This document is part of an archive of postings on Greenie Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written

This is a backup copy of the original blog





30 November, 2021

EPA Revisiting Soot Standards It Previously Found Adequate

U.S. EPA Revisiting Soot Standards It Previously Found Adequate

The administration of President Joe Biden has announced it was reconsidering national soot standards that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had determined in 2020 adequately protected public health.

Imposing stricter soot-standards would allow the administration to indirectly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and industrial facilities, without having to get legislative approval.

Changes Reject Scientific Findings

The EPA is considering lowering annual average exposure standard for Particulate Matter (PM) from 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air to as low as 8 micrograms, and the 24-hour standard from 35 micrograms down to 30 micrograms.

A careful review of the existing scientific data concerning the links between existing PM standards and public health, carried out as required by law under the Trump administration, found current standard adequately protected public health.

Citing no new data, the EPA’s draft policy assessment now finds long- and short-term exposure to soot or PM, at current levels, is associated with adverse health effects. As a result, EPA has concluded the current standards must be tightened in order to protect the public.

The change in the EPA’s scientific assessment is likely to result in many areas falling out of attainment of the 1970 Clean Air Act.

Earlier Data Driven Decision

On April 14, 2020, the EPA announced, that after carefully reviewing the best available evidence, the agency would retain, without changes, the existent standards for soot.

“Based on review of the scientific literature and recommendation from our independent science advisors, we are proposing to retain existing [PM] standards which will ensure the continued protection of both public health and the environment.” said Andrew Wheeler, EPA administrator in a statement at the time of the decision.

EPA’s decision to maintain PM standards at existing levels in 2020 was based on science, said Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) press release issued at the time.

“EPA’s decision is scientifically justified and will promote economic recovery and growth,” said Flores. “The EPA’s decision to retain current [PM] standards, without changes, rightly reflects the long-term trend data of dramatically decreased particulate matter as well as the needs of our state and local governments.”

EPA Undermining Science

The obtain its climate policy goals the Biden administration upending its science advisory board and science standards, says John Dale Dunn, a physician, lawyer, and a policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, which co-publishes Environment & Climate News.

“The EPA’s goal is to change a number of air pollution standards and to reconstitute the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC),” Dunn said. “There’s a lawsuit in motion filed by a number of members of the former CASAC, who like me, are upset the EPA is throwing away good scientific analyses for bulls— political reasons”

SOURCE

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Scottish policy: Encourage rapid and extensive forestry. Scottish reality: Forests in Scotland can be net emitters of greenhouse gases

Greenie idiocy causes bogs to be preferred to trees

When Jeremy Leggett bought the 1,200-acre Bunloit Estate, overlooking Loch Ness, he discovered an inconvenient truth. A green and pleasant place, with extensive woodlands — the kind most people assume will help to save the planet — was, in fact, doing the opposite. His calculations found that it was a net source of greenhouse-gas emissions; far from curbing climate change, Bunloit was encouraging it.

The problem Leggett identified was trees: too many of them, planted in the wrong place, preventing the magnificent peatland beneath from doing the job it is best at: absorbing carbon emissions. He set about cutting down his conifer plantations.

One of the most comprehensive-ever assessments of the carbon held on a Scottish estate has shown that rewilding the landscape to its natural state could help it store more carbon and increase biodiversity.

The Bunloit Estate covers 1200 acres in the hills above Loch Ness.

By using drone-mounted lasers to scan trees and surveying the extent and depth of peat, scientists were able to measure the amount of stored carbon.

They found the estate held the equivalent of 1.234 million tonnes of carbon.

That's the roughly 2% of Scotland's annual carbon footprint.

The analysis has already led to radical action, with some trees being cut down for the good of the planet.

Figures showed peatland covered in commercial spruce plantations was so dry and damaged that it was releasing more greenhouse gases than the trees were absorbing.

By felling the spruce and allowing the peat to return to its natural boggy state there would be a net benefit of 60,000 tonnes of carbon stored over the next 100 years.

Nicola Williamson, a ranger on the estate, told Sky News: "It's a bit counter-intuitive.

"But we have to take down plantations planted in the wrong places like our peatland bogs and restore that as a habitat in itself.

"And we have to manage our woodlands better so they are meeting biodiversity targets."

Camera traps on the estate show there are already pine martens, red squirrel, and wild boar.

But restoring more mixed woodland would encourage a broad range of species to thrive.

Bunloit is at the eastern end of what could be a 500,000 acre forest stretching all the way to the Atlantic.

The project is being driven by the charity Trees for Life, which says a quarter of the estates in the Affric Highlands area have signed up.

SOURCE

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Michigan Gov. Whitmer Sparks an International Pipeline Dispute between the United States

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is doubling-down on her efforts to shut down a key oil and natural gas liquids pipeline running between Superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Ontario.

Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline traverses parts of northern Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and the 4.5-mile-long floor of the Straights of Mackinac connecting Lakes Michigan and Lake Huron. Line 5 has for nearly 70 years safely transported hydrocarbons from western Canada to markets in the Great Lakes region of the United States.

Line 5 moves more than a half a million barrels of oil and natural gas liquids a day throughout the Great Lakes region.

Shutdown or Not

Whitmer ordered Line 5’s twin pipelines to shut down in 2020, saying they pose a grave threat to the Great Lakes because of the possibility of oil spills.

Enbridge, the Calgary-based company that operates the pipeline, refused, saying Whitmer lacked the legal authority to unilaterally order the closure of the pipeline which is involved in interstate and international commerce.

Canada asked the Biden administration to intervene and overrule Whitmer, invoking a dispute-resolution article of a 1977 treaty governing pipelines between it and the United States.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge for Western Michigan Janet Neff, Gordon Griffin, a lawyer representing the Canadian government, cited an article in the treaty which states: “No public authority in the territory of either Party shall institute any measures … which are intended to, or which have the effect of, impeding, diverting, redirecting, or interfering with in any way the transmission of hydrocarbons in transit.”

Whitmer Remains Defiant

Whitmer pointed to a 2010 incident at a separate Enbridge pipeline that ruptured in southwestern Michigan to support her claim that Line 5 pipeline should be permanently closed because it threatens the Great Lakes’ unique environmental amenities.

“So long as oil is flowing through the pipelines, there is a very real threat of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes,” said Whitmer in a statement. “I have made clear to Enbridge that is cannot use our state-owned lakebed for these pipelines, but Enbridge has refused to stop. “Moreover, rather than taking steps to diversify energy supply and ensure resilience, Canada has channeled its efforts into defending an oil company with an abysmal environmental track record,” Whitmer said.

Enbridge paid a stiff fine for the 2010 incident and remediated the affected area.

In a 2021 analysis of the pipeline, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for overseeing Line 5, said it is “presently aware of no unsafe or hazardous conditions that would warrant shutdown of Line 5.”

The bilateral dispute is playing out in the wake of the Biden administration’s cancellation earlier this year of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have brought crude oil from northeastern Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

That move cost thousands of jobs in both countries and brought a public rebuke protest from the Canadian government to the then newly installed Biden administration.

“A Green Political Stunt”

Pipelines are regulated by the federal government, including the right of eminent domain, for good reason, because the Constitution delegates to Congress the sole authority to regulation interstate commerce,” says David Wojick, Ph.D., an independent energy analyst who often writes for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), co-publisher of Environment & Climate News.

“Pipelines are the embodiment of interstate commerce, often passing through several states in order to serve many,” Wojick said. “In this case, the pipeline is not just interstate; it is international.

“We work closely with Canada; for instance, cars are manufactured in Sarnia for the U.S. market,” said Wojick. “Michigan’s action is nothing more than a green political stunt.”

Policies Contradict Stated Goals

The efforts by Whitmer and the Biden administration to shut down pipelines and end oil and gas use undermine their stated goals of creating jobs and growing the economy, says Jason Hayes, director of environmental policy at Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“Both the Whitmer and the Biden administrations appear confused,” said Hayes. “Biden claims he wants to ‘build back better,’ and Whitmer, through her ‘MI New Economy Plan’ claims she wants to grow Michigan’s middle class and support its small businesses, but their energy policies are doing the exact opposite.

“Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline in his first days in office and his administration has chosen to remain on the sidelines as Whitmer’s crusade against Line 5 threatens to spike energy prices and actually harms our relationship with Canada, America’s largest trading partner,” Hayes said.

Whitmer and Biden have options that are better for the environment and the economy, says Hayes.

