a switch now would only increase emissions. Cooking with electricity is effectively cooking with coal for 60 per cent of the time and gas for another 20 per cent.
The incessant demand to commit to a target of net-zero emissions by 2050, if not sooner, ignores the fact that we don’t yet have the technology to get there. Pragmatism is an inadequate response to the apocalypse they insist is heading our way. It is tempting for a Liberal government to avoid the argument by making the pledge anyway. After all, Scott Morrison’s government will be in its 12th term before it has to deliver.
Yet a commitment to net-zero emissions in 2050 demands that we accelerate emissions reductions now, leading to the dangerous, knee-jerk responses of the kind advocated by Grattan.
Gas is a fossil fuel, ipso facto, it must be purged from our energy supply, or so the thinking goes. Hence Grattan’s expectation that gas will inevitably play a declining role in our energy mix, and we must start turning down the flame right now, whatever the cost.
The path to net-zero emissions will be revealed in the fullness of time and may or may not mean turning off the gas. It is bound to include offsets, such as the sequestration of carbon dioxide into soil where it can be put into productive use, producing better food, more productive farms, greater drought resilience and biodiversity.
The notion that the energy sector alone can achieve net-zero emissions is an assumption it has become heresy to deny. For some, the cost of over-ambitious emissions reduction targets is proof of their virtue.
Economic pain and environmental gain have become inextricably linked in the climate change narrative. Last year the same think-tank warned: “Australia will need to make faster, more expensive changes to get back on track.”
Yet the assumption that efficient technology costs more than the technology it replaces runs counter to our experience. A Honda Civic today costs roughly the same as new model did in 1973 but delivers twice as much power and lower emissions, thanks to investments in research and development in a highly competitive market.
For the past 50 years, however, the environmental debate has become shrouded in apocalyptic thinking and overlaid by puritanical guilt, led by people who doubt the power of free-range human ingenuity to deliver a better future. In the dull, zero-sum world of sustainability, anything that adds to the joy of human existence imposes a cost on the rest of nature.
Rational thinkers on the centre-right have abandoned the space, leaving the ironically named progressives in charge. The oil crisis that gave birth to the hatchback reinforced the conviction that excessive consumption was draining the world of energy and that economic growth should be curtailed.
Innovation in both car manufacture and oil exploration has since allayed the fears that peak-oil was just around the corner, but the anxiety lingers.
Grattan’s speculative assessment that the price of gas will make it too expensive to bring down the price of electricity or the cost of industrial production underpins its claim that it is yesterday’s fuel.
Yet the spot price of gas has fallen considerably in the east coast market since its peak early last year. Lower-priced offers from gas-powered generators in turn helped bring down wholesale electricity prices, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.
The removal of moratoriums to unlock supply in NSW and Victoria, together with the expected arrival of re-gasification terminals in one or more east coast locations, will further bring down prices, together with government moves to introduce more market transparency and new investment in gas pipelines.
The prospect of cheap and abundant gas should calm the nerves of those concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. The renewable energy sources in which we have invested so heavily will at last be able to pull their weight supported by quick-fire gas, which Chief Scientist Alan Finkel describes as “the perfect complement to wind and solar”.
The impossible trifecta of energy that is cheaper, more reliable and greener at last seems possible, a win-win for people and the planet.
This what a rational environmental policy might look like if a rational approach was ever articulated. It is advancement through incremental improvement rather than by abolishing capitalism and starting again.
A Liberal approach to the environment sees no conflict between economic wellbeing and the environment. Indeed, it recognises that a strong economy is a precondition for environmental improvement and that attempting to reduce energy consumption by constraining supply is a race to the bottom.
Crucially, it avoids the conceit of perfect knowledge in a policy realm that is exceptionally complex. It does not attempt to pick winners or over-promise. It prefers, in the words of FA Hayek, “true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much undetermined and unpredictable, to a pretence of exact knowledge that is likely to be false”.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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26 November, 2020
Preventing future forest infernos
Paul Driessen
The 2020 fire season is nearing its end. But monstrous wildfires continue to rage across America’s western states, devastating towns and habitats, and killing hundreds of people and millions of animals. Politicians and environmentalists continue to rage that climate change is the primary factor, allowing few responsible, commonsense forest management actions that could actually reduce the risks.
Manmade climate change is a convenient scapegoat, but it cannot be separated from natural climate fluctuations and effects. Moreover, even assuming fossil fuel emissions play a dominant role in the human portion of this equation – and even if the Pacific Northwest or entire USA eliminated coal, oil and natural gas – China, India and scores of other nations will not do so anytime soon.
And they will certainly be using fossil fuels to manufacture the wind turbines, solar panels and batteries envisioned by Green New Dealers – and to mine and process the raw materials those technologies require.
The key ingredient in these monstrous, devastating forest fires is fuel. A century of Smokey the Bear fire suppression, coupled with half-century bans on timber harvesting, tree thinning and even insect control has filled western forests with dense concentrations of brush, fallen branches, needles and leaves, skinny young trees and huge older trees – many of them dead or dying – ready to be turned into conflagrations under hot, dry summer and autumn conditions that prevail most years in California and other western states.
It’s a recipe for disasters like the 1871 Peshtigo Fire, 20 miles north of where I grew up in northeastern Wisconsin, on the very same day as the Great Chicago Fire. Blistering flames a mile high moved south at 100 mph, creating “fire tornados” that threw houses and rail cars into the air. Over a million acres of forest were obliterated in two days; up to 2,500 people died, many of them cremated into little piles of ash.
I also recall how American and British bombers deliberately turned Hamburg, Germany into an inferno in July 1943. The first waves of planes dropped “blockbuster” bombs that leveled arms factories and parts of the city known to have mostly wooden structures. They were followed in subsequent days by attacks with incendiary bombs, which turned the wood debris into a firestorm, with tornado winds up to 150 mph, and temperatures of nearly 1500 F. Operation Gomorrah killed over 40,000 people.
A few days ago, I picked up my latest issue of Wired magazine. Daniel Duane’s 12-page article “The fires next time” made a couple now-obligatory references to climate change, but was one of the most detailed and insightful articles I’ve read on the causes and nature of these horrific wildfires. He vividly explains why we are witnessing a “trend toward fires dramatically more catastrophic” than in the past.
Above all, the reason is fuel buildup. CalFire, he notes, has some 75 aircraft and 700 fire engines, and is very good at extinguishing thousands of wild-land fires annually. But CalFire has virtually no fuel-management authority and must simply watch the trees and other fuel get “more and more dense,” creating prime conditions for ever-worsening crown fires that US Forest Service scientist Mark Finney says are big because landscapes are full of tinder and long-burning, heavy fuels. Ditto in other states.
More trees of course generate more roots competing for the same water, further drying everything out. In California alone, this and the 2011-2016 drought and pine bark beetles killed 150 million trees!
Another key ingredient, Duane writes, is the simultaneous burning of many small fires (caused by multiple lightning strikes, eg) that combine light and heavy fuels over a large area, amid mild ambient winds. “As that broad area continues to burn with glowing and smoldering embers over many hours, the separate convective columns of all those many little fires begin to join into a single, giant plume.”
As hot air in the plume rises, air at its base is replaced by air “sucked in from all directions. This can create a 360-degree field of wind howling directly into the blaze ... oxygenating the fire and pushing temperatures high enough to flip even ... giant construction timbers and mature trees into full-blown flaming combustion. Those heavy fuels then pump still more heat into the convective column.... [which] rises ever faster and sucks in more wind, as if the fire has found a way to stoke itself.” The timbers, branches and entire trees become “firebrands” that can be carried high into the air, a mile or more from the primary fire, then dropped into timber stands and homes, igniting still more firestorms.
Smaller blazes can be controlled, even extinguished. But massive firestorms can be impossible to suppress, saving homes equally hopeless. The primary order of business with mass fires is getting people out of harm’s way, before escape routes are clogged, cars run out of gas, and walls of flame close in.
That means building more escape roads from communities through forests to safety, even in the face of environmentalist opposition and lawsuits. Roads are far less intrusive or harmful than conflagrations. Yet radical greens battle these roads, while praising these unnatural conflagrations as “nature’s way.”
People lived in these areas long before pressure groups, politicians and courts made conflagration conditions this horrific. Actions need to be taken now to prevent more deadly fire cataclysms. That has to begin with removal of diseased, dead and excessive trees and brush. It will take years, decades even, and a lot of effort and money. But failure to halt and reverse the buildup of fuel in our forests is undeniably irresponsible – and deadly. Apache Indian forestry programs prove sound management saves forests.
Blaming climate change is useless and irresponsible. It means waiting 30-50 years or more, just to see if China and India finally replace fossil fuels, perhaps with nuclear power – in the hope that reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide actually reduces climate change, droughts, extreme weather and infernos.
Policymakers, land management agencies and regulators, Native tribes, community associations, industry groups and less obdurate environmental groups should seek collaboration and cooperation, especially on forest management and tree thinning. This is already happening but needs to be expanded greatly.
Educational programs should teach homeowners how to harden and fireproof houses and other buildings against small to midsized fires – and teach judges and politicians the hard realities of modern fires. Above all, those with ultimately life-or-death decision-making authority must understand that the price of bans on timber harvesting and responsible forest management is too often measured in homes and habitats obliterated, wildlife and humans killed, soil organisms incinerated, soils washed away by rainstorms and snowmelts, and millions of acres denuded and desolate for decades.
Tougher building codes for new construction in these areas would save homes, heirlooms and lives. Roofs especially should be made of fireproof or fire-resistant materials. Special financing and low-interest loans would make such new homes and hardened existing homes and buildings more affordable.
Local, state and federal budgets are already stretched to their limits. Funding will have to be redirected from other programs. Another approach could require forestry work for welfare checks. Besides saving habitats and lives, that would build skills, self-esteem and strong work ethics, improve physical fitness, replace a sense of entitlement with a sense of accomplishment, and create connections and opportunities
Another source of funds could be billionaires like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who recently gave $791 million to climate activist groups, as part of his commitment to his $10-billion Earth Fund. Certainly, helping to stop these deadly fires – and the incalculable air pollution, soil erosion, and habitat and wildlife destruction they cause – would be one of the boldest and most effective actions anyone could take to protect Earth’s future, including the majestic at-risk forests in his own backyard.
The bottom line is so simple we shouldn’t even have to state it.
If we don’t act, nature will. We have created this massive fuel-for-fires problem. We can and must fix it. Either we thin out trees, or nature will – with devastating consequences. For people who claim to care deeply about saving our forests for Bambi, spotted owls and other beloved creatures, guaranteeing horrific infernos is quite literally a hellish way to demonstrate our love for Mother Earth.
Via email
Climate 21 Project: Transition Recommendations For Climate Governance and Action
A proposal by advisers to president-elect Biden's transition team calls for "decarbonizing surface transportation," immediate cuts in fossil fuel extraction on federal lands, and the eventual "net-zero" elimination of fossil fuels by 2050.
Remarkably, it is all based on an inaccurate premise: there is a "punishing toll of climate change" that requires dramatic cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases.
As readers of the CO2 Coalition's White Papers and congressional testimony in recent years know, both parts of this premise hinge on model speculation about the future rather than scientific analysis of actual data to date.
According to the data and analyses of the UN IPCC, emissions of carbon dioxide are responsible for no more than a quarter of the global warming of one degree since 1900, and there has been no statistically significant increase in rates of hurricanes, floods, droughts, sea-level rise and other damaging weather events. Methane emissions are only one-tenth as potent as carbon dioxide emissions, and even a doubling of methane levels over hundreds of years would not cause a measurable increase in global temperature.
Far from taking a "punishing toll," fossil fuels have driven global income and living standards, and as a result, life expectancy and health, to all-time highs. And carbon dioxide emissions have had a net positive impact on the economy and environment, re-greening the earth by boosting crop productivity by a third.
On the positive side, the transition proposal does adopt the very steps to reduce damage from wildfires outline by CO2 Coalition biologists earlier this year: forest management and controlled burns on public lands, which have been prohibited by a complex of laws and regulations.
Via email from The CO2 Coalition: info@co2coalition.org
Biden Appoints Famous Jet Setter as Climate Change Czar
Former Vice President Joe Biden has released a first round of individuals he would choose for his Cabinet and other high profile administration positions. Former Secretary of State John Kerry is on the list and plans to serve as Biden's "Special Presidential Envoy for Climate."
"Former Secretary of State John Kerry will fight climate change full-time as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and will sit on the National Security Council. This marks the first time that the NSC will include an official dedicated to climate change, reflecting the president-elect’s commitment to addressing climate change as an urgent national security issue," the Biden team released Monday.
Kerry will be tasked with getting the United States back into Paris Climate Accord, which doesn't police the pollution of China, India or Russia, but does force American taxpayers to foot the bill.
The U.S. fully left the agreement in November and President Trump again explained why during the virtual G20 over the weekend.
Despite leaving the accord, the U.S. has reduced emission levels by more than required by the agreement.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) analyzed data and released a chart based on research by the 2018 BP Statistical Review of Global Energy and University of Michigan economist Mark Perry indicating that the United States achieved the largest decline in carbon emissions in the world for the 9th time this century. AEI reported that in 2017, U.S. carbon emissions decreased by more than 42 million tons. Despite departing from the Paris agreement, the U.S. significantly reduced its carbon footprint this year. This remarkable success can be attributed to substituting natural gas for coal. We’re upholding our end of the contract and we’re not even signees anymore.
Could we ever pull enough carbon out of the atmosphere to stop climate change? But it's all theory anyway
Only in theory
Nature has equipped Earth with several giant "sponges," or carbon sinks, that can help humans battle climate change. These natural sponges, as well as human-made ones, can sop up carbon, effectively removing it from the atmosphere.
But what does this sci-fi-like act really entail? And how much will it actually take — and cost — to make a difference and slow climate change?
Sabine Fuss has been looking for these answers for the last two years. An economist in Berlin, Fuss leads a research group at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change and was part of the original Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — established by the United Nations to assess the science, risks and impacts of global warming. After the panel’s 2018 report and the new Paris Agreement goal to keep global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) or less, Fuss was tasked with finding out which carbon removal strategies were most promising and feasible.
Afforestation and reforestation — planting or replanting of forests, respectively — are well known natural carbon sinks. Vast numbers of trees can sequester the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere for photosynthesis, a chemical reaction that uses the sun's energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. According to a 2019 study in the journal Science, planting 1 trillion trees could store about 225 billion tons (205 billion metric tons) of carbon, or about two-thirds of the carbon released by humans into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began.
Agriculture land management is another natural carbon removal approach that's relatively low risk and already being tested out, according to Jane Zelikova, terrestrial ecologist and chief scientist at Carbon180, a nonprofit that advocates for carbon removal strategies in the U.S. Practices such as rotational grazing, reduced tilling and crop rotation increase carbon intake by photosynthesis, and that carbon is eventually stored in root tissues that decompose in the soil. The National Academy of Sciences found that carbon storage in soil was enough to offset as much as 10% of U.S. annual net emissions — or about 632 million tons (574 million metric tons) of CO2 — at a low cost.
But nature-based carbon removal, like planting and replanting forests, can conflict with other policy goals, like food production, Fuss said. Scaled up, these strategies require a lot of land, oftentimes land that's already in use.
This is why more tech-based approaches to carbon removal are crucial, they say. With direct air capture and carbon storage, for instance, a chemical process takes carbon dioxide out of the air and binds it to filters. When the filter is heated, the CO2 can be captured and then injected underground. There are currently 15 direct air capture plants worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency. There's also bioenergy with carbon capture. With this method, plants and trees are grown, creating a carbon sink, and then the organic material is burned to produce heat or fuel known as bioenergy. During combustion, the carbon emissions are captured and stored underground. Another carbon capture trick involves mineralization; in this process, rocks get ground up to increase the surfaces available to chemically react with, and crystallize, CO2. Afterward, the mineralized CO2 is stored underground.
However, none of these technologies have been implemented on a large scale. They're extremely expensive, with estimates as high as $400 per ton of CO2 removed, and each still requires a lot of research and support before being deployed. But the U.S. is a good example of how a mix of carbon removal solutions could work together, Zelikova said: Land management could be used in the agricultural Midwest; basalt rocks in the Pacific Northwest are great for mineralization; and the oil fields in the Southwest are already primed with the right technology and skilled workers for underground carbon storage, she said.
Ultimately, every country will have to put together its own unique portfolio of CO2 removal strategies because no single intervention will be successful on its own. "If we scaled up any of them exclusively, it would be a disaster," Fuss said. "It would use a lot of land or be prohibitively expensive." Her research has shown that afforestation and reforestation will be most productive in tropical regions, whereas solar radiation differences in the more northern latitudes with more albedo (reflection of light back into space) mean those countries will likely have better luck investing in the more technological interventions, such as carbon capture and biomass extraction.
The need to deploy these solutions is imminent. The global carbon budget, the amount of CO2 humans can emit before the global temperature rises 2.7 F (1.5 C) above preindustrial levels, is about 300 gigatons of CO2, Fuss said.
"In recent years, we've emitted 40 gigatons," she said. Put another way, only a few years are left in that budget. A recent study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that waiting even a few years from now may be too late if we are to meet the goal set in the Paris Agreement. Based on their climate model, the authors predict that even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases entirely, "global temperatures will be 3 C [5.4 F] warmer and sea levels 3 meters [10 feet] higher by 2500 than they were in 1850." To reverse climate change's effects, 33 gigatons of existing greenhouse gases must be removed this year and every year moving forward, the researchers said.
The reality, however, is these approaches are not ready and there's not a consensus on how to pay for them.
https://www.livescience.com/can-carbon-removal-slow-climate-change.html
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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25 November, 2020
Boris would have banned steam engines
British prime minister Boris Johnson announced this week that he would make it illegal to sell petrol or diesel-driven automobiles from 2030, pushing the British into a fleet of electric cars. He proclaimed this would lead to a “green industrial revolution.” Fat chance! If Boris had been around in the 1780s, he would have had equally good “environmental” reasons for banning steam engines – and would thereby have snuffed out the real Industrial Revolution.
Britain’s most important problem, to an environmentalist 1784-Boris, is the sudden rise in the numbers of heavily polluting, noisy steam engines. Vast swathes of the countryside are being desecrated by the things. From a humble but modest role in pumping water out of mines, which they have had for 70 years (and few of 1784-Boris’s friends spend time in mining districts) they appear to be proliferating all over the place, in both towns and the countryside, with London especially blighted by their appalling dirt and smoke. Surely government can do something to regulate these menaces!
There is a further problem with steam engines, also. 1784-Boris’s climate scientists have calculated that global temperatures in the preceding 200 years have declined by about 1 degree on the new temperature scale pioneered by the Swedish scientist Anders Celsius. Londoners have taken to holding “frost fairs” on the frozen Thames every few years, but the first such fair was held only in 1608. Climate scientists have also theorized that the cooling effect of the sulphates released from coal fires and coal-burning steam engines are causing the problem. After all, widespread use of coal in domestic heating started quite suddenly in the second half of the 16th century and has spread ever more widely since; it makes sense to assume that the two developments were closely related, and the experts’ knowledge of sulphate chemistry has suggested a mechanism for such a relationship.
To 1784-Boris, there is too close a fit between the two timescales to be a coincidence. Global cooling, or “climate change” as he prefers to call it, is a menace that could wipe out civilization if it continued. On present trends, if coal usage continued to increase, global temperatures would drop another 4 degrees Celsius by 2000, which would be enough to destroy British agriculture and starve the rapidly growing British population. For Boris, the only solution is sharp restriction on coal burning, limiting domestic use of coal and banning dangerous new applications such as steam engines. The new-fangled economist Adam Smith has suggested a “sulphur tax” to reduce the use of sulphur-emitting coal, but Boris believes it is much more effective for the government to issue decrees than to rely on a complicated and inefficient “free market” to achieve necessary social goals.
1784-Boris is confident that even though the use of steam engines is growing, they are no more than peripheral to the British economy. The Dutch have developed windmill technology to a high level, using them to pump water out of mines. This could be done in Britain; the intermittent nature of wind power is not a problem, since if water accumulates, it can be pumped out when the next windy day occurs. Water-mill power also is used in the newly growing textile industry and seems perfectly satisfactory. Yes, Boulton and Watt are selling a few steam engines to that industry, but their engines appear to have only modest advantages over water-mill power, and they are far more difficult and indeed dangerous to work with. 1784-Boris has heard that James Watt is working on a steam engine with a condenser, which would be more efficient, and has patented some new ideas, but so far the advantages of steam engines are pretty marginal. Thus, the costs of a ban on steam engines are modest, while the environmental benefits are of great importance. All 1784-Boris’s friends, whose London town houses and country estates are made filthy and noisy by the new devices, will thank him for this new decree.
1784-Boris’s new regulation is relatively easy to enforce. There are only a few factories making steam engines, which can be forced to close, and the engines themselves are so noisy they can be heard half a mile away. The mines will adapt, though mines that have been using Newcomen engines since 1710 or so have a justified case for compensation, and some flood-prone workings will have to be abandoned. The textile business can easily continue with water-mill power, although its growth will be steady rather than spectacular.
In our timeline Britain eventually won the Napoleonic Wars, through its strong and growing economy, which brought tax and borrowing capacity that after 1809 was harnessed against French military power by Liverpool and Wellington. In the Boris-1784 timeline, Britain with its more sluggish economy would probably have lost that war. Win or lose, in the post-war depression the burdens of Britain’s debt would have become intolerable on an economy with no steam and little innovation. At that point economic collapse would have occurred and just as in Ireland thirty years later, starvation would have faced the rapidly increasing population, as Thomas Malthus predicted. The sufferers from the repeated famines of the 19th century, as British economic power went into decline, would never have known about the railways and steamships they would have lacked, because 1784-Boris halted the development of their motive power.
What this fable demonstrates is that the Industrial Revolution was by no means inevitable and would have been derailed by policies that were anything like Boris Johnson or other politicians pursue today. It took two centuries of remarkably good British economic policy to produce the Industrial Revolution, and 21st century economic policies would have prevented it. The “command and control” approach to economic policy, beloved of Gosplan bureaucrats, can destroy innovations and positive developments that the bureaucrat, cocooned in his Moscow dacha, knows nothing about.
If Boris Johnson wants to combat climate change, he should impose a carbon tax, like the “sulphates tax” that Adam Smith recommended to 1784-Boris in the myth above. With Smith’s sulphates tax, steam engine progress would have been retarded, but once truly superior steam engines appeared with James Watt’s condenser and high-pressure boilers, they would have overcome the economic hurdle of any plausible sulphates tax and would have produced the Industrial Revolution, if a few years behind schedule.
By forcing the adoption of electric cars rather than imposing a carbon tax, Boris Johnson is today substituting government fiat for a market mechanism, putting an absolute bar on some directions in which innovation might appear. Whether or not a particular social objective is sensible, regulation is always the most damaging way of attaining it. Far from causing a “Green Industrial Revolution” Boris Johnson may well be preventing a new Industrial Revolution from appearing, whether green or any other color.
https://www.tbwns.com/2020/11/23/the-bears-lair-boris-would-have-banned-steam-engines/#more-3983
Carbon dioxide levels are still at a record high despite factories closing, planes being grounded and energy use reducing during Covid lockdownSo could anything reduce them?
Levels of carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere did not dwindle as a result of the widespread cessation of industrial activity throughout 2020, official data shows.
The coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to close, grounded flights and saw people stay at home instead of venturing outside.
As a result, emissions of greenhouse gases, including CO2 and the more potent but less prevalent nitrous oxide and methane, dropped dramatically.
However, the World Meteorological organization (WMO) says this global drop of up to 7.5 per cent is insufficient to impact on the amount of CO2 already trapped in the atmosphere.
Scientists say several human activities are to blame for the soaring levels, including coal mining; oil and gas production; cattle and sheep farming; and landfills.
Stanford University researchers and the Global Carbon Project assessed emissions from 2010 up until 2017, the last year complete data was available.
It found that in 2017 Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colourless, odourless gas that is one of the most potent pollutants.
Methane traps almost 30 times more heat than the same amount of carbon dioxide and more than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities.
In 2019, the global average for carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere breached the threshold of 410 parts per million (ppm).
Before the Industrial Revolution, the average amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was around 278ppm, with fossil fuel burning, cement production and deforestation to blame as primary drivers for a 148 per cent spike.
This figure continued to rise in 2020 according to official data from the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO's annual greenhouse gas bulletin looked primarily at the amount of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere as of 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, but did include insight from data gathered already in 2020.
Preliminary estimates for this year indicate that as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, global annual emissions of CO2 fell by between 4.2 per cent and 7.5 per cent.
But these kinds of reductions will not cause the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to go down, the WMO warned.
Carbon dioxide levels will continue to go up, and while the rate of growth will be slightly reduced by the fall in emissions, it will have no more effect than the changes seen from year to year as a result of natural variability in the system.
Once released into the atmosphere from processes such as burning fossil fuels for power, transport and industry, as well as deforestation and agriculture, greenhouse gases trap heat.
'Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries and in the ocean for even longer,' said WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas.
Nitrous oxide levels increased by a THIRD over the past 40 years
Widespread use of nitrogen-based fertiliser is jeopardising ambitious climate targets and putting the world at risk of overshooting the Paris Agreement.
Common synthetic fertilisers, used by farmers to increase crop growth, produce huge amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas.
It is less prevalent than carbon dioxide, but is 300 times more potent as a contributor to global warming.
The dangerous gas depletes the ozone layer, which protects us from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun, and remains in the atmosphere for a century.
A landmark study has found human-induced emissions of the chemical have surged since the 1980s, increasing by 30 per cent over the past four decades.
Annually, humans now create 7.3 trillion grams (Tg) of nitrogen a year and more than half (3.8 trillion grams [3.8Tg]) comes directly from agriculture.
This figure is increasing every year at a rate of around 1.4 per cent, according to the data.
'The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3°C warmer and sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now. But there weren't 7.7 billion inhabitants.'
The data shows annual emissions of carbon dioxide was about 410.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2019, up from 407.9 parts ppm in 2018.
In the last ten years, almost half (44 per cent) of all CO2 emitted into the atmosphere stayed there and was not absorbed by either land or sea.
'We breached the global threshold of 400 parts per million in 2015. And just four years later, we crossed 410 ppm,' says Professor Taalas.
'Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records. The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve.'
Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide also climbed to new highs in 2019, the annual greenhouse gas bulletin from the WMO showed.
Hybrid cars emit way more pollution than advertised
Top auto brands are getting smoked by environmental analysts who have found that their carbon emissions are much higher than what carmakers had reported.
The European group Transport and Environment (T&E), which campaigns for renewable energy in transportation, found three top-selling plug-in hybrid SUVs — BMW’s X5, Volvo’s XC60 and Mitsubishi’s Outlander — are emitting 28% to 89% more carbon dioxide than advertised, even under ideal road conditions.
“Plug-in hybrids are fake electric cars, built for lab tests and tax breaks, not real driving,” Julia Poliscanova, T&E’s senior director of clean vehicles, said in a press statement. “Governments should stop subsidizing these cars with billions in taxpayers’ money.”
Hybrid vehicles are those that combine a combustible fuel engine — one that is smaller than conventional cars — with an electric motor and rechargeable battery. The car is thus able to toggle between using electric power and gasoline. While plug-in hybrid car emissions are lower than those for gas or diesel vehicles, T&E found CO2 levels in real-world tests were typically two to four times what the auto brands reported.
These companies haven’t copped to the findings, according to Reuters: Volvo and Mitsubishi denied the results, while BMW declined to respond to its inquiry.
Last week, the European Union announced an emissions proposal that would narrow which cars can be deemed “green” vehicles. Under the new rules, hybrid vehicles, such as the three makes tested, would no longer be considered sustainable automobiles, beginning in 2026.
Despite a potential $7,500 vehicle tax credit up for grabs, Americans overall have been slow to adopt electric cars. Overall last year, only about 727,000 new partial- and all-electric cars were sold in the US, which is just over 4% of the 17 million total sales in new “light-duty” vehicles, including SUVs and small passenger trucks, according to USAFacts.org, a nonprofit data resource, with statistics from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Sales of hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) about doubled between 2011 and 2013, from approximately 266,500 to 495,500 units sold, prompted in part by Tesla’s move to go public in summer 2010.
All-electric varieties lag far behind HEVs, which experts have claimed is a result of consumer concern over their viability for long-distance driving. In 2019, only about 241,000 all-electric cars sold, adding to the 1.4 million total since they were first introduced in 2010. Plug-in hybrid vehicles, like those studied by T&E, are a steppingstone between HEVs and all-electric, with a slightly larger battery that requires more juicing, but which make up the smallest share of the US market.
Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency released their new rules for US-based car manufacturers’ fuel economy standards. The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient vehicles rule requires carmakers to improve fuel efficiency in all cars, including hybrid electric and gas-powered, by 1.5% per year, to reach an average of 40.4 miles per gallon by 2026. These standards were recalibrated after an initial proposal, announced in 2012, would have required a 5% annual increase in fuel efficiency, for an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/23/hybrid-cars-emitting-much-more-co2-than-advertised/
Australia: Why NSW power bills could surge by $400 a year under government's new 'electricity tax' to pay for renewable energy planPower bills could increase by $400 a year under the New South Wales government's energy roadmap, Mark Latham has warned.
The NSW One Nation leader slammed the plan to encourage $32billion of private investment in renewable energy projects by 2030 as a 'stitch up'.
The state government wants wind, pumped hydro and solar projects to replace four coal-fired power stations which are due to shut over the next 15 years.
Energy Minister Matt Kean says then plan - which will create Renewable Energy Zones in Dubbo and the south west - will cut household bills by $130 and small business bills by $430 a year between 2023 and 2040.
But Mr Latham fears bills may increase as the government plans to offer a minimum electricity price to companies that build the renewable projects.
If the electricity price were to fall below that level, the government would levy cash from providers who would temporarily increase household bills.
Mr Latham told Daily Mail Australia the plan represents 'guaranteed income for renewable energy companies and their lobbyists, paid for by electricity consumers.'
He described the plan as a new tax and criticised Mr Kean for intervening in the electricity market.
'He's planning personally to levy amounts on the electricity distributors that they pass on to consumers,' Mr Latham told Sydney radio station 2GB.
'So that's a new NSW electricity tax where the minister gets to levy the money on the distributors... it goes straight on to the electricity bill.
Why might power prices increase?
The NSW government wants wind, pumped hydro and solar projects to replace coal-powered electricity.
Under the plan the government will offer a minimum electricity price to companies that build the renewable projects through a Long Term Energy Services Agreement.
The government's consumer trustee will then sell the energy to retailers and companies, with any shortfall made up by enforced 'contributions' from distributors who would push up their prices for consumers.
The government says these payments will only be triggered if consumers are already benefiting from low energy prices - and they would be repaid once prices increase and the renewable projects are making cash again.
'We're talking huge amounts of money and probably power bills going up by $100 a quarter,' Mr Latham said, without explaining where he got the figure from.
The 59-year-old has vowed to oppose the plan, which the Coalition government introduced in early November with support from Labor and the Greens.
'I think we should slow this down and make sure we can guarantee to people the lights stay on and the prices come down,' he said. 'This is the whole future of the energy sector in NSW and they won't have a committee that's commonplace in other areas. 'It's a stitch up, it's a cover up and we're going to oppose it.'
Federal energy minister Angus Taylor also fears the plan will push up prices and has demanded to see the NSW government's modelling.
'I'm concerned about models and analysis including unrealistic assumptions that don't translate into the real world,' he said in a speech at The Australian Financial Review Energy and Climate Summit on Monday.
'The Commonwealth would like to see the modelling behind that policy. I'm confident that we can work through it, and NSW has indicated its strong intent to get to a sensible outcome.'
The Australian Energy Council warned the government's intervention may encourage too many energy assets to be built in places where they may not be needed. 'This would ultimately mean higher costs for households,' it said in statement.
Tony Wood, energy director at the Grattan Institute, said the plan takes risk away from investors and transfers them to consumers who would potentially foot larger bills.
The plan will support 12 gigawatts of renewable energy and two gigawatts of storage, such as pumped hydro, and reduce carbon emissions by 90 million tonnes to 2030.
Landholders are expected to pocket $1.5 billion in rent by 2042 for hosting new infrastructure.
More than 10,000 construction and ongoing jobs will be created by 2026, with an estimated 2800 ongoing jobs in 2030, the government says.
Coal-fired power made up 77 per cent of NSW's total electricity generation in 2019 - higher than the national average of 56 per cent - but four of the state's five plants will stop by 2035. Renewables made up 19 per cent.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8975825/Power-bills-surge-400-year-warns-Mark-Latham.html
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24 November, 2020
Boris’s recycled eco-sop
Today, the prime minister announced his 10-point plan for what he claims will be ‘a green industrial revolution’. But despite the green applause and gushing, Boris Johnson’s agenda contains nothing new and nothing to cheer. It is nothing but the recycled and reused promises of every government which, since the 1990s, has failed to convince the public that environmentalist goals are advanced in our interests. These are commitments, not to respond better to the British public’s needs and wants, but to ignore them in favour of the wants of the blobs that infest Westminster, the ‘international community’, and Boris’s girlfriend.
It was not Boris who said, ‘The huge industrial revolution that is unfolding in converting our economy to low carbon is going to present huge business and employment opportunities’. It was Peter Mandelson in 2009. And it was not Boris who said that wind power means ‘a real prospect of us becoming a net energy exporter again, as we were at the peak of North Sea oil and gas’. It was the disgraced Chris Huhne, former energy secretary, in 2010. For over a decade, all governments have been promising that a ‘green industrial revolution’ is ‘unfolding’ on their command, which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and release the UK economy from its slumber. Boris Johnson repeats them, claiming that the UK will become the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind’. This endless recycling of promises has delivered nothing for the public, except perhaps for higher energy prices.
What this constant recycling demonstrates is how all the establishment parties have gone green. Vote Blue, go Green. Vote Boris Johnson, get Ed Miliband. The failed ambitions of a one-time party of government become the flagship policies of the next. The Labour Party’s ‘Green New Deal’, for example, was repackaged by the succeeding Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as the ‘Green Deal’. Though he promised ‘no more half-measures going off at half-cock’, Chris Huhne’s scheme was abandoned after the public turned their noses at the offer, which included loans for home retrofitting – point seven on Boris’s plan. Much of Boris Johnson’s 10-point plan reuses these failed policies.
Then, as now, Britain’s politicians believed that strong domestic legislation on climate change is what’s needed to take a leading role on the world stage. In the desperate, dying days of the Gordon Brown government, the UK Climate Change Act was formed and was taken to the ill-fated climate meeting in Copenhagen by Ed Miliband. But the act of collective self-sacrifice taken on our behalf was ignored, and the meeting failed to reach an agreement. Boris’s 10-point plan intends to repeat the mistakes of the Brown government, by enacting draconian legislation ahead of next year’s climate meeting, which Britain is hosting.
Since the mid-2000s, the UK’s politicians, civil society and public institutions of all kinds have – with few exceptions – tried to establish the environment as the top political priority. Despite this, the ever-patient voter has had other ideas. The era of environmentalism’s apparent ascendency was better defined by the question of Britain’s membership of the EU. Although Johnson seemingly championed Brexit, he seems hell-bent on ignoring the referendum’s fundamental message: the desire for democratic control of British politics, not submission to undemocratic supranational political organisations. The 10-point plan, signalling ‘our’ commitment to the global green agenda, is intended to secure the foundation for a form of supranational politics that is every bit as overbearing and undemocratic as the European Union. No thanks, Boris.
The constant recycling of the same ‘ambition’ has become the leitmotif of British politics. It is the endless screeching of an aloof, detached elite, hopelessly searching for support from above, rather than turning to the public for instruction. But the fact is, as nearly everyone below can see, it is not an ‘industrial revolution’ that is being sought, but a political revolution – against democracy. Boris’s plan, the ‘Net Zero’ agenda and the green political consensus explicitly remove the public’s ability to participate in political debate about the material conditions they endure and the freedoms they enjoy.
Hence, the 10-point plan at last turns hitherto abstract emissions-reduction targets into more concrete objectives. As was expected, it sets out the plan in which domestic boilers will be abolished and replaced – at four or five times the cost to the householder – by ‘heat pumps’. Petrol and diesel cars will be abolished and replaced by electric vehicles that are vastly more expensive, pricing millions off the road. Meanwhile, cycling and walking will be made ‘more attractive’.
The government’s green turn has stirred some criticism from Tory quarters, concerned that the lofty green ambitions of the south east might not resonate in the newly won ‘red wall’ constituencies in the north. Not so, claims Boris in the Financial Times, invoking the distant memory of Britain’s industrial age, projected on to the future of former industrial towns. ‘Imagine Britain when a Green Industrial Revolution has helped to level up the country’ and ‘British towns and regions – Teesside, Port Talbot, Merseyside and Mansfield – are now synonymous with green technology and jobs’.
But the promise is paper-thin. It is a £12 billion make-work scheme. It might not be capable of creating a single job at all – let alone turning around Britain’s former industrial towns. In any case, its ambitions are dwarfed by the damage inflicted on jobs by the government’s response to Covid-19. Figures from the ONS show that the government borrowed upwards of £1 billion per day throughout the pandemic. That is to say that Boris’s flagship policy initiative costs less than a fortnight of its mismanagement of the pandemic. And it is the last nine months of the government’s catastrophic interventions that should calibrate our estimation of the 10-point plan.
I would not buy a second-hand car from Boris Johnson. Much less would I buy from him a suite of policies that will, among other things, abolish cars and reorganise the entire economy, society and culture. This agenda will have no democratic control; no ordinary person, whether or not they are grateful for a make-work job, will have any say over it.
In fact, I would not buy a second-hand car from any politician peddling Net Zero utopianism, hydrogen-powered fantasies and dreams of reorganising society around the rationing of energy. This is not ‘building back better’, as Boris would have it; it is building back according to the wishes of green-blob lobbyists, billionaires’ pet ‘civil society’ organisations, the prime minister’s awful girlfriend and a degenerate political class that thinks we can be persuaded into a lifetime of ecological austerity by a £12 billion sop
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/11/18/boriss-recycled-eco-sop/
Trump slams the Paris Climate Accord and says it was designed to destroy the American economy
President Donald Trump railed against the Paris climate accord on Sunday, telling world leaders at a virtual summit that the agreement was designed to cripple the U.S. economy, not save the planet.