“This is all so unnecessary, because both Biden and Whitmer could focus their administrations on building the Line 5 tunnel,” said Hayes. “Doing this would better protect the waterways of the Great Lakes and maintain an essential piece of the nation’s energy infrastructure.

“Instead, Whitmer appears blindly committed to raising energy prices and putting tens of thousands of Midwesterners out of work, and, for his part, Biden appears content to go on bended knee to Vladimir Putin and the leaders of OPEC asking them to act to bring more oil supplies to the market as he simultaneously squeezes the life out of the American oil and gas industry,” Hayes said.

SOURCE

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Australia: Family moves to Canberra to escape ‘atrocious’ temperatures in Western Sydney

She might be disappointed. Canberra is pretty hot in summer

Sydney has always been a hot place. As Watkin Tench recorded, it got so hot in 1790 (Yes. 1790. not 1970) that birds and bats were falling out of the trees dead. And that was in coastal Sydney. Inland has always been even hotter. So the lady's claim that she is escaping anthropogenic climate change is tendentious. There were no SUVs or power stations in 1790

An Australian climate scientist who specialises in heatwaves has told of how she moved her family to a new city to escape “atrocious” temperatures due to climate change.

University of NSW climate scientist Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick shared her story in the documentary series Life at 50 Degrees, available to stream on Flash News.

The mother of two said she was so concerned about the extreme temperatures her family endured where they lived in western Sydney, that she made the decision to relocate.

“I have experienced days of 45 and 47 degrees celsius and that was appalling, it was atrocious. You couldn’t do anything,” Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said. “The only way we could stay cool in Western Sydney was to have the aircon running all day and that was a hard thing for me to do.”

She said she made the extreme decision to move her family to Canberra, where the climate is much cooler, for her daughters, aged 2 and 4.

“It really bothers me that the world that they’re experiencing now is a lot different from my childhood,” she said.

“During my first pregnancy, it was so hot that I actually struggled to put the washing on the line. “While I was literally about to bring this child into the world, I was thinking what will the summers be like for her in the future.”

According to Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, temperatures in Western Sydney already experience 10 degrees higher than in the city’s eastern suburbs. The region’s local government areas (LGAs) including Penrith, where Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick was living, are expected to be the worst affected with a forecast of an average of four extra days of extreme heat by around 2050.

The climate scientist said the outlook for the area forced her to take action and make the move. “As a scientist, I know how bad the future looks. I understand all that, I comprehend all that. That’s what I do for a living,” she said.

“But as a mum, as a person, as a human being, I really struggle with just how bad those impacts will be.”

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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29 November, 2021

'Carbon Pipeline' to Cut Through Corn Belt Farmland; Eminent Domain on the Table for Landowners Who Won't Accept

A carbon dioxide pipeline project is being developed across several Midwestern states, including eastern Iowa, but it may have to be built using eminent domain

Navigator CO2 Ventures, based in Texas, is proposing a 1,300-mile line pipeline that takes carbon dioxide from fertilizer and ethanol plants.

Navigator would consider using eminent domain— if Iowa officials will allow it — if farmers do not agree to provide easements to let the line go across their lands, according to The Gazette , a newspaper in Cedar Rapids.

The way the project works is that the gas is pressurized and liquified and sent to a place in western Illinois. The plan calls for the carbon to be injected into rock formations, where, according to the theory behind the project, it calcifies and never gets into the air.

The theory remains unproven, and some are skeptical or concerned about the possible impacts of the pipeline on their land.

“All things considered, it seems like a bad idea,” said Marian Kuper, 68, who lives with her husband Keith near Ackley, Iowa.

The $3 billion project claims it will bury 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

A similar project, developed by Summit Carbon Solutions, cuts through parts of western Iowa on its 2,000-mile route.

The idea is a money-maker, in theory, for ethanol plants that want lower carbon scores for their fuels to sell in states such as California and Oregon, with low-carbon fuel standards.

A federal tax credit would give out up to $50 a metric ton for permanently stored carbon.

The companies are pushing the idea as a way to benefit everybody.

“These projects have a unique touchpoint to the agricultural community,” Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, a Navigator vice president, told The Gazette.

Burns-Thompson said the idea “has the potential to help keep those (ethanol and fertilizer) plants vital not only for years to come, but decades to come.”

Navigator’s pipeline would be buried at least 5 feet underground, Burns-Thompson said.

“The best way to minimize risk is to go a little bit deeper,” she said. “Then you minimize some of those risks of a line strike.”

State regulators everywhere the line goes, which includes Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Illinois, must sign off on the project.

The company hopes to start construction in 2023.

SOURCE

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Why the Energy Transition Will Be So Complicated

To appreciate the complexities of the competing demands between climate action and the continued need for energy, consider the story of an award—one that the recipient very much did not want and, indeed, did not bother to pick up.

It began when Innovex Downhole Solutions, a Texas-based company that provides technical services to the oil and gas industry, ordered 400 jackets from North Face with its corporate logo. But the iconic outdoor-clothing company refused to fulfill the order. North Face describes itself as a “politically aware” brand that will not share its logo with companies that are in “tobacco, sex (including gentlemen’s clubs) and pornography.” And as far as North Face is concerned, the oil and gas industry fell into that same category—providing jackets to a company in that industry would go against its values. Such a sale would, it said, be counter to its “goals and commitments surrounding sustainability and environmental protection,” which includes a plan to use increasing amounts of recycled and renewable materials in its garments in future years.

But, as it turns out, North Face’s business depends not only on people who like the outdoors, but also on oil and gas: At least 90 percent of the materials in its jackets are made from petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas. Moreover, many of its jackets and the materials that go into them are made in countries such as China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, and then shipped to the United States in vessels that are powered by oil. To muddy matters further, not long before North Face rejected the request, its corporate owner had built a new hangar at a Denver airport for its corporate jets, all of which run on jet fuel. To spotlight the obvious contradiction, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association presented its first ever Customer Appreciation Award to North Face for being “an extraordinary oil and gas customer.” That’s the award North Face spurned.

Read: Ultra-fast fashion is eating the world

Different people will draw different conclusions from this episode. Central to the response to climate change is the transition from carbon fuels to renewables and hydrogen, augmented by carbon capture. This was highlighted at the historic COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, which emphasized the need for urgency and a greater ambition on climate backed by a host of significant initiatives, including carbon markets, and country pledges of carbon neutrality by 2050 or a decade or two thereafter. The North Face story, however, offers a difficult reminder that the energy transition is a whole lot more complicated than may be recognized.

A New Energy Crisis

As if to remind us of the complexities, a most unwelcome guest appeared on the doorstep of the Glasgow conference: an energy crisis that has gripped Europe and Asia. Energy crises traditionally begin with oil, but this recent one has been driven by shortages of coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG). That sent prices spiking, disrupting electricity supplies in China, which then led to the rationing of electricity there, the closing of factories, and further disruptions of the supply chains that send goods to America.

In Europe, the energy shortages were made worse by low wind speeds in the North Sea, which for a time drastically reduced the electricity produced by offshore wind turbines for Britain and Northern Europe. Gas, coal, and power prices shot up—as much as seven times in the case of LNG. Factories, unable to afford the suddenly high energy costs, stopped production, among them plants in Britain and Europe making fertilizers needed for next spring’s agricultural season.

Trailing the other fuels, oil prices reached the $80 range. With a tightening balance between supply and demand, some were warning that oil could exceed $100 a barrel. Gasoline prices have hit levels in the United States that alarm politicians, who know that such increases are bad for incumbents. That—along with worsening inflation—is why the Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia and Russia to put more oil into the market, so far to no avail. The administration then announced, on the eve of Thanksgiving, the largest-ever release of oil from the U.S. government’s strategic petroleum reserve, in coordination with other countries, to temper prices.

Is this energy shock a one-off resulting from a unique conjunction of circumstances? Or is it the first of what will be several crises resulting from straining too hard to bring 2050 carbon-reduction goals rapidly forward—potentially prematurely choking off investment in hydrocarbons, thus triggering future shocks? If it’s a onetime event, then the world will move on in a few months. But if it is followed by further energy shortages, governments could be forced to rethink the timing and approach to their climate goals. The current shock offered just such an example: Although Britain is calling for an end to coal, it was nevertheless forced to restart a mothballed coal-powered plant to help make up for the electricity shortage.

Jean Pisani-Ferry, a French economist and sometime adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron, is among the most prominent voices pointing to the consequences that could result from trying to move too fast. In August, before the current energy crisis began, he warned that going into overdrive on transitioning away from fossil fuels would lead to major economic shocks similar to the oil crises that rocked the global economy in the 1970s. “Policymakers,” he wrote, “should get ready for tough choices.”

A Different Energy Transition

The term energy transition somehow sounds like it is a well-lubricated slide from one reality to another. In fact, it will be far more complex: Throughout history, energy transitions have been difficult, and this one is even more challenging than any previous shift. In my book The New Map, I peg the beginning of the first energy transition to January 1709, when an English metalworker named Abraham Darby figured out that he could make better iron by using coal rather than wood for heat. But that first transition was hardly swift. The 19th century is known as the “century of coal,” but, as the technology scholar Vaclav Smil has noted, not until the beginning of the 20th century did coal actually overtake wood as the world’s No. 1 energy source. Moreover, past energy transitions have also been “energy additions”—one source atop another. Oil, discovered in 1859, did not surpass coal as the world’s primary energy source until the 1960s, yet today the world uses almost three times as much coal as it did in the ’60s.

The coming energy transition is meant to be totally different. Rather than an energy addition, it is supposed to be an almost complete switch from the energy basis of today’s $86 trillion world economy, which gets 80 percent of its energy from hydrocarbons. In its place is intended to be a net-carbon-free energy system, albeit one with carbon capture, for what could be a $185 trillion economy in 2050. To do that in less than 30 years—and accomplish much of the change in the next nine—is a very tall order.

Here is where the complexities become clear. Beyond outerwear, the degree to which the world depends on oil and gas is often not understood. It’s not just a matter of shifting from gasoline-powered cars to electric ones, which themselves, by the way, are about 20 percent plastic. It’s about shifting away from all the other ways we use plastics and other oil and gas derivatives. Plastics are used in wind towers and solar panels, and oil is necessary to lubricate wind turbines. The casing of your cellphone is plastic, and the frames of your glasses likely are too, as well as many of the tools in a hospital operating room. The air frames of the Boeing 787, Airbus A350, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet are all made out of high-strength, petroleum-derived carbon fiber. The number of passenger planes is expected to double in the next two decades. They are also unlikely to fly on batteries.

Oil products have been crucial for dealing with the pandemic too, from protective gear for emergency staff to the lipids that are part of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Have a headache? Acetaminophen—including such brands as Tylenol and Panadol—is a petroleum-derived product. In other words, oil and natural-gas products are deeply embedded throughout modern life.

SOURCE

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BBC Crushes Climate Debate, Pushes Science Denial

BBC News carried two articles last week denigrating and demonizing the critics of climate-change alarmism.

The first was by Marianna Spring, the BBC’s ‘specialist disinformation reporter’. That is an apt title, as that is precisely what she writes; disinformation.

She asserted that criticism of environmentalism was being fueled by ‘right-wing conspiracy theorists’ who had switched ‘from Covid denial to climate denial’. Only someone who leans hard the other way would make such a statement.

And the second came from reporters Rachel Schraer and Kayleen Devlin, who are both a part of the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ team of politically-motivated ‘fact-checkers’.

They claimed to have exposed ‘the truth behind the new climate-change denial’.

Both articles are travesties of journalism.

Take Schraer and Devlin’s piece, which claims to debunk four claims supposedly made by climate deniers: that a ‘Grand Solar Minimum’ will halt global warming; global warming is good; climate-change action will make people poorer; renewable energy is dangerously unreliable.

Despite the article’s dismissive approach, it completely fails to debunk what are plausible claims. For instance, the ‘Grand Solar Minimum’ – when the Sun gives off less energy as part of its natural cycle – is, as the article admits, a real phenomenon.

Whether it will reduce the Earth’s global temperatures by a significant enough amount to offset the current warming period is up for debate, but it is a debate worth having.

To write off theories of solar influence on climate in two perfunctory paragraphs, when there is still so much to research and understand, seems highly questionable.

Or take the claim that global warming is ‘good’. There is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that a warming climate is not the terrible catastrophe many hype it up to be. Cold kills 15 times as many as warmth.

Indeed, thanks to social and economic progress, fewer people today die or suffer from events and phenomena attributable to the climate than at any point in the past. And there is plenty of reason to think that such progress will continue in the future.

And what of the claim that climate-change action will make people poorer? Again, that seems like a fair comment. After all, it is precisely because of the impoverishing consequences of decarbonization targets that so many developing nations are resistant to them – as the failure of COP26 to eliminate coal power showed.

And as for renewable energy, it is unreliable precisely because much of it depends on the weather. If the conditions aren’t right, then wind turbines or solar panels do not produce energy.

This is not a crack-pot theory. It is a simple fact.

Marianna Spring’s article is arguably more wrong-headed still. She contends that Covid conspiracy theorists have moved on from the pandemic to spread conspiracy theories about climate change.

Spring argues that the so-called deniers claim the climate, like Covid, is being used by a shadowy elite to establish a New World Order. But the article goes beyond criticizing ‘conspiracy theories’.

Spring claims that the notion of a ‘climate lockdown’ – that is, the ‘idea that in the future we might have Covid-style lockdowns to counteract climate change’ – is ‘completely unfounded.’

The only problem with this narrative is that, as I reported on spiked in 2020, it wasn’t a rag-tag band of conspiracy nuts who first connected Covid to climate change in this way.

It was environmentalists themselves, aided and abetted by the great and the good.

Indeed, almost from the moment we were first locked down in spring 2020, greens speculated about the possibility of using something akin to a lockdown in order to remake society along ‘sustainable’ lines.

In September last year, economist Mariana Mazzucato even used the phrase ‘climate lockdown’ when speculating about the need for ‘a radical overhaul of corporate governance, finance, policy and energy systems.’

And in April this year, Time ran the headline, ‘The pandemic remade every corner of society. Now it’s the climate’s turn.’ If anything, all the Covid-cum-climate conspiracy theorists have done is take politicians’, journalists’, and activists’ arguments at face value.

But there’s something else about these two BBC articles that tell us much about journalism and the green agenda today. That is, they both ground their claims on the views of political campaigners – which they then pass off as neutral, expert opinion.

For instance, both draw substantially on the views of Jennie King, senior policy manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). The ISD is a think tank devoted to combating ‘extremist movements, hate groups and conspiracy-theory networks worldwide’.

This is not a neutral organization. It is a politically driven one, in which what it views as ‘extremism’ encompasses not just neo-Nazis, but also people concerned about the effects of wind turbines on bird populations.

It demonizes criticism of the green agenda as ‘extremism’.

SOURCE

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‘Vandals’: Australian States fume over federal climate intervention

The Morrison government has used sweeping new powers to override state and territory government support for an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The federal government has deployed recently passed laws to overturn the participation of five states and territories in the global Under 2 Coalition.

In an email dated 23 November, an official with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told his counterpart in the Victorian government that its participation in the coalition was “no longer in operation”.

The email warned the Victorian government that under the new Foreign Relations (States and Territories) Act 2020, sign up to the agreement was now illegitimate.

The email said Victoria had 14 days to tell the global organisation it had “failed to properly classify” the state’s involvement in a 2015 Memorandum of Understanding.

Two-hundred-and-sixty sub-national governments worldwide have signed up to the the Under 2 coalition, representing 1.75 billion people and 50% of the global economy. Members commit to keeping global temperature rises to well below 2C, with efforts to reach 1.5C. Thirty-five states and regions in the coalition have committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier.

“[T]he MOU has also been invalidated for a number of other states and territories,” the official said, naming the ACT, Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia. He did not cite NSW, which has lately signed up.

Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s energy, environment and climate change minister, said Dfat had used a technicality that was “illogical” to cancel her state’s participation.

“It’s just a really ridiculous technicality,” D’Ambrosio said. “It’s egregious. They are vandals.”

The move came less than a fortnight after the Glasgow climate summit ended. The Morrison government had weathered extensive criticism at the event for being among the few rich nations to avoid raising their 2030 emission reduction targets.

“This is going to be a global embarrassment, not for the Victorian government but the federal government that has already covered itself in ridicule on the climate change stage,” D’Ambrosio said. “Rather than addressing the urgency of climate change, they are actually putting forward more barriers.”

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said the Under 2 Coalition MOU had not come to the minister for a decision.

“The MOU was not properly notified by the relevant states and territory under the Foreign Relations Act 2020 and was therefore automatically invalidated by operation of the Act,” the spokesperson said.