'To protect American workers, I withdrew the United States from the unfair and one-sided Paris climate accord, a very unfair act for the United States,' Trump said in a video statement from the White House to the Group of 20 summit hosted by Saudi Arabia.
His comments came during a discussion among the world's largest economies on safeguarding the Earth.
President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office in January, has said he will rejoin the global pact that the U.S. helped forge five years ago.
Trump contended the international accord was 'not designed to save the environment. It was designed to kill the American economy.'
Trump, who has worked to undo most of President Barack Obama's efforts to fight climate change, said that since withdrawing from the climate agreement, the U.S. has reduced carbon emissions more than any nation.
That is true, but not that remarkable.
With its giant economy, the U.S. has far more raw emissions of climate-damaging carbon dioxide to cut than any other country except China.
A more telling measure of progress in various countries is to look at what percentage of emissions a county has cut. Since 2005, the United States hasn´t been even in the top 10 in percentage of greenhouse gas emission reductions.
More than 180 nations have ratified the accord, which aims to keep the increase in average temperatures worldwide 'well below' 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7 F), compared with pre-industrial levels.
Scientists say that any rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms and worsening droughts and floods.
The U.S. formally exited the Paris pact on Nov. 4.
During the discussions at the climate session, President Xi Jinping of China, the world's largest emitter, said the G-20 should continue to take the lead in tackling climate change and push for the full implementation of the Paris accord.
'Not long ago, I announced China's initiative to scale up its nationally determined contributions and strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060,' he said. 'China will honor its commitment and see the implementation through.'
India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, said 'climate change must be fought not in silos, but in an integrated, comprehensive and holistic way.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8975293/Trump-slams-global-climate-agreement-Biden-intends-rejoin.html
The perversities of rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement
Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin the Paris climate agreement on the first day of his administration, a promise unambiguous and therefore certain to be fulfilled, notwithstanding the essential absurdity of the Paris agreement narrowly and of climate policies more generally. Applying the EPA climate model under highly favorable assumptions, the Paris agreement if implemented immediately and enforced strictly would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by about 0.17 degrees C, an effect that would be barely detectable given the normal variation in annual temperatures. The Biden proposal for net-zero emissions by the U.S.: 0.137 degrees C. The temperature effect by 2100 from either net-zero emissions by the entire OECD or a 30 percent cut in GHG emissions by the entire world: less than 0.3 degrees C.
The ostensible reductions in GHG emissions under the Paris agreement are merely the summed promises (“nationally determined contributions”) submitted by the various nations. There is neither “science” nor rigorous benefit/cost analysis underlying them, and there is no enforcement mechanism in any event; short of military action, any such enforcement would be impossible, notwithstanding all the current talk about “border adjustment” tariffs to be imposed upon economies failing to satisfy the demands of the international climate and environmental left. Indeed, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC), under the authority of which the Paris agreement was negotiated, makes it quite clear that the resolution of disputes is wholly voluntary:
A conciliation commission shall be created upon the request of one of the parties to the dispute. The commission shall be composed of an equal number of members appointed by each party concerned and a chairman chosen jointly by the members appointed by each party. The commission shall render a recommendatory award, which the parties shall consider in good faith. (Italics added)
Notice also that almost all of the NDCs are promised emissions reductions relative to a “business as usual” baseline, that is, an emissions path unconstrained by any policies at all. Because GHG emissions are closely correlated with energy consumption, itself driven by gross domestic product, even a small overestimate of future economic growth will yield a BAU baseline assumption for future GHG emissions higher than realistic. When economic growth proves lower than assumed, so will GHG emissions; accordingly, the NDCs can (and many or most of them will) be fulfilled without any change at all in actual underlying emissions behavior. Commitments fulfilled!
The Paris agreement obviously is a treaty requiring ratification by the U.S. Senate, but because it was doomed to defeat had it been so submitted by President Obama, he pretended that it was merely an administrative agreement, agreeing to its terms in September 2016 by sending a letter to the UN. That this is clearly unconstitutional should be obvious: If presidents can decide unilaterally which international agreements require Senate ratification and which do not, the presidential “power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur” becomes unconstrained, a blatant destruction of the Senate’s explicit power to provide or to withhold consent.
Accordingly, the failure of President Trump to submit the Paris agreement to the Senate for a certain defeat was a major mistake, as doing so would have preserved the proper respective roles of the president and the Senate under the constitution, while relegating the agreement to its well-deserved place on the trash heap of history. His decision merely to implement a formal exit appeared attractive because it circumvented opposition by the State Department bureaucracy to a treaty ratification vote; the certain defeat was inconsistent with the bureaucracy’s eternal goal of endless expansion of the scope of international negotiations regardless of the harm to U.S. interests. But Trump’s chosen path of less resistance has yielded the current situation in which Obama and Trump have created a precedent that Biden can exploit without so much as a nod to the Senate’s proper role.
And so it is unsurprising that Biden will implement that seemingly straightforward course of action, but rejoining the Paris agreement entails crucial complications and serious adverse effects far beyond the obvious higher energy costs and weaker economic growth.
Once Biden sends the requisite letter to the UN, the U.S. formally would become again a party to the agreement after thirty days. But then the U.S. would have to submit an NDC; that initially might be a placeholder, an example of which might be the original Obama NDC, an emissions cut of 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Largely because of the massive expansion in U.S. natural gas productionattendant upon the fracking/horizontal drilling technological revolution---vehemently opposed by the environmental left as part of its ideological stance against fossil fuels---U.S. GHG emissions in 2019 were over 16 percent below those in 2005.
But even a projected fulfillment of the Obama NDC by 2025 would not satisfy the political corner into which Biden has painted himself. He pledged, prominently, net-zero U.S. GHG emissions from the electric power sector by 2035, and net-zero for the whole economy by 2050. As a central policy dynamic, those goals are indistinguishable from those typically subsumed under the heading “Green New Deal,” regardless of Biden’s attempt to claim that his plan and the GND fundamentally are different. That means that legislation would be needed to effect the necessary massive shifts in the U.S. economy, but such Congressional acts simply will not be forthcoming from a House of Representatives with a Democratic majority of, say, 225-210, or from even a Senate divided 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting deciding votes. There are too many Democratic Congressmen and Senators whose constituents would suffer large economic losses from such policies, and the 60-vote supermajority rule in the Senate would make matters even more difficult.
Accordingly, a President Biden intent upon fulfilling his self-imposed mandate would find it necessary to use the regulatory process to force the promised upheaval in U.S. energy markets, presumably under the authority of the Clean Air Act. The Obama administration attempted to employ precisely this approach, and encountered towering legal obstacles that essentially made achievement of its climate policy goals impossible. Even were a Biden administration able to overcome these central legal problems---not a plausible outcome given the change in the federal judiciary over the last four years---any such regulatory process would consume years under the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act.
Alternatively, or perhaps in combination with a massive regulatory effort, a Biden administration in concert with leftist environmental legal groups might try to persuade various judges to rule that formal U.S. participation in the Paris agreement overrides the legislative powers of Congress and the constraints imposed by actual existing legal authority upon expansive regulatory activity. Such rulings would be certain to receive attention at the appellate level, and very likely from the Supreme Court. How probable is it that the latter would be willing to adopt the position that the Paris agreement---never ratified by the Senate---has diminished U.S. sovereignty in such a way as to render the legislative powers of Congress null?
That is not all. “Climate policy” is an attempt to impose a large artificial increase in energy costs, and the asserted costs of “mitigating” the purported adverse effects of anthropogenic climate change must be borne by someone. (I shunt aside here the reality that there is no actual evidence of such adverse effects.) Accordingly, the developing economies demanded at the 2009 15th Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen a commitment from the developed economies for large annual subsidies. The result was the Green Climate Fund, established in 2010; it is supposed to raise $100 billion per year beginning in 2020. (As of earlier this year, a total of $10.3 billion has been pledged.) The Obama administration pledged about $3 billion in total, and actually transferred about $1 billion; needless to say, the Trump administration has been far more skeptical of the UNFCCC and the GCF.
Will the Biden administration find the $3 billion pledge sufficient politically? The developing economies have been vociferous in their demands for large financial transfers as a quid pro quo for acceptance of higher energy costs, and without such transfers it is easy to envision a large-scale refusal to implement the Paris NDCs, in particular because Article 9 of the Paris agreement mandates such financial aid. The aforementioned State Department bureaucracy will be aghast, and the leaks and other tools with which to embarrass the Biden White House will become prominent. And it is not obvious that the closely-divided Congress will be willing to appropriate the requisite dollars, especially given all the other continuing and new spending demands certain to be manifest.
Note that the GCF says that the “advanced economies have agreed to jointly mobilize significant financial resources” and that the “GCF engages directly with the private sector through its Private Sector Facility.” And so it is not difficult to predict that the Biden administration will attempt to assuage the GCF financing demands by putting the squeeze on the private sector, by threatening adverse actions in terms of regulatory, tax, and other dimensions of policymaking. In a word, the U.S. contribution to the GCF will take the form of a shakedown, accelerating the already-destructive practice of the federal government to behave like a protection racket.
The basic political problem created by the net-zero policies advocated by Biden is simple: the destruction of a substantial part of the economic value of the energy-producing and -using capital stock, and therefore an unavoidable impoverishment for millions of people. The Biden answer to this reality is that we can subsidize and otherwise mandate the creation of millions of replacement “green jobs,” a hallucination that only ideologues can believe. Sharp increases in energy costs mean a smaller economy and less employment, a reality that no amount of central planning can overcome. It is no accident that electricity prices in California are the highest in the lower forty-eight states. So much for the argument that wind and solar costs now are competitive, a preposterous assertion that shunts aside the costs of their inherent unreliability and the massive subsidies and guaranteed market shares bestowed upon them.
“Climate policy”---a forced reduction in GHG emissions---inexorably means, again, a substantial increase in the cost of energy, a reality that no amount of propaganda about the “competitiveness” of wind and solar power, batteries, carbon capture, and other unconventional technologies can change. That is the basic reason that such policies cannot be enacted democratically. Instead they must be forced upon the body politic by bureaucracies acting both alone and in concert with leftist environmental pressure groups, judges, and the international climate nomenklatura, all justifying their policy diktats on the basis of “existential threat” assertions utterly unsupported by the evidence. Such are the implications of reentering the Paris agreement: a further erosion of the rule of law, of U.S. sovereignty, and of the protection of property rights. It is deeply unwise and destructive.
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/11/19/the_perversities_of_biden_rejoining_the_paris_climate_agreement_650234.html
Australia: Qld political leaders furtive in praise of resources like natural gas
Our natural gas industry has delivered positive results beyond the supply of energy, so why does the Labor Party continue to demonise it, asks Des Houghton.
In a drought-scarred landscape in western Queensland, near Roma where I grew up, Trevor Kehl gazes over an inland lake twice the size of Lang Park.
It is not really a lake, but a storage pond holding 300 million litres of water. Kehl gets the water for free, as part of a deal with Senex, a Brisbane-based natural gas explorer and producer helping to provide reliable power as the nation transitions away from coal.
Kehl said a 10-year partnership with Senex had droughtproofed his cattle property.
Senex also installed an irrigation system at no charge, so Kehl can water 100ha of crops like Rhodes grass and barley to feed his 300 Braford breeders. The Braford is a cross between a Hereford bull and a Brahman cow, 55-year-old Kehl explained.
The water was drawn to the surface to release the gas. It was a godsend to rural producers, said Kehl.
Like many farmers and graziers who benefit from the gas water, Kehl no longer has to buy feed. His cattle put on more weight and therefore sell at a higher price. Now Kehl and his wife Jasmine will build sheds to store the hay they will make from the excess Rhodes grass, and offer it to the market.
The couple also receive annual compensation payments for the 11 Senex wells and 15 Santos wells on their properties.
Senex is a rising star in Gasland, and this year completed a $400m development in the Surat Basin, 500km west of Brisbane.
In the past two years Senex drilled 80 wells, built processing facilities and pipelines in and around its Roma North and Atlas developments. Roma North supplies the Santos-operated GLNG venture while Atlas is Australia’s first dedicated domestic-only acreage.
“Senex continues to work with potential customers to supply natural gas that will support Australia’s gas-led recovery and creation of sustainable jobs for Queenslanders,” said managing director Ian Davies.
He said Senex now provided gas for domestic and commercial customers including CSR, Orora, Visy Glass, Alinta Energy, CleanCo Queensland and Southern Oil Refining. Davies recently gave the go-ahead for an expansion at Roma North and Atlas that would increase production by 50 per cent.
All the big players in gas are involved directly or indirectly in the beef and farming industry. Since 2014, Origin and Australia Pacific LNG have been supplying high-quality, treated coal-seam gas water to local landholders via its Fairymeadow Rd irrigation pipeline near Miles. The water is used for irrigation and drinking water for livestock.
Locals have been able to use the water to develop new or expanded irrigated cropping and watering for stock, boosting agricultural production.
The water is purified by reverse osmosis at the Condabri and Talinga water treatment plants.
Coal-seam gas has provided a windfall for many in the regions. Gas companies have built roads, airports and dams and given cash grants to sports clubs and schools.
The companies took billions of dollars of risk in establishing the industry that now benefits all Queenslanders. And they pay billions in royalties. They have done their bit.
So it truly beggars belief that sections of the Labor Party attempt to demonise gas.
The internecine war in the federal Labor Party over emission targets has caused deep divisions and threatens Anthony Albanese’s leadership.
Gas is a huge industry that flies under the radar, perhaps because the big players are afraid to hail its benefits for fear of antagonising the hysterical green movement.
Queensland alone produced 1503 petajoules of gas last year, enough to power 28 million homes for a year.
In the same year the contribution of the Queensland resources sector to the state economy was $82.6bn, according to the Queensland Resources Council. Yet Queensland political leaders of all colours are furtive in their praise of resources like gas, probably because they fear being wedged like Albo.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/qld-political-leaders-furtive-in-praise-of-resources-like-gas/news-story/fe5fc6fb7105ee1f6093b8940239045f
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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23 November, 2020
It doesn't matter how you vote… the Greens always win - as Britain looks more and more like the old East Germany
By PETER HITCHENS
Vote Blue, get Green. Vote Red, get Green. Vote Yellow, get Green. Vote SNP, get Green. I wonder why they bother even having an actual Green Party.
So in yet another way, Britain is coming more and more to resemble the old East Germany. Really? Yes.
The East Berlin commissars would have applauded our frenzied desire to rip small children from the arms of their mothers and stuff them into nurseries while their parents marched off to work.
They would have smiled on our easy divorce, our comprehensive schools and on our crawling state broadcaster, regurgitating party propaganda and closing the airwaves to dissent.
But above all they would have recognised our fake Parliament – plenty of different parties but only one opinion.
Did you know that Communist East Germany had a Liberal Party and a nominally conservative allegedly Christian Democrat Party? They did.
They even had general elections, at which you could vote for these fakes (voting against was trickier, and staying at home would also get you noticed).
But like ours, they were all the same. And like ours, they represented the elite to the people, rather than the other way round.
What does Green mean anyway? It doesn’t mean you love the planet. It means you love a slogan.
I have always been a defender of our natural heritage. I feel almost physical pain at the sight and sound of a tree being cut down. I mourned the destruction of the railways and the tyranny of the motor car which resulted.
I have for 40 years endured the mockery of colleagues and the spite of drivers for riding a bicycle, alas for me in a Right-wing way.
I paid over the odds to travel abroad by train rather than plane, long before Greta Thunberg was even born.
But none of this counts in my favour. Because the new Green Frenzy is a faith-based dogma, not a set of considered opinions.
As Labour leader Keir Starmer discovered in his Trotskyist 20s, a moralising, self-righteous alleged concern for the planet is the new Marxism.
It’s not a moral system. It is organised hypocrisy in which you show you are good by saying the right thing. Actions don’t matter. It’s your mind they care about.
If you’re a Hollywood star, you can fly first class and ride in a petrol-gulping car just so long as you swear allegiance to the Cult of Greta. But you may be sure that others will suffer for it, whether they like it or not.
The wild plans embraced by Johnson last week will cost billions in subsidies, and so in taxes. They will endanger the power supply. They will also mean more children slaving for small change in the hellish mines of the Congo, to find the raw materials for the batteries on which this noble project relies.
Life, you may be sure, will be poorer, darker, colder and generally glummer, again, quite a bit like East Germany.
So it is probably a good thing that we are rapidly losing our freedom to object, that our new People’s Police get bossier every day, and most of us seem to quite enjoy being told what to do.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8973423/PETER-HITCHENS-doesnt-matter-vote-Greens-win.html
Sen. Whitehouse Threatens to Prosecute Climate Realists If Dems Take Senate
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) threatened climate realists with criminal prosecution in an interview with E&E News, published yesterday. Whitehouse said Democrats gaining control of the U.S. Senate would be key to launching investigations, hauling climate realists in front of Senate show trials, “or even potentially in grand juries.”
E&E News reported Whitehouse is “keen on investigating the fossil fuel industry and what he sees as a massive conspiracy of dark money hindering action on climate change.”
In the interview, Whitehouse said:
“If we are not vigorously investigating that with all of the tools at our disposal, then that machinery will continue undisturbed to do its dirty work of denial and obstruction,” Whitehouse said.
“If it’s having to explain itself to legislative committees, or produce discovery about its activities in litigation, or even potentially in grand juries, then there’s a whole different complexion to our prospects going forward.”
Whitehouse explicitly singled out The Heartland Institute, which publishes ClimateRealism.com, for his threats.
“Who funded 200,000 fake textbooks that the Heartland Institute mailed around to schoolteachers all around the country? That’s a hell of a big expense…,” Whitehouse said.
Whitehouse appears to be referencing Heartland sending 300,000 copies of the book, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, to K-through-12 and college science teachers throughout America. The book was co-authored by Ph.D. climate scientists S. Fred Singer, Robert Carter, and Craig Idso.+
Whitehouse does not appear to have a climate science Ph.D. degree.
Ironically, Whitehouse revealed his fascination with “dark money” conspiracy theories, and expressed his threats to prosecute people on the basis of his conspiracy theories, on the same day billionaire tech baron Jeff Bezos announced the first distributions from a $10 billion fund Bezos has set aside to advance climate alarmism. Recipients of Bezos’ money include dark-money climate activist groups ClimateWorks Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund – none of which publicly disclose the full list of their donors.
The costs for The Heartland Institute publishing and distributing Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming came up somewhat short of $10 billion. The Heartland Institute has an annual budget that varies between $3 million and $7 million, not $10 billion.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/11/sen-whitehouse-threatens-to-prosecute-climate-realists-if-dems-take-senate/
“Winter Nightmare” hits the Prairies as Blizzards Bury Cars and Farm Equipment under 7-Foot Drifts
Folks in the Canadian Prairies are still digging out after unprecedented November blizzards created 7-foot snowdrifts across Alberta and Saskatchewan, burying vehicles and farm equipment, closing highways, and shutting down schools and businesses.
Roads were shut across Saskatchewan and Alberta due to poor visibility from the blowing and drifting snow on Sunday, and police urged people to just stay home.
Kindersley, Saskatchewan received an accumulative total of 47.6 cm (1.56 ft) of snow over the weekend, making it the city’s largest two-day snowfall in recorded history. Saturday alone saw 35.8 cm (1.2 ft), a reading that smashed the community’s all-time daily record of 21.3 cm (8.4 inches) set on March 17, 1974 (solar minimum of cycle 20)–note, that record is for any day of year, not just for November.
The Kindersley storm delivered more snow in two days than during the whole of last winter, prompting some locals to call it the worst storm they’ve ever seen in the area (westcentralonline.com). The data coming out of Environment Canada are certainly proving that to be true, and while 47.6 cm is the official accumulation, blizzards conspired to create snowdrifts of over 5 feet in height.
At least four other locations in the Saskatchewan also received over 30 centimetres (1 foot) of snow — Prince Albert (37 cm), Codette (33 cm), Limerick (31 cm), and Saskatoon (31 cm)–Saskatoon fell just shy of its all-time one-day record of 36 cm set on Jan 10, 2007 (solar minimum of cycle 23):
The neighboring province of Alberta also received unprecedented November dumps, and it wasn’t just humans dealing with the aftermath — horses had to plow their way through 7 feet snowdrifts in order to escape their riding arena near Burdett:
“Snow will soon become a thing of the past,” the climate scientists reliably informed us — and yet here is this poor bastard in early November, 2020:
The above footage was shot by Lethbridge local Heather Gast, who said that the snow –which began falling on her dryland grain farm on Saturday– continued until she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“It just gradually worsened and worsened over Saturday, and then all day Sunday, it was just blowing and snowing — and it just didn’t give up,” said Gast.
“The way it came in with so much wind, and the size of drifts, was just — it’s nothing like we’ve ever seen before.”
Heather Gast shows a snow drift dwarfing a vehicle after the storm on the weekend hit her farm just south of Lethbridge, Alta. Gast said they couldn’t see the sky until the storm cleared up on Monday morning.
Similar scenes were captured across the Prairies in what no doubt will enter the books as one of the biggest November storms in history.
And finally, to the west, rare November snowfall warnings have been issued for several regions of British Columbia, including parts of Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island. The Environment Canada warnings cover the central Interior including the Cariboo, Prince George and Stewart-Nechako regions, as well as inland sections of the north coast and parts of Greater Vancouver.
The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow.
Both NOAA and NASA appear to agree, if you read between the lines, with NOAA saying we’re entering a ‘full-blown’ Grand Solar Minimum in the late-2020s, and NASA seeing this upcoming solar cycle (25) as “the weakest of the past 200 years”, with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.
Furthermore, we can’t ignore the slew of new scientific papers stating the immense impact The Beaufort Gyre could have on the Gulf Stream, and therefore the climate overall.
https://electroverse.net/winter-nightmare-hits-the-prairies/
Hyundai Kona Electric car recalled in Australia
One of the world’s biggest car makers has issued an urgent recall of its flagship electric car after some serious issues were reported.
The lithium-ion battery in the Kona Electric SUV may have internal damage or the battery management system control software may cause an electrical short circuit after charging.
If this does happen then the vehicle’s battery may catch fire, which could result in serious injury or death to occupants or bystanders and damage to property, according to the company.
Hyundai suggests the affected vehicles should not be parked in a garage. They should ideally park in an open space away from flammable materials to minimise further damage if the vehicle does catch fire.
Owners should also only recharge their vehicles to no more than 90 per cent to further minimise the risk.
Close to 800 vehicles built between 2018 and 2020 are affected, and Hyundai is getting in touch with owners and directing them to their nearest Hyundai dealership to have the issue fixed.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/motoring/motoring-news/hyundai-kona-electric-recalled-in-australia/news-story/836e0a1c45a1748f88ec6852db25cc5b
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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22 November, 2020
Quebec to ban sale of new gasoline-powered cars as of 2035
The Canadian province of Quebec said on Monday it will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger cars as of 2035, joining California and others in announcing moves to shift to electric vehicles and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Canada’s second-most populous province announced the ban as part of a $5.1 billion plan over five years to help Quebec meet a target of reducing its greenhouses gases by 37.5% by 2030, in comparison with 1990 levels, Premier Francois Legault told reporters in Montreal.
The ban will bring Quebec in line with other jurisdictions such as California, the largest US auto market, which in September announced a move to electric vehicles starting in 2035.
The Canadian province of British Columbia has already moved to phase out fuel-powered cars and trucks over a two-decade period, with a total ban on their sale or lease coming into effect in 2040.
The United Kingdom is also said to be working on a similar decision.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised sweeping measures to fight climate change and boost economic growth, including making zero-emission vehicles more affordable and investing in charging stations across the country.
While the coronavirus pandemic has forced the Liberal leader to focus more on emergency aid to help businesses and people get through the downturn, the government has committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and is expected to begin earmarking investments in a fiscal update before Christmas and a separate budget early next year.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/16/quebec-to-ban-sale-of-new-gasoline-powered-cars-as-of-2035/
Rich world’s drive to electric cars gets us nowhere
BJORN LOMBORG
The electric car industry is elated with an incoming Biden administration because it promises to extend and increase electric car subsidies to fix climate change.
Similarly, leaders across the rich world promise lavish carrots along with sticks to outlaw petrol cars. This week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. Unfortunately, electric cars will achieve only tiny emissions savings at a very high price.
Electric cars are certainly fun, but almost everywhere cost more across their lifetime than their petrol counterparts. That is why large subsidies are needed. And consumers are still anxious because of the short range and long recharging times.
Despite the US handing out up to $US10,000 ($13,700) for each electric car, less than 0.5 per cent of its cars are battery electric. And almost all the support goes to the rich. Ninety per cent of electric car owners also have a fossil fuel driven car that they drive farther. Indeed, electric vehicles are mostly a second car used for shorter trips and virtue signalling.
If you subsidise the electric car enough, people will buy it. Almost 10 per cent of all Norway’s passenger cars are electric because of incredibly generous policies that waive most costs, from taxes to tolls, parking and congestion.
Across its lifetime, a $US30,000 car might receive benefits worth more than $US26,000. But this approach is unsustainable for most nations. Even super-rich Norway is starting to worry, losing more than $1bn every year from exempt drivers.
Technological innovation will eventually make electric cars economical even without subsidies, but concerns over range and slow recharging will remain. That is why most scientific prognoses show that electric cars will increase in sales but not take over the world. A new study shows that by 2030, just 13 per cent of new cars will be battery electric.
When governments suggest prohibiting fossil fuel cars by then, they essentially are forbidding 87 per cent of consumers from buying the cars they want. It is difficult to imagine that could be politically viable.
The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2030, if all countries live up to their promises, the world will have 140 million electric cars on the road, about 7 per cent of the global vehicle fleet. Yet this would not make a significant impact on emissions for two reasons.
First, electric cars require large batteries, often produced in China using coal power. Just producing the battery for an electric car can emit almost as much as a quarter of the greenhouse gases emitted from a petrol car across its entire lifetime.
Second, the electric car is recharged on electricity that almost everywhere is significantly fossil fuel based.
Together, this means that a long-range electric car will emit more CO2 for its first 60,000km. This is why having a second electric car for short trips could mean higher overall emissions.
Comparing the electric and petrol car, the IEA estimates the electric car will save six tonnes of CO2 across its lifetime, assuming global average electricity emissions. Even if the electric car has short range and its battery is made in Europe mostly using renewable energy, its savings will be at most 10 tonnes.
The electric car is recharged on electricity that almost everywhere is significantly fossil fuel based.
When Joe Biden wants to restore the full electric car tax credit, it means he will essentially pay $US7500 to reduce emissions by at most 10 tonnes. Yet he can get US power producers to cut 10 tonnes for just $US60. His spending on electric car subsidies could have cut 125 times more CO2.
Indeed, if the whole world follows through and gets to 140 million electric cars by 2030, the IEA estimates it will reduce emissions by just 190 million tonnes of CO2 — a mere 0.4 per cent of global emissions. In the words of IEA executive director Fatih Birol: “If you think you can save the climate with electric cars, you’re completely wrong.”
We need a reality check. First, politicians should stop writing huge cheques just because they believe electric cars are a major climate solution.
Second, there is a much better and simpler solution. The hybrid car, such as the Toyota Prius, saves about the same amount of CO2 as an electric car across its lifetime. Moreover, it is competitive to petrol-driven cars already today, even without subsidies. And crucially, it has none of the electric car downsides, needing no new infrastructure, no range anxiety and quick refill.
Third, climate change doesn’t care about where CO2 comes from. Personal cars are only about 7 per cent of global emissions and electric cars will help only a little. Instead, we should focus on the big emitters of heating and electricity production. If we could drive research and development of green energy in these areas to become cheaper than fossil fuels, this would be a game changer.
Right now electric car subsidies are something wealthy countries can afford to give rich elites to show virtue. But if we want to fix climate, we need to focus on the big emitters and drive innovation to create better low-CO2 energy from fusion, fission, geothermal, wind, solar and many other possible ways forward.
Innovations that will make just one of them cheaper than fossil fuels means not just well-meaning rich people changing a bit but everyone, including China, India and nations in Africa and Latin America, switching large parts of their energy consumption towards zero emissions.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/rich-worlds-drive-to-electric-cars-gets-us-nowhere/news-story/1e1759221f30a4033f8f37adf134117b
Kansas Utility Proposes Solar Power Access Fee
Evergy, Kansas’s largest utility, has filed a proposal with the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC), the state’s public utility regulatory agency, to charge customers with solar panels about $25 a month to pay for the cost of servicing the special needs of their homes, which both pull power from and deliver power to the electric grid.
The proposal comes after the Kansas Supreme Court, in April, struck down a previous “demand charge” imposed on homes and businesses with roof top solar hookups, ruling the charge violated the state’s law barring price discrimination.
Ceasing Cross Subsidization of Solar
Evergy says it needs to recoup the costs of managing the two way flow of power to homes equipped with distributed generation systems like roof top solar panels. If roof-top solar households don’t cover the added costs, homes and businesses lacking distributed generation sources unfairly subsidize the costs of the solar power systems, says Evergy.
Under Evergy’s preferred proposal, the utility would charge every customer a grid access fee of $3 per kilowatt of solar panels installed. This would add approximately $20 to $30 a month to the bill of the average house with a typical 7 to 10 kilowatts solar power system.
Because $3 per kilowatt installed times zero, is zero, customers without solar panels would pay nothing.
Because the proposed grid connection fee is charged to every customer it doesn’t discriminate against solar users, even though it results in the vast majority of customers paying no access charge.
Alternative Plans Charges Everyone
If regulators, or ultimately Kansas’ courts, reject Evergy’s preferred proposal, it has submitted an alternative plan to charge all customers a minimum of $35 fee per month just for accessing the electric grid it maintains. This fee would not be felt by most of Evergy’s customers, however, because it would count against their energy consumption.
For the households that use less than $35 dollars a month in electricity, a class which includes some roof top solar customers, but which Evergy also admits includes poor households, this would mean an increase in their power bills.
Evergy’s filing with the KCC reported in 2016 about 140,000 bills in low-income areas were less than $35 for at least one month of the year.
Someone has to pay for the additional costs roof-top solar systems add to the electrical grid, if not solar customers, then everyone, Bradley Lutz, Evergy’s director of regulatory affairs, said in testimony filed with KCC.
State regulators held virtual public hearing on the proposed rates on November 5. It is currently accepting written public comments concerning Evergy’s proposals until December 21.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2020/11/kansas-utility-proposes-solar-power-access-fee/
Biden’s plan to combat climate change leaves coal-loving Australia an outlier
Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election was largely welcomed by America's friends as a step toward more predictable and conventional U.S. foreign policy. One close American ally, though, faces a thorny predicament as a result of Biden's plan to build a global coalition to combat global warming: Australia.
Australia is the world’s second-largest coal exporter and top liquefied natural gas exporter, according to industry bodies, and one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases per person. This status, combined with years of hand-wringing on both sides of Australian politics over climate policies, has earned the country a reputation as a climate-change laggard.
Under pressure from coal and gas interests, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to adopt the prevailing international target of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, putting Australia at odds with the incoming U.S. administration, the European Union, Britain and Japan. Even China, a big buyer of Australian coal, has pledged to be net neutral by 2060.
Morrison, by contrast, famously brought a lump of coal into Parliament in 2017, telling those seeking bolder steps on emissions reduction: “Don’t be afraid.”
Record fires and dead coral reefs aren’t dulling Australia’s lust for coal
Biden’s election has emboldened Australians who say their country has a moral obligation to be at the forefront of global efforts to combat climate change. That’s placing intense political pressure on Morrison’s conservative government as the country heads into another summer, less than a year after wildfires scorched vast tracts of the country and spurred calls for urgent steps to alleviate the threat from longer fire seasons and increasingly calamitous conditions.
“Australia has nowhere to hide,” former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd said in an interview. “It’s time for Morrison to swallow his pride, admit he was wrong and embrace a carbon target.”
The Liberal-National coalition government, which signed Australia up for the 2016 Paris climate agreement before Morrison became leader in 2018, has said it expects to achieve net-zero emissions at an indeterminate point in the future.
In the meantime, the government, which abolished a tax on emissions in 2014, has decided to base its energy policy on the use of natural gas, angering scientists who are pushing for greater use of wind and solar power.
“Our policies won’t be set in the United Kingdom; they won’t be set in Brussels; they won’t be set in any part of the world other than here,” Morrison said last week.
U.S. trade threat
When it comes to the environment, Australia is a paradox. Proud of setting aside some 23 percent of its landmass for parks and reserves, and the guardian of the Great Barrier Reef, the nation is nonetheless a significant contributor to global warming through its large mining and energy industries.
Australia is the only member of the 37-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that has not set minimum fuel-efficiency standards for cars, according to Christian Downie, an academic at the Australian National University in Canberra who studies climate politics.
Once a Biden administration takes office, one of the main economic threats to Australia is whether the United States goes ahead with a plan to impose tariffs on big emitters of carbon dioxide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/australia-climate-fires-biden-murdoch/2020/11/17/25516342-2306-11eb-9c4a-0dc6242c4814_story.html
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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20 November, 2020
'We do not deny climate change': Rupert Murdoch addresses son's exit from board
He says only that disasters are "consistent with" climate change
Rupert Murdoch has made his first public comments about the abrupt resignation of his son James Murdoch from News Corp's board, rejecting assertions the company denies climate change or that he did not consider his son's point of view.
News Corp, owner of The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun, was criticised by James Murdoch and James's wife Kathryn Hufschmid in January for promoting climate denialism after the global media empire's coverage of Australia's bushfire crisis gained global attention and scrutiny. James decided in August to quit the board of directors after years of unease about its editorial direction.
At the company's annual general meeting on Thursday morning (AEDT), Mr Murdoch was asked why he did not accommodate some of James Murdoch's views on climate change and on US President Donald Trump. James Murdoch has long been seen to have more progressive political views than his family and was critical of Trump in a New York Times interview in October.
"Our board has many discussions, but James ... claims that our papers have covered the bushfires in Australia without discussing climate change. We do not deny climate change, we are not deniers," Mr Murdoch said.
Mr Murdoch's comments are the latest to address the topic of climate change and the way News Corp mastheads approach it. The debate was ignited in January by former News Corp finance manager Emily Townsend, who sent an email to all employees accusing her employer of spreading a "misinformation campaign" on climate change that was "dangerous" and "unconscionable". James went public with his perspective on the matter days later.
But News Corp has run other pieces that have questioned the legitimacy of widely-accepted climate change science over the past decade.
Columns by Melbourne writer Andrew Bolt and Sky commentator (and The Australian Financial Review columnist) Rowan Dean in the tabloids and former ASX chairman Maurice Newman in The Australian have described climate change as a "cult" and "a socialist plot". In a broadcast on News Corp-owned Sky News, Bolt criticised the "constant stream of propaganda" on the ABC about the climate crisis.
In a clip which has subsequently gone viral, Malcolm Turnbull chastises Paul Kelly, head writer from The Australian about bias in climate-related stories.
A News Corp spokesperson tried to defuse the situation by arguing that, of the 3335 bushfire related stories by The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun, The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser between September 1, 2019 and January 23, 2020, 3.4 per cent mentioned the words "arson or "arsonists".
"The facts demonstrate starkly the falsity of Mr Turnbull's claim," a News Corp spokesman said.
"In this same period, news.com.au also published more than 300 bushfire stories, of which only 16 mentioned arson, equivalent to 5 per cent," the spokesman said. "Not one of these small number of stories stated the bushfires were 'all the consequence' of arsonists."
An editorial in The Australian on November 13 said the newspaper published a wide range of views on bushfire-related issues such as land clearing, backburning, drought, climate change and building regulations.
"Arsonists were a small part of the story. By January 7 this year, police had arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania," the article said. "As we editorialised on January 10: 'The evidence of global warming since the Industrial Revolution is clear. More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science.'"
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/we-are-not-climate-change-deniers-rupert-murdoch-addresses-son-s-exit-from-board-20201119-p56fy3.html
The Climate Hustle
BY JOHN STOSSEL
I hear that climate change will destroy much of the world. “There will be irreversible damage to the planet!” warns a CNN anchor.
Joe Biden says he’ll spend $500 billion a year to fight what his website calls an “existential threat to life.”
Really?
I’m a consumer reporter. Over the years, alarmed scientists have passionately warned me about many things that they thought were about to kill Americans.
“Asbestos in hair dryers, coffee, computer terminals, electric power lines, microwave ovens, cell phones (brain tumors!), electric blankets, computer terminals, herbicides, plastic residue, etc. are causing America’s cancer epidemic!”
If those things don’t get us, “West Nile Virus will!” Or SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, flesh-eating bacteria or “killer bees.”
Experts told me millions would die on Jan. 1, 2000, because computers couldn’t handle the switch from 1999. Machines would fail; planes would crash.
The scientists were well-informed specialists in their fields. They were sincerely alarmed. The more knowledge you have about a threat, the more alarmed you get.
Yet, mass death didn’t happen. COVID-19 has been the only time in my 50 years of reporting that a scare proved true.
Maybe you accepted the phrase I used above: “America’s cancer epidemic.” But there is no cancer epidemic. Cancer rates are down. We simply live long enough to get diseases like cancer. But people think there’s a cancer epidemic.
The opposite is true. As we’ve been exposed to more plastics, pesticides, mysterious chemicals, food additives and new technologies, we live longer than ever!
That’s why I’m skeptical when I’m told: Climate change is a crisis! Climate change is real. It’s a problem, but I doubt that it’s “an existential threat.”
Saying that makes alarmists mad. When Marc Morano says it, activists try to prevent him from speaking.
“They do not want dissent,” says Morano, founder of ClimateDepot.com, a website that rebuts much of what climate activists teach in schools. “It’s an indoctrination that’s so complete that by the time (kids) get to high school, they’re not even aware that there’s any scientific dissent.”
Morano’s new movie, “Climate Hustle 2,” presents that dissent. My new video this week features his movie.
Morano argues that politicians use fear of global warming in order to gain power.
“Climate Hustle 2” features Senator Chuck Schumer shouting: “If we would do more on climate change, we’d have fewer of these hurricanes and other types of storms! Everyone knows that!”