Dfat was also approached for comment, as was energy minister Angus Taylor.

The Dfat official suggested in the email if Victoria wanted to sign up to the Under 2 coalition’s 2021 MOU, his department would consider approving it. He also said Victoria should join with other jurisdictions to make a single submission.

“Under what conditions would they be prepared to consider an application?” D’Ambrosio said. “Are they saying that if there’s one or two states that maybe hadn’t wanted to pursue it or have delayed it, then everyone else will be held up?”

Meaghan Scanlon, Queensland’s minister for the environment and the Great Barrier Reef, said her state had also received the cancellation advice.

“Clearly, the Morrison government aren’t content with their own failures on climate change, they’re now trying to stop the states from taking action.” she said.

“Surely their time would be better spent funding renewable energy projects or delivering a credible policy on reducing emissions, than on playing silly bureaucratic games,” Scanlon said.

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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28 November, 2021

Study proves climate change driving Australia’s 800% boom in bushfires

This is a childish level of logic. There is no doubt that weather changes impact fires but PROVING that the weather changes are due to global warming shows no awarenes of the scientific and philosophical requirements for proving anything. As David Hume pointed out, you have to show constant conjunction between two things to substantiate a claim of causation and there is NO constant conjunction between any meteorological phenonena. Weak probabilities are all we have.

And there is no recognition below that Greenie restrictions on good forest management have increased the risk and severity of fires. There IS constant conjunction between restrictions on backburning and the severity of fires in the area

I have read the academic article concerned ("Multi-decadal increase of forest burned area in Australia is linked to climate change") and it goes to great length to prove what was in no doubt -- that fires have been on the increase in recent years

Of greater interest is what they found to correlate with fire incidence and severity. Their contribution there is assertions plus some desultory modelling. And the data they put into modelling is of the low quality that we have come to expect of modelling in this area. Let me quote their look at preventive burning:

We found no changes in the mean annual area of prescribed burning over the past 32 years, although we have no information on how successful those burns were in reducing fuel loads. However, given the lack of trend and the fact that on average, only 1% of forests are subject to fuel reduction burns every year, it is very likely that fuel management had no effect on the observed multi-decadal increasing trend in the burned area of forest fires

They correlate "prescribed" burning and admit that such figures tell us nothing. What is prescribed and what Greenies allow to happen are two different things. Their figures are clearly rubbish, as are their conclusions

But here is the clincher. I quote:

"The research also found Australia is bucking an international trend of decreasing fire activity"

If nobody else is getting the trend, how come it is due to global warming? Can you have global warming in one country? Is it global or is it not? Yet another logical failure in this pathetic study.

Climate change is the dominant factor causing the increased size of bushfires in Australia’s forests, according to a landmark study that found the average annual area burned had grown by 800 per cent in the past 32 years.

The peer-reviewed research by the national science agency, CSIRO — published in the prestigious science journal, Nature — reveals evidence showing changes in weather due to global warming were the driving force behind the boom in Australia’s bushfires.

Lead author and CSIRO chief climate research scientist Pep Canadell said the study established the correlation between the Forest Fire Danger Index – which measures weather-related vegetation dryness, air temperature, wind speed and humidity – and the rise in area of forest burned since the 1930s.

“It’s so tight, it’s so strong that clearly when we have these big fire events, they’re run by the climate and the weather,” Dr Canadell said.

The bushfire royal commission identified climate change as a key risk to ongoing bushfire catastrophe but did not make recommendations about reducing greenhouse emissions to curb the threat.

The CSIRO report found other factors have an impact on the extent and intensity of bushfires such as the amount of vegetation or fuel load in a forest, the time elapsed since the last fire, and hazard reduction burning. But Dr Canadell said the study showed the link between weather and climate conditions and the size of bushfires was so tight, it was clear these factors far outweighed all other fire drivers.

“Almost regardless of what we do the overall extent of the fire, really, is dictated by those climate conditions,” he said.

Climate scientists have found climate change is exacerbating the key fire risk factors identified by CSIRO’s study, with south-eastern Australia becoming hotter, drier and, in a particularly worrying trend, more prone to high wind on extremely hot and dry summer days.

The weather system that drove a blast furnace’s worth of westerly wind across NSW and Victoria’s forests, sparking some of the worst fires of the Black Summer in 2019-20, will be up to four times more likely to occur under forecast levels of global warming.

“All the various climate trends, which are so important, are all on the rise and they’re all connected to various degrees with anthropogenic climate change,” Dr Canadell said.

The study shows fires are becoming bigger and more common even when the Black Summer is not factored in. When the first half of the study period, from 1988 to 2001, is compared to the period between 2002 and 2018, the average annual forest burned area in Australia increased 350 per cent. That figured ramps up to 800 per cent when the fires of 2019-20, which burnt more than 24 million hectares of land, are included.

Mega-fires, which burn more than 1 million hectares, have “markedly” increased with three of the four recorded from 1930 occurring since 2000, while the gap between big blazes has had a “rapid decrease”, the study says.

Last year, the bushfire royal commission reported fuel-load management through hazard reduction burning “may have no appreciable effect under extreme conditions” that typically cause loss of life and property.

The CSIRO findings bolster that conclusion and call into question calls for native forest logging to be used as a bushfire management tool.

“This is happening regardless of anything that we might or might not do to try to stop the fires,” Dr Canadell said.

The increased frequency of bushfires is giving the bush less and less time to recover, which is changing ecosystems and threatening the survival of many plants and animals that are struggling to adapt to the pace of change and loss of habitat.

SOURCE

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Top-Selling Climate Funds Fail to Deliver on Carbon Emissions

Some of Europe’s most popular climate funds have been found to do no better at avoiding carbon emitters than a benchmark index with no environmental focus, according to new research.

A report by analytics provider Investment Metrics found that four of the seven best-selling European climate funds were more exposed to carbon emissions than the MSCI World Index, which tracks over 1600 of the biggest companies across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Funds that failed to beat the MSCI index include climate strategies managed by DWS Group, Franklin Resources Inc. and Lombard Odier Investment Management, according to Investment Metrics, which provides portfolio analytics and data to institutional investors and advisers representing $14 trillion.

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The findings underscore the difficulty climate-focused investors face when selecting funds with a view to reducing their carbon footprint. It also raises questions around labeling as financial products marketed as having an environmental, social and governance focus proliferate.

Concerns about greenwashing, a term given to exaggerated or misleading claims of ethical investing, have picked up this year as the ESG market mushrooms. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates ESG assets exceeded $35 trillion last year, and will soar past $50 trillion by 2025.

SOURCE

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Challenging the Left’s Climate Alarmism Narrative Is Daring and Dangerous

For decades, those pushing global warming/climate change have tried to silence any opposition to their narrative. Instead of debating the issue, the climate alarmists would rather tar and feather, figuratively speaking, anyone who is brave enough to challenge their assertions.

The most recent example occurred when Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) accused ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods of donating millions of dollars to The Heartland Institute.

Pressley calls Heartland a “shadow” organization, insinuating that Heartland simply does the bidding of Big Oil.

This, however, is completely untrue.

For several years, The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank, has been a thorn in the side of climate alarmists because Heartland has produced an extensive amount of scientific research that calls into questions many of the absurd, baseless claims made by the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry.

First, Heartland research on climate change has been cited more than 100 times in peer-reviewed journals.

Second, Heartland was opposing global warming alarmism long before ExxonMobil or any other energy company provided funding. Despite Pressley’s claim, Heartland actually ramped up its efforts after energy companies stopped providing funding.

ExxonMobil began donating to Heartland in 1998, four years after Heartland’s first book on global warming was published.

In fact, ExxonMobil stopped donating to Heartland in 2006, two years before Heartland hosted the first International Conference on Climate Change and three years before the first volume in the “Climate Change Reconsidered” series was published.

Third, Heartland has always had science on its side. Claims of a “scientific consensus” in favor of climate alarmism have been debunked again and again.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, Heartland’s flagship publications on climate change, the five-volume “Climate Change Reconsidered” series published with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) from 2009 to 2019, were produced without a dime of financial support from any corporations, energy or otherwise.

Yet, these facts don’t matter to the merchants of smear.

All accusations that oil industry funding somehow influenced or corrupted the work of climate scientists or organizations such as The Heartland Institute are based on lies originating in then-Sen. Al Gore’s office and then repeated endlessly in an echo chamber created by Greenpeace and activists posing as journalists in the so-called mainstream media.