But everyone doesn’t know that. Many scientists refute it. Congress’ own hearings include testimony about how our warmer climate has not caused increases in the number of hurricanes or tornadoes. “Climate Hustle 2” includes many examples like that.
“Why should we believe you?” I ask Morano. “You’re getting money from the fossil fuel industry.” After all, Daily Kos calls him “Evil Personified” and says ExxonMobil funds him.
“Not at all,” he replies. “I’m paid by about 90% individual contributions from around the country. Why would ExxonMobil give me money (when) they want to appear green?”
Morano’s movie frustrates climate activists by pointing out how hypocritical some are.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio says he lives a “green lifestyle… (using) energy-efficient appliances. I drive a hybrid car.” Then he flies to Europe to attend a party.
I like watching Morano point out celebrities’ hypocrisy, but think one claim in his movie goes too far.
“Stopping climate change is not about saving the planet,” says narrator Kevin Sorbo. “It’s about climate elites trying to convince us to accept a future where they call all the shots.”
I push back at Morano: “I think they are genuinely concerned, and they want to save us.”
“Their vision of saving us is putting them in charge,” he replies. And if they’re in charge, he says, they will destroy capitalism.
https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2020/11/18/the-climate-hustle-n1154159
EPA transparency
Ballot harvesting, behind-the-curtains ballot counting and other hijinks have made transparency a critical issue this election year.
Meanwhile, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency celebrates its fiftieth birthday, political battles continue to rage over the extent of public, executive and congressional oversight, and access to research files, original data and other information used by the agency in taking legal actions against individuals, institutions and businesses. The latest salvos involve the first-ever “transparency” requirements for EPA guidance documents – requirements likely to be tossed out by a Biden Administration.
In October 2019, President Trump signed an executive order to curb what he called abuses of authority by unaccountable bureaucrats who were “imposing their private agendas” on Americans. “A permanent federal bureaucracy,” he observed, “cannot become a fourth branch of government unanswerable to American voters.” Nor should federal agencies be able to impose multi-billion-dollar regulations, while claiming studies used to justify them are proprietary, confidential or otherwise inaccessible.
This February, the EPA launched a new searchable portal to provide public access to agency guidance documents. When it was finalized in July, the EPA brought over 9,000 guidance documents out of the darkness and made the entire active guidance library available to the public for the first time.
in September, the EPA finalized a rule that significantly increases the transparency of guidance practices and amends the agency’s process for managing guidance documents. The rule establishes the first formal public petition process for asking the EPA to modify, withdraw or reinstate a guidance document.
You would think “transparency” would be universally practiced and praised. However, the Deep State, science establishment, activist and pressure groups, and Democratic Party politicians have been horrified. Some claimed the rule reveals and distorts EPA’s decision-making processes. Others said it risks exposing private medical data and other confidential information. Still others carped that the rule is a bad-faith ploy to hamstring the agency’s ability to regulate industries and individuals.
Indeed, last October, an unsigned article in Wired magazine (we can’t even have author transparency) claimed the regulation was a Zombie-like attempt to resurrect the Secret Science Reform Act. Horrors!
The proposed legislation merely attempted to end the EPA’s widespread practice of basing regulations and guidance on research whose details remain hidden behind confidentiality agreements and are not publicly accessible, and whose research data cannot be replicated or independently verified.
During Congressional hearings on the proposal, critics claimed transparency would force the EPA to exclude important studies to protect confidentiality agreements. FactCheck.org found that private data sometimes cannot be redacted. But it also acknowledged that the rule allows the EPA administrator to exempt regulations if releasing study data publicly (rarely) does conflict with protecting privacy. It also allows for alternatives to complete public release if the data actually include confidential information.
One of the most scandalous cases of regulatory secrecy (and presidential secrecy) involved the acid rain provisions of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. President Bush and the EPA suppressed the findings of the 10-year, $537 million National Acid Rain Assessment Program (NAPAP), which had been authorized by President Carter.
To gain public support for the legislation, EPA scientists conjured up scary scenarios, claiming that sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants combined with water in the air to form acid rain that polluted streams, lakes and rivers and damaged trees, wildlife and buildings. The NAPAP found that the acidity of a lake is determined as much (or more) by the acidity of local soil and vegetation as it is by acidic rain. The frightening scenarios were wildly exaggerated, to justify closing power plants.
Moreover, many of these lakes were historically acidic and fishless until around 1900, when logging removed the acid vegetation and made the soil slightly alkaline. After logging slowed to a halt (around 1915), the naturally acidic decaying vegetation built up again, and the lakes became acidic again. In many cases forests were also debilitated due to insects or drought – not acid rain.
Curiously, a 1991 paper by environmental law scholar Richard Lazarus argued that Congress should let EPA be more independent, while admitting that legislators and regulators alike “have rarely known the best way to respond to an environmental pollution problem at the time a statute was passed.” Lazarus further claimed, “Statutory prescription therefore is an especially risky endeavor [that] can lead to wasteful expenditures for pollution control and … to more, rather than less, environmental degradation.”
These realities, Lazarus argued, make congressional oversight problematical, especially because the scientific options proposed by regulators for solving pollution often conflict with the political interests of lawmakers. True. But what if the legislators’ science is corrupted by “dark money” and the perpetual quest for more agency funding? Or if the regulators’ science is corrupted or weaponized by White House or Deep State biases, agendas, censoring of certain views, or manipulation or fabrication of data?
(In a republic, at least theoretically, the political leadership is informed by a citizenry that has all the needed facts, and ultimately has the authority to decide whether or not to follow the particular scientific pathways favored by regulators. In a pure democracy, minority views can be deemed or made irrelevant.)
A 2018 CFACT report assessed the extent of the public information problem, noting that EPA regulations have the force of law and constitute 25% of all federal regulations. Congress often grants regulatory bodies immense power over how people and businesses may operate, without giving targeted entities even the same level of due process that the law affords to criminal defendants. We should expect that EPA expands these overly broad mandates even further.
Indeed, the CFACT report contends, federal bureaucrats, and EPA administrators in particular, determine “who gets a permit to operate, and who does not; what technologies a business must use; what lightbulbs are available for your homes; what gas we can buy; what chemicals can be used; where companies can mine; what local land use decisions will survive; and even where a pond can be built on private property.”
It concluded: “While the President has massive powers over war and peace, and sets the operating philosophy of federal agencies, the EPA Administrator has direct power over the business operations … and thus the economy … of the entire nation.”
In creating the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau in 2010, the Democrat-controlled Congress gave its director broad powers and virtual immunity from political scrutiny – with more power than the President. The Supreme Court only narrowly recognized this as an unconstitutional grant of power to an unelected official. The EPA Administrator’s powers should be equally restrained.
In a second October 2019 executive order, President Trump required that agencies inform individuals of regulatory cases against them, acknowledge their responses, and educate businesses about new regulatory impacts. This order too should be non-controversial, but could well be axed by a President Biden.
Under current law, those whose livelihoods are assaulted by regulatory bodies can challenge an agency in court only after the agency has sullied their reputations and prosecuted their alleged noncompliance. Even then, the environmental defendant typically loses, because courts have mostly upheld the agencies if their decisions are “rational,” even if (absent long-sought transparency) the agency has concealed any or all of its “public” (but secret) data and records that do not support its “reasoning.”
Ultimately, the future of EPA transparency (and openness in all government) rides on the final outcome of the 2020 Presidential election. It’s fascinating how entities that set arbitrary and ever-changing standards for “acceptable” speech, favor crude protests over peaceful assemblies, and seek to curtail entire industries – also see no reason to inform the public of the rationale behind their politicized “scientific” decisions on issues from climate change to COVID to all manner of environmental regulation.
Via email
New-tech American Coal-fired Electricity for Africa: Clean Air, Indoors and Out
African Lives Matter Too
New study shows how American clean coal technology can increase access to electricity and cut deaths from indoor air pollution
Coalition of climate scientists and energy engineers calls on President Trump to “pardon” Africa by ending ban on U.S., World Bank support
Arlington, VA. The CO2 Coalition of 60 climate scientists and energy engineers today released a White Paper showing how American “high efficiency – low emissions” power plants can save lives in Africa. Only a third of Africans have access to electricity, and the World Health Organization estimates that 439,000 Africans die every year because they have to cook in their homes with wood and dried animal dung. According to a top researcher for the WHO, “having an open fire in your kitchen is like burning 400 cigarettes an hour.”
New-tech American Coal-fired Electricity for Africa: Clean Air, Indoors and Out reports on a field visit and interviews at the “Ultra Super-Critical” John Turk coal-fired power plant that serves Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. The plant eliminates virtually all pollutants from its emissions.
The White Paper reviews ten challenges that the operation of such a plant would face in the African economic and political context, and calls on the U.S. government to support proposals by African governments to import the American technology. Under Obama-era policies that are based on computer models that project a future “climate crisis” from emissions of a non-polluting plant food, carbon dioxide, U.S. foreign aid agencies currently oppose coal-fired electrical generation in Africa.
As the White Paper shows, international energy agencies agree that Africa will continue to use its abundant, inexpensive coal for electricity for decades to come. Unless this American technology is exported, China will build the scores of new power plants without pollution controls.
CO2 Coalition chairman Dr. Patrick Moore welcomed the new paper and its proposals: “It is energy madness and carbon colonialism for the United States to block government financing and World Bank support for the very projects that African governments want, and can operate effectively. Access to electricity is a basic right, and the key to health and life expectancy in Africa. As the White Paper concludes, African lives matter, too.”
The principal researchers for the White Paper are the Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White, formerly Texas’ top pollution regulator as chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Dr. Caleb Stewart Rossiter, formerly a professor of statistics for public policy at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Hartnett White is a Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a member of the CO2 Coalition. Rossiter is the executive director of the CO2 Coalition.
Hartnett White noted: “Electrical power is the central nervous system of a modern economy and modern life expectancy. Africa’s electricity deficit translates directly into its life-expectancy deficit of 15 years per person.” Rossiter added: “The scourge of indoor air pollution I’ve seen throughout Africa can be wiped out by universal electrification from coal-fired plants. With American ‘scrubbing’ technology, African governments can also fight another killer at the same time: outdoor air pollution. President Trump should pardon Africa before he leaves office by issuing an executive order reversing U.S. opposition to clean coal projects there.”
http://co2coalition.org/publications/new-tech-american-coal-fired-electricity-for-africa-clean-air-indoors-and-out/
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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19 November, 2020
To limit global warming, the global food system must be revised
The basic claim here depends mainly on continued population growth. More people will eat more which will require more farmed goods.
But that is an unlikely assumption. Population in the developed world is shrinking and the less developed world eats less and used simple food sources such as rice. It is not at all clear that the demand for food will increase overall
If we stopped burning all fossil fuels this minute, would that be enough to keep a lid on global warming?
Acording to UC Santa Barbara ecology professor David Tilman, petroleum energy sources are only part of the picture. In a paper published in the journal Science, Tilman and colleagues predict that even in the absence of fossil fuels, cumulative greenhouse gas emissions could still cause global temperatures to exceed climate change targets in just a few decades.
The source? Our food system.
"Global food demand and the greenhouse gases associated with it are on a trajectory to push the world past the one-and-a-half degree goal, and make it hard to stay under the two degree limit," said Tilman, who holds a dual appointment at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and at the University of Minnesota. The world's growing population as well as its diet are driving food production practices that generate and release massive and increasing amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. According to the paper, left unchecked, agricultural emissions alone could exceed the 1.5°C limit by about 2050.
These findings are especially concerning given that we haven't stopped using fossil fuels, Tilman said. And with a 1°C average increase in global temperature since 1880, we've got only a slim margin before global warming results in widespread sea level rise, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss and other effects that will change life as we know it.
"All it would take for us to exceed the two degree warming limit is for food emissions to remain on their path and one additional year of current fossil fuel emissions," Tilman said. "And I guarantee you, we're not going to stop fossil fuel emissions in a year."
Reducing the emissions from food production, "will likely be essential" to keeping the planet livable in its current state, according to the scientists.
Seeds of Solutions
"It's well known that agriculture releases about 30% of all greenhouse gases," Tilman said. Major sources include deforestation and land clearing, fertilizer overuse and gassy livestock, all of which are increasing as the global population increases. In "high-yield" countries such as the U.S., which have the benefit of large scale modern agriculture, intensive animal farming and heavy-handed fertilizer use are major contributors of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, in "low yield" countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, population growth and increasing affluence are driving demand for more food, and toward more "urban" diets that are richer in meat and meat products, Tilman explained.
"Their demand for food is going up, but the farmers don't have the resources to have high yields, so they just clear more and more land," he said.
And yet, it isn't as though we can just stop producing food, which is perhaps the main reason why agricultural emissions have received less attention than fossil fuels as a target for reduction, according to the researchers.
"You can't look at agriculture as if we can somehow get rid of it," said Tilman, whose research focuses on the environmental impacts of agriculture, as well as the links between diet, environment and health. "We need it; it's essential for society."
But, according to the paper's authors, global warming does not have to be an unavoidable impact of feeding the the world. Through early and widespread adoption of several feasible food system strategies, it is possible to limit emissions from agriculture in a way that keeps us from exceeding the 2°C limit by the end of the century while feeding a growing population.
The most effective, according to the paper, is a switch toward more plant-rich diets, which aren't just healthier overall, but also reduce the demand for beef and other ruminant meats. That, in turn, reduces the pressure to clear for grazing land or produce the grains and grasses (more farming, more fertilizer) required to feed them.
"We're not saying these diets have to be vegetarian or vegan," Tilman said. Widespread reduction of red meat consumption to once a week and having protein come from other sources such as chicken or fish, while increasing fruits and vegetables, in conjunction with decreasing fossil fuel use, could help keep the planet livably cool in the long run.
Another strategy: ease up on fertilizer.
"Many countries have high yields because from 1960 until now they have been using more and more fertilizer," he said. "But recent research has shown that almost all of these countries are actually using much more than they need to attain the yield they have." A drop of roughly 30% in fertilizer use would not only save the farmer money for the same yield, it prevents the release of nitrous oxide that occurs when excess fertilizer goes unused.
"About 40% of all future climate warming from agriculture may come from nitrous oxide from fertilizer," Tilman added. "So adding the right amount of fertilizer has a large benefit for climate change and would save farmers money."
Other strategies the researchers explored included adjusting global per capita calorie consumption to healthy levels; improving yields to help meet demand where it may reduce the pressure to clear more land; and reducing food waste by half.
"The nice thing is that we can do each of these things sort of halfway and still solve the problem," Tilman said. The sooner we employ these strategies, the closer we can get to keeping the Earth cool and avoiding the wholesale changes we would have to adopt if we wait too much longer, he added.
"I'm optimistic," he said. "We have a viable path for achieving global environmental sustainability and better lives for all of us."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201105183739.htm
Boris Johnson’s 10-point climate plan: key details remain unclear
A big financial boost for tackling emissions in Britain’s homes and electric cars, and a ban on the sale of new petrol vehicles by 2030. These are among the more exciting elements of Boris Johnson’s new 10-point climate plan, the first details of which were set out this evening.
However, environmental analysts and campaigners said that key “gaps remain” in Mr Johnson’s new plan, which is aimed at marking “the beginning of the UK’s path to net zero” ahead of its role as host of next year’s UN climate talks, according to the government.
“Although this year has taken a very different path to the one we expected, I haven’t lost sight of our ambitious plans to level up across the country,” the prime minister said this evening.
“My 10-point plan will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net zero by 2050.”
Mr Johnson repeated a pledge made in October to produce enough offshore wind to power every home by 2030.
He also confirmed earlier reports that the UK will end the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. This is 10 years earlier than previously planned. In addition, the government is to end the sale of hybrid cars by 2035.
The 2030 pledge puts the UK ahead of France and Spain and in line with Ireland and the Netherlands. The only country with a more ambitious target is Norway, which plans to end the sale of new petrol vehicles by 2025.
“As the second largest car market in Europe, an early UK phase-out date will cause ripples well beyond our national borders,” said Dr Jonathan Marshall, head of analysis at the non-profit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
“With the majority of the two-million-plus cars sold in Britain being imported, a strong signal to the market will likely catalyse action elsewhere – an essential signal ahead of COP26.”
The government pledged £1.3bn towards improving the infrastructure for electric cars in the UK. Wider adoption of electric cars in the coming decades will be key to reducing emissions from transport, one of the UK’s most polluting sectors.
“Now we need to ensure the funding for charging infrastructure is used effectively to roll it out right across the UK, along with mandates for manufacturers to ramp up electric vehicle production, and support workers to retrain and reskill,” said Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK.
Mr Johnson also pledged £1bn towards improving the energy efficiency of Britain’s homes.
Homes currently account for around 15 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions largely come from the use of oil and gas for heating. Improving home insulation and pursuing new technologies for heating could go some step towards reducing emissions from homes.
“Strong support for cleaning up transport, industry and home heating – areas long ignored by the government – will help deliver on the urgent need to cut emissions shared by people in all corners of the UK,” said Dr Marshall.
He also pledged an additional £200m of new funding to help the UK create two “carbon capture clusters” by the mid-2020s. These developments are a new type of infrastructure aimed at helping the UK to develop carbon capture and storage, a still-emerging technology that could help to reduce emissions by removing CO2 directly from air.
“Carbon capture clusters will help us to decarbonise industries such as cement, chemicals, oil refining and iron and steel,” Dr Nem Vaughan, a senior lecturer in climate change at the University of East Anglia, told The Independent.
“This infrastructure is also an essential part of greenhouse gas removal technologies such as direct air capture. Greenhouse gas removal technologies, along with establishing more woodlands and changing how we manage our land, are likely to be needed to compensate for difficult to decarbonise sectors like agriculture and aviation.”
However, there are noticeable gaps in Mr Johnson’s plan. It does not mention any new measures to boost onshore wind or solar, renewable sources of electricity which could play a key role in reducing emissions from the power sector in the coming decades.
“Onshore wind and solar energy remain unsupported,” said Dr Marshall.
In addition, “nature” only gets a brief mention in Mr Johnson’s new plan. Mr Johnson said he would “protect and restore our natural environment” by planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year.
However, this is a repeat of a pledge he first made in his election campaign in 2019. It has since been repeated by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in his March budget.
“Investing in locking up carbon by restoring habitats such as peatlands must be a top priority and receive substantially more investment than that already committed,” said Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB.
Mr Johnson also committed £525m to “help develop large and smaller-scale nuclear plants”. Speaking to The Independent last week, researchers said any new large nuclear projects approved in the UK could come at a high cost and may take years to deliver low-carbon electricity.
“At the moment, the timescales of developing new nuclear power are still very long for the large reactors,” Professor Jim Watson, an energy systems and policy researcher at University College London, told The Independent.
“So any new stations Boris Johnson might announce from now on are not going to generate electricity until the end of this decade at the earliest.”
Mr Johnson’s new climate plan also makes mentions of technologies that are yet to be proven at a commercial level. Mr Johnson said he would invest in “supporting difficult-to-decarbonise industries to become greener through research projects for zero-emission planes”.
He has previously faced criticism for making “unrealistic” claims about electric air travel, which is still in its infancy and yet to be commercially proven.
In addition, Mr Johnson pledged £20m “for a competition to develop clean maritime technology”.
However, earlier today, the UK was among countries to vote to allow carbon emissions from the shipping sector to keep rising for another decade. On Tuesday afternoon, the UK voted to approve an amendment to weaken short-term emissions rules for ships at virtual talks held by the UN’s International Maritime Organisation.
John Maggs, president of the clean shipping coalition, told The Independent: “Why on the same day as it announces a 10-point climate plan that includes the maritime industry, did the UK vote in favour of a proposal at IMO that allows CO2 emissions from the shipping industry to keep rising for the next decade?”
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/uknews/boris-johnson-s-10-point-climate-plan-is-a-promising-start-but-key-details-remain-unclear/ar-BB1b6vXR?ocid=msedgntp
The secret club for billionaires who care about climate change
A few years ago, the hundreds of members of France’s Mulliez family, with a global retail empire worth more than $38 billion, decided they should take climate change more seriously — or rather, their investment portfolio should.
But where to start? Climate change and the fight against it could transform almost every sector of the economy as companies clamor for ways to cut emissions and even pull carbon dioxide from the air. “This space is very broad, and it’s complicated,” says Delphine Descamps, managing director at Creadev, the Mulliez family office, which has about €200 million ($236 million) to invest each year.
Then she met Regine Clement, the head of a small, secretive nonprofit called Creo Syndicate. An exclusive club of climate-focused investors, Creo’s mission is to speed up the flow of capital into investments that can slow global warming. The group focuses on the richest of the rich, working with about 200 families and investment outfits with a total of more than $800 billion under management. Prominent members include legendary investor Jeremy Grantham and Nat Simons, the son of Renaissance Technologies’ billionaire founder James Simons. Members must pay dues — a “very reasonable” flat fee, Clement says, that makes up about half the nonprofit’s revenue — and they must prove they’re serious by planning to make their first investment in climate and sustainability within six months. Members must also have assets of at least $100 million and get approved by the nonprofit’s board.
When the Mulliez family joined, its staff met with experts, experienced climate-focused investors, and other family offices, who were surprisingly candid about what they’d learned. At online seminars and in-person meetings with carefully selected groups, often with fewer than 20 people, they discussed innovations in agriculture and other areas that may cut emissions while feeding a growing population. “People openly talk about their investments and what worked and what didn’t work,” she says.
Although it’s a nonprofit and doesn’t have any money of its own to deploy, Creo acts a little like an investment bank, vetting about 300 deals per year, connecting investors with possible partners, and conducting research on technologies. Members have invested in everything from batteries and hydrogen fuel to regenerative farmland and greener product packaging. Portfolios include still unproven technologies such as methods for carbon capture and true long shots like fusion reactors.
Creo members make a wide variety of bets that might make a difference — and make money. “This is not philanthropy, this is investment,” Clement says. Superwealthy families, she says, have an advantage over other players: Managing money for future generations, they can afford to wait a decade or more for investments to bear fruit. Some members in Europe have been rich for hundreds of years. Families “are naturally inclined to think long term,” she says.
Many of the investments aren’t mainstream, but “it’s fine, because these families are comfortable being pioneers,” says Spring Lane Capital managing director Christian Zabbal, who co-chairs Creo’s board. “What Creo is doing today is essentially a preview of what institutional capital will do very shortly.”
The Mulliez family owns a giant supermarket chain, Auchan — basically France’s answer to Walmart. Their conversations with other Creo members led to a decision to concentrate on food in their climate-focused portfolio. Agriculture accounts for about 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and better farming practices could fight climate change by both reducing pollution and sequestering more carbon in soils. Sustainable forms of aquaculture, meanwhile, could satisfy demand for protein with far less pollution than other kinds of meat. The family invested in Gotham Greens, an indoor urban farming company, and two companies involved in aquaculture: Kingfish Zeeland, which runs high-tech fish farms, and InnovaFeed, which raises insects as feed for farm-raised seafood.
This year the Mulliez family office led a fundraising round for Hungry Harvest, a startup that sends consumers weekly boxes of produce. When Descamps asked Creo if it knew of any other mission-driven investors looking for deals focused on reducing food waste, she was introduced to Quadia, a Geneva-based impact investor that helped close the $13.7 million investment round in September.
Creo’s families want to “be at the front of the parade,” says Jason Scott, a board co-chair. He bristles when people suggest climate-focused investing is becoming a bubble. “You’re talking about changing the way food is grown and transported and what people eat, how energy is delivered to people’s homes, what people drive, the way people build cities,” he says. “You’re talking about a complete reconfiguration of the global economy.”
When Creo was formed five years ago from the merger of two climate-focused investor networks, it was just an informal gathering for like-minded families. “People would throw down their credit cards for dinner. It was pretty low-rent,” Scott says. Clement became Creo’s founding chief executive officer in 2016. “She’s turned it into a powerful platform,” Scott says. “There’s almost an insatiable demand for the kind of support Creo is providing.”
In four years, the nonprofit’s membership has quadrupled, and its members and affiliates’ assets have risen eightfold, from less than $100 billion in 2016. To keep up with the demand, Creo’s staff has doubled in the past year, to 10 in the U.S. and two in the U.K. The group doesn’t go out and recruit members. “We grow entirely through introductions. We never seek out a family,” Clement says. Although Creo doesn’t require applicants to divest from fossil fuels or other emitters, she wants to make sure all members are fully committed to the mission. Part of building trust with wealthy families is keeping their secrets. In addition to Grantham and Simons, the group’s ranks include other well-known billionaires whose names Creo won’t disclose. A mantra is “no tourists allowed.”
The key to Creo’s success, members say, is how it gets very wealthy investors in the same room — or on the same Zoom call. “You have people with a decade of experience and people with a month of experience,” says longtime member Reuben Munger, a hedge fund manager who founded Vision Ridge Partners as his family office and later turned it into an investment firm. With more than $1 billion under management, it specializes in sustainable assets.
It helps that families generally aren’t trying to pitch to each other and that Creo makes no fees on any deals. “There’s not a lot of hidden agendas,” Zabbal says. Creo has tried to unlock even more capital by venturing beyond families to large institutional investors that also want a head start on climate investing. The nonprofit is working with CDPQ, a Quebec pension fund with $333 billion in assets, which launched a $500 million investment strategy around climate and sustainability. The pension’s goal is to invest alongside families or firms in late-stage venture companies. The first deal, announced in September, is with S2G Ventures, a Chicago firm focused on food and agriculture that’s backed by Lukas Walton. An heir to the Walmart fortune, he has a net worth estimated to be more than $22 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Creo members have seen their investments pay off. QuantumScape Corp., a battery tech company recently valued at $3.3 billion, received early funding from Prelude Ventures, co-founded by Simons and Capricorn Investment Group, both Creo members. Participants in the nonprofit also invested in early rounds of Tesla Inc. and Beyond Meat, two of 2020’s best-performing stocks. This kind of success helps convince skeptical family members and advisers of what Creo can do.
“The opportunities are tremendous, but it’s also overwhelming for someone who starts out,” Zabbal says. “By investing in collaboration with others who bring expertise, it allows more investors to take the leap.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/11/17/world/billionaires-climate-change/
Deloitte climate report more a fearmongering manifesto
Just when you thought you’d had enough scary and ridiculous predictions for one year, along comes Deloitte Access Economics with claims Australia will lose $3.4 trillion in income and 880,000 jobs by 2070 unless it takes drastic action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The meaningless numbers appear in A New Choice: Australia’s Climate for Growth, which urges the government to “get on with stopping climate change”.
“There is great opportunity for Australia to act on climate change today,” it enthuses, suggesting we incur $67bn in costs now to slash emissions and secure a gross domestic product and jobs boost of $680bn and 250,000, respectively.
The report is flawed, misleading, reading more like a manifesto than a sober economic analysis.
At a basic level, Australia can’t affect the trajectory of climate change whatever it does, having only 1.3 per cent of global emissions, or about 4 per cent including our coal exports.
Foreign policy is the only way we can meaningfully affect climate change.
Second, Deloitte’s “do nothing” path of supposed disaster assumes nations “do not meet their Nationally Determined Contributions” (emission reduction targets) agreed at the Paris climate conference in 2015. Therefore, it’s not really a base case to the extent government promises mean anything.
If they don’t, why the clamour for governments to say they will be “net zero by 2050”?
Third, the “do nothing” path assumes an obsolete, extreme trajectory for emissions, known as RCP8.5, that pushes up average global temperatures by 4C by 2100.
Professor Detlef van Vuuren, an academic involved in designing RCP8.5, has said it was “never meant to be a business-as-usual scenario”. Developed in 2014, RCP8.5 doesn’t even include more recent emissions data.
“The consequences of an RCP8.5 pathway demonstrate the orders of magnitude of impact well for analytical purposes,” the Deloitte reports says. Political purposes, more like it.
The bigger problem with these integrated climate and economic models is the false sense of precision and knowledge they create.
“They have crucial flaws that make them close to useless as tools for policy analysis,” top MIT economist Robert Pindyck recently wrote.
The pandemic, which has produced a library of wildly wrong expert predictions, should be a reminder of the weakness of mathematical models, especially when related to events decades into the future. Climate modelling is even harder because of a fraught two-part chain of estimation.
Determining “climate sensitivity” — the speed and size of the response of global temperatures to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — is hard enough.
“Over the past decade our uncertainty over climate sensitivity has actually increased,” notes Pindyck. And the “damage function”, how temperature changes affect the economy, is “made up out of thin air … (not) based on any economic (or other) theory or any data”.
Humans will adapt to changed climate, develop new technology, for instance; there will be positives and negatives for different countries from climate change.
“Increasing temperatures can increase both heat and cold-related health problems,” the Deloitte report states, illogically, given cold-related problems would obviously decline. There’s also the question of the additional 250,000 “jobs for the future” that will emerge by 2070 — “by being a country that reaches net-zero emissions, sooner rather than later”.
A world powered by renewable energy might be a scientific and ecological triumph, but also an economic disaster for Australia, which — absent some dramatic innovation — depends on fossil fuel exports to pay its way.
Australia’s coal and gas exports generated more than $100bn last financial year. Like it or not, we have a comparative advantage in fossil fuels in a way we do not in the production of solar and wind energy, or hydrogen.
Economist Warwick McKibbin says if the world moved away from fossil fuels as per the 2015 Paris Agreement our currency would depreciate 6 per cent, and wages fall 2 per cent, by 2030.
“Australia being part of — if not leading the way — in the global shift to net zero in a new growth recovery is in the national interest,” the Deloitte report asserts nonsensically.
Pindyck is well known to economics students for his concept of “the option value of waiting”. It’s far better to wait and see how events turn out tomorrow rather than lock yourself into a particular strategy today you might regret.
Leading the way would be a disaster for a fossil fuel exporter responsible for a sliver of global emissions.
The Deloitte report says solar and wind energy makes “complete or near decarbonisation of the grid a possibility”. But it doesn’t, curiously, mention nuclear power.
We’ve heard so much about the need to follow “the science” this year. The science says it’s the only emissions-free and reliable energy source, and batteries aren’t remotely up to the task of compensating for the intermittency of solar and wind.
Replacing ageing coal-fired power stations with the next generation of nuclear facilities would be a better option than an expensive and implausible “green new deal” that only makes sense if the rest of the world does it too.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/deloitte-climate-report-more-a-fearmongering-manifesto/news-story/88ce6bd86467ae249e17688c6519a435
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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18 November, 2020
'We are not winning': Red Cross warns of human crisis from climate change
An amusing article below. Its first two words are the key to understanding it: "Natural disasters".
It is about NATURAL disasters. Linking them to global warming is pure speculation: Unprovable. And there is no attempt to canvass other causes of an increase -- better reporting etc. It is just kneejerk writing, with no evidence of real thought. It is so crass that it discredits the Red Cross
Natural disasters force 100 million people a year to seek aid and that number is expected to double within 30 years as climate change intensifies floods, droughts and storms.
The Red Cross's World Disaster Report rated climate change as the greatest global challenge, finding disasters triggered by extreme weather and climate-related events had risen 35 per cent since 1990.
Releasing the report on Tuesday, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies secretary-general Jagan Chapagain called on the international community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fund infrastructure and services to mitigate the impact of global warming, starting with the most vulnerable communities.
"Climate and weather-related disasters are causing massive humanitarian impacts across the world, directly affecting 1.7 billion people in the past decade alone," he said.
"Even though we are winning small victories every day, in the big picture, we are not winning at all. We – as a global community – are not on track to make the changes that need to be made and to make them in time."
Weather and climate-related disasters have killed more than 410,000 people in the past 10 years, the vast majority in low and lower-middle-income countries, according to the Red Cross, with heatwaves the biggest killer, followed by storms.
Last year, nearly 24 million people were displaced due to weather-related events, largely floods and storms. Bushfires affected more than 14,000 people around the world and more than half were in Australia.
Locally, an estimated 9500 people were affected by the Black Summer fires, which scientists say were intensified by climate change, with 34 deaths, 3000 homes lost and health costs of $2 billion, according to the recent natural disasters royal commission.
The commission found extreme weather had already become more frequent and intense because of climate change, and further global warming over the next 20 to 30 years was "inevitable".
The World Bank in 2018 forecast that unchecked global warming, with no further emissions reductions, would create droughts, floods and storms that would drive an estimated 140 million to internal migration across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
Australian Red Cross international director Michael Annear said poorer communities around the world were most exposed to climate risks and should be the "first priority" for assistance.
"We need to urgently scale up planning for disasters and support these communities so that they can prepare more effectively for disasters and expand existing community resilience."
In May, Africa was hit by a "triple disaster", with flooding, a locust plague and coronavirus stretching community coping mechanisms and disaster management capacities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, the Red Cross said.
That same month, India sweltered in 50 degree heatwaves and Cyclone Ampham hit India and Bangladesh, where 3 million people were evacuated, more than 100 killed and thousands of houses damaged or destroyed across the two countries.
Red Cross climate change director Maarten Van Aalst said the data used by Red Cross to compile its report was "part of a best-practice collection of disaster information" including from the international Emergency Events Database, the World Bank and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where he is a lead author.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/we-are-not-winning-red-cross-warns-of-human-crisis-from-climate-change-20201117-p56f9z.html
The glyphosate saga
Paul Driessen
Big Media, Big Tech, Big Academia, the Deep State and the Cancel Culture clearly aligned with the Democrat Party, to resist, block, impede and impeach a duly elected President Trump, during and after the 2016 election and the 2020 election cycle. Computer “glitches” that too often operated in only one direction, backroom ballot counting, improper ballot harvesting and backdating, and other actions have increased concerns that the integrity of America’s elections and democracy is threatened.
Equally worrisome is growing evidence that the integrity of our courtroom proceedings and jury verdicts is also at risk. Indeed, many of the same forces arrayed against fair and honest elections have also combined to influence jurors (and judges), making them more inclined to support huge verdicts in favor of “victims of greedy corporations” that deliberately put dangerous products on the market.
In some of the most notorious lawsuits in decades, lawyers representing cancer patients have succeeded in persuading San Francisco area juries to award clients $78 million to $1 billion per person in compensatory and punitive damages – based on highly questionable assertions that the victims’ use of the chemical glyphosate in Roundup weed killer was the sole reason they got cancer.
Bayer AG acquired glyphosate creator and Roundup manufacturer Monsanto in 2018 and is thus the defendant in the cases. The verdicts, plus lack of success so far with appeals to the California Supreme Court, persuaded Bayer to settle tens of thousands of other pending cases for $10.9 billion (of which the mass-tort law firms will get some 40%), but without admitting any wrongdoing.
The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals is reviewing another appeal, and the US Supreme Court could (and should) weigh in on how the trials were conducted, which evidence was permitted or excluded during the trials, and serious questions of collusion and tampering with original experimental data.
Federal District Court judges reduced the awards to less outrageous amounts. However, the way they and plaintiff lawyers conducted the trials raises serious questions of bias and even fraud – as detailed in my Fall 2020 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons paper and in scores of articles referenced in it.
Glyphosate was introduced in 1974 and is licensed in 130 countries; it’s the world’s most widely used herbicide. Millions of homeowners, gardeners and farmers use it regularly to control weeds.
Respected consumer protection organizations like the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Food Safety Authority, Food and Agriculture Organization, and Health Canada (some 3,300 studies in all) have concluded that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic. The still ongoing U.S. Agricultural Health Study has followed some 52,000 farmers and other pesticide applicators and 32,000 of their spouses for two decades – 80% of whom use glyphosate. The study has found no glyphosate-cancer link.
Cancer epidemiologist Dr. Geoffrey Kabat says glyphosate is “environmentally benign” and has an acute toxicity level lower than that of table salt, vinegar, chocolate or coffee.
Only one agency, the France-based International Agency for Cancer Research, says otherwise. It calls glyphosate a “probable” human carcinogen, based primarily on two mice studies, and has been accused of manipulating even those studies (while ignoring contradictory studies) to get its desired results.
IARC does not do its own research. Instead, it relies on third-party “exposure tests” in laboratory animals to determine whether a chemical, food or occupational activity might cause cancer – even if only at extremely high levels that no animal or human would ever be exposed to in the real world. It refuses to utilize actual “risk assessments” – the modern approach that examines the exposure level at which a substance might actually have an adverse effect on laboratory animals, and presumably people.
The agency’s glyphosate review was proposed by a US government statistician who then helped design the study and served as special advisor to the IARC “working group” that evaluated it. He allegedly did this while also being paid as an advisor to the anti-chemical Environmental Defense Fund, on unspecified “other issues” for law firms involved in the glyphosate cases, and now as an expert witness in the cases.
Former National Cancer Institute statistician Dr. Robert Tarone discovered that IARC’s glyphosate review panel based its carcinogenicity finding on just two studies of mice that for two years were fed diets containing up to 30,000 ppm glyphosate! In the male mice, they found cancerous tumors in 1 of 49 mice at 0 ppm, 0 of 49 mice at 500 ppm, 1 of 50 mice at 5,000 ppm, and 2 of 50 mice at 30,000 ppm. In other words, they found the same rates cancer at 0 and 5,000 ppm and only one more tumor at 30,000 ppm. Data excluded from IARC’s report found no tumors in female mice, even at 30,000 ppm!
And yet, incredibly, the IARC ruling is being used by predatory tort lawyers to claim that glyphosate causes leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease, lung, brain and thyroid cancer, heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, multiple sclerosis, respiratory illness, birth defects and infertility.
Just as bad, judges in the cases thus far nevertheless allowed plaintiff lawyers to present the IARC findings, and inflame juries with lurid tales of corrupt corporate criminals and admittedly tragic stories of clients suffering from cancer allegedly from using Roundup The judges prevented Bayer attorneys from presenting evidence from EPA and other agencies that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic.
Equally amazing, the mass-tort lawyers were permitted to assert (and persuade jurors) that their clients were afflicted with cancer solely because of glyphosate – and not from any of the more than 500 other chemicals, substances, industrial processes and occupations that IARC has ruled are definite, probable or possible human carcinogens ... even though their clients were almost certainly exposed to many of them.
At no point, it appears, were defense attorneys able to ask questions about the cancer-victim plaintiffs’ family cancer histories; eating, exercise and sleeping habits; consumption of high-fat foods versus fruits and vegetables; and other lifestyle choices that play significant roles in whether people get cancer.
At no point, it appears, were victims asked how often they might have been exposed to sunlight, asbestos, processed meats, acetaldehyde in alcoholic beverages or any of the 116 other substances and activities in IARC’s list of definite human carcinogens. Nor were they asked about their exposure to anabolic steroids, malathion, red meat, emissions from high-temperature food frying or any of the 78 other substances and agents (besides glyphosate) in IARC’s list of probable human carcinogens (or 314 possible carcinogens).
Even more astonishing, the plaintiffs and their lawyers were never compelled to explain how they and their doctors and other experts were able to conclude that family history, lifestyle choices and exposure to dozens or even hundreds of other substances on IARC’s lists of human carcinogens caused or contributed to their cancer – and that their cancer was due solely to their exposure to glyphosate.
Just as outrageous, juries were permitted to grant massive punitive damage awards – which require clear evidence that Bayer (and Monsanto) had deliberately engaged in harmful conduct with malice or deception. In view of all the issues and facts presented here, in my medical journal paper and by many other sources, assertions of malice or deception are simply not supported by any persuasive evidence.
Collusion, corruption, fraud and billion-dollar payoffs have become an epidemic, in courtrooms and regulatory agencies, in medical and scientific journals, and beyond. They make it essential that the US Supreme Court take these cases on appeal – perhaps under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.
That 1993 decision requires that scientific evidence must be relevant, reliable, peer-reviewed, and confirmed by more than just circumstantial links between an alleged cause and the injury in question. That standard is especially important where, as seems to be the case with glyphosate, the evidence and expert testimony resulted from research conducted for the purpose of litigation.
With looming litigation likely to include breakfast cereals “contaminated” with traces of glyphosate or GMO grains, the Supremes should set guideline for how far law firms can go in setting up and pursuing cases, influencing judges and jurors, and working (colluding) with regulatory agencies, activist groups, expert witnesses, journalists and others in fomenting, litigating and supporting their lawsuits.
Transparency and integrity are essential, in litigation, elections, legislation, regulation and climate science.
Via email
Trump officials push on with oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic
It remains to be seen how strong drilling interest in the refuge might be from major U.S. oil concerns, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron For one thing, infrastructure and roads have been purposefully kept out of the refuge and would require investment. Historically low oil prices may also preclude investing in expansion. The area is estimated to contain as much as 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable crude.
a man wearing a hat© AFP via Getty Images
Hilcorp Energy Co., Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips already produce oil and gas in Alaska’s north slope. Chevron partnered with BP on the only test well ever drilled in the refuge more than three decades ago.
Major banks including Goldman Sachs JPMorgan Chase Citigroup Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are among the two dozen financial firms that have said they will not fund any new oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge as part of their own climate-change initiatives.
Smaller participants might be likely to bid on leases. For instance, some Alaska Native tribal corporations have already expressed an interest in conducting seismic tests to identify oil reserves on the coastal plain, the Washington Post reported.
“This call for nominations brings us one step closer to holding a historic first Coastal Plain lease sale, satisfying the directive of Congress in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and advancing this administration’s policy of energy independence,” Chad Padgett, the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska state director said in a statement.
Opponents have said that extracting oil from the refuge would exacerbate the climate crisis, violate the human rights of indigenous Alaskans who live off the land and is “fraught with financial risk,” given the likelihood of long legal battles over refuge leases. A group of more than 250 signatories, mostly representing environmental, indigenous and investing interests, expressed such concern in a letter released in September.
Opening up the refuge follows a host of fossil fuel-favorable policy moves during the Trump administration, including the roll back of more than 125 environmental regulations or policies. Some of these protections had been in place for decades, spanning administrations from both parties.
Those in favor of the rollbacks have said they are expensive for business and unevenly enforced. But the industry has also spent mightily in Washington to make its case. Lobbying data from the Center for Responsive Politics showed that during the 2017-2018 midterm election cycle, corporations, individuals and trade groups in the fossil fuel industry spent $265,773,915 in lobbying and $93,392,002 in contributions to national-level candidates, parties and outside groups, bringing the total spending by the industry to more than $359 million in two years.
Still in the works are plans to open up much of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to drilling and narrowing the definition of critical habitat for endangered species, including when companies are liable for killing migratory birds.
The government also plans to auction off oil and gas rights to more than 383,000 acres of federal land in the Lower 48 in the next two months, Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigner for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, told the Washington Post.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/trump-officials-push-on-with-oil-drilling-in-alaska-s-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-before-biden-takes-office/ar-BB1b4gwc?ocid=msedgntp
No, Climate Change Is Not ‘Straining Budgets’ in Colorado Towns
The Colorado Sun published a misleading and scientifically deficient article titled, “The high cost of climate change is already straining the budgets of Colorado towns.”
To reach that conclusion, the article ignored real-world climate data reported by NASA, NOAA, and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In reality, climate change is reducing the frequency and severity of events the Colorado Sun claims is straining Colorado budgets.
The Sun article chronicles recent drought and wildfires in Colorado, as well as an active Spring 2019 avalanche season, laying the blame for these events on climate change. Objective facts tell a different story.
False Link Between Drought and Climate Change
During the past few years, Colorado has indeed experienced below-average rainfall. But neither the severity nor the duration of current conditions is unusual. As shown in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chart reproduced below, periods of low rainfall happen from time to time. Colorado is currently experiencing one of those low-rainfall periods. However, there is no long-term trend of lower rainfall. In fact, the three individual periods during which Colorado experienced its least rainfall occurred between 1900 and 1955. No period since 1955 has been as dry for Colorado as those three separate events that occurred between 65 and 120 years of global warming ago.
The Sun article points to rivers and streams in Colorado allegedly being 13% to 20% lower since the year 2000 compared to the 20th century average. However, this has nothing to do with any asserted changes in precipitation. Rather, as shown by the chart below, Colorado’s rivers and streams are experiencing diminishing stream flow as a result of Colorado’s 33% increase in population – and hence, water demand – since the year 2000.
Scientists at Colorado State University (CSU) confirm the causal relationship between Colorado’s population growth and reduced streamflow. As CSU scientists report, “Much of the state’s water history has been shaped by population growth. In particular, a tenfold increase in residents from 1900 to 2010 (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.) was paralleled by a similar increase in competition and demand for the water in Colorado’s nine major watersheds and four major aquifers.”
Unfortunately, global warming will not cause an end to Colorado’s recurring and preexisting cycles of above- and below-average rainfall. However, the fact that global warming is not ending the long-term Colorado drought cycle does not mean we can now blame drought cycles on climate change. This is especially the case given that NOAA data clearly show recent droughts are shorter and less severe than was the case several decades ago.
Even if recent Colorado drought had been unusually severe, it would still be improper to place the blame on climate change. With or without climate change, locations have experienced – and will continue to experience – periods during which rainfall is significantly less abundant than average. However, as shown in Climate at a Glance: Drought, the United Nations IPCC reports with “high confidence” that precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States, during the past 70 years, while IPCC has “low confidence” about any negative trends globally. In other words, if and when Colorado experiences an unusually severe drought (which is bound to happen sometime), such drought will run counter to overall global trends in a modestly warming world.
Indeed, as also documented in Climate at a Glance: Drought, the United States set a new record in 2017 for the smallest percentage of its land area experiencing “very dry” conditions. Then, in 2019, the United States broke the record set in 2017. Again, any regional drought that might affect Colorado would run counter to national and global trends, and thus would be difficult to blame on climate change.
False Link Between Wildfires and Climate Change
After falsely asserting that climate change is causing more frequent and severe drought in Colorado, the Sun article asserts that such drought is responsible for recent wildfires in the state. While drought is the primary climate factor influencing wildfires, global and national wildfire data show no increase in the frequency or severity of wildfires. This should come as no surprise, given the above-documented lack of worsening drought conditions.
As documented in Climate at a Glance: U.S. Wildfires, U.S. wildfires in recent decades are far less frequent and less severe than was the case during the first half of the 20th century – 70 years of global warming ago. The chart below, showing data reported by the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center, documents the decline.
Moreover, NASA satellite instruments document an ongoing decline in global wildfires. Indeed, NASA satellites have measured a 25% decline in global lands burned since 2003. It defies logic to blame any asserted uptick in wildfires that may occur in a given region on climate change when wildfires throughout the world are becoming less frequent and extreme as the climate modestly warms.
To the extent that some wildfires still occur, they are becoming less frequent and severe. Moreover, recent wildfires in the western United States are more a product of environmental activists imposing unprecedented obstacles on sound forest management than climate change.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/11/no-climate-change-is-not-straining-budgets-in-colorado-towns/
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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17 November, 2020
A drug lord’s exotic animals are helping Colombia’s environment
The infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar brought violence, crime, and terror to Colombia and much of the region during his reign.
But Escobar also brought in exotic pets for his estate, that have now escaped and are roaming the Colombian countryside.
Of particular interest are the hippopotamuses that now roam free, which have grown from the original four Escobar kept in an impressive herd of 80 animals. While some consider them to be a nuisance, others say they are actually filling a needed role in Colombia’s environment and ecosystem.
This is because the hippos eat the same food, weigh about the same, and act generally similar to the now extinct Hemiauchenia paradoxa, which was not unlike today’s llama.
The llama-like creature roamed the region of Colombia about 100,000 years ago and was much bigger than its contemporary brothers.
Now, with hippos on the scene, there is another large herbivore trampling vegetation into grasslands, eating excess vegetation, and excreting similar compounds to help fertilize the area.
Popular Science reports:
But could the species that we consider ‘invasive,’ like Escobar’s hippo tribe, be filling the glaring gap they left behind?
A new study published Monday in PNAS that compares qualities of ancient fauna with their newly introduced counterparts argues that creatures that have ended up far from their evolutionary homes, like camels in Australia or feral horses in the Americas, are stepping in the ecological shoes of animals long extinct.
“While they might look really different, in terms of how they influence ecosystems, they are actually not that different,” says study author John Rowan, a paleontologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A hippo and an ancient llama might sound pretty distinct from one another, but they eat equivalent food, weigh about the same, and digest their meals similarly.
In fact, this example may prove to be an instructive moment to scientists and conservationists – as from now on they may take a second look at attempting to remove a species that isn’t necessarily residing today in the same precise location from which it originally came.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/14/a-drug-lords-exotic-animals-are-helping-colombias-environment/
Some unintended consequences of bioplastics that hurt marine life
According to a study performed by Tel Aviv University, “environmentally friendly” cutlery like utensils and plates made with bioplastics are actually posing a threat to marine species.
Previously, it was thought that disposable tableware made out of bioplastics was much better for the environment than normal plastic because it would decompose quicker and pose fewer risks to fish, birds, and other sea creatures.
Now, this study from Tel Aviv University claims that bioplastics decompose at a similar rate to traditional plastics, negating any huge environmental benefit.
What’s worse, is that these bioplastics pose the most severe threat to marine life with how they are disposed of. Ocean critters are already under threat from enough plastic debris and overfishing.
ScienceDaily reports:
“At least in the short term, both types of plastic have a similar detrimental effect, Prof. Shenkar says. ‘Bioplastics are made of natural materials and, in that sense, they are more beneficial environmentally speaking. But they may also contain toxins just like regular plastic dishes and they do not biodegrade quickly in the aquatic habitat. In fact, the standard appearing on the label is dated. It doesn’t refer at all to different kinds of plastic additives and speaks of biodegrading within 180 days, but that is specifically under conditions available only in industrial composting settings.’”
https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/09/some-unintended-consequences-of-bioplastics-that-hurt-marine-life/
Scientists Discover Coral Reefs Recovered Quickly After Bleaching
It was a depressing if expected inevitability when Western Australia’s Rowley Shoals showed the first signs of mass coral bleaching earlier this year, but a follow-up survey has found a remarkable recovery looks likely to preserve the reef’s near-pristine health — at least for now.
Tom Holmes, the marine monitoring coordinator at the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Attractions, said that while his team was still processing the data, it appeared the coral had pulled off an “amazing” return towards health over the past six months.
“We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn’t see it … which is a really amazing thing,” Dr. Holmes said.
The survey was a follow-up to one conducted in April that found as much as 60 percent of corals on some Rowley Shoals reefs had bleached after the most widespread marine heatwave since reliable satellite monitoring began in 1993.
It has long been known that high sea temperatures cause coral bleaching which can kill coral — as seen by the devastation of the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast — but what is less well known is that bleached corals do not die immediately.
“So when a coral bleaches, it’s actually just a sign of initial stress,” Dr. Holmes said.
However, corals rely on these microscopic algae as a food source and cannot survive for long without them.
“If that stress continues for a long time and those corals remain white, then it can lead to mortality,” Dr. Holmes said.
“But there are some cases of bleaching around the world where … that stress hasn’t continued for a long time, and the corals have been able to take that alga back in from the water.”
Dr. Holmes believes that the vital time gap between bleaching and dying created a chance for the reefs to recover at the Rowley Shoals, a chain of three coral atolls 300 kilometers off Broome on the edge of Australia’s continental shelf.
https://principia-scientific.com/scientists-discover-coral-reefs-recovered-quickly-after-bleaching/
Australia: The ghost of former PM Tony Abbott paralyses Canberra on climate policy
The climate has moved on. Companies have moved on. State governments have moved on. Australia's biggest trading partners have, too. But the ghost of Tony Abbott inhabits Parliament House, Canberra. It scares the government. And it scares the opposition.
It was Abbott who broke Australia's national approach to climate and energy policy. It was a decade ago that he drove the knife of political conflict so deep and so effectively into federal politics that both sides of Parliament remain traumatised. They struggle to move on.
It was pathetically obvious this week. In both the Morrison government and the Albanese opposition.
In the government's case, it was when the Prime Minister made his congratulatory phone call to the US President-elect, Joe Biden. They discussed shared priorities including climate change.
The incoming American leader intends committing the US to a policy of zero net-carbon emissions by 2050. This is a policy that Morrison dare not endorse, or even speak. Instead, he told reporters: "I raised with the President-elect the similarity between the President-elect's comments and policies regarding emissions reduction and technologies that are needed to achieve that and we look forward to working on those issues."
So he emphasises the common ground – the obvious fact that all countries need new energy technology to cut carbon emissions. And avoids the difference – that Biden has a long-term target, and Australia does not. The Biden office issued a readout saying the pair discussed "common challenges" including "confronting climate change".
Australia, of course, has remained committed to Paris. And the Morrison government quietly has supported billions of dollars' worth of new renewable investments in the states, granted major project status to the $22 billion Sun Cable project to export solar power from the Northern Territory under the ocean to Singapore, invested in hydrogen technology, and much more.
But rather than being able to welcome home the prodigal son of the global climate effort in a full-throated greeting to post-Trump America, Morrison is suddenly mute when it comes to the forbidden words. It's just sad that a national leader can't speak the taboo words of targets or deadlines in an area of policy on which the fate of his country depends.
Australia's carbon emissions are falling. It's just that, on the current trajectory, we won't hit net zero for another four centuries. Or, more precisely, until 2393, as the Climate Council researcher Tim Baxter told my colleague Mike Foley.
It's not that Morrison is hostile to the concept of going carbon neutral. When asked, he agrees that he would like Australia to hit net-zero emissions "as quickly as possible". He just won't put a date to it, and says it'd be dishonest to do so without being able to specify the cost to the economy.
This runs contrary to two iron rules of politics. One is that the more distant the date, the more likely the commitment, and 2050 is 30 years hence. Morrison will be 82, assuming he lives that long and the planet is still habitable. He'd be long retired and unaccountable.
The other iron rule is to emphasise the benefits of a policy you support, and dissemble on the costs. For instance, the government is raising hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh Commonwealth debt in the bond market. It boasts about how it's supporting the economy today. And what costs will Australia's next generation pay to carry and repay that debt? Crickets.
Morrison's obduracy is even more bizarre when you realise that every state and territory in the Commonwealth has pledged to get to net zero by 2050. The real reason Morrison dare not break the taboo? Two words: Tony Abbott.
Recall that John Howard and Kevin Rudd reached a broad bipartisan agreement in 2007. They converged on the idea of an emissions trading scheme. This remained the consensus under Liberal leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull. Until Abbott decided to break ranks, demonise the policy and lead a conservative insurrection against Turnbull.
Under the Abbott rule, it is illegitimate for politicians to commit to a carbon-cutting target. Even his own. As prime minister Abbott committed Australia to its Paris target. But once he'd been unseated by Turnbull, Abbott started campaigning against his own target.
That approach enabled him to bring down Turnbull, but also Julia Gillard. It was instrumental to his political successes.
No matter the need or the urgency. Morrison knows that to campaign openly, ambitiously, is to risk another conservative insurrection from his own Coalition. Instead he sticks to the safe ground of talking up new technology and more investment.
And then there's Labor. The party's spokesman on resources, Joel Fitzgibbon, had planned to announce his retirement from the opposition frontbench on December 7 under an internal deal in the NSW right faction. He decided to accelerate the plan and go out in a blaze of angry dissent instead.
Since last year's federal election he'd made a point of talking up coal mining. There's a lot of it in his NSW seat of Hunter Valley. He suffered a big swing against him at the 2019 election and blamed Labor's climate activists for being disdainful of coal mining and Labor's traditional blue-collar base.
Anthony Albanese's opening salvo against Scott Morrison in Monday's question time was to point out that 70 countries including Biden's America were committing to net-zero targets by 2050: "Why is the Prime Minister leaving Australia behind by refusing to?"
This was planned as a Labor theme for the week. Fitzgibbon's high-profile dissent within Labor sabotaged that effort and opened Labor to attack from the government. And when Albanese chided Fitzgibbon at Monday evening's shadow cabinet meeting, it erupted into an angry exchange. Without a discussion of the actual policy. Fitzgibbon resigned from the front bench the next morning. Three weeks early. He plans to continue his destabilising campaign of criticism.
Once again, Labor is acting out the Abbott rule – Fitzgibbon by noisily campaigning against climate activism, and Labor as a whole by withholding its climate policy. Still shaken by its loss last year, Labor is postponing announcements of most of its policy plans across the board.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-ghost-of-tony-abbott-paralyses-canberra-on-climate-action-20201113-p56eh7.html
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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16 November, 2020
New data casts doubt on Boris Johnson’s 2030 offshore wind plans
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has today written to the chairman of the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons providing new evidence for their inquiry into the Net Zero target.The letter presents data from windfarm accounts showing that the wind industry has overestimated the technically accessible wind resource around the UK.
This new information shows that it will be necessary to introduce greater separation distances between wind turbines and wind farms, at greater costs.
This will force a move further away from shore, into much deeper water, and with a higher share of floating turbines, both increasing costs significantly.
The letter draws attention to evidence in the audited accounts of Burbo Bank Extension wind farm, recording payments made to another wind farm nearby, in compensation for reduced output caused by so-called “wake effects”. In effect, the Burbo Extension turbines have been taking the wind out of its neighbour’s sails.
The new evidence reveals that the industry has overestimated the density at which wind farms can be constructed, even at sea, an error that has serious implications for the Prime Minister’s aspiration for an additional 30 GW of offshore wind by the end of the decade.
GWPF director Dr Benny Peiser, said:
“Boris Johnson’s utopian wind ‘vision’ for 2030 was always going to be extremely expensive, but it now seems his plans may require spreading the wind turbines over a much bigger area, and in deeper water, with very significant environmental and economic implications. This is unlikely to be feasible, let alone affordable.”
https://www.thegwpf.org/new-data-casts-doubt-on-boris-johnsons-2030-offshore-wind-plans/
Google Promotes Study That Climate Change Causes Cancer
Among the top items Google is promoting today under the search term “climate change” is a paper out of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) titled, “Climate Change Will Give Rise to More Cancers.”
As the title implies, the study claims climate change will contribute to “higher rates of cancer, especially lung, skin and gastrointestinal cancers,” because climate change will cause poor air quality and disruptions in the food supply.
However, there is no evidence climate change has had or will have any impact on cancer rates or treatment. In fact, scientific evidence shows that, by UCSF’s logic, climate change will reduce the number of people getting cancer.
Playing on the public’s justified fear of cancer to hype action against climate change alarm is shameful.
In particular, the study asserts climate change will cause an increase in cancer rates and a decline in cancer treatment for three main reasons:
* Climate change will cause an increase in wildfires, putting particulate matter and soot into the air, which, when breathed in will contribute to an increase in lung cancers.
* Climate change will disrupt food supplies resulting in malnutrition, which will contribute to increasing numbers of gastrointestinal cancers.
* Climate change will cause more “[e]xtreme weather events such as storms and flooding [that] can destroy or damage health-care infrastructure, reducing health care quality and availability … [as well as] interrupting service delivery by causing power shortages, disrupting supply chains, transportation, and communication, and resulting in staff shortages.”
Tackling each of these claims, in turn, the evidence shows wildfires have declined over the past century even as the earth has experienced modest warming.
As documented in Climate at a Glance: Wildfires, long-term data from the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) show wildfires have dramatically declined in number and severity in recent decades.
Reporting data on U.S. wildfires from as far back as 1926, NIFC documents that the number of acres annually burned recently is only1/4th to 1/5th of the annual acres burned in the 1930s.
Globally, the data on wildfires are just as clear. In his book False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg observes:
“There is plenty of evidence for a reduction in the level of devastation caused by fire, with satellites showing a 25 percent reduction globally in burned areas just over the past 18 years … In total, the global amount of area burned has declined by more than 540,000 square miles, from 1.9 million square miles in the early part of last century to 1.4 million square miles today.”
Because there is no evidence climate change is causing an increase in wildfires or the air pollution they emit, there is equally no evidence climate change is causing more incidences of lung cancer.
Real-world data concerning crop production directly contradict the UCSF study’s claim that food supply disruptions will lead to more gastrointestinal cancers.
The evidence is clear food production is improving with modest warming and higher carbon dioxide concentrations.
Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show yields of the most important cereal crops have increased dramatically over the past few decades, repeatedly setting new records.
As shown in the chart below, the FAO’s recent “Cereal Supply and Demand Brief” reports new global records are being set nearly every year for the production of the cereal crops (corn, wheat, rice, and similar crop staples) that comprise most of the global food consumption.
FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, August 10, 2020.
Cereal grains include the Big Three food staples of corn, rice, wheat, and similar crops. Corn, rice, and wheat by themselves comprise 66 percent of global human food consumption.
Cereal crops alone make up nine of the 15 crops that provide 90 percent of humanity’s food energy intake. As shown above, the FAO reports cereal grain production set new records seven of the past 10 years.
Global warming lengthens growing seasons, reduces frost events, and makes more land suitable for crop production.
Also, carbon dioxide is an aerial fertilizer for plant life. Fruits and vegetables also benefit from longer growing seasons, fewer frost events, and from the fertilization effect of increased levels of carbon dioxide.
As a result, climate change-induced crop abundance has resulted in the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, and starvation in human history.
Increasing amounts of nutritious food mean cancers related to diet and nutrition should decline as well.
Finally, data recorded by the U.S. government and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented in Climate at a Glance: Drought, Climate at a Glance: Floods, and Climate at a Glance Hurricanes, show that the number and severity of droughts, floods, and hurricanes have not increased during the past few decades of modest warming.
Concerning floods, the IPCC has said it has “low confidence” in any climate change impact regarding the frequency or severity of floods.
Concerning drought, the IPCC reports with “high confidence” that precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere (including the United States) during the past 70 years, and it has “low confidence” about any negative trends globally.
Data also show, the United States is undergoing its longest period in recorded history with fewer than 40 percent of the country experiencing “very dry” conditions, and in 2017 and 2019 America registered its smallest percentage of land area experiencing drought in recorded history.
Data from the IPCC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show no increase in the number or severity of hurricanes in recent decades. Indeed, NOAA reports, the United States recently went through its longest period in recorded history without a major hurricane strike.
America also recently experienced its fewest total hurricanes in any eight-year period.
Since the evidence is clear that climate change is not causing more extreme weather events, it must also be true climate change isn’t making it more difficult to treat people for cancer by disrupting medical supplies or disrupting travel to hospitals and clinics for cancer treatment.
The UCSF study is filled with alarming claims and speculation but short on facts. The available evidence indicates people have no reason to fear climate change is making or will make cancer more common or more difficult to treat.
People who fear cancer should instead fear that climate hucksters will try and use fear of climate change and false cancer links to divert money and resources away from direct cancer treatment and research, steering it instead toward climate research.
https://principia-scientific.com/google-promotes-study-that-climate-change-causes-cancer/
“Green Hydrogen” to replace “Black Gold”?
The harnessing of new energy sources has fueled technological advances and economic prosperity for mankind throughout history. The history of oil alone coincides with economic growth and improving living conditions for nearly two centuries.
History and human prosperity will not end with oil and other fossil fuels since energy development and innovation inexorably continues. In the not too distant future, it may be “green hydrogen” that will displace “black gold,” or at least make the world much less dependent on fossil fuels.
Hydrogen power comes from water by using electricity to split hydrogen molecules from oxygen molecules and stored in liquid form. “Green” hydrogen is so labeled based on the source of electricity coming from renewable energy, rather than from fossil fuels.
Still, liquid hydrogen is not a natural energy source; it must be produced and stored using other energy sources. It not only remains costlier than natural gas, it is less efficient in that it produces one quarter of the energy per unit volume. Liquid hydrogen also is highly combustible and its storage requires compression to 700 times atmospheric pressure and refrigeration to 253 degrees Celsius, according to Michael Liebreich, a New Energy Analyst at BloombergNEF.
How realistic is green hydrogen as a future energy source? Follow the money.
Environmental journalist Jim Robbins writes, a “green hydrogen energy rush is underway,” with investors, private companies and governments around the globe in pursuit. According to Grand View Research, the global green energy market is estimated to be valued at $787 million in 2019, and projected to grow more than 14 percent annually by 2027.
The European Union also is drafting plans to expand green hydrogen, including proposing that funds be used for electrolyzers and transport and storage technology.
In Germany, for example, along with other European countries, funding is being provided for electrolysis plants and other hydrogen infrastructure. In Spain the government in Madrid last month approved a ten-year, $10.5 billion plan to develop green hydrogen plants using renewal energy to produce and transport. Similarly, Great Britain last year approved a plan to invest nearly $15 billion to generate 4 gigawatts of offshore wind power to generate green hydrogen by 2030.
In Japan, a new green hydrogen plant just opened near Fukishima, which will be used to power fuel cells for vehicles and stationary sites. Then there is Saudi Arabia, which has been investing in green hydrogen to power future cities as part of its long-term plan to diversify its economy from being so heavily reliant on oil production. The company Air Products & Chemicals, a gas company based in the United States, for the last four years has been constructing a green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia to fuel the future city of Noem on the coast of the Red Sea. The source of the electricity in the Saudi project would come from wind and solar projects across the Arabian desert.
In the U.S., a green hydrogen power plant is being planned in Utah to replace coal-fired plants and produce electricity for southern California. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is contributing to the investment of the Utah plant. Also in California, the company SGH2 announced plans to build a green hydrogen plant that will use waste gasification instead of electrolysis, which the company believes will be a less expensive means to produce green hydrogen.
The largest planned green hydrogen project is planned in Australia, known as the Asian Renewable Energy Hub. The project will comprise 1,600 wind turbines and 78 square kilometers of solar panels to power 14 gigawatts of hydrogen electrolyzers.
Green hydrogen may not soon replace “black gold.” The cost remains comparatively prohibitive and renewable energy itself has limits in efficiency and placement options. Nonetheless, technology never stands still, and governments and industry around the globe are forging ahead.
Over time, the investment in green hydrogen and its spread will lower its price and increase its share of the energy market. That will make green hydrogen a growing source of energy that will make the world less dependent on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/09/green-hydrogen-to-replace-black-gold/
Australia accused of discouraging electric vehicles
Australia could become a parking lot for the world's petrol vehicles unless drivers are encouraged to buy more electric vehicles, industry and experts say, as prices for the cheapest electric models here can be double what they are overseas.
This year an estimated 4400 electric vehicles were sold in Australia, a mere 0.6 per cent of total car sales in that time.
University of Queensland research fellow Jake Whitehead said Australia had become a "pariah" in the eyes of manufacturers of electric vehicles because there were no major incentives to encourage consumer uptake, while other countries set ambitious goals and generous incentives to drive the switch from petrol and diesel engines.
"We are down the path to becoming a dumping ground and my fear is it will become worse," Dr Whitehead said.
The US and EU and other markets set a quota for the volume of carbon dioxide that can collectively be emitted across the fleet of a manufacturer's internal combustion engine cars. This is not the case in Australia, meaning manufacturers could choose to run out their end-of-line petrol models here while they ramp up sales of electric vehicles in more attractive markets.
"Manufacturers are in a situation where they have to make a choice where around the world they send their limited production. Australia is a risky choice compared to the US and UK, where the vehicle is sold before it hits the dock," Dr Whitehead said.
The five cheapest electric models available in Australia cost between $44,000 and $64,000 and are expensive compared to the cheapest petrol models – which start at less than $15,000. The cheapest EVs in the UK and US sell for about $30,000.
The federal government is working on an electric cars policy that will focus on infrastructure like charging stations and support for research and development into new technology.
"We are backing a range of technologies, not picking one winner. This follows our 'technology not taxes' approach to reducing emissions," Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said.
Many major manufacturers are planning to phase out petrol and diesel engines, and major markets including the UK, Japan, France and Germany will ban their sale between 2025 and 2030 – while the USA offers a $7500 tax rebate for electric vehicles.
The Electric Vehicle Council said running costs are low compared to petrol cars with virtually no engine maintenance and electricity costs equivalent to less than 40 cents a litre of fuel.
South Australia this week said it would target electric vehicle owners with a road user charge to make up for the loss of fuel excise revenue, which contributes to road infrastructure. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrotet said he was considering bringing in a similar tax next year.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, which represents manufacturers of all vehicle types imported into Australia, "condemned" road user charges for only electric cars and called for a "sophisticated discussion" on long-term tax reform.
The chamber's chief executive Tony Weber said a new tax system to evenly distribute charges across all vehicle types could be based on road user and congestion charges.
"This seems to be a reactionary move by state government that focuses on revenue, where it needs to focus on all the costs and benefits of policies," Mr Weber said.
"(Electric vehicles) offer economy wide benefits, including improved health outcomes, and will make a major contribution to improving our environmental scorecard for the benefit of future generations."
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dumping-ground-australia-charged-with-discouraging-electric-vehicles-20201113-p56efr.html
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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15 November, 2020
Science journal U-turns on claim that global warming cannot be stopped after British experts cry foul
A science journal has U-turned on its claim that we are past the 'point of no return' and global warming cannot be stopped after British experts disputed the findings.
The study claims that if humans ended greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow we would still see global temperatures continuing to rise for several centuries.
Leading journal Scientific Reports was strongly criticised by British scientists after they published a press release titled: 'Ending greenhouse gas emissions may not stop global warming' to publicise the paper, which is still available online.
Following the backlash, the journal revised its press release, admitting the prediction was based on a particular computer model and results should be tested on 'alternative models'.
Richard Betts, a professor of climate impacts at the University of Exeter, was among those who criticised the study.
Speaking with The Times newspaper, he said: 'While the press release suggests that global warming may now be unstoppable for centuries, the model result in this paper is not convincing as support for that message.
'The paper itself does not actually claim to be a prediction of the real world, it just reports the behaviour of one model — but the press release goes a big step further and presents it as a prediction.
'The model, which is not one used in the main Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections, has not been shown to be credible enough to support confident predictions, and is contradicted by more established and extensively evaluated [models] in many of its physical processes.
'This paper clearly may be cited in support of a misleading message that it is now "too late" to avoid catastrophic climate change, which would have the potential to cause unnecessary despair.
'However, the study is nowhere near strong enough to make such a frightening message credible.'
Sir Brian Hoskins, a climatologist at Imperial College London, who was also not involved with the study, questioned the team's 'toy' model.
'This is the sort of investigation with a toy model that should be done and is fun, but should not be given this sort of publicity until the processes involved have been investigated using more complex models and representations,' he said.
Andrew Watson, a Royal Society research professor at the University of Exeter, said that he did not agree with the press release describing global warming as potentially catastrophic, 'given that it occurs over 500 years'.
The study authors include Professor Jorgen Randers, a respected Norwegian academic from the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo.
Professor Randers told MailOnline: 'As I see it, [Scientific Reports] have, in a most helpful manner, published what we called for in our paper, namely a report on what happens in the big climate models when they stop emissions in 2020.'
Some scientists hailed the findings as significant and worth taking note of, however.
'This study provides evidence for what we don't want to hear –that global heating may have already become self-reinforcing, and that we have therefore passed the point of no return for halting long-term climate change,' Phillip Williamson of the University of East Anglia said.
Scientists used a computer model called ESCIMO to simulate the effect of different greenhouse gas emission reductions on changes in the global climate between now and they year 2500, based on records spanning all the way back to 1850.
Even if all human-made greenhouse-gas emissions were reduced to zero this year, global temperatures would still be around 5.4°F (3°C) warmer in 2500 than on 1850, the model found.
Sea levels, meanwhile, would rise by around eight feet (2.5 metres) by 2500, compared to 1850, submerging glaciers and flooding land.
'Recently, there have been warnings that some of these tipping points are coming closer and are too dangerous to be disregarded,' say the scientists, from BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo in their research paper.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8942619/Ending-greenhouse-gas-emissions-not-stop-global-warming.html
Huge price rise for vital Tesla feature
One of the biggest selling points of a Tesla has gone up in smoke. Tesla recently announced it has increased the price for using its supercharger network to 52 cents per kW, a sharp rise of 24 per cent.
The price hike makes it more expensive to fast-charge Teslas than to refill petrol-powered rivals.
Analysis by electric car experts at EVCentral.com.au shows it would cost $9.78 per 100km to run a Tesla Model 3 if it was charged exclusively on the brand’s Supercharger network.
This compares poorly to petrol powered machines such as the BMW 330i at $8.00 per 100km and the hybrid-powered Lexus IS350h at $6.76.
EVCentral says that despite the price rise, Tesla is still misleading visitors to its website by claiming you can travel “at a fraction of the cost of gasoline”.
According to EVcentral, these claims are based on the old Supercharger fees of 42 cents per kW and a petrol price of $1.75 per litre — a price it has never hit in Australia. The average current cost of unleaded petrol is $1.22 per litre.
But the case against Tesla isn’t as black and white as it seems as the majority of electric car owners will use home chargers to refill their vehicles regularly and use supercharger networks only when they are travelling longer distances. Many also use solar at home, which further reduces the cost of recharging.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/motoring-news/huge-price-rise-for-vital-tesla-feature/news-story/8efc6b0545754151192833b6c4cab1ab
Pipeline Industry Pumps $48 Billion into the Texas Economy, Study Says
A new report from Texas Tech University (TTU) found, in 2019 alone, pipeline construction and operations in Texas had an economic impact exceeding $48 billion in the state.
TTU researchers also found pipelines supported over 238,000 jobs across the state in 2019, contributing $29.3 billion in gross state product (GSP), and providing the state government and municipalities with more than $2.7 billion in tax revenue.
The report, Update to the Economic Impacts of the Texas Oil and Gas Pipeline Industry, was conducted by the Centre for Energy Commerce at TTU and released in late October. The Texas Pipeline Association (TPA) commissioned the study.
Employment, Revenues Grow with Pipelines
Since the original study was published in 2013, pipeline mileage across Texas has increased 13.16 percent. Total output from pipeline operations and construction increased by 47 percent since 2013, state and local tax revenue increased by 68 percent, and employment increased by 40 percent. Employment directly related to pipeline transportation grew by 2.68 percent annually.
“The activities of the Texas pipeline industry, which include the transportation of hydrocarbons from sources of exploration and production to refineries and end-users, are one vital component of the substantial job creation, investment and overall economic growth of the state’s economy,” said Bradley Ewing, Ph.D., the McLaughlin Endowed Chair of Free Enterprise and Professor of Energy Commerce in the Rawls College of Business at TTU, who prepared the study. “Provided that the pipeline industry maintains effective transportation capabilities, it will continue to generate economic benefits that will likely impact Texas for years to come.”
By 2060 the report estimates the pipeline industry in Texas will have generated almost $1.5 trillion in today’s dollars in economic output, $903 in additional gross state product, and $84 billion in additional state and local tax revenue. Further, the industry will also create or support more than 492,000 jobs by then.
“A pipeline system capable of effectively handling increased levels of oil and gas activity is necessary for oil and gas companies to find it economic to operate in Texas,” the report concludes. “From an economic standpoint, the ability to retain and attract oil and gas investments requires a pipeline system that can manage the flow of hydrocarbons in a timely and cost-effective manner.
“Accordingly, as shown in this study, the economic benefits attributable to the pipeline system are substantial in the state of Texas,” says the study. “Moreover, the upstream and downstream portions of the energy industry (i.e., exploration and production, refining activities, etc.) will generate even more economic benefits to Texas in the form of additional economic impacts provided that these companies have an efficient and effective way to transport their product.”
Pipelines are critical to Texas’ and the nation’s economic well-being, said Thure Cannon, president of the TPA, in a press statement issued when the report was released.
“Texas pipelines are an essential component of our energy infrastructure,” said Cannon. “It is clear from this…study that pipelines deliver the robust economic benefits that come from the continued growth and expansion of the oil and gas industry.
“And, with Texas as one of the fastest growing states in the nation, now more than ever we need pipelines to deliver the hydrocarbons that are used to make the more than 6000 petroleum byproducts we rely on every day, including fertilizer, flooring, perfume, vitamins, soap, clothing and so much more,” Cannon said.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2020/11/pipeline-industry-pumps-48-billion-into-the-texas-economy-study-says/
Australian Labor Party split on climate policy
'The biggest fear in the mining industry isn't market forces, it's the politicians'
Louise Nicholls has been living in the Hunter Valley long enough to remember when the local member was not Joel Fitzgibbon, but his father Eric, a friendly sort of bloke, she recalls, whose electorate office then ran things so efficiently that he always had time for a schooner of Old with the ladies from the Country Women's Association.
Joel inherited the seat, which has been in Labor hands since 1910, from Eric on his retirement in 1996, and kept it without too much trouble – or effort, says Nicholls –until the last election when a young coal miner and farmer named Stuart Bonds snagged 20 per cent of the vote for One Nation.