In truth, the mission of The Heartland Institute when it comes to climate change is quite simple: follow the facts, not the feelings.

Heartland’s primary objective has always been to educate elected officials, civic and business leaders, and the general public about the true science and economics of climate change. Climate change is far from the only public policy issue in Heartland’s wheelhouse.

Heartland is a highly respected voice on health care, school reform, taxes and budget issues, and other public policy matters. State elected officials in all 50 states rely on Heartland as an objective and credible source of research and commentary on the most important issues of the day.

Moreover, The Heartland Institute doesn’t “deny climate change.” In fact, Heartland documents how climate has changed in the past and continues to change today, and studies its causes and consequences. Along with thousands of highly qualified scientists around the world, Heartland finds the human influence on climate to be small—probably too small to measure against the background of natural variability—and the case for restricting the use of fossil fuels to be very weak.

To be clear, Heartland’s position in the scientific debate, and that alone, is why Heartland has become the primary target of criticism from the Democratic Party and its cronies in the media. The left’s antipathy toward Heartland has little, if anything, to do with funding, ethics, or credibility.

Lastly, The Heartland Institute doesn’t “oppose climate science.” Heartland actually helped create and promote it. Heartland has published thousands of pages of reviews of the peer-reviewed literature in volumes that have been compared favorably to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Heartland has invested more, and published more, and reached more people with real climate science than all but a handful of national organizations in the United States.

Pressley’s attempt to smear The Heartland Institute is based on the fact that The Heartland Institute’s courageous position in questioning climate alarmism dogma poses a viable threat to the left’s climate change narrative, which is integral to their insatiable lust for more power and control over “We the People.”

SOURCE

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Skepticism about phase-out of coal

Wood Mackenzie is a British mining industry analyst

Coal has been high on the decarbonisation agenda, but Wood Mackenzie metals and mining vice chair Julian Kettle says the inconvenient truth is that we still need coal-fired power to ensure an orderly transition to a low carbon world.

While the COP26 statement is clear – “to accelerate the phase out of coal” Kettle emphasises that it falls short on the detail.

“What’s more, this commitment could be considered something of a pyrrhic victory against coal, primarily because none of the countries with the top three largest coal-fired power fleets – China, India and the US – are signatories to the agreement,” he said.

“China, which possesses the largest coal-fired power plant capacity, has committed to peak carbon emissions, yet has made no firm commitment to reduce reliance on coal.

“And India was late to the decarbonisation pledge party but has committed to net neutrality by 2070.

“More urgently, it has pledged to reduce its projected carbon emissions by a billion tonnes by 2030 and has committed to 50% renewables share of power generation and to reducing the carbon intensity of its economy by 45% by the same date.

“That’s a tough ask for an economy projected to grow by 6-7% a year over the next decade,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the US, President Joe Biden’s plan for a zero-carbon grid by 2035 arguably embraces the spirit of the COP26 text.

But again, Kettle says there is the possibility of a significant reversal in policy should the next presidential election be won by the Republicans.

And regardless of these targets, under Woodmac’s base case, thermal coal demand (where it is burnt to produce electricity) will continue to rise until the mid-2020s.

Under Wood Mackenzie’s base case Energy Transition Outlook (ETO), which is aligned to a 2.7C warming scenario, demand for thermal coal will peak in 2025 at just over 7 billion tonnes, falling by just 5% to 6.7 billion tonnes in 2030.

“That is hardly a transformation,” Kettle said.

And to achieve Wood Mackenzie’s accelerated energy transition (AET) of -2, 2C pathway, demand for thermal coal will need to fall by a billion tonnes by 2030 while an AET-1.5 pathway removes a further 1.9b tonnes of demand.

“This is a dramatic 2.4b tonne reduction compared with the current base case peak in 2025,” he said.

The key question Kettle says, is will the yet-to-be-enacted policies based on watered down commitments made at COP26 be enough to deliver an AET-2 or AET-1.5 decarbonisation pathway?

“If the non-delivery against commitments made at COP Paris in 2015 are anything to go by, success by 2030 looks to be a long shot and is by no means guaranteed,” he said.

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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26 November, 2021

Germany to complete the transition away from coal over the next nine years

They are going to rely on Russian natural gas instead. Rather hilarious, really

Germany plans to phase out coal use by 2030, eight years earlier than previously planned, as part of its latest climate pledge. That same year, the country wants 80 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources. Per the BBC, Olaf Scholz, the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, announced the plan on Wednesday as part of a deal that will see the former vice-chancellor govern the country at the head of a three-party coalition made up of the Greens and Free Democrats.

Germany’s September 28th national election saw the Greens claim 118 seats in the Bundestag, making it the party’s best-ever showing. Scholz is expected to tap Greens leader Annalena Baerbock to serve as his foreign minister. Moreover, it’s likely Greens co-leader Robert Habeck will get the vice-chancellorship and the chance to oversee the country’s energy transition.

Notably, the coalition didn’t set a more aggressive emissions reduction target. By 2030, the country still plans to cut emissions by 65 percent from 1990 levels. According to an estimate from nonprofit Climate Action Tracker, Germany needs to reduce its greenhouse gas output by at least 70 percent by the end of the decade to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target put forward by the Paris Agreement.

Additionally, in making a deal with the Social Democratic Party, the Greens made a significant compromise. Per Bloomberg, the country will use natural gas to ease the transition between coal and renewables. Critics also say the coalition had to do more to push electric vehicle adoption. The government only plans to have 15 million EVs on German roads by 2030. “This does not look like a coalition for progress,” Christoph Bautz, the head of Campact, told Clean Energy Wire. “The climate movement will have to keep pushing the coalition to truly make it a climate government."

SOURCE

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British Net-zero plans scaled back amid concerns over rising fuel and heating bills

A key component of the government’s net-zero strategy, which would have pushed up gasoline and heating bills, has been scaled back amid concerns over the cost of living.

The Telegraph has learned that proposals to expand Britain’s emissions trading system in an effort to cut carbon emissions have been watered down significantly after a backlash from senior ministers.

A consultation on where the scheme, which limits carbon emissions in certain sectors, should be applied, covered fuel used for vehicles and heating in the UK.

But both elements have now been removed for fear it could set off a political storm as gasoline and utility bills have risen significantly in recent months.

The battle in Whitehall is set in private, with repeated reformulations of the consultation before it is released to the public.

The paper outlining the approach was set to be published in the summer, ahead of the UN COP26 UN climate summit in November.

It is now expected in the spring of 2022. Early drafts said the emissions trading system would be expanded “radically”, but that word would have been removed from the latest version of the document.

The scaling back reflects pressure from Tory MPs over how Boris Johnson will deliver on his promise to make the UK a “net zero” carbon emitter by 2050.

Polls indicate broad support for tackling climate change, but support wanes as voters face personal costs that may be related to greening the economy.

The plans will still aim for emissions trading for the maritime sector and waste incineration, which could ultimately drive up costs for shippers and municipalities.

The door will also be opened to one day creating a trade emissions scheme for the agricultural sector by announcing a new impetus to measure CO2 emissions there. Government figures, however, continue to claim publicly and privately that no decision has been made on limiting agricultural emissions, given the political sensibility of adopting what critics call a “meat tax.”

The UK Emissions Trading Scheme sets limits on CO2 emissions in certain sectors, imposing a price on each tonne of carbon dioxide or its equivalent. The cap is then lowered over time, pushing the price up and encouraging businesses — and consumers, who can see the price increase pass them on — to use cleaner energy sources.

The arrangement, which came into effect in January and replaced a version of the European Union, is seen as a crucial way to help the UK achieve its net-zero ambition by encouraging change.

It currently applies to energy-intensive industries, the power generation sector and aviation, but the government wants to expand its scope.

Plans that the scheme would apply to vehicles and heating leaked out to . in July The times, with suggestions that average car and utility bills could each rise by £100 a year or more. But both elements have now been removed from the consultation, The Telegraph understands, despite the fact that the sectors contribute a large proportion of total UK emissions.

Source

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Keep burning those fossil fuels

Fossil fuel. No two words evoke greater disgust in the 21st century. Newsreaders utter these dread words with naked disdain. Green campaigners speak of fossil fuels in the same fearful, besmirching tones that medieval Christians would have used when speaking of Beelzebub. Google these two F-words and you’ll be treated to photo after photo of black, choking factories. ‘Keep it in the ground!’, environmentalists cry, convinced that humanity’s digging for coal, oil and gas, and our burning of these long dormant fuels to create energy, has propelled our planet into a hellscape of pollution. The Extinction Rebellion death cult marches behind banners declaring ‘Fossil fuels = death’. These dug-up fossils are ‘fuelling the apocalypse’, academics claim.