Fitzgibbon's margin collapsed from a cushy 14 per cent to an anxious 2 per cent.
Nicholls, who edits The Singleton Argus and runs a little farm outside town, says the difference in Fitzgibbon's public presence was dramatic and immediate.
"Bloody Joel," she says with a laugh as I raise the topic.
Days before the election the opposition agriculture and resources spokesman had been before cameras in vineyards discussing the newest methods of decarbonising agriculture and saving water.
"The day after the election it was all coal, coal, coal," says Nicholls.
"Don't bother talking to us about transition," a Fitzgibbon staffer told her days after the election, referring to the term often used to describe the organised withdrawal from the fossil fuel economy, she says. "That's all over."
After Labor's loss of the 2019 election Fitzgibbon took his newfound lack of ambition on climate change back to Canberra with the zeal of a convert.
It wasn't that he did not believe in anthropogenic climate change, it wasn't even that he did not believe that the use of thermal coal – coal burnt for energy – was not in decline.
It was just that he did not think Labor should be wedded to ambitious carbon reduction targets in opposition.
Why should Labor lose votes in seats – well, in seats like his – when it could simply embrace the government's position on climate and emissions reductions and let it take the heat?
Besides, if coal was already in decline, why should the Hunter Valley's workers not enjoy a few more years of its benefits?
Last October, Fitzgibbon told the think tank the Australia Institute that Labor should match the government's own emissions reduction target of 26-28 per cent by 2030.
"The focus would then be all about actual outcomes, and the government would finally be held to account and forced to act," he said.
Since then sniping among Labor ranks has continued on the issue, even as the world began to take more meaningful action on climate change as the coronavirus hit.
Organisations seen as wedded to fossil fuels such as the International Energy Agency began calling for all nations to adopt green stimulus packages as oil and coal prices collapsed. Britain and the European Union stepped up already ambitious reduction targets echoed by China, Japan and South Korea.
On climate, at least, the wind might have been in Labor's sails this week had it not been for Fitzgibbon.
After a widely reported shouting match in an opposition cabinet meeting on Monday night he resigned from Labor's frontbench, telling reporters that the party was too focused on climate change.
"We have to speak to, and be a voice for, all those who we seek to represent, whether they be in Surry Hills or Rockhampton. And that's a difficult balance," he said.
In the Hunter, views of Fitzgibbon's departure were mixed, and they underscored what a terrible political problem climate change is for the valley, for Labor and for the world.
CFMEU district president Peter Jordan is sure that Fitzgibbon has made the right move by distancing himself from politicians who've become too close to the concerns of inner-city electorates in Sydney and Melbourne.
"They don't know how people here feel. The Labor Party has been too strong on wanting to listen to the other side, the other side that's got the green element about it,'' Jordan says.
"Joel has done the right thing ever since the election, he has accepted the argument that was raised by his electorate and in the last 12 to 18 months he has set about trying to correct that and steer Labor back to its traditional roots, and that is what blue collar workers want."
Sitting in his office, Cessnock mayor Bob Pynsent recalls working on booths for Fitzgibbon the day of the last election, and how shocked he was at the angry reception he got from young blokes in hi-vis vests when he offered them how-to-vote Labor forms.
He too believes that Fitzgibbon is steering the right political course, though he concedes the politics are difficult. It might have been blue collar workers who abandoned Fitzgibbon at the last election, but they do not have the same problems as blue collar workers in other parts of the country, he says.
Pat Conroy holds the Labor seat of Shortland, adjacent to Fitzgibbon's, and he does not share his colleague's outlook. He says there are three coal transitions facing Australia, and the first two are under way.
The first is domestic thermal coal use. The Hunter Valley's four coal power stations are slated for closure over the next 15 years, starting with Liddell next year, or the year after.
Domestic thermal coal is in decline.
Conroy believes the shift away from seaborne thermal coal has also already begun, though because of the Australian industry's efficiency and the high energy content of its product, Australian coal mines will be among the last viable operations in the world.
Either way, he says, the end is in sight.
The third is steel-making coal, which Conroy says the world will abandon when new technology - now in development - comes into play.
"I think it is my first responsibility to my constituents to be honest about that," he says.
For his part, Fitzgibbon resists putting a timeline on the end of the industry.
"Predictions are a dime a dozen, and predicting what the global market might do soon is not a reason to regulate our industry out of existence now," Fitzgibbon says.
In that he agrees with the man who spooked him at the last election, One Nation's Bonds, who plans to run again.
"Why should Labor bring that forward? The biggest fear that people have in the industry is not the market forces, it's the politicians," he says.
He reckons that no matter how far Fitzgibbon distances himself from other Labor voices on coal and emissions he will still be known as a member of the same team.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/power-plays-at-work-as-labor-split-over-climate-action-20201113-p56egf.html
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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13 November, 2020
Sorry, Google, People Flocking to Florida Debunks Florida Climate Emergency
Among Google News’ top search results today under “climate change,” the search engine monopoly is promoting an article claiming stupid Americans are inexplicably flocking to areas being battered by a climate crisis – areas that the “climate emergency” will soon render uninhabitable. In reality, Google, Americans are not overwhelmingly stupid and masochistic. The fact that the American population continues to shift south – and especially to Florida and the Deep South – rather than north debunks claims that a climate crisis is battering southern states and will soon make southern states uninhabitable.
An activist group called Pro Publica published an article yesterday, titled “Climate Change Will Make Parts of the U.S. Uninhabitable. Americans Are Still Moving There.” The subtitle for the article reads, “Instead of moving away from areas in climate crisis, Americans are flocking to them. As land in places like Phoenix, Houston and Miami becomes less habitable, the country’s migration patterns will be forced to change.”
The article then talks about how stupid it is for Americans to move to Florida and other southern states, claiming they will all have to flee back north in the near future.
Most people have never heard of the obscure Pro Publica organization. Pro Publica’s article would probably be read by only about six people if not for Google deciding to place the article at the top of its “climate change” search results. It is quite remarkable that Google would choose to prominently elevate such an obscure article making so clearly dubious climate claims.
Ironically, yesterday’s Pro Publica article is essentially a shortened replica of the same article the group published – and Google similarly promoted – two months ago. Pro Publica claimed in its September article that climate change is about spawn millions of climate refugees from the American South to the American North. However, ss Climate Realism reported in response to Pro Publica’s September article:
“A map published, ironically, by the liberal, climate alarmist website Daily Kos illustrates how Americans are reacting to climate by seeking warmer, not colder, temperatures. As shown in the Daily Kos map below, U.S. Census Bureau data show Texas will gain the most congressional seats in the 2020 Census update. Florida will gain the second-most seats. Texas and Florida are the two southernmost states in the contiguous 48 states. Other states expected to gain seats are hot-weather Arizona, warm-weather North Carolina, climate-neutral Colorado, climate-neutral Oregon, and cold-weather Montana (largely due to people fleeing liberal California).
“By contrast, eight of the 10 states expected to lose seats are cold, northern states. One of the others is California, where people are fleeing liberal state government. Alabama is the only warm-weather state expected to lose a congressional seat. Contrary to the Pro Publica article, Louisiana and Georgia will not lose any seats.”
Indeed, yesterday’s ProPublica article appears to be an attempt to salvage some credibility after Climate Realism pointed out American migration trends contradicting Pro Publica’s September article. Whereas Pro Publica’s first article claimed climate change will imminently force mass migration from the U.S. South to the U.S. North, Pro Publica’s new article tries to explain the flow of people south by claiming Americans are inherently stupid people.
Here is an alternate theory. Maybe Americans are not inherently stupid. Maybe people can see through over-the-top climate claims and will choose to act in their own self-interest rather than climate activists’ political interest.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/11/sorry-google-people-flocking-to-florida-debunks-florida-climate-emergency/
Unanimous Supremes limit Endangered Species Act in Dusky Gopher Frog decision
The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that the Endangered Species Act cannot be used to control land in Louisiana to protect the Dusty Gopher Frog, which currently only lives in Mississippi.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the court held that, “according to the ordinary understanding of how adjectives work, ‘critical habitat’ must also be ‘habitat… Only the ‘habitat’ of the endangered species is eligible for designation as critical habitat.”
This is a significant reform. The ESA has become the favorite vehicle of activists seeking to control people’s use of their private land. That the endangered species should actually be present on the land in question might seem a no-brainer, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t get it. Today’s Supreme Court Decision reverses the Fifth Circuit.
Is the ESA no longer a blank check for eco-gadflies?
https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/04/unanimous-supremes-limit-endangered-species-act-in-dusky-gopher-frog-decision/
Will there be a ‘Green Wave’ for America?
If the Biden-Harris ticket prevails, would their Green climate policies take hold? It would come if the President exhausted his options in the courts and falls short. This is how the 2000 presidential election concluded, causing Al Gore to concede to George W. Bush 37 days after election day.
Upon declaring himself President-elect, Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to fight “the battle to save the climate” and to re-enter the Paris Climate Accords.
A Biden administration will have a huge impact on climate policies by controlling the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Interior Department as the leading rule-making agencies for Green policies. More than likely, gas pipeline construction will be denied permits, fossil fuel drilling on federal lands refused, carbon emission standards tightened on industry, and wetlands and logging restrictions re-imposed.
Literally dozens of environmental orders are likely forthcoming from a Biden presidency that would reverse Trump administration actions, and impose costlier, anti-competitive energy burdens on American industry, jobs and households.
The question, however, arises: why is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sounding sullen these days? She supported Joe Biden for president (after his nomination at the Democratic convention last August), and drafted his climate policies in the Unity Task Force recommendations.
The answer is that congressional elections did not go well for Democrats. As Joe Biden leads in the presidential count, the Democratic Party unexpectedly took losses in Congress. Several Democratic lawmakers, including 3rd ranking House member, James Clyburn, are publicly blaming the Party’s progressive agenda championed by AOC, Sen. Bernie Sanders and others.
AOC rejects the criticism and is on the defensive. “It’s irresponsible to pour gasoline on what [are] already very delicate tensions in the Party,” she said. She went on, “I don’t even know if I want to be in politics.”
These are not the sentiments of a jubilant, victorious politician.
While Democrats and most pollsters expected Mr. Biden to win the presidency, they also expected to take full control of Congress: first, by expanding their majority in the House of Representatives; second, by taking majority control of the U.S. Senate where Republicans had twice the number of seats at stake and where the Democrats heavily outspent them. Neither occurred.
Instead, Democrats will dwindle to a very narrow House majority to perhaps a handful of seats above the minimum 218, as Republicans are likely to capture a dozen or more seats held by Democratic incumbents. In the Senate, Republicans have at least 50 of the 100 seats, with two Senate run-off races in Georgia to be decided in January.
Even if Biden becomes president, a bare majority in the House and likely continued minority position in the Senate will make progressive climate policies far more difficult to pass into law, if not impossible. In particular, Congress has the power of the purse. Even a modest Green New Deal labeled something else would cost trillions of new taxpayer dollars to impose carbon mandates and “create” green energy jobs. They have no mandate from the voters.
Another reason for climate policy proponents like AOC to be concerned is hydro-fracturing for natural gas, which they oppose. Joe Biden insisted during the fall campaign that he did not oppose fracking, despite taking the opposite position for more than year prior. Kamala Harris said, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact,” though she claimed no reversal for herself. Biden also claimed he was not for the Green New Deal, and Harris refused to mention it, even though both were on record in support. Evidently, both understood the political risk of going big and ostentatious on climate policies.
Lastly, should Mr. Biden end up as president and re-enter the Paris Accords, the Republicans should insist it come before the Senate as a treaty, which requires two-thirds approval, pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. International deals of this magnitude on any subject are manifestly illegal for any president alone to commit the nation. A Biden refusal to do so could trigger Senate Republicans to deny funding its implementation, if they dare.
President Trump and his administration took a balanced approach between economic and environmental issues. A Biden administration would reverse many such executive actions. However, since a predicted “Blue” Democratic wave failed to materialize, a “Green” wave, at least from Congress, is unlikely.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/11/will-there-be-a-green-wave-for-america/
Tax on electric cars produces anger
South Australia’s controversial new electric vehicle charge has been labelled “a big tax on not polluting” by policy analysts and the EV industry.
It comes as MG launches the lowest price electric vehicle on the market in Australia yet – a $40,000 SUV crossover – that is about $10,000 cheaper than its nearest rival, the Nissan Leaf.
Noah Schultz-Byard, South Australian director at the Australia Institute, said the decision in South Australia – the first in the nation to introduce such a charge – would only made it harder for people to go electric just as it was getting easier.
“Putting a tax on a car because it doesn’t produce any pollution is ridiculous. It’s like saying someone who gives up smoking no longer pays the tobacco excise, so they need to pay a penalty for having given up,” Schultz-Byard said.
“People can make arguments for or against, but now is not the time when the upfront cost of an EV is still higher than a petrol car. Right now the cost of batteries that go into electric vehicles has been dropping steadily and is expected to drop in the years to come.
“Slapping a tax on that will only raise the barrier back up. This might scare a lot of people away from buying an electric vehicle, which is the opposite of what we want.”
The move was announced in the state budget where treasurer Rob Lucas explained the decision by saying it would make road use more equal.
Lucas wouldn’t be drawn on the size of the charge but did say it was expected to raise $1m a year starting in July 2021 and that it would include both an upfront cost and an additional charge on distance travelled.
“Someone needs to pay for the road maintenance and upgrade, and it should be the people who are using the road,” Lucas said.
Dr Jake Whitehead, a research fellow with the University of Queensland, said this didn’t stack up as money generated from road taxes is split between state and federal governments.
Less than half this money is then spent on road transport projects, while the rest goes to general revenue.
“Basically, what they’re saying [to EV owners] is you should continue to pay stamp duty, registration and we’re going to throw in an extra tax. Basic economics is that you make the price higher, you decrease demand,” Whitehead said.
“What we’re seeing is that EVs are being a scapegoat for falling fuel excise taxes, when the excise declines are actually because of more hybrid and fuel-efficient cars being introduced.
“The expected outcome from my perspective, is that you’ll put a tax on EVs, that will be a disincentive [to buy] EVs, those buyers will then buy hybrid or fuel-efficient vehicles and that will exacerbate the issue with fuel excise. That’ll only make the issue larger.”
Behyad Jafari, chair of the Electric Vehicle Council, said his worry is that South Australia will set a precedent that will lock in bad policy across the country.
“Automotive companies simply won’t bring EVs to our market,” Jafari said. “South Australia has one of the lowest uptakes of EVs in the world and to now become the world’s first countries to provide a net tax or net disincentive is the wrong move.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/11/south-australias-new-tax-on-electric-vehicles-ridiculed-as-a-big-tax-on-not-polluting
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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12 November, 2020
NY Times ‘Knows’ Hurricane Facts that Are Actually False
A story in the New York Times today is misleadingly titled, “5 Things We Know About Climate Change and Hurricanes,” (Emphasis mine). In the story, the Times substitutes speculation by a few climate alarmists for facts. The real fact is there is no evidence hurricanes are becoming more frequent or severe as the Earth modestly warms.
“Scientists can’t say for sure whether global warming is causing more hurricanes, but they are confident that it’s changing the way storms behave … there’s a solid scientific consensus that hurricanes are becoming more powerful,” writes the Times.
Actually, scientists can say for sure that there is no evidence hurricane are becoming more frequent. Data from Climate Atlas, reported in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes, demonstrate there has been no increase in global hurricane frequency during the recent period of modest warming. To the contrary, objective data show that the number of tropical storms has declined modestly during the past 50 years. (See the figure below).
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agree with this assessment, stating in its 2018 interim report that there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.”
The 2020 hurricane season has very active which the Times acknowledges claims is due to warm Atlantic ocean surface temperatures. However, if that is the case, why have recent years seen fewer hurricanes and tropical storms than was the case decades earlier?
Even in the midst of modestly warmer temperatures this year, the United States recently went more than a decade (2005 through 2017) without a major hurricane measuring Category 3 or higher making landfall, which is the longest such period in recorded history. America also recently experienced the fewest number of total hurricane strikes (Category 1 through 5) in any eight-year period (2009 through 2017) in recorded history.
“Warm ocean water is just one factor in the formation and intensification of hurricanes,” writes meteorologist Anthony Watts in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes. “Wind shear inhibits strong storms from forming and rips apart storms that have already formed. Scientists have learned that global warming is likely to cause more wind shear in places where hurricanes form and intensify. It is misleading to discuss one factor in hurricane formation (warmer oceans) while failing to discuss an equally important factor (wind shear) that diminishes hurricane formation and intensification.”
The Times claims climate change is making it more likely for hurricanes to move more slowly. The Times also claims the regions impacted by tropical storms and hurricanes are expanding. However, these claims aren’t backed by any data cited by the Times. There is also no objective data showing climate change is “enlarging the zones where hurricanes can form,” as the Times asserts. Indeed, the data that does exist show hurricane zones have been stable over recorded history, neither shrinking nor expanding.
Instead, the paper quotes one or two scientists who have made such claims about expanding hurricane zones as if they represented a scientific consensus on the matters. They don’t! Moreover, if the same number of hurricanes and tropical storms are forming, and those storms are being stretched out over a greater area, then currently hurricane-prone therefore experience even fewer storms each year as the storms get more spread out.
Concerning the claim that climate change will cause hurricanes to move more slowly, the Times writes, “[r]esearchers do not yet know why storms are moving more slowly, but they are. Some say a slowdown in global atmospheric circulation, or global winds, could be partly to blame.” The Times can’t write, “we do not yet know why storms are moving more slowly,” and then assert, “we know” climate change is causing hurricanes to move more slowly. There is no evidence human-caused climate change is causing a slowdown in global wind speeds or circulation patterns. There is simply a paucity of data. As such, the Times is unjustified in asserting climate change has or will slow the pace at which hurricanes move.
Readers of the New York Times would have been better served had the paper consulted actual hurricane data, rather than quoting a few alarmist scientists, concerning what we “know” about the links between climate change and hurricane behavior. The data are, in fact, quite unalarming.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/11/ny-times-knows-hurricane-facts-that-are-actually-false/
Climate 'Experts' Demand Tax-On-Meat To Fight Global Warming
The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC) urges the UK government to impose a climate tax on food producers by 2025 - unless private industry takes voluntary measures to limit their carbon emissions.
In the report published on Nov. 4, titled "All-Consuming: Building A Healthier Food System For People And Planet," UKHACC outlines that the climate crisis cannot be resolved without reducing food that causes high emissions, such as red meat and dairy products.
"In particular, red meat consumption will need to be cut by half if the food system is to stay within sustainable environmental limits," UKHACC wrote in the report.
Adding that, "changing our diets in this way will not only help to mitigate climate change but will also improve our health: there is also clear evidence that is replacing animal protein with plant-based protein results in lower rates of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and overall death rates."
UKHACC represents doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals from ten Royal Colleges of medicine and nursing, the British Medical Association, and The Lancet. The report makes several recommendations besides levies on food, such as ending buy-one-get-one-free offers for supermarket products that are harmful to the environment.
"If we are to hope to limit dangerous climate change and improve health outcomes, governments – including our own – will have to do far more to improve the sustainability of the food that we eat," UKHACC said.
UKHACC said a future tax on meat and dairy products could easily work. They point to changing consumer behaviors that have been observed around a "Sugar Tax" to limit the consumption of junk foods.
Figures have it that food production is responsible for at least a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. What appears to become is that, in the name of climate change, a war on the food system will be waged and the foods we eat that are deemed too dangerous for the climate will either be taxed or banned completely.
"We can't reach our goals without addressing our food system," said Kristin Bash, who led the Faculty of Public Health's food group and was a co-author of the UKHACC report, who was quoted by The Guardian.
Bash said, "the climate crisis isn't something we should see as far in the future. It's time to take these issues seriously now."
The coronavirus appears to be ushering in a new world order to transition the old economic system into a more sustainable world economic order. As for this case, if we chose to follow down the path - we're all going to be eating plant-based products from Beyond Meats.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/climate-experts-demand-tax-meat-fight-global-warming
EPA should reduce or waive Renewable Fuel Standard in 2020 because of Covid and low demand
The Environmental Protection Agency this year set the Renewable Fuel Standard quota to 15 billion gallons conventional biofuel be blended into the nation’s fuel supply, including ethanol and biodiesel.
The way it works is refiners and importers that meet up to the quota are awarded Renewable Identification Numbers (RINS) credits from the EPA, and those that do not are forced to purchase RINS credits. The higher the standard, the more RINS there are.
Now, certain smaller refiners are simply not able to meet this obligation, mostly because the refineries are not equipped to handle processing ethanol, and to those, the EPA grants annual waivers. Between 2011 and 2018, 155 such waivers were granted and 92 were denied. And for 2019 and 2020, there are 35 petitions for waivers that are outstanding.
To meet the standard, in 2019, the U.S. only consumed 14.5 billion gallons of ethanol, and the rest of the standard was met by consuming 1.8 billion gallons of biodiesel.
Here’s the problem, particularly with 2020. Because of the Covid pandemic, ground transportation including commuters and truckers, took a tremendous hit, dramatically reducing both fuel production and consumption amid a dramatic drop in demand.
As a result from Jan. 2020 to July 2020, ethanol production is down more than 15 percent compared to the same period in 2019, to 7.8 billion gallons produced. To hit 15 billion gallons for the year, the industry will need to crank out more than 1.4 billion gallons in each of the remaining months.
Similarly, domestic consumption is way down, close to 15 percent, to 7.1 billion gallons compared to the first seven months of 2019. To hit 15 billion gallons for the year consumed, the U.S. would need to burn 1.57 billion gallons a month for the remaining months.
Even with the record Gross Domestic Product recovery in the third quarter, and more than 16 million jobs recovered since labor markets bottomed in April, and a strong fourth quarter expected, that simply is not going to happen because peak fuel usage usually occurs during the summer and in any event will not reach the same level as last year.
In fact, the only way we might meet the EPA-imposed 15 billion gallon production quota for the standard is via exports, assuming there’s enough demand overseas, which, again, because of Covid, is doubtful with exports down 9.7 percent in 2020 for the first eight months.
At its current rate, the industry will be lucky to produce 14 billion gallons for the year, even with exports.
With the economy suffering, why are we subsidizing overseas ethanol consumption by punishing domestic producers through forcing them to purchase RINS credits that are increasing in price this year?
In a year when both production and consumption are taking a major hit, the only rational course would be for the Environmental Protection Agency to grant any waivers necessary that were lawfully requested by refiners, and to lower or waive the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2020 to meet up with very low demand. Of all years, 2020 is one when the industry needs a break.
http://dailytorch.com/2020/11/epa-should-reduce-or-waive-renewable-fuel-standard-in-2020-because-of-covid-and-low-demand/
Joe Biden’s Green New Deal is a setback for Australia too
Last week’s was America’s most important election, but it also has profound implications for Australia. The Green New Deal is what most distinguishes the Democrats’ program from that of President Donald Trump.
As Jennifer Oriel has noted, Kamala Harris and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez plan to use energy policy not only to fundamentally reshape the American economy but as a means of redistributing wealth and income to “low-income communities, indigenous peoples, and communities of colour”.
With the Green New Deal, the Democrats’ policy target is focused on zero net emissions of CO2. This means eliminating coal and gas and sharply winding back oil consumption. Nuclear power as an alternative has no place.
The day after the 2020 election, having given a year’s notice, the US formally left the Paris Agreement on climate change. Under the Paris Agreement — largely developed by the Obama administration — Australia committed to reduce its CO2 emissions by some 28 per cent as did other developed countries.
Trump renounced it because its provisions would raise energy costs, disadvantaging the US economy, especially in the context of China and other developing countries having no meaningful abatement obligations.
Joe Biden will re-join and pursue policies that include funding developing countries’ abatements, banning fracking for new gas supplies, requiring costly carbon abatement on gas and coal power stations, and a carbon tax.
The Democrats and political elites elsewhere, including Australia, generally support measures to address climate change. Those in politics and the bureaucracy (Trump’s swamp dwellers) believe the version of the science that has human-induced CO2 emissions bringing catastrophic warming of the atmosphere, with costs that include loss of wildlife and increased climatic emergencies.
Burning carbon previously stored in fossil fuels has brought carbon dioxide emissions that have caused a 1C increase in temperatures. But some scientists (controversially) believe this will be magnified two to four fold because CO2 will create more water vapour.
Of the 32 climate models monitored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, only the one produced by the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Numerical Mathematics, does not feature water vapour amplification from CO2.
*Significantly, this “outlier” is the only model that has not overshot actual global temperatures in its forecasts*
Motivation for the Green New Deal also echoes 40 years of claims that renewable energy is the future and should be supported. This finds favour with many in business (and agriculture) who actually or potentially receive the subsidies. The subsidies to wind and solar in the US, like Australia, already cover half their cost.
US CO2 emissions have fallen recently, largely due to gas replacing coal in power generation. Additional regulatory measures will be required to approach the deep cuts targeted by the Green New Deal.
A carbon tax is one of the Biden strategies. Many economists also favour this because of its claimed neutrality in bringing about emission reductions.
Australia under the Gillard government is one of the few governments to have introduced such a measure. But Gillard’s carbon tax, like measures contemplated by Biden, was not a neutral alternative to other regulations and taxes. Rather, it was in addition to other taxes and regulations designed to reduce emissions, especially by supporting renewable energy.
Recent analysis for New Zealand estimate that a carbon tax of $560 per tonne is needed to bring about net zero emissions (the Australian tax was $20 per tonne).
Australia’s projected 28 per cent reduction in emissions falls well short of cuts now contemplated by the EU and America’s Democrats. Australian policy of paring back emissions is being met largely by a forced substitution of coal by renewables, driven by subsidies and selective taxes and regulatory measures. These are estimated to bring annual costs in higher electricity charges and taxes of about $13bn a year.
The coming lower costs of renewables continue to miscarry. Moreover, their unreliability demands enormous investments. These include more than $17bn to transform the Snowy and Tasmanian hydro resources into back-up facilities. They also mean vast expenditures on batteries and new transmission lines, as foreshadowed in NSW’s recent electricity infrastructure road map.
Governments claim renewable energy policies will reduce prices, but experience disproves it. As a result of such policies Australia has have slipped from leading the world on low energy prices to being among the most expensive.
The Biden victory will bring increased pressure on us to introduce more regulations, subsidies and other measures to reduce domestic emissions. One upshot, aside from higher household electricity bills, will be closure or contraction of Australian industries previously benefiting from low cost energy. A corollary is lower living standards.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/joe-bidens-green-new-deal-is-a-setback-for-jobs-and-income/news-story/685a5593f2563ed55bc9028ee18581b4
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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11 November, 2020
Trump Administration Removes Scientist in Charge of Assessing Climate Change
The White House has removed the scientist responsible for the National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s premier contribution to climate knowledge and the foundation for regulations to combat global warming, in what critics interpreted as the latest sign that the Trump administration intends to use its remaining months in office to continue impeding climate science and policy.
Michael Kuperberg, executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the climate assessment, was told Friday that he would no longer lead that organization, people with knowledge of the situation said.
According to two people close to the administration, he is expected to be replaced by David Legates, an academic who was worked closely for years with climate-change denial groups.
Dr. Kuperberg’s departure comes amid a broader effort, in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s defeat last week by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., to remove officials who have fallen afoul of the White House. Also on Friday, Neil Chatterjee, head of the agency that regulates the nation’s utility markets, was demoted by the White House, after he publicly supported the use of renewable power.
In a message to colleagues, Dr. Kuperberg said he was returning to his previous job at the Department of Energy. He was removed from the list of staff on the research program’s website on Monday.
Dr. Kuperberg did not respond to requests for comment. The Global Change Research Program reports to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Asked why Dr. Kuperberg had been removed from the role, Kristina Baum, a spokeswoman for that office, said on Monday that “we do not comment on personnel matters.”
Dr. Kuperberg’s dismissal appears to be the latest setback in the Trump administration for the National Climate Assessment, a report from 13 federal agencies and outside scientists that the government is required by law to produce every four years. The most recent report, in 2018, found that climate change poses an imminent and dire threat to the United States and its economy.
A biased or diminished climate assessment would have wide-ranging implications.
It could be used in court to bolster the positions of fossil fuel companies being sued for climate damages. It could counter congressional efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming.
And, ultimately, it could weaken what is known as the “endangerment finding,” a 2009 scientific finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that said carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to human health and therefore are subject to government regulation. Undercutting that finding could make it more difficult to fight climate change under the terms of the Clean Air Act.
The agency most involved in that report is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the country’s premier climate science agency. In September, the White House installed at NOAA new political staff who have questioned the science of climate change. People familiar with the administration’s strategy said the aim was to use NOAA’s influence to undercut the National Climate Assessment.
“They’re trying to just do a takeover of all this stuff so they can control the National Climate Assessment thinking,” said Judith Curry, a former chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in an interview Monday.
One of the new political hires was Dr. Legates, a professor at the University of Delaware’s geography department and now a deputy administrator at NOAA who has worked closely for years with climate denial groups and has argued that carbon dioxide “is plant food and not a pollutant.” Dr. Legates is now being considered to take Dr. Kuperberg’s position as head of the Global Change Research Program, according to two people including Myron Ebell, a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a former member of Mr. Trump’s transition team.
Mr. Ebell, whose organization has championed the appointment of Dr. Legates and others who question the established science of climate change, said the intention is for him to lead the program while continuing to hold his position at NOAA. “It might be a short-term appointment,” Mr. Ebell said, given the election of President-elect Biden, who has said he will embrace aggressive efforts to tackle climate change.
“If he only directs it for two months and a week, then he may not get very far, but let’s see what can get done in two months. Maybe the next administration will throw it all away, but maybe some changes will be adopted, who knows,” Mr. Ebell said.
Marc Morano, a prominent denier of established climate change science, cheered the departure of Mr. Kuperberg and said he expects Mr. Legates to be named. “The Trump administration is ‘listening to the science’ by clearing out the anti-science promoters of extreme climate scenarios. These moves are long, long overdue,” he said.
Dr. Legates did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal employees, who asked not be identified because they were concerned about retaliation from the White House, said they worried that the administration’s goal in removing Dr. Kuperberg was to make it easier to pick authors for the report who also question the severity of climate change. Those who have publicly attacked climate science, like Mr. Ebell and Mr. Morano, said that is the goal.
While the incoming Biden administration could reverse those decisions, doing so would slow down the production of the climate assessment. The next edition, which was supposed to be released by 2022, has already been pushed back to 2023.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/climate/michael-kuperberg-climate-assessment.html
Energy and Race: The Media’s New Intersectionality*
Energy divides the Left and Right, but not in the most obvious way. The Left sees energy as a means of controlling society and the “commanding heights” of the economy, to use a Leninist phrase. The Right tends to see energy as an important sector of the economy, but not an economic control knob – with one important exception.
The exception, of course, is Donald Trump. As he sees it, cheap energy powers blue-collar prosperity. It’s not surprising, then, that until the Trump presidency, the opponents of cheap energy had the upper hand. It’s why Trump’s zinger in the second presidential debate caught Joe Biden off guard. “Would you close down the oil industry?” Trump interjected. Biden allowed that he would “transition” out of oil usage. “Saying you want to phase out oil and gas hits differently on a debate stage than in a whitepaper,” progressive site Grist commented. “And it was the first time a major candidate for U.S. president has said anything of the sort on a national debate stage.”
Before Trump, Republicans were losing the energy war by not fighting it. “Our security, our prosperity, and our environment all require reducing our dependence on oil,” President George W. Bush declared in January 2008. The transition from the Bush to the Obama presidency was well-nigh seamless in this regard. “We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy,” President Obama said in his first address to Congress.
In waging this war, progressives have been aided by an overwhelmingly partisan and one-sided media. Examples of bias abound, including “soft” documentaries. Netflix’s 2019 “Our Planet” documentary, narrated by climate icon Sir David Attenborough, carried a subtext of banning fossil fuels to save the natural world. One segment shows walruses falling off cliffs as they are pursued by polar bears, hungry allegedly because of a lack of sea ice due to global warming. Much of what the film asserted turned out to be fabrication or outright falsehood.
Then there’s Rolling Stone’s campaign against fracking. Fracking causes gas pipelines to explode, the magazine claimed last year, though pipelines are far and away the safest way to transport oil and gas. Five years ago, fracking – “a form of extraction dating back to the Civil War” – was supposedly killing babies and afflicting children with “cancers – leukemia, lymphoma – in places with no known clusters,” the magazine asserted in another story, claims that could have come straight out of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Childhood deaths from cancers were soaring and people were swimming in “a sea of carcinogens,” Carson wrote in her 1962 classic, although there was no scientific basis for either of these assertions.
The energy debate takes place in a sea of bias and misinformation. At various times, the nation’s two leading newspapers have reported that fracking causes low birth weights (Washington Post); more out-of-wedlock babies (WaPo); mouth ulcers (New York Times); and – inevitably – more cancers (WaPo again). In 2011, the Times ran a story based on anonymously sourced, redacted emails from the independent Energy Information Administration. It turned out that much of the material derived from emails between an intern and the anti-fracking Natural Resources Defense Council, earning a rebuke from the Times’s public editor.
One virtue of Twitter is seeing journalists’ unfiltered venting. “Every oil and gas call I’m on, I’m reminded how almost completely white and male this industry is,” the Times’s climate and energy reporter Hiroko Tabuchi tweeted in June. “Speaking on a just-ended call: three white men called Rob, Rob, and Ed.” (She later deleted the tweet.) Tabuchi’s Twitter followers comprise a rolodex of the sharp end of the climate-industrial complex. They include Josh Fox, director of the tendentious anti-fracking movie “Gasland;” hockey-stick climate scientist Michael Mann, a co-founder of 350.org; the executive directors of Greenpeace USA and the Sunrise Movement; and a former EPA regional administrator fired over comments about how he could “crucify” the oil and gas industry.
The alleged prejudice at play here: climate change is racist, and the industry responsible for it is run by white supremacists.
A far different viewpoint, however, rarely makes the news: that draconian climate policies disadvantage minority communities. Two weeks ago, The Two Hundred, a coalition of Latino civil rights leaders in California, wrote a blistering letter that begins, “We write again to object to the continued racist conduct of the California Air Resources Board.”
Indeed, if one really wants to pursue the institutional racism theme, he can find much more of it in the pages of the Times and other papers that resolutely toe the official environmental line – while ignoring how regressive climate policies advocated by white billionaires in Silicon Valley and Wall Street disproportionately hurt Latinos, African-Americans, and those on low incomes. Perhaps Twitter should add a mirror function to help journalists like Hiroko Tabuchi.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2020/11/energy-and-race-the-medias-new-intersectionality/
Idaho mine could bring back salmon and jobs
Who could possibly object to a project that will boost local employment, clean up waste left over from a bygone era of mining, and reduce America’s dangerous dependence on China for critical minerals?
The proposed Stibnite Gold Project in Idaho is unique in that it not only promises to supply the U.S. with lots of gold and antimony, a critical mineral with numerous applications in defense, aerospace, and consumer electronics. As part of its effort to reduce U.S. dependence on imports of materials crucial to national security, the Trump administration has included antimony on its list of “critical minerals” that should be supplied, when possible, by domestic sources.
After the gold and antimony have been extracted, the project would also restore a long-abandoned mining site, eliminating today’s unsightly mining pits and cleaning up befouled nearby streams.
A mixed mining legacy
Located in Central Idaho’s Valley County, the Stibnite Gold Project would be developed by Canadian company Midas Gold Corp. Mining in the mineral-rich area, known as the Stibnite Mining District, got underway in 1899. By far the most successful operation produced materials used in bullets and batteries during World War II. Other, smaller-scale operations followed until the last project shut down in 1996.
These largely unregulated operations did not distinguish themselves when it came to environmental stewardship. They left behind a mess. There is, for instance, a less-than-pristine lake known as the “Glory Hole” that now covers the old mining pit. To create the Glory Hole, water was diverted from a local tributary of the Salmon River in 1938. But the pipe used for the diversion was too narrow for the fish to pass through. The mine was shuttered at the end of the Korean War, allowing the river to flow back into the Glory Hole. This could have opened a passage for salmon to continue their migration, but a man-made waterfall proved too steep for the fish, leading to the loss of local salmon.
Looking to the Future
As part of its ambitious reclamation plan, Midas Gold has pledged to bring back salmon to the site by routing the river into another tunnel, one which will be wide enough and tall enough to allow salmon and other fish a clear passage.
This and other reclamation projects would be part of Midas Gold’s plan for a large open-pit mine on the 2,000-acre site, the chief goal of which would be to get at what is considered one of the largest gold deposits in the country. The mine would employ over 500 workers, representing a substantial economic boost to the sparsely populated rural area where jobs are scarce.
Groups such as the Idaho Conservancy and Idaho Rivers United oppose the project, which is no surprise, since environmental groups object to practically all mining projects. Yet Midas Gold has pledged it will reverse the environmental degradation left behind by its predecessors and, once their work is done, restore the area far beyond what is required by U.S. environmental statutes. This would be restoration that, in the absence of the mining project, would not take place.
Also raising concerns about the mine is the Nez Perce Tribe. The tribe is a prominent fixture in Central and Northern Idaho and has spent several million dollars trying to restore salmon to the region. It recently adopted a resolution opposing the Stibnite Gold Project, citing waste left behind by previous mining operations. The Nez Perce have a good case to make when it comes to the misdeeds of past mining operations, but their laudable salmon-restoration efforts have fallen short of what the fish require to recover. Their best bet is to work with Midas Gold and local communities such as Cascade and Yellow Pine that have agreed to take seats on a company-sponsored advisory panel overseeing the project. That would give them a say in bringing back the salmon and getting much-needed mining jobs for members of the tribe.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/10/22/idaho-mine-could-bring-back-salmon-and-jobs/
Number Of Hot Days In Tokyo Falls Modestly Over Past 24 Years
As urban expansion continues worldwide, it wouldn’t surprise anyone that cities would see a growing number of hot days as asphalt, concrete, steel, and automobiles act as heat sinks that absorb the summer sun’s energy, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect (UHI).
Indeed this has been the case for many German cities over the past decades. Though the climate in Europe has changed over the past 30 years, that change is likely due to natural cyclic pattern changes.
Tokyo not seeing hotter summer highs
But even with a stronger UHI and supposed climate warming, Japan’s sprawling megalopolis of Tokyo has not seen an increase in the number of hot days (days where the thermometer climb to 30°C or higher)
Clearly, the number of hot days has little to do with CO2 emissions.
Tokyo October not warming
Also, we’ve got the mean temperature data for October 2020 for Tokyo:
The chart shows that the mean October temperature in the city of Tokyo has not risen in almost 3 decades. In fact, it has trended downward a bit, though statistically insignificant.
So if anyone is claiming Tokyo is getting hotter days and hotter in general, then they either don’t know what they are talking about or they are misleading us.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/number-of-hot-days-in-tokyo-falls-modestly-over-past-24-years/
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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10 November, 2020
UK: Gone With The Wind: Power Shortages Are Becoming The New Normal
If it wasn’t miserable enough being told that I have to spend the next month at home, now I have ‘Pete’ from Octopus Energy emailing me and asking if I would mind terribly turning off a few appliances between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm.
If fact, he says, if I can halve my energy usage during those hours he’ll give me a half-price deal on the rest.
Apparently, it’s because the National Grid has issued an ‘electricity margin notice’ for those hours – basically a plea for Britain’s remaining coal and gas power stations to turn up the power and squeeze a little more energy out of their plants.
That’s not going to be easy, admits Pete, and so electricity companies like his are going to be paying through the nose for the power – ten times as much as normal, he says. Hence the plea for me to switch off the TV, or whatever.
That is a ‘smart’ electricity grid for you: balancing supply and demand through price management. And within reason, there is nothing wrong with it. We do, after all, pay more for train tickets during the rush hour (or used to, when we traveled on trains).
Trouble is, I don’t think Pete is going to be so gentle in the future. Give it a few years and he’ll be writing to me that he’ll be jacking up my bill and charging me ten times the usual price for any energy I use when supply is short.
We are heading for periodic supply crunches in the National Grid because we are building ever more wind and solar plants without the storage capacity required to cope with the intermittent nature of these sources of energy.
At least, for the moment, we still have gas and coal plants to pick up the slack. But by 2024 the last coal power station will be gone and by 2030 the Prime Minister says he wants all our electricity to be generated by wind.
That’s going to be a pretty tall order. This afternoon’s electricity supply crunch – the National Grid’s equivalent of leaves on the line – is down to a shortage of wind.
There is a large anticyclone sitting over Britain, which has becalmed the nation’s wind farms, or certainly those south of the border. We are lucky that Scotland is drawing in winds from the Atlantic, which enabled wind farms still to generate 7 percent of our power at 3 pm.
We are also lucky that it has been sunny for much of the day. But it is November, and by 4.30 pm we will have lost 5 percent of the energy that was being generated by solar power earlier in the afternoon.
The government and electricity industry have, of course, been aware for years of the problem of intermittent renewable energy. That is why the government set up things called ‘capacity auctions’ where companies bid to build electricity storage capacity.
Initially, it was imagined that much of this would come in the form of giant batteries. Indeed, some battery installations have popped up across the country, hidden in shipping containers.
But those installed so far are only capable of providing 1 GW of power, and only then for an hour or so before the batteries are drained. To put this into context, this afternoon the country was using 40 GW of power.
Building batteries and other forms of energy storage like pumped-storage reservoirs are expensive. As a result, capacity auctions are starting to be replaced by something called Demand Side Response.
Which is exactly what Pete is trying to do: it involves electricity companies begging us to use less electricity when supply is tight, and using variable pricing to encourage us.
That is the whole point of smart meters: to allow electricity companies to vary the price in order to match supply with demand.
Managing demand might work at the moment, but it is hardly a long-term solution. Imagine a time when we no longer have any gas and electricity plants – sources of power which between them accounted for 55 percent of electricity being fed into the national grid at 3 pm this afternoon.
How will we cope then with a calm winter’s evening when electricity demand is at its peak and no wind or solar energy is being generated?
Electricity suppliers are going to have to impose huge financial penalties on consumers to turn the lights off – or face forced blackouts.
I’m all for clean energy. But without storage capacity, wind and solar cannot power the country on their own.
We shouldn’t be building ever more wind and solar farms until we have a sensible policy as to how we are going to store the energy they produce.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/gone-with-the-wind-power-shortages-are-becoming-the-new-normal/
Iowa Utility Shuts Down 46 Wind Turbines Due to Safety Concerns
Iowa-based electric utility MidAmerican Energy has idled 46 wind turbines after large blades broke off of two separate turbines in mid-October and mid-September.
One blade came off a turbine into a harvested field near the city of Paton, Iowa on October 15. This incident was preceded by a blade flying off a turbine into a corn field in Adel, Iowa in mid-September. Wind turbines operated by MidAmerican also lost blades in April and October of 2019. None of the blade failures have resulted in injuries.
Lightning a Possible Factor
MidAmerican announced it was turning off 46 of the more than 3,000 wind turbines it operates in Iowa, all made by the same manufacturer, Danish company Vestas. Each of the turbines have three blades of 177 feet in length, weighing approximately 18,000. MidAmerican said the shutdown would remain in place until the company determines the cause of the multiple blades’ failures and comes up with a solution to prevent similar breakdowns in the future.
MidAmerican reports data show prior to each blade’s failure lightning struck either near-by or, in two instances, actually struck the turbines which experienced the failure.
The broken blades all had the same lightning protection system, which, according to MidAmerican, is designed to channel electricity from any nearby strike safely into the ground.
MidAmerican is working with Vestas to identify the problem and will do whatever it takes to ensure the public is safe from similar blade failures in the future, said Geoff Greenwood, media relations manager, in a statement issued by the company announcing the turbine shutdown.
“Though a blade failure remains an extremely rare occurrence, even one incident is not acceptable, which is why we’ve immediately enacted these additional precautions,” Greenwood said. “We are looking for any sort of structural damage and will do whatever is necessary to ensure they are safe, including blade repair or replacement.”
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2020/11/iowa-utility-shuts-down-46-wind-turbines-due-to-safety-concerns/
Biden shift on climate change welcomed by world leaders
President-elect Joe Biden will take office with a plan to adopt tough new climate targets for the US and reverse many of the environmental actions of the Trump administration in a stance that was welcomed by world leaders over the weekend.
Mr Biden, who has pledged to rejoin the Paris climate accord on his first day in office, has called climate change an “existential threat to humanity” and pledged a $2tn green stimulus package to help reduce US emissions.
That would be a dramatic reversal from the position of President Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of the Paris climate deal and weakened environmental rules.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson, in a congratulatory tweet, suggested that climate would be an important area of co-operation between the US and UK, alongside trade and security.
“I think now with President Biden in the White House in Washington, we have the real prospect of American global leadership in tackling climate change,” Mr Johnson told the Associated Press.
Mr Biden has pledged to cut US emissions to net zero by 2050, which would significantly slow down the pace of global warming if implemented.
This would put the Paris accord goal — of limiting global warming to 1.5C — within striking distance “for the first time ever”, according to Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, a research group. “This could be an historic tipping point,” he said.
“Welcome back America!” said Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in a tweet, referring to the US rejoining the climate accord.
“It is a big relief that the US comes back,” said Laurence Tubiana, chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, and one of the key architects of the Paris pact. “The positive domino effect from [the] Biden presidency will be enormous,” she added.
Net zero targets in both the US and China could reduce global warming from 2.7C by the end of the century, to about 2.3C-2.4C, according to projections from Climate Action Tracker, a research group based in Germany.
However, Mr Biden’s domestic climate agenda could be challenged if the Republican party retains control of the Senate, which will be decided by two run-off elections in Georgia in January.
Paul Bledsoe, strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a former climate adviser in the Clinton White House, said Mr Biden could lean more on regulatory measures to enact his environmental agenda, if he were unable to pass climate legislation.
“Trump overturned over 100 major environmental regulations. Many of those will be reinstated,” said Mr Bledsoe. Vehicle emissions standards, which were watered down under the Trump administration, could be one of the first areas to be revived.
A Biden administration is also expected to set up the first National Climate Council, a high-level group whose chair would direct policy across the federal government. Among those tipped as contenders to chair the council are John Kerry, a former secretary of state.
Climate Capital
Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here
Even with a Republican-controlled Senate, a Biden administration might find common ground with Republicans who are willing to include clean energy in broader economic stimulus measures.
“There is some common ground there,” said Nat Keohane, senior vice-president for climate at the Environmental Defense Fund, a US-based advocacy group. Areas of possible agreement included electric vehicles, decarbonisation of the power sector, and preparing the manufacturing sector for low-carbon technologies.
One of the challenges facing a Biden administration will be to determine new climate targets, once it rejoins the Paris accord. Mr Biden has said he will target net zero emissions by 2050, and for all electricity to be emissions-free by 2035.
However, the Paris agreement would also require the US to set climate targets for 2030, a more near-term goal.
In a tweet late on Wednesday night, Mr Biden reiterated that he would ensure the US rejoined the Paris climate accord on his first day as president. The US formally quit the climate pact on the day after the election was held.
https://www.ft.com/content/5ce99af6-e776-43af-9c74-593d49dc5125
Lack of trees exacerbates extreme heat effects in Australian suburbs
This is a storm in a teacup. "Leafy" areas are prestigious in Australia and more trees are being planted to capture that prestige. I myself have planted nine trees that are now very tall.
But trees take a while to grow so new plantings in new suburbs will take a while to grow. When they do grow up, the new suburbs too will be cooler
Huge swathes of our suburbs are in danger of becoming virtually unliveable with residents jumping from “aircon to aircon via a car with aircon” to avoid the searing heat.
That’s one of the conclusions of a new report that has also found that in just seven years the number of trees in 69 per cent of urban areas has dramatically dropped. Without enough trees shading city streets, temperatures can be as much as 10C hotter.
And one of the biggest culprits of cranking up the heat in our suburbs is homeowners clearing trees to build, among other things, swimming pools – ironically to cool down on hot days.
Associate Professor Joe Hurley from RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research said city greenery not only helped put the lid on heat, it was also key in managing stormwater and provided physical and mental health benefits.
Heatwaves are a hallmark of an Australian summer. But they're getting hotter, becoming more frequent, and lasting longer.
“Green cover should be managed as critical infrastructure alongside communications, transport, water and the electricity network,” he told news.com.au.
“But all too often trees are traded away for other demands like urban development. It can end up being about having tree or something else when we should manage our cities better so we can have green cities.”
Prof Hurley is the lead author of Where Will all the Trees be, a new RMIT report, released today, which looked at tree cover across hundreds of Australian local government areas (LGAs).
It found Cairns had the most green cover at 83 per cent while Wyndham, in Melbourne’s south west which includes Werribee, had the least at just 5.4 per cent.
“The bad news is between 2013 and 2020 the majority of LGAs have lost green cover. The more encouraging news is that from 2016, the majority are now gaining cover, that’s a good sign that the longer term trend is being turned around – but they still haven’t made up the losses,” said Prof Hurley.
Other studies have shown trees can have a dramatic effect on the ambient temperature of cities. Urban areas are often hotter than surrounding country areas anyway due to “grey cover”, the preponderance of hard surfaces like asphalt and metal roofs that help crank up the mercury. Lack of canopy can make this issue worse.
A vivid example from Melbourne illustrates this. Thermal images of Royal Parade show the surface temperature of the road fully exposed to the sun as surpassing 65C; yet just meters away a tree shaded area is around 30C cooler.
The air temperature of urban areas with more trees can be around 4C cooler than those without. On a more local level, the air temperature in an treeless car park can be 10C higher than a nearby shady street.
“We can’t say ‘stop developing and just plant trees’ so what’s exciting about Parramatta is how it is increasing urban tree canopy to create better neighbourhoods while becoming a major urban centre,” said Prof Hurley.
“The answer is to prioritise green infrastructure alongside development. As cities grow, we can make them greener – it’s not an either, or.”
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/lack-of-trees-exacerbates-extreme-heat-effects-in-australian-suburbs/news-story/0825f8746b7e3e25be04e21140da4637
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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9 November, 2020
The Environmental Defense Fund's Silly Food Chemical Claim
A recent CNN article about the FDA oversight of chemicals in foods is puzzling. Author Sandee LaMotte regurgitates a ludicrous demand by the anti-chemical group Environmental Defense Fund – that the estimated 10,000 chemicals found in food be tested and regulated. We believe this is absurd (and impossible) exercise.
People are exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals every day. All of them are toxic at some dose and all of them are also safe at some lower dose. And this doesn’t just apply to “synthetic chemical additives,” which EDF paints as toxic villians. In fact, if every one of the 10,000 chemicals were magically removed from food it would make little difference in the total burden of chemicals to which we are exposed. Our foods contain far more than 10,000 chemicals.
Coffee itself contains over 1000 natural chemicals, caffeine being the best known. This does not mean it is completely safe. Only six cups of coffee contain enough caffeine to nearly reach a toxic level. As is the case with caffeine and all other chemicals , the dose makes the poison – the founding principle of toxicology – is misconstrued or ignored by those who are scientifically ignorant or have an anti-chemical agenda. So, in the absence of any discussion of “how much” of these chemicals we are exposed to the EDF claim becomes irrelevant.
Moreover, the article makes it seem like the US FDA is asleep at the nations’ “wheel” when it comes to food safety. Au contraire. The FDA employs scores of board-certified toxicologists, unlike the EDF, and has other scientists intimately familiar with food safety. A balanced article would have included their voices, or at least voices from a variety of organizations with specialized knowledge of food safety. But EDF is as balanced as an elephant and fruit fly on a see-saw and, not surprisingly, CNN did not seek another opinion.
Here is one (of many) examples of a misstatement in the article, “The FDA never considers the overall effect of these 10,000 chemicals on people…” Wrong, the FDA considers this quite often. It has also developed a concept, referred to as the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) back in the last century to grapple with this issue. This concept was developed because the FDA realized back then that each individual type of food was itself a complex mixture of hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals. Potatoes, for example, have hundreds of chemicals, one of which, solanine, is a natural, toxic pesticide made by the potato plant,. This is why eating green potatoes or potato leaves is not recommended---the level of solanine in this part of the plant is much higher than in the actual potato. However, the level of solanine in the actual potato is below the safe dose of solanine, which is why eating potatoes is not harmful. This TTC concept developed by FDA is being routinely applied by other health organizations for chemicals in air, water and cosmetics.
Can FDA improve its efforts on maintaining the already-safest food on planet Earth? Probably, and the article points to some areas that need further study such as the PFAS family of chemicals. But alarmist articles such as this are not based on good science, nor an accurate portrayal of the good work of the FDA.
Our food is already safe. The enormous effort required to examine minute levels of thousands of common chemicals won’t make it any safer. It’s just a waste of time and money.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/10/07/environmental-defense-funds-silly-food-chemical-claim-15073
Evidence submitted by the GWPF to the UK Treasury Committee
Climate Policy Research
We are writing with respect to the committee’s Decarbonisation and Green Finance inquiry, and specifically to the question of the economic costs and benefits that decarbonisation presents for the UK.
Introduction
A target to decarbonise the economy (“net zero”) was agreed by Parliament in 2019. Ahead of the debate, the minister, Chris Skidmore, informed MPs that the cost of achieving the target would be modest – 1–2% of GDP in 2050 – a figure apparently provided by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). This claim was reinforced by subsequent statements in the House of Lords by Lord Deben, the chairman of the CCC,(1) and in public pronouncements by Chris Stark, its chief executive.(2)
Claims of modest costs were false
The Treasury and BEIS have disputed the CCC’s figure, although not necessarily on the grounds that it was understated. However, it is now appears that the CCC’s figure was not based on explicit calculations; they have said that they have not calculated a cost for any of the years 2020-2049.(3) The Treasury and BEIS have both refused to release details of their own estimates of the cost.
Thus no official costings of the net zero project have been published, and it appears likely that Parliament was misled into voting for the measure.
In reality the costs are going to be very high
The central plank of the decarbonisation plan is the replacement of fossil fuels with electricity, mostly supplied by offshore windfarms. In other words, it involves the wholesale electrification of most of the economy, although in some sectors, where this is not possible, it is said that hydrogen will be used to deliver energy.
A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for decarbonisation at “modest” cost is that the electricity from offshore windfarms be very cheap. It has been argued in the media and by windfarm promoters that the costs of offshore wind are falling rapidly. They point to the results of the 2017 Contracts for Difference auction, in which two offshore windfarms – Moray East and Hornsea 2 – won contracts at just £57.50/MWh, less than half the price of any previous winner, and much closer to market prices.
However, a recent review of published accounts of operational UK offshore windfarms showed that costs are barely falling, and remain above £100/MWh.(4) While it has been argued that the review was backward looking, and thus not representative of the windfarms that are coming on stream in the next few years, examination of the accounts of those new windfarms shows that no major reductions in capital expenditure are likely to be forthcoming. For example, the foundations for the Moray East windfarm were completed in February 2020. By that point, the developers had spent over £1.2 billion, thus suggesting that the final bill will run to nearly £4 billion once the turbines and ancillary works have been installed.(5)
But the capital spend needs to be kept to well below £2 billion if the windfarm is to be profitable at £57.50/MWh. The costs look as though they will be in line with previous windfarms, and thus, unequivocally, electricity from offshore windfarms will remain very expensive for the foreseeable future. These high costs will have to be passed on to consumers.
It is important that members of the committee understand that the cost of electricity coming from the wind turbines is only part of the equation. To decarbonise at modest cost, it is also necessary to have a very cheap way to deal with the intermittency caused by fluctuations in the wind.
At present there is no technology that can be applied to do this at the scales required in the UK at anything other than astronomical cost. This is true of batteries, pumped hydro and hydrogen. Members should understand that the cost of dealing with intermittency may well come to exceed the cost of the electricity from the windfarms, if there are a lot of them on the grid.
There is currently a push to promote hydrogen as form of energy storage to deal with intermittency. However, using electricity to electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen is a very inefficient process. Thus further cost is added, while much of the energy is wasted. Once the hydrogen has been converted back into usable energy it will be extraordinarily expensive. The only other way to generate hydrogen involves use of carbon capture, and it will therefore also be very expensive.(6)
With the CCC having failed to calculate the costs of net zero between now and 2050, and no other estimates having been published, we believe that it is incumbent upon the Treasury to prepare and publish a detailed and publicly accessible costing of the project. In the meantime, GWPF has instituted a project to do so on their behalf. This work is ongoing, but the running total is approaching £4 trillion;(7,8) or around £150,000 per household.
In addition, once the ambitions of actually meeting the target are translated into discrete projects that together will deliver the target, the financing of such projects is not the only problem, the availability of enough skilled workers, the access to sufficient scarce raw materials, and the major disruption to everyone’s lives over the next three decades compound the challenge.
The scale of the task, in terms of money and of other resources, made it clear that the Net Zero project was unachievable even before Covid. Now, with the economy severely weakened, it would be foolish to even set out on such a course. To do so would risk setting the country on course to decades of economic stagnation.
The GWPF team and its authors would be happy to give evidence should the committee want to learn more.
https://www.thegwpf.org/evidence-submitted-by-the-gwpf-to-the-uk-treasury-committee/
New Study Discredits Human Attribution In Global Warming
The forcing uncertainties and lack of observational measurements in the top-to-bottom global ocean preclude an assessment that modern warmth is due to anthropogenic activities.
Key points from a new paper (Gebbie, 2021):
* 93% of the changes to the Earth’s energy budget, manifested as warming of the Earth system, are expressed in the global ocean. Just 1% of global warming is atmospheric.
* Even with the advent of “quasi-global” temperature sampling of the ocean since 2005 (ARGO), these floats (pictured) “do not measure below 2,000-m depth.” This means that temperature changes in “approximately half the ocean’s volume” are still not being measured today.
* To detect the effects of anthropogenic forcing, it would require energy budget imbalance measurement precision of 0.1 W/m² at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). Uncertainty in the forcing changes affecting climate is ±4 W/m², meaning that uncertainty is about 80 times greater than an anthropogenic signal detection.
* Past changes in global ocean heat content, such as the last deglaciation, have been 20 times larger than modern changes.
* Ocean heat storage during the Medieval Warm Period (Medieval Climate Anomaly, or MCA) was much greater than modern. Modern global ocean heat uptake is “just one-third” of what is required to reach the levels attained during Medieval times.
One final point. Dr. Gebbie asserts that approximately 15% of modern global warming (ocean) can be attributed to geothermal heat fluxes through the seafloor that “persistently heat the ocean.”
Interestingly, he also assesses that the value attained for geothermal heating of the ocean, 87 mW/m², is similar to that which is required to end a glacial period (melt ice sheets) and transition into an interglacial.
Considering the ocean bottom waters warmed up 2°C from 19,000 to 17,000 years ago about 1,000 years before the surface warmed (and CO2 began rising) (Stott et al., 2007), and that Arctic bottom waters were 6-10°C warmer than today at the beginning of the Holocene about 10,000 years ago (Beierlein et al., 2015), geothermal heat fluxes could potentially explain a large portion of glacial-interglacial transitions – as well as millennial-scale global ocean temperature changes.
https://principia-scientific.com/new-study-discredits-human-attribution-in-global-warming/
Australia's Deputy PM Michael McCormack slams Adam Bandt’s comments to South Korea as ‘treacherous’
Bandt is an old Trot (Trotsky-ite) so he hates the whole of Western society. Trotsky thought even the Soviet Union was too conservative. His followers normally see themselves as "revolutionary"
They are too extreme for mainstrean politics but a few of them have infiltrated the Greens, where they are very disruptive -- pushing the Greens even furtherto the Left than even the Greens want to go. Some of them have by now been eased out but Bandt has so far survived
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has slammed Greens Leader Adam Bandt for ‘treacherous’ comments he says are against Australia’s national interest.
The Nationals have called on Greens Leader Adam Bandt to retract his comments urging South Korea to stop buying Australian coal, or resign.
During an address to South Korean MPs on Tuesday, Mr Bandt encouraged them to stop buying Australian coal and renegotiate trade agreements to include carbon tariffs.
Nationals Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said reports that Mr Bandt was urging a foreign government to act to the detriment of Australia’s national interest were “deeply concerning”.
“By urging a foreign government to agitate for a change to Australia’s domestic policies through a free-trade agreement, the Greens have attempted to undermine our democracy,” Mr McCormack said on Wednesday.
“In telling a foreign government to stop buying Australian coal, Adam Bandt is telling tens of thousands of workers in our resources industry that their jobs don’t matter.
“He is telling tens of thousands of families that they shouldn’t be able to put food on the table. He is telling small and medium-sized businesses that they should just shut up shop.”
Mr McCormack said the comments were an attack on Australian jobs and the national interest.
“Adam Bandt is Australia’s modern-day Benedict Arnold. This is treacherous behaviour,” he said.
“The Nationals urge Mr Bandt to immediately withdraw his comments and apologise to the thousands of workers who rely on Australia’s resource industry for their livelihood. If Mr Bandt does not withdraw these comments, he should resign from parliament today.”
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mining/deputy-pm-michael-mccormack-slams-adam-bandts-comments-to-south-korea-as-treacherous/news-story/42ca81bb9f979b960f170aef9928690d
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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8 November, 2020
Why the next financial crisis could be green
Green finance. Climate finance. Sustainable finance. These phrases no doubt fill most people with a kind of existential dread, but I fear we will all have to learn a lot more about green finance in the years to come.
For one reason why, take a look at Elon Musk’s electric-car venture, Tesla. In just the first nine months of 2020, it received a whopping $1.2 billion in regulatory credits – from California and other states in America, from the US federal government and even from the European Union.
That’s $1.2 billion without making a single extra car – just for making cars that aren’t based on fossil fuels. Mr Musk sells his credits to Honda, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) – car giants that haven’t got out of gasoline and into electric fast enough, as far as the US authorities are concerned.
In a 21 October earnings call to Wall Street analysts, Tesla’s chief financial officer, Zachary Kirkhorn, conceded that much of the company’s success was due to its regulatory credits business being ‘stronger than expectations’ and ‘tracking to more than double this year compared to last’. In 2019, Tesla’s credits business was only worth 2.4 per cent of its revenues. But, more vitally, between 2018 and 2020, regulatory credits added between two and five percentage points to Tesla’s gross profits. Indeed, as the US business editor of The Times observed after Kirkhorn had made his call, although Tesla had been profitable for five consecutive quarters, ‘it would have lost money in the last four had it not sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of “green” credits to other car manufacturers’.
If elected president, Joe Biden plans to raise federal penalties on conventional carmakers. But with or without this policy, it will still take a very long time to really displace the internal combustion engine from the roads. That means that old Elon will go on enjoying state subsidies for his cars – which are sold for a whopping $38,000 to $200,000 each – for years and years to come. Meanwhile, the US state gives buyers of many other, rival electric cars a $7,500 tax credit for each that they purchase.
Green finance is conquering all before it. At the start of this year, I noted that ‘the woke war on fossil fuels’ had ‘reached central banks and financial regulators’. But in the same nine months that Musk got his payoff for not using gasoline, things have gone much further than that. As spiked contributor and financial journalist Daniel Ben-Ami tells me, green finance is ‘no longer a niche proposition’. ‘Finance is redefining itself as a key institution with which corporations and governments can pursue the agenda of ESG’ (environmental, social and corporate governance policies), the successors to our old friend, corporate social responsibility.
These ESG policies have been adopted by the car industry and many others. They are shaped by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the World Economic Forum. They are tracked by ratings agencies, institutional investors, asset managers, financial institutions and other stakeholders, as well as by Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. There are also special ESG funds and portfolios offered by BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Fidelity, JP Morgan, Prudential and others. Their structures and their language are impenetrable, but these big names confirm that green finance is no longer the tail wagging the dog of mainstream finance: it is the dog.
What these big banks really know about the tugging, durability, insurance and disposal of offshore wind turbines, for instance, is anybody’s guess. But it’s the same with all the global great and the good. The EU now seems to consider sustainable finance on a par with consumer finance, while at the prestigious OECD, the Centre on Green Finance and Investment boasts countless green-finance initiatives.
From green bonds to feed-in tariffs for consumers, from capping, taxing and trading CO2 to offsetting it – you name it, green bean-counters will want a percentage of it. Green finance is also running amok with dubious financial instruments such as derivatives – remember those from the 2008 crash? There are even specialist ESG-friendly derivatives. Green finance is also ‘making tracks into the wonky world of foreign-exchange markets, highlighting the lengths Wall Street will go to broadcast an environmental angle on investments’, writes the Wall Street Journal.
Just as with the rest of the City of London, green finance comes with plenty of funny money attached. The European Union’s €14 billion Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), which the EU Parliament now wants to extend, has lost at least €5 billion through fraud.
On a lesser scale, the specialist crime unit at the UK’s Environment Agency’s (EA) has secured custodial sentences for £1.5million of fictitious claims for the recycling of electronic waste. The EA is also concerned that its Packaging Recovery Note (PRN) system for tracking plastics waste is vulnerable to false paper trails and ‘carousel’ frauds.
Led by the stock market hubs of Amsterdam, Zurich and London, green finance shows what one expert calls a marked ‘dependence on public policy and regulation’. Too right. The byzantine world of green finance is just the ticket for underwriting obscure, ‘build back greener’ state policies, which have become all the rage in the wake of Covid-19, despite repeated failures in the past, like Green New Deals, Green Recovery Plans, green jobs and all the rest.
As we enter the first recession since the crash of 2007 / 2008, which was in the first instance a financial crisis, what could possibly go wrong?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/11/02/why-the-next-financial-crisis-could-be-green/
Oregon Supreme Court Rejects Youths’ Climate Lawsuit Claims
The Supreme Court of Oregon has rejected claims brought on behalf of youth plaintiffs that the state’s public trust doctrine imposes broad duties on it to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions.
In the case is Chernaik v. Brown, brought on behalf of Kelsey Juliana and Ollie Chernaik, among other youths, by the climate litigation group Our Children’s Trust, six of the seven justices of the state Supreme Court ruled Oregon’s public trust doctrine applies to navigable waters and submerged lands under those waters, but not to wildlife or the atmosphere.
“In this case, therefore, we do not impose broad fiduciary duties on the state, akin to the duties of private trustees, that would require the state to protect public trust resources from effects of greenhouse gas emissions and consequent climate change,” the court said in the October 22 opinion.
Affirms Lower Court Ruling
In 2011, teenaged plaintiffs Juliana and Chernaik sued then Governor John Kitzhaber in Lane County Circuit Court, claiming Oregon had a legal duty to protect “vital natural resources,” such as land, water, and the atmosphere, which they argued the state holds in public trust,. As with other public trust obligations, they argued, the government has a fiduciary duty to protect those resources for the use of current and future generations.
The plaintiffs argued Oregon’s fiduciary obligation extends to protecting natural resources for “conservation, pollution abatement, maintenance and enhancement of aquatic and fish life, habitat for fish and wildlife, ecological values, in-stream flows, commerce, navigation, fishing, recreation, energy production, and the transport of natural resources.”
The county court which initially heard the case rejected plaintiff’s claims, as did a three judge panel of the state Court of Appeals on appeal.
“We conclude that the public trust doctrine does not impose a fiduciary obligation on the state to take affirmative action to protect public trust resources from the effects of climate change,” wrote Judge Rex Armstrong on behalf of the Appeals Court panel. “The Oregon public-trust doctrine is rooted in the idea that the state is restrained from disposing or allowing uses of public-trust resources that substantially impair the recognized public use of those resources.
“We can find no source under the Oregon conception of the public-trust doctrine for imposing fiduciary duties on the state to affirmatively act to protect public-trust resources from the effects of climate change,” Armstrong ruled.
Oregon’s Supreme Court has now affirmed the determination of the state Court of Appeals that state has no duty to protect natural resources from climate change as part of a public trust.
Follows Previous Loss in Federal Court
The Oregon Supreme Court’s ruling represents the second loss this year for the youth plaintiffs. On January 17, a three judge panel of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, rejected a climate lawsuit filed against the federal government by Our Children’s Trust on behalf of the same group of youths.
In that case, Trump administration, as had the Obama administration before it, argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue the federal government for climate harms. Going further, the Trump administration said, even if the court determined the youths had standing to sue, the legislature and the executive, not the courts, were the appropriate branches of government for determining the nation’s energy policies and responses to climate change.
In a 2 to 1 decision, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court agreed on both points.
The youths lacked standing to sue the federal government, and the court didn’t have the authority to dictate climate policy, wrote Ninth Circuit judge Andrew Hurwitz, an Obama administration appointee, in his majority opinion.
The plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, said Hurwitz, because their injuries were not “concrete and particularized.”
“The central issue before us is whether, even assuming such a broad constitutional right exists, an Article III court can provide the plaintiffs the redress they seek—an order requiring the government to develop a plan to ‘phase out fossil fuel emissions and draw down excess atmospheric CO2,’” Hurwitz wrote. “Reluctantly, we conclude that such relief is beyond our constitutional power.
“Rather, the plaintiffs’ impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government,” wrote Hurwitz. “[A]ny effective plan would necessarily require a host of complex policy decisions entrusted, for better or worse, to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches.”
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2020/11/oregon-supreme-court-rejects-youths-climate-lawsuit-claims/
Sorry, Google and World Bank, but Middle Eastern Crops Keep Thriving
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Google News today is promoting articles about a speculative World Bank “study” claiming climate change is threatening crop production in the Middle East. The World Bank study is full of speculation but short on facts. Real-world data show crop yields per acre and total crop production are consistently and dramatically rising in each of the Middle East countries examined by the World Bank study.
In its study, titled “Water in the Balance,” the World Bank says, “[w]hile information about water scarcity at present and in the future is available there is little knowledge of what this increasing scarcity means for Middle Eastern … food security. Agriculture will suffer because of climate change and water scarcity….”
In particular the World Bank asserts water scarcity caused by climate change will reduce farm production in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. The available evidence strongly suggests that will not happen.
Had the study’s authors examined real-world data concerning crop production in the Middle Eastern countries, they would have found, even amidst substantial strife in the region, crop yields and overall production have increased dramatically. More food is being produced even as thousands of acres of agricultural lands have been abandoned during regional conflicts.
Data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show during the period of modest warming since 1989:
Cereal crop production in Iraq increased 91 percent, even as the acreage being harvested fell 5 percent.
Cereal crop production in Iran increased 187 percent, while the acreage harvested increased by just 2.6 percent.
Cereal Crop production in Jordan increased 15 percent, even as the acreage harvested declined 30 percent.
Cereal Crop production in Lebanon increased 115 percent, while acreage harvested increased 30 percent.
Cereal Crop production in Syria increased 22 percent, even as acreage harvested declined 66 percent.
Cereal Crop production in Turkey increased 46 percent, even though acreage harvested declined 19 percent.
It is clearly good news – and not a climate crisis – that Middle Eastern countries have increased crop production despite the fact that many them have been embroiled in internal political strife, outright civil warfare, and external conflicts. That good news is ignored in the World Bank’s doom-and-gloom report.
Global warming lengthens growing seasons, reduces frost events, and makes more land suitable for crop production. Also, carbon dioxide is an aerial fertilizer for plant life. In addition, crops also use water more efficiently under conditions of higher carbon dioxide, losing less water to transpiration. The latter fact should have allayed the World Bank’s concern about climate change induced water shortages leading to crop failure.
The benefits of more atmospheric carbon dioxide and a modestly warming world have resulted in 17 percent more food being available per person today there was 30 years ago, even as the number of people has grown by billions. Indeed, the last 20 years have seen the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, and starvation in human history.
Sorry, World Bank, Google, and PhysOrg, but that does not equate to a climate crisis.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/11/sorry-google-and-world-bank-but-middle-eastern-crops-keep-thriving/
Australian superannuation fund commits to net-zero emission investments after Brisbane man sues
A 25-year-old man from Brisbane has successfully sued one of Australia's biggest super funds over its handling of climate change, forcing it to commit to net-zero emissions for its investments by 2050.
It's the first time a superannuation fund has been sued for failing to consider climate change
In 2018, Mark McVeigh sued Rest, his superannuation fund, in the Federal Court after it failed to provide him with information on how it was managing the risks of climate change.
Mr McVeigh alleged Rest had breached the Superannuation Industry Act and the Corporations Act by failing to manage those risks — which could include fossil fuel companies plummeting in value or infrastructure being damaged by extreme weather.
The law requires trustees of super funds to act with care, skill and diligence to act in the best interest of members — including managing material risks to its investment portfolio.
In an 11th-hour settlement reached on Monday while the case was adjourned, Rest agreed its trustees have a duty to manage the financial risks of climate change.
Because the case was settled out of court, the outcome doesn't carry the same weight as a legal precedent decided in court. But Mr McVeigh's lawyer, David Barnden, head of Equity Generation Lawyers, said the case still sets an important precedent globally.
"This outcome should represent a significant shift in the market's willingness to tackle climate risk — a shift which should set a clear precedent for the industry in Australia, and also pension funds around the world," Mr Barnden said.
Martijn Wilder, a lawyer at Pollination, another climate-focussed law firm, said the settlement meant the impact of the case could fall short of what some were expecting. "It has not [produced] a clear legal decision by a court which clarifies the obligations and duties of directors under the law," he said.
"However, there is widespread acceptance in the legal and business community that these obligations regarding climate clearly exist."
In a statement, Rest outlined the agreement it made with Mr McVeigh, and said: "The superannuation industry is a cornerstone of the Australian economy — an economy that is exposed to the financial, physical and transition impacts associated with climate change."
An historic agreement
In the statement, Rest said that "climate change is a material, direct and current financial risk to the superannuation fund".
Rest went further and agreed to manage its investments so they would be responsible for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
It also agreed to immediately begin testing its investment strategies against various climate change scenarios, publicly disclose all its holdings and advocate for companies it invests in to comply with the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to stop global warming at 1.5C.
The case was the first time an Australian superannuation fund had been sued for not doing enough on climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-02/rest-super-commits-to-net-zero-emmissions/12840204
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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6 November, 2020
This Election Isn’t About the Next Four Years, It’s About the Next Four Millennia
Bill McKibben, below, is a nutcase. Only a nutcase would think he can prophecy 4,000 years into the future
All American elections determine the character of the country for the next four years. And they have a lot to say about what the world will feel like too – that’s what it means to be a superpower.
But this election may determine the flavor of the next four millennia – maybe the next 40.
That’s because time is the one thing we can’t recover, and time is the one thing we’ve just about run out of in the climate fight. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2018 report made it clear that we had until 2030 to make fundamental transformations in our energy system – which they defined as cutting by half the amount of carbon that we pour into the atmosphere.
If we don’t solve it soon, we will not solve it because we will move past tipping points from which we have no retreat.Read that sentence again. Because it carries deep political implications. Very few of the problems that government deals with are time limited in quite the same fashion. Issues like housing or education or healthcare last throughout our lifetimes, and we take bites out of them when we can, hopefully moving two steps forward for every one we retreat.
But climate change isn’t like that. If we don’t solve it soon, we will not solve it because we will move past tipping points from which we have no retreat. Some we’ve passed already: the news that Greenland is now in an irreversible process of melt should remind us that the biggest things on our planet can shift in the course of a very few human years.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/11/03/election-isnt-about-next-four-years-its-about-next-four-millennia
Reliable Electricity? Bah Humbug!
In a refreshingly honest article in the Boston Review, David McDermott Hughes confirms something that we energy evangelists have been saying for some time: Environmentalists do not simply want people to transition to “green energy,” they want humanity put on energy rationing, for the good of the planet. Now, apparently, they’ve also decided that we need to add intermittent fasting to our energy diet because, gosh darnit, electricity in developed countries like the United States is just too darn reliable for our own good! It needs to go out once in a while, or, well, the planet is doomed.
According to Hughes, “For those seriously concerned about climate change, the inverse—the demand for electrical continuity—may be the real problem.” Yes, you read that right, the desire to have electricity available 24/7 is the cause of our global climate catastrophe, and we need to learn to live with intermittent energy like the happy campers of Zimbabwe and Puerto Rico which “provide models for what we might call pause-full electricity.”
And who is first on the new electricity diet? Why, you are, you single-family home-dwelling environmental heretic. Hughes explains that “…each household demanding continuous electricity marginally exacerbates the climate crisis. Perhaps, then, it is critical that we not store energy for these houses. At least, we should not do so in a way that hobbles the transition away from fossil fuels. We ought to consider waiting a few years for storage—enduring much more than six hours of downtime every year—for the sake of transitioning more rapidly away from fossil fuels.”