The relentless demonisation of fossil fuels reaches to the very top of political life. The great and the good have spent the past fortnight at COP26 wondering out loud when fossil fuels might be phased out. The draft text of the COP26 agreement contains, in CNN’s words, ‘unprecedented language around fossil fuels’. It calls for an acceleration of ‘the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels’. Of course even these fossil-bashing promises are not enough for the eco-doomsters who dominate so much of political and media discussion today, who are convinced that humanity’s exposure of the evil black sludge of oil and coal has been an unmitigated disaster for the planet. They want a drastic reduction in fossil-fuel use now. ‘We need urgent, deep cuts in emissions this decade’, says Caroline Lucas of the UK Green Party.

The feverish loathing of fossil fuels unites people from across the political spectrum. One-time climate sceptic Boris Johnson is these days indistinguishable from environmentalism’s prophetess of doom, Greta Thunberg. Both used their platforms at or around COP26 to demonise Britain’s Industrial Revolution, which of course was powered by the burning of coal. That started the clock ticking on ‘doomsday’, Boris madly claimed. Capitalists and anti-capitalists alike bristle at fossil fuels. BP once rebranded itself Beyond Petroleum. Two descendants of the Rockefeller and Getty capitalist dynasties wrote a piece for the Guardian on the eve of COP26 titled: ‘Fossil fuels made our families rich. Now we want this industry to end.’ Talk about raising the drawbridge! Meanwhile, self-styled anti-capitalists beat the streets to demand an end to the oil industry and the closure of coalmines, sounding more Thatcherite than Trotskyist.

Everywhere one turns, fossil fuels are getting a bad rap. They’re the source of all our woes, apparently. We must keep them buried, in Earth’s guts, forever. There’s only one problem with this rash, hyperbolic onslaught on fossil fuels: everything about it is wrong. Far from destroying life on Earth, our discovery and exploitation of these fuels improved it enormously. If it wasn’t for humankind’s liberation of the ancient sunlight trapped in coal, or our burning of the petroleum that accrued from chemical reactions in the seas of the prehistoric era, modernity as we know it simply would not exist. Fossil fuels gifted us the wealth, comfort and liberties we in the West enjoy, and they’re doing the same right now for emerging countries like China, India and Brazil. We need to utterly flip the script on fossil fuels. They shouldn’t be demonised; they should be celebrated for helping to radically improve human existence.

The first thing to note about the demand that we ‘keep fossil fuels in the ground’ is just how staggeringly obtuse and callous it is. Fossil fuels supply the vast majority of the world’s energy. The vast bulk of all the heat, electricity and fuel humankind needs in order to ward off the cold, create light, produce food, make and power machines, transport goods and essentials, power hospitals and generally protect itself from the vagaries and diseases of nature comes from the coal, oil and gas we are encouraged to loathe. According to the 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy, no less than 84 per cent of global energy comes from fossil fuels. Oil supplies 33 per cent of world energy, coal supplies 27 per cent, and gas supplies 24 per cent. There is something genuinely bizarre, if not outright perverse, about a world in which we are educated in schools and instructed by the political class to feel fear and hatred for the fuels that underpin almost every facet of our lives. Fuels that energise production, consumption, travel, health. What next – a global crusade against the evils of water? Air?

It is worth considering how borderline psychotic the demand for Net Zero is in a world in which 84 per cent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. The ‘deep and urgent’ reduction in fossil-fuel use that greens dream of would, if it ever came to fruition, be a calamity for humankind. It would do far more to bring about the parched, impoverished conditions of their apocalyptic fantasies than carbon emissions ever could. As Alex Epstein, author of the brilliant book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, puts it: ‘Environmentalists’ climate proposals would result in exactly the kind of apocalyptic scenario they claim climate change is causing.’ Climate change is a problem, but a ‘middling one’, as Bjorn Lomborg describes it. It threatens nothing as horrendous as a sudden reduction in fossil-fuel use would. Keeping fossil fuels in the ground would stall growth in emerging countries, plunge millions back into the poverty they’ve only recently been liberated from (courtesy of the burning of fossil fuels), and set a precedent in which the protection of nature from carbon emissions would be accorded more importance than the liberation of human beings from drudgery. Progressives should fear the ideology of Net Zero far more than the burning of coal and oil.

Listening to the neo-aristocrats of the Western environmentalist movement, you could be forgiven for thinking fossil fuels nurtured a hellish dystopia. In truth, these fuels made life better than it has ever been in human history. The coal-fuelled Industrial Revolution dragged humankind from the old era into a brand new one – one in which life expectancy leapt up, health vastly improved, new discoveries were made, cities sprung up, workers’ rights were secured, and democracy was born. And one in which climatic events have less impact on human beings than they did in the past. As Epstein points out, the more fossil fuels humanity has burnt, the fewer ‘climate-related deaths’ there have been. Over the past century CO2 emissions have risen inexorably, but climate-related deaths – that is, deaths from storms, floods, droughts and wildfires – have fallen spectacularly, from around half a million each year to just 14,000 in 2020.

In short, burning fossil fuels has helped to protect us from climatic events and ‘weather of mass destruction’. How can this be? How is it that the burning of fossil fuels, which we are constantly told is causing climatic catastrophe and untold human suffering, has coincided with the lowest risk ever of dying from a disastrous weather event? Because contrary to the fossilphobia of Western greens, contrary to the anti-production, anti-consumption prejudices of the eco-elites, humanity’s increased use of oil, gas and coal over the past couple of centuries has not been some crazed, greedy, destructive endeavour. It is not just about driving SUVs, taking cheap flights, and eating as many hamburgers as we can (though there’s nothing wrong with any of that). Rather, it is a process that has birthed a world of machines that assist in the protection of humankind from the hunger, sicknesses and climatic tragedies that stalked our species prior to the modern era. The truth is that we would be facing far worse environmental conditions and living conditions if we hadn’t used as much fossil fuel as we have.

And we don’t have to go all the way back to our own Industrial Revolutions to see the benefits of these fuels. Just look at China and India today. Sniffy Westerners, wallowing in the gains and comforts of the industrialisation their own nations underwent two centuries ago, look at China and India as bleak, black carbon nightmares. Think again. Globally, fossil-fuel use has risen enormously since 1980. Between 1980 and 2012 worldwide use of fossil fuels rose by 80 per cent. And much of this was down to the rise of China, India and other countries as emerging industrial powers. These nations continue to account for much of the growth in fossil-fuel consumption. The 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy notes that China had been responsible for a full three-quarters of the growth of energy consumption in the previous year, followed by India and Indonesia. China is also a leading player in the growing demand for oil. What has been the impact of all this fossil-fuel use in these countries? Disaster? Far from it.

In China and India, just as in Western countries in the past, the huge hike in fossil-fuel consumption has coincided with a massive growth in life expectancy. Not coincided, in fact – caused. As Epstein points out, fossil-fuel use really started to take off in China and India in 1970, and then rose enormously from 1990 onwards in China in particular. And in this same period, life expectancy in China went from under 65 in 1970 to around 75 in 2010 (it’s now closer to 77), and from around 50 to 65 in India in the same period (it’s now almost 70 in India). Income has also risen exponentially in China and India. All of these things are intimately related. Fossil fuels powered growth and industry, leading to more jobs and higher wages, leading to longer, healthier lives. If we kept fossil fuels ‘in the ground’, as noisy green doom-mongers insist we must, life in China and India would be a great deal harder and more unpleasant than it currently is.

But won’t we run out of fossil fuels? They’re finite, after all, and eventually all this fuel will dry up, right? This is another favoured argument of the eco-doom lobby, though, notably, it’s one we hear less of these days in comparison with the past. Which isn’t surprising, because this dystopic vision of humanity running out of fuel was built on highly questionable science. Peak Oil, Peak Coal, Peak Gas – around 20 years ago these millenarian fears were widespread in polite society. Yet as Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation says, ‘the entire concerns about peak oil were based on misinformation or junk science’. In 2013, the World Energy Council reported an ‘abundance’ of energy resources. ‘There is a greater abundance of energy resources in the world today than at any other time’, the council said.