Surely you can handle a “few years” of intermittent blackouts and brownouts, right, suburbanites?
This energy-rationing agenda has been hidden, heretofore, by a huge raft of bogus promises that would make the switch to renewables easy. Batteries, we were told, will adapt so fast that we can go ahead and just build out wind and solar power, while letting conventional power plants wither and die, and everybody will have their cake and eat it too! Unfortunately, the reality of battery storage limitations is just too obvious to people who see, day in and day out, the reality of batteries: they aren’t getting that much stronger over time. As Mark Mills, of the Manhattan Institute points out (and do read the whole thing!):
About 60 pounds of batteries are needed to store the energy equivalent of one pound of hydrocarbons.
At least 100 pounds of materials are mined, moved and processed for every pound of battery fabricated.
Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds, requires 20,000 pounds of Tesla batteries ($200,000 worth).
Carrying the energy equivalent of the aviation fuel used by an aircraft flying to Asia would require $60 million worth of Tesla-type batteries weighing five times more than that aircraft.
And even Hughes now admits that, well, making batteries is environmentally destructive, and environmentalists don’t want you doing that, even if you can. After all, batteries are just not woke:
Lithium-ion batteries are moving into position to overcome that constraint, but they create problems of their own. Like most form of mining, lithium extraction produces toxins—imposed, on this case, on indigenous down-winders in Chile. Also like mining, the lithium trade concentrates power and wealth in the hands of few, corporations. Sometimes called “bottlenecking,” this process converts a resource too plentiful for profit—like sunlight—into a scarce and lucrative commodity. Not even environmental savior Elon Musk is safe from abuse, because, it seems, Tesla “seems on track to gain a controlling share of any smart grid connected to electric vehicles; its Powerwall battery is out-competing less toxic technologies, and it could eventually dovetail with software known as “demand response.”
Oh My God. You mean, Elon Musk is a – gasp – businessman? Perish forbid!
The moral of this story is, when the “green” energy, “green economy,” “green new deal” types tell you that all they really want is for you to have “greener” energy, what they mean is that they want you to have less. Less quantity, less reliability, less affordability, and less consumer flexibility. And you can take that to the ballot box.
https://papundits.wordpress.com/2020/11/02/reliable-electricity-bah-humbug/
Is the Grand Old Duke leading the charge to Zero Carbon?
Although the nursery song is much older, the Grand Old Duke of York usually refers to Frederick, the titular commander of the British army during the Napoleonic wars. Despite some good innovations, such as founding Sandhurst, his grasp of strategy and financial control was fragile. Eliminating carbon emissions is certainly a good idea but the leadership is a bit wobbly on how that can be achieved and the costs. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is chaired by Lord Deben who, in his ministerial days, was famous for rarely, if ever, reading his briefs and for reassuring the public, during the mad cow disease era, by feeding beef-burgers to his children. But the CCC is only advisory.
As previously discussed, current forecasts by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) show an alarming shortfall in UK electricity generation capacity by 2050 if zero carbon is to be achieved. The CCC estimate the costs to be £50bn. p.a. by 2050 (1% of GDP). BEIS and HM Treasury reckon on £70bn. p.a. or £1 trillion overall, although the latter’s calculations are not due to be released until later this year. The BEIS is also due to publish its long-delayed energy White Paper this autumn. In the absence of any numbers from government, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), in their October submission to the Treasury Select Committee Inquiry, put their estimate around four times higher, i.e. £4 trillion.
The Grand Old Duke would have been proud of CCC’s response to the request from the GWPF (President: Nigel Lawson) for their annual figures leading up to 2050: “We do not hold the information you have requested. The purpose of the net zero report was to establish when the UK should reduce emissions to net zero, which we recommended be legislated for 2050. The focus of our scenario analysis was therefore on whether achieving net zero emissions was feasible in 2050, and what the additional costs would be in that year.” In other words, CCC recommended marching up the hill with no idea how to get there.
That is a remarkable admission given their 304 page, May 2019, Technical Report which provided analyses across nine headings: Power and Hydrogen, Buildings, Industry, Surface Transport, Aviation and Shipping, Net-Agriculture and LULUCF, Waste, F-gas emissions and Greenhouse gas removals. Unfortunately, CCC provided no executive summary so it is unclear how the figures add up. LULUCF, as any fule kno, stands for “land use, land use change and forestry” and F-gas is not that emitted by cows and humans but “fluorinated gases” emissions from refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pumps due to refrigerant leakage.
The Guardian was not impressed by the progress one year on from the government’s net zero commitment: “John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: ‘If the government wants businesses, local authorities and households to make the appropriate investments over the next decade, they will need confidence that Britain really is committed to decarbonising the economy. But the practical measures taken by the government over the past 12 months add up to a tiny fraction of what is needed to keep us on course to meet that commitment.’”
Alongside the Technical Report, CCC published a 277 page Advice Report with an exceptionally long (27 page) executive summary which consists mostly of political exhortations. Being responsible for 1% of greenhouse gases apparently puts the UK in the global driving seat. 1% is also stated, with little visible support, as the cost of moving up from the previous 80% elimination target which was itself going to cost an extra 1% of GDP. So far as the power sector capital investment is concerned, “our scenarios imply an extra investment requirement of around 1% in 2050” (p.29). It is hard to take a report seriously where, whatever the question, the answer is always 1%.
The UK, in partnership with Italy, chairs the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow next November. As part of the run up to that, in case you had not noticed “This year, we’ve launched a Year of Climate Action”. The energy White Paper and the Treasury commentary may be part of that Action. Add to that the Treasury Select Committee has been holding an Inquiry into “Decarbonisation and Green Finance” since March and their report can be expected within the next couple of months or so. The technicalities of green finance reporting will annoy quite a few company secretaries but otherwise concern few voters.
On the other hand, the effects of net zero carbon on consumer prices, as distinct from production costs, are another matter. Ofgem may be encouraged to keep prices high so that the Government can use the margin elsewhere and consumers are motivated to use less electricity. Conversely, Ofgem might be encouraged to push energy prices down to popularise the net zero target. In 2014 the BEIS predecessor ministry published “Estimated impacts of energy and climate change policies on energy prices and bills”. In 2018, BEIS promised to update it but have yet to do so. This needs discussion.
Chapter 7 of the Advice Report makes a valiant effort to assess the costs of zero carbon. The clarity of presentation is not helped by mixing costs and benefits together as “resource costs”. Carbon capture and storage is pretty much an unknown at this point and the assumptions are crucial for the reliance the report makes on hydrogen as a key part of the solution. The cost analysis is unconvincing.
Land use is also an interesting part of this conundrum: humans breathe oxygen and exhale co2 whereas plants, notably peatland, do the reverse. The CCC recommends more use of the land to remove carbon whereas the government’s planning White Paper seems to want to concrete it all over with new housing.
The Advice Report concluded that a net zero carbon 2050 “is only possible if clear, stable and well-designed policies to reduce emissions further are introduced across the economy without delay. Current policy is insufficient for even the existing targets.” In other words, it is only possible if the government makes it happen. As the Grand Old Duke explained to Wellington, “you are only going to win Waterloo, my boy, if Napoleon loses”.
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/is-the-grand-old-duke-leading-the-charge-to-zero-carbonnbsp
One of the world’s largest batteries to store renewable energy is set to be built in Victoria, Australia
This is just a boondoggle. It is the size of a small power station, but, unlike a small power station, it will not be able to run indefinitely. At a claimed 300 MW/450 MWh it will discharge at full pelt only for 90 minutes. And that will decay by about 5% every year. In dollars per MWH it has to be hugely expensive
The Victorian government on Thursday announced the 300 megawatt Tesla lithium-ion battery would be installed near the Moorabool Terminal Station, just outside Geelong, and would be ready by the 2021-22 summer.
Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said it would be the largest lithium-ion battery in the southern hemisphere.
She said an independent analysis had showed the battery would deliver more than $2 in benefits to Victorian households and businesses for every $1 invested.
She said consumers would pay for the use of the battery through their power bills, but the reduction in wholesale energy prices delivered by the battery would mean Victorians paid less for power.
The battery will help reduce wholesale prices by storing renewable energy at a time when the weather makes it plentiful and at its cheapest and then discharging it into the grid when power is needed the most, such as on a 40C day.
The state government said the battery would also reserve a portion of its capacity to increase the power flow through the Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector by up to 250 megawatts to help reduce the chances of unscheduled power outages in peak summer months.
Global renewable energy company Neoen will pay for the construction of the battery and for its ongoing operation and maintenance.
Construction of the battery was expected to create more than 85 jobs, the state government said.
Ms D’Ambrosio announced on Thursday she had directed the Australian Energy Market Operator to sign a contract with Neoen to deliver the new Tesla battery.
“What we want to proof against is that lack of reliability when we’re in the middle of summer, when businesses need that power to keep running and Victorians need that power at home when they crank up their air conditioners to keep cool and to keep healthy,” she said.
AusNet Services executive general manager of regulation and external affairs, Alistair Parker, said it was a “terrific idea”. AusNet will be responsible for connecting the battery into the electricity transmission network that they own and operate.
“The particularly smart feature of this battery is the way it enables more capacity around the network day in, day out,” he said.
Ms D’Ambrosio said the service was an 11-year contract worth $84 million, and the Victorian battery would be double the size of the one already installed at Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/victorian-government-reveals-plan-to-store-renewable-energy/news-story/88ec01f577926878950d9d68e14fe17f
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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5 November, 2020
CLINTEL challenges McKinsey’s climate alarmism
McKinsey and Company is the world’s biggest management consulting firm, with annual revenue topping ten billion dollars. Lately they have launched a climate scare campaign, no doubt hoping to make a fortune from it, but CLINTEL has called them out.
CLINTEL has sent a succinct letter of challenge to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) which generates much of the scary stuff. MGI is a McKinsey subsidiary and brags that it is one of the world’s biggest think tanks.
This issue is important because while most businesses could care less what the UN IPCC says about climate change, they will listen to McKinsey. The specific target of CLINTEL’s letter is a voluminous report released in September, titled simply “McKinsey on Climate Change“. Thus this is the official voice of McKinsey. This so-called report is really just a 216 page collection of scary stories.
The report begins with this dire warming: “The changing climate is poised to create a wide array of economic, business, and social risks over the next three decades. Leaders should start integrating climate risk into their decision making now.”
And who better to help them integrate these supposed near term risks than McKinsey, for fat fees of course? Interesting that the climate is only poised to create these risks, not yet creating them it seems, but I digress.
McKinsey is quite clear that folks need help, saying “Stakeholders can address the risk posed by climate change only if they understand it clearly and see the nuances that make it so complicated to confront.”
Here are some sample McKinsey scare stories:
Will infrastructure bend or break under climate stress?
Could climate become the weak link in your supply chain?
Banking imperatives for managing climate risk.
The zero-carbon car: Abating material emissions is next on the agenda.
Will the world’s breadbaskets become less reliable?
CLINTEL goes to the heart of all this darkness, namely that it is based on bogus modeling. To begin with, it is based on the ridiculous IPCC future emissions scenario called 8.5 for short. Here is how CLINTEL puts it:
“As you state, [you] rely on the RCP8.5 scenario of the IPCC AR5 CMIP5 models, inappropriate in our view, as that scenario was developed in AR5 to model a world growing as the then rate of China. That scenario is most implausible, RCP4.5, if any, now being significantly more relevant. Furthermore, in using the Woods Hole Research Centre (WHRC) models, you project reaching a global temperature of 2.3°C above pre-industrial by 2050, with a possible 1.8m sea-level rise by 2100, both inexplicably well beyond the SR8.5 extreme case figures. Under these WHRC models, it is no surprise that your projections for future climate impacts may better belong, we suggest, in the field of science fiction. Your extreme point of view may seriously hurt the reputation.”
So not only does McKinsey use the silly scenario 8.5, they actually go way beyond it! Of course when you are drumming up billions in new business you want a really big drum.
The letter is signed by Professor Guus Berkhout, CLINTEL President. It ends with this concern and challenge:
“We therefore see no climate emergency whatsoever. In addition, we are very concerned of a gigantic misallocation of global economic resources, as your publications seem to suggest, to an exaggerated climate threat. Why does an ethical company such as McKinsey, we wonder, take such an extreme position?
You and your scientific advisors would be very welcome to hold a debate with our world-class scientists. We look forward to your response.”
Professor Berkhout’s message to potential McKinsey customers is: “Be aware that if you adapt your business strategy to the most unlikely climate scenario RCP 8.5, it is most likely you use the wrong strategy”.
McKinsey and Company has been associated with a number of notable scandals including the collapse of Enron in 2001 and the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Given that McKinsey stands to make huge amounts of money pushing these unfounded scary stories, one wonders if fraud is an issue.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/03/clintel-challenges-mckinseys-climate-alarmism/
Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Clears Hurdle To Doubling Capacity
Illinois approved this week the plan for the Dakota Access Pipeline to double its capacity from 570,000 bpd to 1.1 million bpd, thus becoming the last state along the pipeline’s route to give its consent to the expansion.
Dakota Access, which has seen a lot of controversy since its inception and initial start-up in 2017, now has the approval of all four states through which it passes—North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois—to expand its capacity.
While the approval of the Illinois Commerce Commission is seen as a win for the oil industry, the pipeline’s operator Energy Transfer, and the North Dakota oil producers, environmentalists see the expansion of the pipeline – whose operation they still oppose – as unnecessary with the decreased oil demand in the coronavirus pandemic.
“This vital project will bring an additional half a million barrels a day of domestic energy from North Dakota that will be used to fuel our farms, communities and lives in Illinois and across the Midwest. It’s critical we continue to support and expand our nation’s pipeline infrastructure like DAPL to help family budgets and keep our economy moving – especially in this time of recovery from COVID-19,” Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) Midwest Director Chris Ventura said in a statement, welcoming the decision.
“It’s wildly inappropriate to be talking about expansion when the real conversation is about shutting it down,” Jan Hasselman, an attorney for EarthJustice who represents the Standing Rock Tribe against DAPL in the federal lawsuit, told Grand Forks Herald.
In this separate case, DAPL and Energy Transfer are fighting a legal battle after a judge vacated the permit for the pipeline in July, and then a U.S. Appeals Court ruled that Dakota Access can continue to operate while the court considers whether the pipeline should be shut down as ordered by a lower court’s ruling. The pipeline will continue operating at least until the end of 2020 as December 2020 is the earliest time the court will be able to make a decision after reviewing all relevant documentation.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Dakota-Access-Oil-Pipeline-Clears-Hurdle-To-Doubling-Capacity.html
Blow for UK's power supply: National Grid warns lack of wind could plunge Britain into darkness
Britain's electricity could be in short supply over the next few days because of a lack of wind.
Electricity grid operator National Grid warned 'unusually low wind output' and a series of power plant outages would squeeze the network until early next week, leaving it with less back-up power than normal.
National Grid said it would 'make sure there is enough generation' to prevent blackouts.
But the warning will also put pressure on the Government to invest in other power sources in addition to wind, which can be unreliable.
Last night National Grid said there was 'adequate' power for today and that it would keep monitoring the situation over the weekend.
The balance of wind-generated power in the electricity mix will drop to as low as 9 per cent and 10.5 per cent tomorrow and on Sunday respectively, before climbing back up to 51 per cent on Monday, the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) estimates.
Wind power has sometimes provided up to 60 per cent of power in the grid.
The UK has more offshore wind capacity than any other country – and power produced from the sector charges the equivalent of 4.5m homes each year.
The ECIU reported that a number of gas plants, such as Cowes on the Isle of Wight and Shoreham, West Sussex, as well as a biomass plant in Lynemouth in Northumberland and at least one coal-operated plant, had seen generator failures.
There are also two planned outages at two of the UK's nuclear reactors, Dungeness, Kent, and Hunterston B in North Ayrshire.
In a tweet, the National Grid Electricity System Operator said: 'Unusually low wind output coinciding with a number of generator outages means the cushion of space capacity we operate the system with has been reduced.
'We're exploring measures and actions to make sure there is enough generation available to increase our buffer capacity.'
It is the second warning from the grid operator in a month. In mid-September it warned the electricity marker that its 'buffer' of power reserves had fallen below 500MW and it could need to call on more power plants to help prevent a blackout. This notice was later withdrawn.
During the national lockdown earlier this year, the network was inundated with extra power.
National Grid had to spend £50million on the second May Bank Holiday weekend alone to pay power producers – including surplus wind and solar farms – to switch off.
It spent almost £1billion on extra interventions to prevent blackouts during the first half of the year and also handed out money to EDF Energy to halve the amount of power generated at its Sizewell B nuclear plant.
Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said the latest warning 'underscores the urgency of investing in new nuclear capacity, to secure reliable, always-on, emissions-free power, alongside other zero-carbon sources'.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-8844697/National-Grid-warns-lack-wind-plunge-Britain-darkness.html
Big Australian Windfarm hit by major problems due to faulty turbines and generators
A South Burnett Times investigation has uncovered multimillion-dollar issues at Australia’s largest wind farm project, including the need to repair almost half of the Coopers Gap project
IT‘S billed as one of Australia’s biggest renewable projects, but the South Burnett Times can reveal just six months since the installation of the final turbine, operators are already working to replace critical components in nearly half of the major windfarm’s generators.
Coopers Gap Windfarm, a nearly $1 billion investment in future energy security, was completed just months ago, but already major issues have appeared.
In April, the final blade was installed on the last of the 123 wind turbines at the Darling Downs site, 50km from Kingaroy, which is estimated to have cost $850 million to develop.
But an anonymous source has revealed to NewsCorp that the commissioning process in recent months uncovered multimillion-dollar mechanical issues that have forced operator AGL and construction partners GE CATCON to begin major overhaul works – including replacing an entire turbine.
An AGL spokeswoman confirmed to the South Burnett Times major faults were found by General Electric during testing. “During the commissioning process, rigorous tests were carried out to ensure the long-term operational capability and reliability of each component,” the spokeswoman said.
“However, recent testing by GE has identified that one of their wind turbines will need to be replaced. An exclusion zone has been erected around the turbine to ensure safety.”
The Times was told by the well-placed source that one of the turbine‘s blades – the largest ever transported in Australia, measuring 67m long and weighing 22 tonnes – may be at risk of becoming separated from the turbine.
The source also said “about 50” generators needed to be replaced and there were major component issues just months after the wind farm finished construction.
Both GE and AGL refused to confirm or deny the claim about the turbine blade when contacted, however GE did confirm 53 generators will need to be replaced, due to a single component which the multinational corporation believed could impact the generators’ long-term reliability.
The generators are situated at the base of the site’s turbines – one per turbine – with the remaining 70 generators not requiring the same work to be completed.
“To ensure reliability over the longer term, we are also proactively replacing a component in some of the turbines,” a GE spokesman said. “We have already commenced planning for a repair program conducted in phases to minimise disruption.”
When questioned as to what had occurred that required an entire turbine to be replaced rather than simply repaired, GE did not directly address the question – with the spokesman issuing a statement that mirrored AGL’s own response.
“During GE’s routine inspection and testing, it was identified that one of the turbines will need to be replaced,” he said. “This turbine has been taken out of service while the Coopers Gap project continues to remain operational.”
The South Burnett Times understands engineers are working to determine what caused the serious issue discovered during testing – however the nature of this issue remains unclear.
The Times has been told the 400m exclusion zone around the turbine is standard practice and there is no “imminent risk” of an accident at the site. As the public cannot access the wind farm site where the turbine is located, there is no risk to the public.
Neither AGL nor GE responded to questions regarding the time frame or cost of these major repairs.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/major-failures-half-of-coopers-gap-windfarm-to-be-repaired/news-story/5f107f9fa59360a8e895eca235decd8e
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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4 November, 2020
New York Times Overstates Importance of Climate Change to Voters
The New York Times published a story yesterday titled, “What Voters in Battleground States Think About Climate Change,” which misleads readers into believing climate change is high-priority issue, especially in battleground states. In reality, including the Times’ poll, shows climate change continues to rank among voters’ lowest concerns – especially among independents and Republicans.
The Times poll, like other public opinion surveys, show a majority of people have some concern about climate change. However, when asked, those surveyed also consistently rank climate change near the bottom in importance, when compared to other public policy problems. And, when asked, those polled say they are unwilling to spend very much money to fight climate change. The Times failed to ask the latter two questions, almost certainly in to bolster its claim that climate change will play an important role in the election.
“Climate change has emerged as a major issue for voters this year, both nationally and in crucial battleground states like Arizona and Florida, new polls from The New York Times and Siena College suggest,” the Times article asserts. The Times made this broad statement based on a single question asked in survey of 987 “likely voters,” taken to represent the view of more than more than 328 million Americans. According to the Times, “Nationwide, 58 percent of Americans said they were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about their communities being harmed by climate change …”
Well, “somewhat concerned” is not very concerned, especially when voters were given an option to say they are “very concerned.” In fact, the Times poll showed only 37% of people are “very concerned,” which is surprisingly low, given that more than 37% of the population identifies as Democrats, and Democratic party leaders have been campaigning on an alleged climate “crisis.”
Also, the number of likely voters surveyed who were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about climate change is more than 10 percent lower than found in previous polls conducted taken by Gallup, the Pew Research Center, and the Washington Post. Apparently, the public is becoming less concerned about climate change.
Also of note, according to the Times survey, more people support fracking (44%), than are very concerned about climate change (37%).
Ask the public about almost any public policy issue frequently in the headlines and respondents will say it is important: clean air, crime, economic growth, education, immigration, jobs, retirement, taxes, terrorism, and more. However, what we really need to know is how important each issue is relative to other matters of concern. The Times survey did not ask respondents where climate change ranks compared to other public policy concerns.
In poll after poll, climate change consistently ranks at or near the bottom on the public’s list of concerns. For example, a United Nations poll surveying more than 7 million respondents from 195 countries asked participants to rank 16 priorities. A quality education ranked first and “Action Taken on Climate Change” ranked dead last, receiving 300,000 fewer votes than “Access to Telephone and Internet,” which finished 15th on the list.
In a recent survey of registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of American respondents said climate change would be a “very important” consideration when they decide who to vote for and another 26 percent said it would be “somewhat important.” Diving deeper into the Pew poll, however, climate change ranked second-to-last or tied for last in importance among the 12 policy issues the 9,114 voters surveyed were asked about.
When asked the question, “How important, if at all, are each of the following issues in making your decision about who to vote for in the 2020 presidential election?” the registered voters in the Pew survey ranked the “Economy” as their most important concern, with “Health Care” and “Supreme Court Appointments” coming in a close second and third, respectively, in level of importance.
The “Corona Virus Outbreak,” “Economic Inequality,” “Foreign Policy,” “Gun Policy,” “Immigration,” “Racial and Ethnic Inequality,” and “Violent Crime” all ranked above climate change in the categories of very or somewhat important.
In the Washington Post poll, survey participants were asked, “How important are the following issues to you personally?” The surveyed issues included climate change, the economy, gun policy, health care, immigration, and renewable energy. Climate change came in second to last among adults and third to last among teens in the number of people rating it as either “extremely” or “very” important.
The Post poll is important when determining how concerned voters are about climate change because it asked, in a variety of ways, the all-important question, “how much are those surveyed willing to spend to fight climate change?”
Fifty-one percent of those surveyed in the Post/Kaiser poll said they would be “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed to paying a $2 monthly tax on U.S. residential electric bills to pay for the fight against climate change. Similarly, 61% would reject a 10-cents-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax to fight climate change. The number of respondents opposed to electric-bill fees and gas-tax hikes rose sharply when the proposed fees were increased: 71% oppose a $10 monthly tax on U.S. residential electric bills, and 74% oppose increasing the gas tax by 25 cents per gallon.
Among the Post survey, 57% of Americans would also oppose adding to the national debt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the best available polling data, the New York Times’ assertion that climate change is a “major issue,” for voters this year is false. Surveys consistently show that climate change ranks far down the list of the public’s concerns when they cast their votes during elections. Surveys also show the public is unwilling to spend very much to prevent climate change.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/11/new-york-times-overstates-importance-of-climate-change-to-voters/
Sorry Guardian, Climate Change Isn’t Causing a Jamaican Beach Decline
An article in the Guardian titled, “A beloved Jamaican beach is succumbing to climate change. It won’t be the last,” blames supposed human-caused climate change for the loss of popular beaches in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean Sea. Data show climate change isn’t to blame.
“Climate change is eroding beaches all over the Caribbean,” writes the Guardian. “Intensified storm activity and increased water temperatures are helping destroy offshore coral reefs that otherwise buffer the shoreline from pounding waves.”
Yet data show that neither the number nor intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin have increased in recent years when compared to historical averages.
Research published in the peer-reviewed, Journal of Climate shows there has been no unusual increase in tropical cyclones and hurricanes either globally or in the North Atlantic Hurricane Basin, within which the Caribbean Sea lies, over the last 50 years. Globally the researchers found, “[t]he collective global frequency of all global hurricane landfalls and the minor and major subsets shows considerable inter-annual variability but no significant linear trend. Furthermore, when considering each basin individually during the entire time periods analyzed, it is not possible to ascertain a positive or negative trend in minor, major, or overall hurricane landfall frequency in all basins except the [Southern Hemisphere].
Although the North Atlantic Basin had experienced an active period from 1995 through 2010, the researchers reported it was due to natural factors. In particular, they found the cause to be a shift to the “positive phase of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation.” According to the paper, “consideration of the longer period of 1944–2010 exhibits no secular trend in hurricane landfalls (and even longer periods show no increasing trend….)”
As detailed in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes, hurricane impacts in recent years have been at an all-time low.
For example, the United States recently went more than a decade (2005 through 2017) without a major hurricane measuring Category 3 or higher. That was the longest such period in recorded history. The United States also recently experienced the fewest number of hurricane strikes in any eight-year period (2009 through 2017) in recorded history.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has also found no evidence that climate change is causing hurricanes to increase in number or intensity in recent years, writing in its interim report there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.”
Concerning the die off of coral reefs in Jamaica and their contribution to the decline in the island nation’s beeches, research indicates human activities unrelated to climate change are likely to blame.
Research published in Science Advances examined a range of possible causes, including climate change, fishing, and pollution, for the decline of two major coral reef populations in the Caribbean; elkhorn and staghorn corals. They found the coral die off began in the 1950s, before there was a large scale increase in carbon dioxide emissions or “decades before climate change impacts,” as the authors write. They conclude local human impacts like fishing, land clearing and associated sediment run-off, pesticides, and pollution have caused the corals to decline. Other research has linked Oxybenzone, a chemical found in many popular sun screen products, with coral bleaching.
Climate change never made sense as a cause of coral decline. As detailed in Climate at a Glance: Coral Reefs, corals thrive in warm water, not cold water. Indeed, research shows recent warming has allowed coral to expand their range poleward, while still continuing to thrive near the equator. Coral has existed continuously for the past 40 million years, surviving temperatures and carbon dioxide levels significantly higher than what is occurring today.
As even the Guardian acknowledged, Jamaica’s poverty has left it unable to take the kind of actions other nations have implemented to replenish their beaches and build infrastructure to reduce the impacts of naturally rising seas and hurricanes.
Many factors are undoubtedly causing the decline and erosion of some beaches in Jamaica and across the Caribbean region. Contrary to the Guardian’s claims, however, there is little if any evidence showing global warming is exacerbating the problem.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/10/sorry-guardian-climate-change-isnt-causing-a-jamaican-beach-decline/
Daily Kos Defends Big Tech, Is Confused About Crop Yields vs Crop Production
The leftist website Daily Kos is feeling threatened by the Climate Realism website. Yesterday, Daily Kos published an article titled, “Heartland Is Apparently Confused About How Google Works. Oh, And It Is Stupid About Climate.” The Daily Kos’s primary substantive argument is that climate change is decimating crops, while several Climate Realism articles documenting good crop news merely reflect an increase in the amount of land devoted to planting crops in rich, industrial nations. Daily Kos, however, fails to understand that farmers throughout the world – rich nations and poor – are enjoying fantastic growth in yields per acre as well as overall production.
As pointed out in Climate Realism articles, crop yields per acre are increasing all over the world. That is distinct from any asserted increase in the amount of land dedicated to crops. The increase in yields per acre is also documented in virtually all nations, and not just rich nations with the latest technology and equipment.
In short, Daily Kos simply didn’t do any factual research before making its speculative and false claims about a crop crisis. Crop yields per acre, as well as overall crop production, are dramatically increasing throughout the world, rich and poor nation alike.
On a side note, Daily Kos seems bothered that Climate Realism points out how Google News frequently elevates obscure, alarmist articles to the top of its search results. Daily Kos’s objections likely reflect the huge amounts of money Big Tech hands out to the political left. We apologize for calling attention to the left’s rich, Big Tech corporate benefactors.
Daily Kos asserts Google is not “responsible for the news stories” it lists at the top of its search results. Actually, Google is responsible for the items it chooses to promote at the top of its search results versus the articles it chooses to bury in its search results. So, when Google promotes at the top of its search results for “climate change” alarmist and false claims made on the otherwise obscure InkStick Media website, while at the same time burying truthful climate realism articles from more prominent sources, it is entirely proper to point that out.
We are sorry, Daily Kos, for telling the truth about climate realism and the methods employed by Big Tech leftist benefactors. But we aren’t going to stop telling the truth.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/10/daily-kos-defends-big-tech-is-confused-about-crop-yields-vs-crop-production/
Global Warming? 20 Million Americans Hit With Snow, Freezing Rain
More than 20 million Americans are under some sort of winter weather watch, warning, or advisory from the Southwest through the Midwest this week.
The Weather Channel has dubbed the storm “Winter Storm Billy” and said the storm will bring snow throughout parts of the Southern Rockies, the Central Plains, and Missouri.
From Arizona to Wisconsin, residents could see snowfall Monday, while those further south, like in Texas and Oklahoma, will see freezing rain and sleet, according to CNN.
Ice in Texas and Oklahoma is expected to accumulate roughly half an inch, which could cause dangerous travel conditions and knock power out, per the same article. Oklahoma City is under an Ice Storm Warning.
Temperatures in North Texas are roughly 25 degrees Fahrenheit below average. Texans living in the Texas Panhandle area could see one to two inches of snow during the area’s first Winter Storm Warning of the season, according to CBS Dallas-Ft. Worth.
While temperatures in Arizona won’t be as cold as some other states, some areas in the state could see a low of 46 degrees on Tuesday — the first temperature in the 40s since March, according to AZ Central.
Some areas of Colorado and New Mexico are expected to see two feet of snow, which comes as a bit of relief as wildfires continue to rage in Colorado’s Boulder and Larimer Counties, according to The Denver Channel. In Aguilar, Colorado, there were already 14 inches recorded from snowfall Sunday into Monday, per the same report.
https://principia-scientific.com/global-warming-20-million-americans-hit-with-snow-freezing-rain/
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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3 November, 2020
NY Times Disparages the Scientific Method While Attacking NOAA Scientists
The New York Times (NYT) published an October 27 article accusing President Trump of fighting “against climate science,” while the NYT itself misrepresents climate science.
In the article titled, “As Election Nears, Trump Makes a Final Push Against Climate Science,” the NYT implies the Trump administration is fighting against climate science by appointing research meteorologist Ryan Maue, Ph.D., as chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and appointing David Legates, Ph.D., former state climatologist for Delaware, as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction at NOAA. Maue’s appointment is problematic according to the NYT because he “has criticized climate scientists for what he has called unnecessarily dire predictions.”
A google scholar search of Maue’s publications shows he is well qualified for the position of NOAA chief scientist. Maue has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles discussing climate change. Simultaneously, Maue served as a meteorologist at WeatherBELL Analytics, a widely used weather forecasting service. Much of Maue’s research presents real-world data to demonstrate that human-induced climate change is not causing more powerful and more frequent hurricanes.
A Google Scholar search of Legates’ name shows he has authored or co-authored 140 peer-reviewed climate-change-related articles. The topics of Legates’ papers range from the earth’s climate sensitivity as shown by actual measurements, the validity of climate models, drought and flood patterns across the United States, and the impact of warming on polar bear populations. Once again, the objective record shows Legates is well qualified to direct and inform government research on climate related matters.
The NYT is not the first mainstream media outlet to criticize the Maue and Legates appointments. For example, Climate Realism refuted the ad-hominem charges leveled against Legates by National Public Radio shortly after his appointment to NOAA. The author of that Climate Realism article wrote, “The very definition of science, in its most-basic sense from The Enlightenment to 2020, is ‘questioning the basic tenets’ of current assumptions. [Legates has] examined the data for many, many years and has not seen persuasive evidence that humans are the chief drivers of climate change.”
NOAA is charged with assembling the National Climate Assessment every four years. The report includes input from 13 federal agencies and outside scientists, supposedly to present objective knowledge concerning the causes and consequences of climate change. Rather than being objective, NOAA’s 2018 report referenced the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) worst-case scenario to claim climate change poses an imminent and dire threat to the United States. The IPCC itself has disavowed its worst-case scenario, admitting it has only a three-percent chance of becoming a reality.
NOAA’s Climate Assessment ignored hundreds of unalarming peer-reviewed articles and books published by dozens of prominent researchers including, for example, physicists Will Happer, Ph.D., Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., Willie Soon, Ph.D., and atmospheric scientists, John Christy, Ph.D., Pat Michaels, Ph.D., and Roy Spencer, Ph.D. These scientists, and many others, have published research showing that the human impact on global temperatures is and will be, at most, minimal. According to these scholars, natural factors, such as, cloud formation, solar activity, and large-scale ocean circulation patterns are the dominant drivers of climate shifts. Other studies have concluded, based on measurable data, that the modest climate change the Earth has so far experienced has been beneficial. Research also indicates a continued modest increase in temperatures is highly unlikely to result in extreme weather changes.
NOAA has also previously ignored findings of the 14 peer-reviewed volumes produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. In particular, NIPCC’s Climate Change Reconsidered series presents a comprehensive literature review of the peer-reviewed evidence indicating human influence on climate is minimal and that present climate change is not catastrophic. NIPCC’s reports are written and/or reviewed by hundreds of researchers, yet the past political leadership of NOAA has ignored them and the thousands of peer-reviewed papers they reference.
The appointments of Maue and Legates to NOAA present an opportunity to reinforce the proper use of the scientific method in government research. The Scientific Method demands that researchers question self-proclaimed consensus science. In the field of climate research, this means carefully considering the broad range of evidence concerning the causes and consequences of climate change when federal reports are developed. This would represent a shift from NOAA’s previous practice, in which it referenced a narrow body of research to support the politically predetermined conclusion that dangerous human-caused climate change is happening.
It is not surprising that the NYT dismisses the Trump administration’s attempts to defend the Scientific Method from doctrinaire views of climate change. Trump’s previous efforts to bring transparency to scientific research and to prevent corruption in the funding process for scientific research have been similarly critiqued by climate alarmists. Left-leaning mainstream media outlets, academics who’ve learned to manipulate the current closed system, and political partisans who use the cloak of “following the science” to promote their personal political agendas reject transparency and support self-dealing.
As the peer-reviewed research by Legates, Maue and hundreds of other scientists makes clear, there is an active scientific debate concerning the causes, extent, and consequences of climate change. Trump’s appointments of Legates and Maue may bring justified and necessary balance to federal reports on the state of climate science.
https://climaterealism.com/2020/10/ny-times-disparages-the-scientific-method-while-attacking-noaa-scientists/
Was September 2020 The Warmest One On Record?
Recently there were many headlines proclaiming that this September was the warmest on record. It was from a report uncritically relayed by many.
The reasoning behind the conclusion is worth taking a little time to digest as it demonstrates that temperature statistics are often open to interpretation.
Consider the GISS Loti database on which September has a temperature anomaly of 100 (divide by 100 to get changes in degrees C.)
In its 140-year range of monthly data, GISS Loti has only 26 months with an anomaly of 100 or greater of which, with the exception of January 2007, all occur within the past five years.
The most any month has above 100 is four. Some months, June, July have none. May, August, and September have one (102, 102, and 100 respectively). The high-temperature anomaly values occur in the southern hemisphere summer months and show the warming of the South Pacific.
In GISS Loti, the past two Octobers have had anomalies of 102, which to me suggests that the September 2020 data is probably a boundary effect. Nature knows nothing of the ancient decision to have 12 months in a year!
September 2020 is very warm certainly, but if you use it as has been done to infer a global effect then you are using the data to mislead.
In September, Europe, northern Russia, and Siberia certainly had temperatures above the 10-year average. However, near the equator, the temperatures were near or below this average, and it was the same for the southern hemisphere.
The NOAA analysis of this September indicates that overall about 8.49% of the world’s land and ocean surfaces experienced a record September temperature – the second-highest percentage behind 2015.
However, taking the temperature values into account, they say that September globally was the warmest September on record.
This is not a definitive statement if you consider the errors. NOAA says that September 2020 surpassed September 2015 and 2016 by 0.02°C, which is insignificant given the errors are plus or minus about 0.1°C.
Why is it that an organization like NOAA, with its global role concerning climate change, continues to treat numbers in a way that would fail a physics 101 class?
Atmospheric data also shows September to not be among the warmest though again we have the common presentation of data with no errors.
There is another problem with NOAA and numbers. Looking at their 2020 year-to-date temperatures (again no error bars) are shown above. It can be seen that September is the second warmest September on record. Looking at this graph, I will not make any bets as to 2020 being the warmest year ever.
Looking at global maps shows that warming is confined to specific regions, especially northern Siberia. Consider this map of September temperature changes of the past 10 years. It shows that September temperature changes are not global but regional.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/was-september-2020-the-warmest-one-on-record/
Federal Agency Gives Additional Support to Wind and Solar Power
A new proposal offered by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gives additional federal support to wind and solar power developers. FERC is the agency that regulates the interstate transmission, wholesale sale, and interstate pipeline transportation of electricity, oil, and natural gas.
FERC’s proposed rule encourages federal power entities, regional transmission organizations and independent system operators, and state public utility commissions to set a price on carbon dioxide emissions as a way to accelerate the development electric power sources that produce no carbon dioxide emissions during power generation.