So fossil fuels aren’t running out, their use has brought about fewer climate-related deaths, and they have helped to power a radical transformation in the life expectancy, living standards, health and knowledge of humankind. Then why do we hate them? How have they become the most raged-against things on Earth? Burning them emits carbon, of course. But here’s the thing – the very world that fossil fuels have helped to create is one in which we have more and more resources to devote to alleviating the impact of carbon emissions and solving the problems of pollution. The richer a country becomes, the more it can afford to focus on cleaning up its natural environment as well as lifting its populace out of poverty. Fossil-fuel consumption did not create a world of filth and disaster; it created the conditions in which we have far greater leeway to master our own living conditions and the environment.

The hostility to fossil fuels seems increasingly to be driven by misanthropy rather than reason; by an elitist feeling of revulsion for the gains of modernity rather than by a rational assessment of the undoubted problems humankind still faces. To my mind, our unlocking of the long-hidden wonders of fossil fuels, and our use of this furious energy to make the world anew, has been the most important thing humanity has done thus far. Consider coal, the most feared fossil fuel. Coal stores the surging heat of the Carboniferous period of about 300million years ago. It was about a thousand years ago that people first started to tap into these black, glistening containers of ancient heat, using it to heat homes, which meant less forestland had to be cut down and more croplands could be created. Later came the Industrial Revolution, when the heat of long-gone eras was unlocked to the end of motoring machines, factories, trains and unprecedented movements of things and people. It should be a source of pride for our species, taught in schools across the world, that we developed the means and the capacity to transform the deathly heat of the Carboniferous period into the fuel of the modern era; that we marshalled the ancient past to invent a brand new future. But it isn’t. Instead we’re meant to view coal as a filthy thing, and our burning of it as a sin against Mother Nature. The modern rage against fossil fuels is at root an irrational turn against modernity itself, and against the human endeavour that made it possible.

As Epstein has argued, the entire debate about energy in the 21st century is the wrong way around. ‘How can we reduce fossil-fuel use?’, campaigners and politicians ask, when what they should be asking is this: ‘How can we create such an abundance of energy that every human being will enjoy comfort, health and happiness?’ We need a human-centred view of the future, a human-centred morality, not the pre-modern, nature-worshipping fears and hysteria of contemporary environmentalism. Of course we could go beyond fossil fuels at some point, but only if we get serious about nuclear, about unlocking the awesome power of uranium. Until then, fossil-fuel consumption should not be demonised and it certainly should not be halted. And it should also not be merely tolerated, viewed as an unfortunate necessity in a world that needs energy. No, it should be encouraged, it should be cheered, and it should be celebrated as the modern wonder that it is.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/12/keep-burning-those-fossil-fuels/

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Australia to support private sector in natural gas push

Taxpayers will fund the private sector to accelerate gas exploration across Australia, with the federal government’s new strategy pinpointing locations off the coast of Victoria and the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin as priorities for development.

The national gas infrastructure plan, released on Friday, says the government must act to alleviate the risk of gas supply shortfalls and support companies to open up new gas basins and construct gas pipelines.

A fortnight after nations at the Glasgow climate meeting, including Australia, affirmed the need to keep global warming within 1.5°C and phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies, the new plan has angered climate and environment groups, which describe it as “corporate welfare”.

Under the plan, the Commonwealth will support the private sector to search for viable gas fields and develop an extensive network of new pipelines and related infrastructure. The plan’s modelling suggests at least one new basin will be required to meet projected domestic and export requirements.

“There may be circumstances where private sector investment is not available in time to ensure priority infrastructure projects are in place when required,” the plan says. “In such conditions, the government stands ready to drive new infrastructure development.”

The 36-page plan document, which does not mention climate change, was released along with an investment document that details which types of projects would be prioritised.

Australia’s energy market operator, AEMO, has warned that Victoria and the other southern states face a shortfall of natural gas on peak-demand winter days by 2024, and probable gas price rises.

To date, $285 million has been committed by the federal government to the development of private gas projects, including $224 million for the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory and $21 million for Queensland’s North Bowen and Galilee Basin.

The gas industry’s expansion sets Australia at odds with the global shift towards renewables. Earlier this year the International Energy Agency released analysis that found the global route to net zero emissions was “narrow and extremely challenging”, and that no new fossil fuel projects should be approved.

The federal priorities include the development of the Port Kembla gas terminal in NSW, and envisages opening up new gas basins. The Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory should be brought into production by 2025, Narrabri in NSW from 2026 and Queensland’s Galilee and North Bowen basins in production by 2028, the plan says.

The plan also identifies potential offshore supply from the Bass, Otway and Gippsland basins. But the majority of new southern fields within these basins are in the ‘discovery’ phase, and it is unclear when production might start.

Protect Country Alliance spokesperson Graeme Sawyer said the fracking industry in the Northern Territory, still in an exploratory phase, was being supported by “corporate welfare”.

“The Morrison government would be better off giving taxpayer money to just about any other industry if it wanted to seriously stimulate the economy,” Mr Sawyer said.

The Climate Council’s head of research, Dr Simon Bradshaw, described the plan as a “disaster”. “What part of gas is a polluting fossil fuel does this government not understand? The science is very clear: to avoid a climate catastrophe, fossil fuels must stay in the ground,” he said.

The plan underlines the government’s interest in developing its so-called “clean” hydrogen industry, noting hydrogen may be produced using gas and that carbon emissions could be stored using the controversial practice of carbon capture and storage. This would not be classed as “green” hydrogen, which is produced with renewable energy.

Not everyone is convinced Australia faces a looming gas shortage. Environment Victoria analysis found there is enough gas supply capacity in Victoria until 2027.

Over the following three years there is a shortfall of between 26 petajoules (PJ) and 85 PJ, but the adoption of gas-demand reduction measures, like increasing energy efficiency and electrification, eliminates the forecast shortfall.

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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25 November, 2021

Global warming scare-mongers refuted as Arctic ice growing, on track to be the most ice in 2 decades

The scariest scenario of the global warming doomsayers has been the idea that the melting Arctic ice cap would put coastal cities underwater. For example:

'Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice,' reported the BBC back in 2007. 'Their latest modelling indicates that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.'

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski from the Department of Oceanography of the US Navy predicted an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the summer of 2013.

Maslowski added that his prediction was on the conservative side, too: "Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007. So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

There are plenty more such forecasts:

'Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice,' reported the BBC back in 2007. 'Their latest modelling indicates that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.'

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski from the Department of Oceanography of the US Navy predicted an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the summer of 2013.

Maslowski added that his prediction was on the conservative side, too: "Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007. So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

And:

In 2010, Mark Sereeze, the newly appointed senior scientist at the US government's Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. was famously quoted as saying: "the Arctic is screaming."

But, as with countless other prophesies of climate doom, they were alarmist BS. Cap Allon writes:

This week, Arctic sea ice is approaching 10,000,000 km2 — the second highest ice extent of any of the last 15 years.

Furthermore, the years 2008 and 2005 are on course to be eclipsed in the coming days/weeks, as are many from the early-2000s and mid/late-1990s — this means that 2021 will soon claim the title of 'the highest Arctic sea ice extent of the past two decades' (since 2001). (snip)

According to the latest data from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Arctic sea ice 'volume' has been on something of a tear in recent weeks — it is now tracking above all recent years (black line on the below chart), and shows no signs of abating:

It's so cold in the Arctic that

[t]wo icebreakers are on the way to rescue ice-locked ships on Northern Sea Route (snip)

District authorities in the Russian Far East have decided to commission two icebreakers to aid the vessels currently ice-locked in the East Siberian Sea. (snip)

The commissioning of the powerful icebreaking vessels comes as severe sea-ice conditions have taken shippers by surprise. There are now about 20 vessels that either are stuck or struggling to make it across the icy waters.

But what about the Antarctic ice cap?

That's not about to melt, either:

[T]he South Pole also just witnessed a historically cold winter. As reported last month: "Between the months of April and September, the South Pole averaged a temperature of -61.1C (-78F). Simply put, this was the region's coldest 6-month spell ever recorded, and it comfortably usurped the previous coldest 'coreless winter' on record: the -60.6C (-77F) from 1976 (solar minimum of weak cycle 20)."

In fact, it turns out that, according to a study released a week ago:

Paleoclimate data indicate there was less Arctic sea ice during the pre-industrial period than in modern times, or when CO2 concentrations were 100 ppm lower than today (280 vs. 380 ppm).