Power Rules Benefitting Renewables
Solar and wind energy developers have received subsidies in the form of a federal production tax credit, and individual manufacturers and power developers have also received federal grants and loan guarantees amounting to tens of billions of dollar over the past three decades.
At the state level, solar and wind power developers have also received property tax abatements and, in 29 states, renewable power mandates require that a politically determined amount of the power electric utilities provide comes from wind and/or solar power. In addition, numerous states have enacted net metering provisions forcing power companies to pay those owing roof-top solar panels the retail price for any excess energy they generate.
Research shows these policies have increased the price of electric power to ratepayers in states that have instituted them relative to ratepayers in states without such policies.
FERC’s policy proposal provides an additional advantage to solar and wind power generating sources by allowing them to compete more effectively in wholesale electric markets, where lower cost sources of electricity, usually generated by coal, hydroelectric, natural gas or nuclear, has dominated. Power generators must bid-in power at a set price for delivering specific amounts of electricity for use within wholesale interstate markets.
Should FERC finalize its proposal as a formal rule, any state that imposes a tax, fee, or cap-and-trade system on electric power generators in its state, will be disadvantaging traditional electricity generated using fossil fuels, relative to renewables when competing to sell power on wholesale power markets. In the process, states offering significant, expensive, support to renewable power sources in the form of mandates and net metering schemes will now be spreading the costs of such policies to ratepayers within the same regional power market, whose states have rejected such policies.
‘Properly Designed Policies’ will “Not be a dead Letter’
FERC’s proposal came on the heels of a meeting in September during which commissioners heard testimony from power market analysts, climate activists, power generators, and state regulators concerning the legal and economic consequences that could result from any decision FERC might make concerning state carbon dioxide pricing schemes.
Members of Congress have repeatedly introduced bills over the past two decades to impose a national pricing scheme on carbon dioxide emissions. None of these bills have been approved by a majority of members of both houses of Congress. FERC’s decision essentially replaces Congress’s judgement on the merits of carbon dioxide pricing schemes with that of a majority of the three member commission.
FERC’s October 13 decision effectively tells state regulators the commission would not reject out of hand taxes or fees intended to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, said Chairman Neil Chatterjee, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump.
“[Power market regulators] should have confidence that those proposals will be not be a dead letter on our doorstep . . . confidence that we recognize the benefits that such proposals, if properly designed, could bring to our markets,” Chatterjee said in a statement. “Today’s proposal also puts down a marker signaling that this commission encourages efforts to develop wholesale market rules that incorporate a state-determined carbon price.”
One Commissioner Objects
One of the three sitting FERC commissioners, James Danly, objected to FERC’s proposal, saying the commission should not be issuing broad policy statements concerning the merits carbon dioxide pricing schemes. Danly also said FERC’s proposal was unnecessary.
“Generally speaking, it’s preferable to wait to be in receipt of tariff filings, especially when you’re forging new programs like this,” Danly said at the hearing during which the FERC’s proposal was adopted. “It’s certainly premature to opine on jurisdictional questions when we are denied the benefit of actually seeing details of what might be proposed.”
FERC’s proposal is now proceeding the formal rule making process including a public comment period.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2020/10/federal-agency-gives-additional-support-to-wind-and-solar-power/
Israelis and Africans for Trump
Trump policies reshape Middle East politics and reject eco-imperialism for Africa and USA
Paul Driessen
President Trump is “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said. According to an i24 News poll, 63% of Israelis say Trump would be better for Israel than Joe Biden, who received a mere 18% affirmation. They cite moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, rejecting the Obama-Iran nuclear deal, and normalization of relations between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan, along with greatly improved relations with Saudi Arabia, all largely because of Trump Administration efforts.
It’s easy to imagine similar reactions from all over Africa when you hear people like South African energy analyst and development champion Adil Nchabeleng, who says Mr. Trump “is doing so much good for humanity. Those that hate him are doing so because of their dislike for his achievements.” Or South African black trade unions, who say Trump “needs lots of support and must come back as an administration. They have their minds and heart in the right place.”
Contrast that to President Obama, who in 2010 told Africans they should reject “dirty” fossil fuels, and base their economies on the continent’s “bountiful” wind, solar and biofuel resources. Mr. Obama wasn’t keen on hydroelectric either, though a continent with few good rivers and a history of prolonged droughts isn’t very enthusiastic about hydro either. His support for nuclear power was minimal, at best.
Obama’s carbon-colonialist views were reflected in his administration’s policies and support for World Bank and “multilateral development bank” policies of lending only for “renewable” energy. That is a recipe for minimal job growth, barely improved living standards, interminably antiquated medical services and perpetually short life spans. It’s eco-imperialism and even eco-manslaughter.
I’ve condemned this and the evil of what are really anti-development banks in books and in multiple articles (here, here, here, here, here and elsewhere). For the most part, there’s been little reason to moderate my criticism. Even the Africa Development Bank, after promising to support coal and gas-fired power plants, caved in to radical green pressure groups and now says it will finance only wind and solar.
Indeed, the Deep State is still too much in control of US policies and messaging, and in denial of the horrific human and ecological damage it is causing. It’s all too easy to imagine what policies would be under a Biden-Harris-AOC regime. Africa (and the rest of the developing world) clearly deserve better.
That’s why President Trump’s call for supporting nuclear power in Africa and other developing nations is important, why he should (and probably will) support fossil fuel power plants in Africa during a second term – and why Africans and other common folk worldwide should (and probably do) support him. While too many US, UN and EU agencies and elites still promote and impose anti-fossil fuel policies, another four years of Trump would change much of that, for the great betterment of Africa and other regions.
You simply cannot build economies, industries, jobs and modern countries on expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar power – even if they are backed up, almost megawatt-for-megawatt, by redundant and equally expensive batteries or coal, gas, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, transmission lines and battery energy storage systems are reliant on far too many metals and minerals that must be dug out of the ground, processed and turned into pseudo-green technologies at rates and in amounts far in excess of what the world has ever achieved, ever before in history, and with massive adverse environmental consequences. None of these materials is renewable; none of the mining and manufacturing processes are sustainable at the rates envisioned.
Moreover, this “renewable” energy future is intended not just to meet Africa’s own needs. It is supposed to meet global demands for these same materials, so that every nation on earth can keep their fanciful pledges to “go green” and “carbon neutral” by 2030, 2050 or some other arbitrary year. (Most of these target dates are far enough away to be meaningless – and to ensure the politicians making the promises are dead or out of office, and can’t be held accountable for the devastation they will cause.)
The bottom line is very simple. No Green New Deal – for America, much less for the entire world – can break the laws of physics, or the laws of nature and ecology. Just the massive additional amounts of copper and concrete would be inconceivable – to say nothing of the rare earths, cobalt, lithium and scores of other materials we would need for Joe Biden’s transition from an oil and gas economy to one based on wind and sunshine.
These GND technologies are pseudo-renewable, pretend-sustainable, make-believe clean and green. You cannot build them without raw materials. You cannot get those materials without mining, fossil fuels and ecological impacts at hundreds of times the levels humanity and our planet have ever seen before. And because of American (especially environmentalist and Democrat) animosity toward mining anywhere in the USA, you cannot get them without violating every canon of “ethical, responsible sourcing,” and every US law and moral principle against “conflict minerals,” child labor and environmental degradation.
The hard reality is that all the GND mining, processing and manufacturing would be done overseas – primarily in Africa, Asia and Latin America ... primarily by Chinese and Russian companies ... paying little better than slave wages ... paying little attention to endangered species or ecological values ... and not giving a tinker’s damn about foreigner criticism ... perhaps especially because all those moralizing foreigners would be 100% dependent on the Chinese and Russian supply chains.
As a South African friend recently observed, African concern for the environment is much more intimate and ingrained than it is for most Americans and Europeans. Every African is spiritually tied to his or her ancestral rural homeland; each one knows which piece of land he or she came from. They believe those lands are sacred and occupied by the spirits of past generations, so they are spiritually in communication with the environment much more than “western first world” people.
Even African city dwellers, and certainly those still living in rural areas, are constantly aware that there are elephants, big cats and other animals around. They don’t want to upset the wildlife, much less see rhinos and other animals poached for superstitious Asian markets – much, much less see them sacrificed on the altar of GND transitions and climate change alarmism, as the continent is ravaged for minerals.
More and more Africans are recognizing that radical greens and climate catastrophists are really demanding that Africans accept living standards not much better than what they have endured for generations – while their environment is ripped up, their wildlife are killed off, and their countryside is blanketed with mines, turbines, panels, transmission lines and warehouses of battery modules.
More and more Africans are also beginning to understand that their future is dependent on oil, gas, coal and nuclear power. That the more they can generate reliable, affordable electricity with those sources, the more jobs they can create, the wealthier and healthier they will become, the more they can wean themselves off foreign dependency – and the less they will have to rely on the financing and dictates of foreign banks whose lending policies are dictated by climate fears and “carbon neutrality” demands.
Mr. Biden and President-in-Waiting Kamala Harris also want to fundamentally and totally “transform” America’s economy, culture, history, traditions, and freedom to read, hear, see, think and speak facts and ideas that differ from their ideologies and agendas. That intolerant, authoritarian government, media and educational system has personified Africa, China, Russia and the Middle East far too long. For it to dominate the United States would be a worldwide disasters.
If President Trump is reelected, he should bear all this in mind in charting his second term’s foreign and domestic policies. Americans should certainly reflect on this as they mark their ballots. And people everywhere should keep all this in mind, as they ponder their future electoral decisions.
Via email
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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2 November, 2020
Trump administration strips gray wolves of endangered species protection
Trump administration officials on Thursday stripped Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in most of the U.S., ending longstanding federal safeguards and putting states and tribes in charge of overseeing the predators.
The U.S. Department of Interior announcement just days ahead of the Nov. 3 election could lead to resumption of wolf hunts in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin -- a crucial battleground in the campaign between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
It's the latest in a series of administration actions on the environment that appeal to key blocs of rural voters in the race's final days, including steps to allow more mining in Minnesota and logging in Alaska.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz, who opposes recreational wolf hunting, called the decision disappointing and wildlife advocacy groups pledged to fight it in court.
Both feared and revered by people, gray wolves have recovered from near extinction in parts of the country but remain absent from much of their historical range.
Federal wildlife officials contend thriving populations in the western Great Lakes region, Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest ensure the species' long-term survival. They argue it's not necessary for wolves to be in every place they once inhabited to be considered recovered.
In an announcement attended by several dozen people at a national wildlife refuge overlooking the Minnesota River in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt declared the gray wolf's recovery 'a milestone of success.'
'In the early part of the 20th century the gray wolf had essentially become a ghost throughout the United States,' Bernhardt said. 'That is not the case today.'
Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe agreed that wolves were recovered and said it's time for the agency to 'move on' to help other imperiled wildlife. But he questioned the announcement coming so close to the election. 'It creates the perception that it's being done for political reasons,' Ashe said in an interview.
Some biologists and former government officials who previously reviewed the administration's proposal for lifting protections said it lacked scientific justification.
And wildlife advocates worry the move will make it harder, if not impossible, for wolves to recover in more regions, such as the southern Rocky Mountains and portions of the Northeast.
Their numbers also are sure to drop in the western Great Lakes area, as happened previously when federal controls were lifted, said Adrian Treves, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin.
Hunting seasons took their toll and research showed that poachers were emboldened by the absence of federal enforcement, he said.
Agency scientists believe wolves can continue expanding even without the federal listing, although support from states is considered crucial.
Farmers and hunters welcomed the news.
Ashleigh Calaway of Pittsville, Wisconsin said 13 of her family farm's sheep were killed by wolves in July of 2019. Reducing wolf numbers through state-sponsored hunts would help prevent such attacks, she said.
'It's allowing them to be managed to a level to lower the risk to sheep and cattle,' Calaway said.
It's the latest attempt over two decades to return management authority to the states. Courts have frequently rejected such moves after opponents filed lawsuits.
Environmental groups said protections are still needed to shield small populations of wolves in West Coast states, including California, and to help them expand to new areas.
'Instead of pursuing further wolf recovery, the Fish and Wildlife Service has just adopted the broadest, most destructive delisting rule yet,' said Collette Adkins with the Center for Biological Diversity.
An initiative on the Colorado ballot next week seeks to reintroduce wolves there in coming years. With federal protections removed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would have no say about moving ahead with the plan, if voters approve it.
Wolves were wiped out across most of the U.S. by the 1930s under government-sponsored poisoning and trapping campaigns. A remnant population in the western Great Lakes region has since expanded to some 4,400 animals in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
More than 2,000 occupy six states in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest after wolves from Canada were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park beginning 25 years ago.
Following a protracted courtroom battle that ended when Congress intervened, the Northern Rockies wolves are now under state management and are hunted in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
State officials also allowed hunting of Great Lakes wolves for several years last decade when protections were removed. The hunts ended when protections were restored under a 2014 federal court order.
Wolves were given initial federal protections in the late 1960s and listed as an endangered species in 1978, except in Minnesota where they were classified as threatened. A government-sponsored recovery effort had cost roughly $160 million as of last year.
The wolves lose protection 60 days after the decision is published Nov. 3 in the Federal Register, although the wildlife service will continue monitoring their populations for five years.
Wolves have never been legally protected in Alaska, which has a population of 7,000 to 11,000.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8894423/Trump-officials-end-gray-wolf-protections-US.html
Fires at wind farms 'underreported over fears of reputational damage'
Poor data and lack of rigorous and transparent reporting around blazes raise concerns operators are left guessing over protection, according to an expert report
Industry-wide underreporting of fires at wind farms has led to poor risk mitigation and damage prevention strategies, a report from a fire suppression firm has found.
Firetrace International's report, called In the Line of Fire, looks at the threat of wind farm fires amid changes in turbine technology and the climate. It draws insights from wind industry fire experts about how manufacturers, operators and investors can respond to an evolving threat of fire.
The fire specialist says that because of a lack of reporting and transparency around wind farm blazes, it is difficult to know how far off current estimates (ranging from 1 in 2,000 turbines to 1 in 15,000 ) are from the true number of fires each year, while many figures are more than five years out of date.
It identifies risks from global warming, ageing turbines, new materials, offshore giants and skills shortages.
Chris Streatfeild, director at health and safety consultant Forge Risk, said that companies are “fundamentally going in the right direction in terms of health and safety”, and that the industry has a good track record on managing fire risk.
However, he added: “I think we need to take data ownership. The industry certainly has opportunities to be better about sharing and communicating data about incidents, because we need to share, and we need to learn from it.
"I fully understand the industry’s caution, but I think we should be more open, more upfront and more willing to own the issue.”
Challenges
Operator uncertainty: A lack of robust figures means wind farm owners and operators find it difficult to decide what level of fire protection they need.
Old data: A reliance on turbine fire data from the mid-2010s means companies can’t spot recent fire trends to tackle them
Firetrace argues that there insurers and manufacturers' reports of how often wind turbines catach fire "vary wildly".
In 2020, Wind Power Engineering magazine estimated that one in 2,000 turbines would catch fire, while one in 10,000 was the figure offered by Fire Protection Engineering magazine in 2019.
And Firetrace cites an independent fire expert who says that the risk of a catastrophic fire, where a turbine is destroyed, is one in 15,000.
Firetrace added that if one in 2,000 turbines catches fire each year, it suggests that a typical wind farm with 150 turbines would be hit by one or two fires in 20 years of operation.
It also stated that the risk of wind turbine fires will change alongside the climate and technological trends.
Global warming
In 2020 there have been devastating wildfires in Australia and the US, exacerbated by climate change, rising temperatures and droughts, creating the perfect conditions for fire.
These conditions expose turbine operators to additional risk, Firetrace stated.
The research cites examples where turbines have been struck by fire. A turbine fire at the 120.6MW Buffalo Gap
wind farm in Texas in August 2019 sparked the 1km2 Rhodes Ranch 3 Fire in Mulberry Canyon.
In July 2020, another turbine fire in Texas that caused a 13km2 wildfire in Nolan County.
And in July 2019, a turbine fire at the 151.2MW Juniper Canyon Phase 1 wind farm in Washington state ignited the surrounding grass and brush after melted sections fell to the ground. The blaze sparked a 1km2 wildfire.
The research points to such fires exposing operators to legal claims from neighbouring landowners even if there was no negligence by the operator, potentially provoking legal battles between insurers, manufacturers and operators.
Ageing turbines
As the first major wave of turbines installed in the mid-1990s come to the end of their operational lives, around 7% of the total current wind fleet is now more than 15 years old, the research states, alongside 28% in Europe due to the maturity of the sector.
Firetrace raises concerns over older models that may be less reliable – because of less sophisticated technology – that can exacerbate problems in the three primary ignition sources in typical turbines.
These are the converter and capacitor cabinets in the nacelle, the transformer and the nacelle brake area.
Firetrace adds: “The hydraulic area is sometimes considered a fourth ignition source. Of these three primary ignition sources, most fires start in the converter cabinet or capacitor cabinet in the nacelle. Most fires are caused by electrical failures, from short circuits or cable failures to overloading or generator problems.”
New materials
The research suggests risks with older machines may be well-known, but that this may not be the case with materials in new turbines, such as fibreglass used in blades.
Firetrace cites JP Conkwright, turbine fire investigator and assistant professor of fire protection and safety engineering technology at Eastern Kentucky University, who said that making turbine blades out of fibreglass may expose workers to "explosive dust" during repairs.
He said: “We’re doing a lot of blade repairs. We’re doing a lot of internal blade repairs, and the fibreglass dust is much more explosive than normal dust. We’re inside a confined space, 300 feet in the air, creating fibreglass dust with a grinder.”
Meanwhile in Europe wooden turbine towers are a good environmental solution, but concerns were raised over safety, especially in confined spaces, hundreds of metres in the air, where there may be fibreglass dust.
Offshore
Size matters offshore, the report stated, with manufacturers now offering 13MW and 14MW turbines.
As big as skyscrapers and many miles from dry land, they pose a different set of risks from those in onshore wind, though Firetrace added that so far industry is managing them well.
Friretrace cites G+, the global health and safety organisation for offshore wind, saying there has been no fire incidents at offshore wind farms in 2018, 2019 or in the most recent set of statistics from the first quarter of 2020.
The company did warn that operators and investors should remain very aware that the costs of a catastrophic fire at an offshore wind turbine would be huge.
Skills shortages
The potential impacts of skills shortages among skilled operations and maintenance (O&M) technicians mean potential fire risks, the research states.
In the US, wind farms totalling 9.1GW were commissioned in 2019, which was the third-highest year on record – with 4.4GW in the first six months of 2020.
Now there are more than 60,000 turbines totalling 109.9GW in the US, with just 7,000 technicians to manage that fleet.
The stark contrast in figures has led O&M specialists to warn of a shortage of skilled technicians.
Operators need contractors to deliver projects cheaper by driving down costs, raising concerns over service quality.
Owners need to remain vigilant so that this doesn’t “store up extra fire risks” in the coming years, the report concluded.
https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1697822/fires-wind-farms-underreported-fears-reputational-damage
How is Britain’s Most Efficient Windfarm Doing?
The UK’s most efficient* offshore windfarm is Kentish Flats, owned by the nationalised Swedish conglomerate Vattenfall, and situated just outside the Thames estuary, north of Whitstable. Its low costs are due to the very shallow waters in which it sits.
Strangely, being part of an industry that claims to be enjoying rapidly declining costs, Kentish Flats is not a new windfarm. In fact it was one of the UK’s first, commissioned in 2005. Later windfarms moved further offshore, in search of more reliable wind speeds, but were rewarded with higher costs and only marginally better output.
Kentish Flats’ management reckon the useful life of their wind turbines is 20 years, so the windfarm may close at some point in the next few years. It is probably no coincidence that 20 years is also the period for which the operators can claim subsidies. Just how generous the subsidy regime is can be seen from the windfarm’s 2017 results. In that year, it made a profit before tax of £11 million, but as the notes to the accounts reveal, it also received £11.4 million in subsidies. A further £0.5 million of government grants is being written off each year. In other words, without state support, Kentish Flats would have lost £1 million. Recall that this is the UK’s lowest-cost offshore windfarm.
Note also that it is selling electricity at far above market prices; the 2018 accounts note a rise in prices from £95 to £122/MWh since the previous year, suggesting that a buyer willing to pay vastly over the odds – presumably within the Vattenfall group – had been found to cover up their embarrassment. Last year, that change was largely reversed, and the windfarm only managed to break even before subsidies.
Since Kentish Flats was built 15 years ago, the cost of building and operating an offshore windfarm in the UK has soared. In fact, if you look at those commissioned since 2010, they all have costs more than double those of Kentish Flats. And yet, as we can see, without its subsidies, Kentish Flats is marginally profitable at best. If we also took away its ability to sell at far-above market prices, it would be well and truly sunk.
What we can therefore say, with some certainty, is that the offshore wind fleet is, as a whole, destroying wealth at a remarkable pace.
https://www.thegwpf.com/how-is-britains-most-efficient-windfarm-doing/
Australian bank's climate policy reveals steps away from coal to support net zero emission by 2050
But not shifting support away from family farms
ANZ has released its new climate change policy that will see the bank take steps away from financing thermal coal and towards supporting the transition to a net zero emissions economy by 2050.
Under the 10-year strategy, ANZ has committed to stop directly financing any new coal-fired power plans or thermal coal mines including expansions by 2030.
It will also "wind down" existing direct lending to coal-fired plants and thermal coal, and help existing customers with more than 50 per cent exposure to thermal coal create diversification strategies by 2025.
ANZ group executive Mark Whelan told investors via its blog Bluenotes that the new approach committed the bank to "taking strong action to support the Paris Agreement".
The big four bank has pledged to no longer provide services to any new business that makes more than 10 per cent of its revenue from thermal coal.
The bank also made changes to how it would finance the construction of large-scale office buildings, saying loans would only be provided if the buildings were highly energy efficient and had a 5-star energy rating.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack released a statement on Thursday condemning ANZ's policy for being "sheer virtue-signalling".
Mr McCormack said banks should be focused on "supporting our agricultural producers, not adding an extra layer of administration".
"Imposing largely Euro-centric standards to satisfy shareholder activists while our nation recovers from a global pandemic is grossly unfair," he said.
ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told investors via Bluenotes on Thursday afternoon the bank was not shifting support away from farmers.
"ANZ's climate change statement is focused on the top 100 carbon emitters, and will have no impact on the bank's farmgate lending practices," Mr Elliott said.
He said the policy was about the bank's "major agribusiness customers" becoming more energy efficient and was "not about family farms".
The new policy adds ANZ to a growing number of businesses that are ahead of the Australian Government when it comes to commitments to stop the effects of climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-29/anz-climate-policy-steps-away-from-coal-toward-carbon-neutrality/12825934
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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1 November, 2020
Perspective on a Doozy of a Hurricane Season
An unusually active tropical season doesn't invariably portend climate doomsday.
The Atlantic Basin hurricane season doesn’t wrap up until November 30, which leaves plenty of time for another storm or two. (That appears likely, by the way, so be forewarned). We are, however, close enough to the end of the season that we can begin to judge the results. Without question, we can say 2020 has been a doozy of a hurricane season, which got busy early and shows signs of ending late.
According to meteorologist and hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach, a record 11 named storms have made landfall on the continental U.S. this hurricane season. The previous record of nine landfalling storms occurred more than a century ago in 1916. So far, 27 named storms have formed in the Atlantic Basin during the 2020 season. Because the World Meteorological Organization’s predetermined list consists of just 21 names, that means we’ve had plenty enough activity to necessitate the implementation of the Greek alphabet, which serves as a “backup” list for rare seasons such as this.
So, yes, you’d be correct to assume that using the Greek alphabet for hurricanes is unusual. In fact, 2005 featured the only other hurricane season in which the Greek alphabet was used.
Most will recall that 2005 was likewise a doozy of a hurricane season. A record 28 storms formed in the Atlantic Basin that year, though 2020 seems destined to either tie or supersede that record. From this standpoint alone, the 2020 season should be considered exceptional.
However, a few additional aspects must be taken into account, particularly since some alarmists are invariably blaming the severity of the season on anthropogenic global warming.
Seasonal influence. Even before the hurricane season began, meteorological enterprises in both the private and public sectors were virtually unanimous in forecasting a busy season. Their agreement was at least partially rooted in pattern recognition. A La Niña event — wherein cool water around the equatorial Pacific Ocean affects weather patterns — developed earlier this year, and history shows us these events typically foreshadow a busy hurricane season.
This warning sign was buoyed by computer guidance projecting other atmospheric elements conjoining to provide an extremely conducive environment for hurricane development. Warm water in itself isn’t enough to produce an unusually high number of hurricanes. Atmospheric “triggers,” such as sinking air over the Atlantic that suppresses wind (which in turn mitigates wind shear) and a favorable Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), are also required. On rare occasions, all of the ingredients align in almost perfect fashion. And, à la 2005, that’s exactly what happened in 2020.
Of course, the number of storms alone has many climate doomsayers heading for the fainting couch. But meteorologist Joe Bastardi thinks not only that global warming is natural but that it results in a lowering of barometric pressure at higher latitudes. This in turn distorts the surface pattern elsewhere and changes the global wind oscillation, both of which may be affecting the intensity of long-tracked storms, meaning they actually aren’t as strong overall as they are near the coast. (More on storm intensity below.) Conversely, he does also note that, given the right conditions, hurricanes that form close to land may indeed feed off the warmer ocean waters, which is why his company, WeatherBELL Analytics, was bullish on a high-impact year.
We’d also be remiss not to mention the astounding hurricane lull we experienced after the 2005 hurricane onslaught.
Technology. When all is said and done, 2005 and 2020 will hold the first- and second-place records (the order is still to be determined) for named storms. However, note that both of these years also fall in the satellite era (1965 and after). Pre-satellite-era hurricane archives aren’t necessarily inaccurate, but neither are they necessarily complete. To pretend as if we know exactly what all transpired during the hurricane season of, say, 1885 is like arguing that Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in for the 2016 election. You might think you know, but you never actually know. There are variables that we sometimes cannot see.
Overly ambitious on naming storms. This hurricane season, in addition to past years, featured a few named storms that had meteorologists scratching their heads. This was due to the fact that these “fish” storms, as they’re known, were named based on satellite presentation. The biggest problem with this method is that it risks the likelihood of unnecessarily inflating the number of storms in any given season. Because they often lack airplane reconnaissance, there’s a strong possibility that some of these oftentimes pathetic- and ragged-looking storms out in the middle of the ocean may fall under the actual tropical-naming threshold. This becomes even more of an issue in seasons like this when records and messaging are on the line.
Energy index isn’t all that impressive. Meteorologists use what’s called Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) to estimate the severity of a hurricane season in its totality. In an average year, storms generate an ACE index of roughly 95. To date, we’re in the neighborhood of 140. That’s a very big number, but it’s far below the 1933 record of approximately 259. Even the 2005 ACE index of 250 is considerably more than what we have so far in 2020. Furthermore, according to Bastardi, this season’s tropical systems are generating an average ACE index of just under 6. In the 1950s, the average was over 10 per storm. Amazingly, hurricanes during the 1926 season averaged an ACE of over 20. There were fewer storms during these timeframes, but they were also more intense. Keep in mind too that while we’re experiencing more storms in the 21st century, many of them are developing in the middle of the ocean, posing little or no threat to land.
Current major hurricane landfalls are historically infrequent. A major hurricane is defined as Category 3 or higher. Believe it or not, we’ve witnessed just four major hurricane hits this decade, which is tied for the lowest number in the last 100 years.
The bottom line is that we would all be wise to treat this season as nothing more than what it is: unusually active, but not an omen.
Update: This article originally stated that Florida was Ground Zero in 2005, but that’s not an accurate claim. Hurricane Katrina, while causing extensive damage in Florida first, went on to obliterate New Orleans and adjacent areas, ultimately producing a mind-boggling $125 billion in damage and nearly 2,000 deaths. Hurricane Wilma substantially affected Florida in 2005 as well, but 2004 is the more memorable season for residents of that state, who had to suffer through four major hurricane landfalls. The original statement has been stricken for clarity.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/74521-perspective-on-a-doozy-of-a-hurricane-season-2020-10-30
Biden's National Clean Electricity Standard is a Disaster for *Renewable* Energy
If you happen to peruse Joe Biden’s campaign website, you will find a laundry list of “Biden Plans” for everything from ending racism to reintroducing the failed Cash for Clunkers program for electric vehicles. Among these patently ridiculous proposals sits a seemingly innocuous promise to “establish a technology-neutral Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES) for utilities and grid operators.” But behind its sweet sounding title, creating a national EECES could prove to be a disaster for the energy sector.
In short, Biden’s plan entails transitioning the entire US energy grid to green production sources. To do so, Biden has already promised to spend $2 trillion in “accelerated investment” during his first term, not even half of the $4.5 trillion WoodMac estimates a total decarbonization of our grid would cost. Of course, this money has some heavy strings attached.
In order to force a so-called “clean energy revolution in America,” Biden would create a new federal EECES, presumably based on one of the 29 state level EECES currently in existence. These standards require that some portion of utility sales come from either low-carbon sources, like natural gas plants using carbon capture, or zero-carbon production, like wind or solar. While these state-level standards have been one driver of growth in renewable energy production, they have come at an incredibly high cost for consumers and have failed to achieve their goal of significantly reducing carbon emissions.
A study out of the University of Chicago in 2019 confirmed this. Analyzing data from all 29 states and the District of Columbia, this study found that Renewable Portfolio Standards (another name for EECES) have indeed “increase[d] renewable generation,” but have also resulted in “significantly increased retail electricity prices.”
Perhaps more importantly for environmentalists, the authors further found that the “cost of abating carbon emissions through an RPS policy is...several times higher than conventional estimates of the benefits of reducing a metric ton of CO2 emissions, a measure known as the social cost of carbon (SCC).” As the study notes, “the cost of abating carbon emissions through an RPS policy is...as much as $460 per metric ton.” By contrast, the Obama administration pegged the SCC at around $50 per metric ton. In other words, the cost of abating carbon emissions through EECES is significantly higher than through other market-based means.
To make matters worse, EECES are constantly in flux, swept along in the political battle over the environment. Because of consumer demand, several states actually exceeded their standards before the statutory deadline. Instead of congratulating the industry, instead states “have responded by setting increasingly aggressive requirements.” Environmentalist progressives ensure that this cycle never ends, creating a perpetual barrier for an industry that is already transitioning towards renewable energy.
Unfortunately, a whopping 64 percent of the electricity sold in the United States is already under some form of state EECES. But now Joe Biden wants to take the worst of the worst of environmental policy and make it a national standard.
Anytime the federal government decides to swoop in and fix what they perceive as the world’s problems they inevitably end up picking winners and losers. This remains true of EECES. Mandating top-down standards to reduce carbon emissions is not just a burden on the energy sector, but also inefficient at achieving their purpose. This is just another example of Democrats attempting to solve a problem that the markets are already addressing.
Consumer demand and innovation are already driving our transition to renewable energy more than federal mandates can. In the past decade, wind production has more than tripled, and total renewables production has more than doubled. Although some of this growth can be attributed to tax breaks and government mandates, the vast majority of growth has come from the market. According to Deloitte, the renewable energy industry began 2020 with “a new phase of growth driven largely by increasing customer demand, cost competitiveness, innovation, and collaboration.”
Biden's ridiculous proposition that a new national EECES would simultaneously ”cut electricity bills and cut electricity pollution,” is blatantly ignorant. The Biden campaign ignores the fact that the costs of similar top-down mandates on energy producers and other industries have traditionally been passed directly on to the consumer. They further ignore that EECES have been one of the least cost-efficient ways to reduce carbon emissions. There are much better things that we could spend $2 trillion in taxpayers’ money on than subsidizing a transition of our energy grid that is already underway.
https://www.freedomworks.org/content/bidens-national-clean-electricity-standard-disaster-renewable-energy
Why the next truck you see may be a quiet, zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell rig
Hydrogen is normally obtained from natural gas -- a "fossil" fuel -- so Greenies may be yet again be dissatisfied with this. There is no such thing as a happy Greenie. Dissatisfaction is their claim on relevance
The 3.7 million heavy-duty trucks that ship goods to consumers, haul raw materials across the country and transport components for manufacturers have long been powered by diesel engines that emit pollution and create significant road noise.
But an ambitious startup and several established automakers are promising to deliver hydrogen-powered semitrucks that would create zero harmful pollutants, emitting only water vapor, and no engine noise but for the whirl of an electric motor.
The bottom line? Living next to a highway with trucks could eventually become a much more pleasant experience – but only if the promise of hydrogen fuel cells finally pays off after decades of development.
“They’re quiet. The emissions, the environmental impact, the noise – these are really great benefits for just the person that sees it on the road day to day,” said Yuval Steiman, director of corporate planning for Hyundai, which recently projected there will be 12,000 hydrogen trucks on the road in the U.S. by 2030. That would represent less than 1% of heavy-duty trucks on the road.
How a typical hydrogen vehicle works
Hydrogen vehicles run on electricity created through an on-board fuel cell that generates zero emissions.
For years, the technology made theoretical sense, yet a lack of hydrogen fuel pumps largely limited its reach. But advancements in hydrogen technology and an emphasis on beginning the technological rollout with heavy-duty trucks instead of cars is beginning to make fuel cell vehicles a reality.
“Hydrogen, which never made sense to me as a consumer powertrain, makes complete sense as a heavy-duty commercial powertrain,” said Karl Brauer, an automotive analyst at vehicle-research site iSeeCars.com, referring to a vehicle's engine and other parts that propel it.
The stakes for the truck manufacturing industry are significant: The sector is projected to have $27.5 billion in 2020 revenue, employ more than 25,000 workers and pay $1.7 billion in wages, according to research firm IBISWorld. A shift in powertrains could require the industry to overhaul how it sources components, hires workers and meets regulatory standards.
Several companies are driving the trend, including Toyota
The Japanese company is the leading seller of hydrogen cars in the U.S., with the Toyota Mirai midsize sedan starting at around $59,000. It sold more than 1,500 units of the vehicle in 2019, mostly to customers in California who live close enough to hydrogen fueling stations to make it feasible. The 1,500 units sold represent a fraction of a percent of the total vehicles sold in the U.S.
Now, the company is moving into semitrucks. Earlier this month, Toyota announced a deal with truck maker Hino to jointly develop hydrogen fuel cell trucks for the North American market. The trucks will get the Toyota Mirai’s hydrogen fuel cell technology and Hino’s vehicle body, with plans to deliver a “demonstration vehicle” in the first half of 2021. That deal comes after Toyota in 2019 announced a separate collaboration with Kenworth Truck to develop heavy-duty hydrogen trucks for North America.
“We’re at that tipping point,” said Andrew Lund, chief engineer of heavy-duty trucks for Toyota. “The technology has proven to be available.”
Like Toyota and Honda, Hyundai has been working on hydrogen fuel cells for years, including recently selling the technology as the Nexo SUV, which starts at about $59,000 and gets 350 miles on a tank of hydrogen.
Earlier this month, the Korean automaker announced it had delivered the first units of its new hydrogen-powered heavy-duty truck, the Xcient, to customers in Switzerland. The company expects to ramp up production capacity of 2,000 units per year by 2021 with plans to bring hydrogen trucks to the U.S. through a $1.3 billion investment in hydrogen infrastructure here.
Hyundai expects to become “the world’s first company to mass produce heavy-duty fuel cell trucks,” Steiman said. “We have the vision of this hydrogen society and we think this is bigger than cars, this is bigger than trucks. This is really a power source that can have a lot of implications for the future.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/10/26/hydrogen-trucks-nikola-gm-toyota-hyundai-zero-emissions/5981340002/
Australia’s gas plan will push the Reef to extinction
A brainless Greenpeace emission below. Give them their assumptions and they would be right. But all their assumptions are at best dubious.
For instance, bleaching is mostly caused by sea-level fluctuations: Low level episodes in particular. They make no effort to look at that, They just regurgitate conventional assumptions
And coral is very good at regrowing so bleaching from whatever cause is never permanent. Even Warmist Ove Hoegh Guldberg noted that rapid regrowth
After three mass bleaching events in the last five years, the Great Barrier Reef is not as great as it once was. Now, as Australia attempts to rebuild from the economic fallout of COVID-19, a new threat has emerged which could threaten the world’s largest living organism even further.
Scientists have made it clear that the blame for warmer and more acidic oceans lies on coal, the number one driver of climate change. But now that the Australian Federal government is pushing for a so-called “gas-led recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of gas in the Reef’s demise can no longer go unscrutinised.
Rather than heeding the best advice of scientists and switching Australia from polluting coal and gas to clean energy sources like wind and solar, the Australian Federal Government is instead laying the groundwork to replace one destructive fossil fuel with another. If the government’s gas dreams become reality, the implications for the Reef could be cataclysmic.
In its 2019 Production Gap Report, the UN warned that in order to keep global heating at 1.5 degrees, gas production must decline by 20 percent by 2030.
“The continued rapid expansion of gas supplies and systems risks locking in a much higher gas trajectory than is consistent with a 1.5 degree Celsius or 2 degree Celsius future,” the report reads.
“These declines mean that most of the world’s proven fossil-fuel reserves must be left unburned.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the impact of 1.5C of global warming found that coral reefs would likely decline between 70% and 90% if the temperature increased to that level. If global warming reaches 2C, more than 99% of coral reefs could be wiped out.
Climate change expert and researcher at the Australian National University, Professor Will Steffen, was unequivocal that gas has already damaged the Reef and expanding the industry would only make that damage worse.
“There is no doubt that climate change is the primary driver of the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef,” Professor Steffen said.
“Climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels like gas, so there is a direct link between the greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s gas industry, whether the gas is burned in Australia or elsewhere in the world, and the degradation and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257705-australias-gas-plan-will-push-the-reef-to-extinction/
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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For the notes appearing at the side of the original blog see HERE
Pictures put up on a blog sometimes do not last long. They stay up only as long as the original host keeps them up. Some newsapers keep their published pictures online for as little as a week. I therefore keep archives of all the pictures that I use. The recent archives are online and are in two parts:
Archive of side pictures here
Archive of this year's pictures in the body of the blog. Note that the filename of the picture is clickable and reflects the date on which the picture was posted. See here