Scientists (Diamond et al., 2021) assert that during the 18th and 19th centuries Arctic sea ice extent minimum (September) values averaged 5.54 million km².

Though modern sea ice losses are often characterized as dangerously low, satellite data indicate the 2002-'06 five-year average minimum sea ice extent was 5.92 million km², which is 0.38 km² above the 1700s and 1800s or pre-industrial (PI) levels. This would not appear to be consistent with claims of unprecedented sea ice losses in recent decades.

Also, CO2 peaked at only ~280 ppm during the Last Interglacial (LIG), which is approximately the same as the PI CO2 concentration. And yet due to the additional 60-75 W/m² shortwave Arctic forcing during that interglacial relative to today, there was "a consistently ice-free LIG Arctic from early August until early October" from about 130,000 to 115,000 years before present (Diamond et al., 2021).

(Polar bears — thought to be dependent on summer sea ice presence to hunt seal — nonetheless survived an ice-free Arctic for millennia.)

Joe Biden and the climate grifters don't care about the data. They want to spend trillions of dollars converting the motor vehicle fleet to battery-powered electric cars whose power source will be...something. Not quite sure what. Windmills and solar panels won't work, and the greenies hate nuclear power.

It's all a scam

SOURCE

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Senator Kennedy Has Some Thoughts on Biden's Energy Policy

When things are going wrong in the world, there are few better to offer thoughts than Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy whose way with words and ability to "cut the crap," as he often says, is unrivaled in the upper chamber.

Joining Fox News on Tuesday night to talk about rising gas prices and President Biden's decision to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Senator Kennedy didn't hold back.

"One of the differences between people and dogs is that dogs would never allow the weakest or the dumbest to lead the pack," Sen. Kennedy remarked. "President Biden's energy policy is both weak and dumb."

"Releasing 50 million barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve — which is our national emergency oil savings account — won't make any difference on the price of gas," Sen. Kennedy said, echoing criticism from many observers — including Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (WV) — who find the President's use of emergency oil to be little more than a band-aid that won't move the needle on oil and gas prices.

As Sen. Kennedy pointed out, "America consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day, so that's two and a half days. That's why shortly after the President's announcement oil futures actually went up — not down — so we're going backwards here."

"He and his 'woker' friends have eliminated, terminated, ended America's hard fought energy independence," criticized Sen. Kennedy before summing up the Biden administration's energy policy: "Let's force America to buy oil from foreign countries that hate us so those foreign countries will have money to buy weapons to try to kill us."

"Another way of putting it is the reason gas prices are going up is because the oil's in Louisiana and Texas and the dipsticks are in Washington, D.C.," Kennedy concluded. I read that somewhere and it seemed appropriate."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/11/24/senator-john-kennedy-on-gas-prices-n2599624

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“Hot Talk, Cold Science” and The Dangers of Centralized Planning in the Name of Climate Change

When former President Barack Obama says “We are nowhere near where we need to be” in terms of climate change, he’s not talking about reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The stated goals of the U.N. Paris Agreement that Obama, and other world leaders, embrace are properly viewed as a proxy for a larger agenda aimed at dismantling American independence and freedom.

After all, the U.S. already leads the world in reducing Co2 emissions thanks in large part to hydraulic fracturing that accelerated during Donald Trump’s presidency. Forbes reports on the emissions reductions that occurred much to the consternation of the news media and its cheerleading for U.N. directives that raise energy costs without impacting climate.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has collected data that shows how innovative drilling techniques has unleashed natural gas, which in turn has been driving down emissions. This trendline has continued into the Biden presidency in part because natural gas has replaced coal and in part because of COVID-19 restrictions on travel and other activities.

So, if Obama isn’t talking about emissions, what did he actually mean while addressing the U.N’s latest climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland earlier this month? The answer comes in the form of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law on Monday, and other anti-energy initiatives, ostensibly advanced in the name of climate change. The directives and mandates included in the legislation make it evident that what Obama really meant during his talk at the U.N. is that centralized planners in Europe and America are “nowhere near” where they would like to be as it relates to implementing coercive policy measures.

The climate change agenda initiated under Obama and reloaded under Biden is built around an anti-carbon mindset that seeks to replace fossil fuels with expensive, unreliable forms of energy that will raise household and transportation costs for the average citizens “Lunch Bucket Joe” claims to represent. The American Energy Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that favors free market policies in the energy sector, details the taxpayer-funded “subsidies and slush funds” for favored special interests now in motion in a recent analysis of the infrastructure bill.

But the problem here is not just with the economics of what Team Biden has wrought, but with the science of climate change. A good source here is the late Fred Singer, an American physicist, who was also a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, and a research fellow with the Independent Institute, a public policy research organization based in Oakland, California. The institute has just released an updated version of Singer’s book “Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate that exposes how the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has peddled “misinformation and alarmist” rhetoric that does not hold up under scientific scrutiny.

Singer, and his co-authors, document how the IPCC has had to “walk back” several alarmist claims. The book notes, for instance, that the U.N. panel was finally forced to concede that -- counter to its projections -- a 15-year period “of no significant warming since 1998 despite a 7 percent rise in atmospheric Co2 levels.” Singer viewed the IPCC as a political rather than scientific organization that “deliberately and repeatedly” hid “uncertainty,” and “the absence of critical data” while evading “evidence that questions or contradicts its apocalyptic prediction.” The end result, he wrote, is a “terrible crime against science” and “the adoption of unnecessary and very costly public policies, and grave damage to the reputation and credibility of science.”

That part about “unnecessary and very costly public policies” is applicable to the Biden climate change agenda and the impact it will have on American energy consumers.

Tom Pyle, president of American Energy Alliance, puts it very well in a press statement.

“Spending with no return is the theme of this bill,” Pyle said. “Tens of billions for rail, which few Americans choose, let alone use. It seems Congress insists on repeating and expanding the fantastically expensive built train boondoggle in California. Expanding mass transit in our large cities, which forces people together, in an era of pandemic and physical distancing is mindboggling. Even the spending on actual highways, a mere 10% or so of the total bill, is likely to net only a limited gain.

Pyle continued:

“This infrastructure bill does nothing to fix the actual problems facing America today and those which voters are most concerned about: the supply chain crisis and rocketing inflation. That this wasteful and unnecessary legislation has consumed the attention of Congress for half the year is an indictment of the institution. We can only hope that wasted time and wasted money are the only consequences of this legislation.”

So then, what are the prospects for economic renewal and the restoration of sensible energy policies? If Obama is expressing frustration at the rate of progress made toward government control over energy use, this would suggest there is time to reverse course. That was the message Rob Bradley, CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research, delivered while addressing the Heartland Institute’s most recent international climate change conference held in Las Vegas this past October.

With an eye toward history, Bradley told audience members that the U.S. “has been in a very strange, negative energy situation before and come back.” He pointed to the centralized planning that occurred under President Wilson during World War I that gave the federal government power to impose price controls on oil products leading to “Gasless Sundays, Heatless Mondays, Meatless Tuesdays, Wheatless Wednesdays and Lightless Nights” as they were described at the time. These polices were reenacted on a larger scale during World War II, Bradley said when “ration books” were dispersed restricting the acquisition of simple items like coffee and more vital items like gasoline.

“The end of the climate crusade will be to have energy rationing and maybe even carbon rationing,” Bradley warned, where “people who get the big allotments such as during World War II are the politicians and the bureaucrats…and then at the bottom are the forgotten men and women.”

But over time, Bradley does see free market energy policies winning out.

“We have a very solid worldview, and we need to keep in mind we have the moral high ground,” he said. “We need to be proud of each other for going against the mainstream and I think there’s reason for optimism. Classical liberalism, which you can also call small L libertarianism or the science of liberty, it is a worldview that really makes sense, it hangs together, you have to study it a little more than the other side.”

With government intervention, the simple answer is to pass a law, Bradley explained. “Well, it takes a lot more understanding to appreciate the free market and why doing the easy thing with government has unintended consequences and negative intended consequences,” he said.

Singer’s book provides a roadmap for a future administration devoted to free market energy policies. He credited Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, which Singer said, “lacked any scientific justification” and is “unfairly biased against American interests.” But Singer also made the observation that Trump should have gone a step further to withdraw the U.S. from the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since he didn’t, Biden was able to simply re-enter the U.N. agreement only a few months after the U.S. was officially out. There’s a lesson in that.

SOURCE

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Australia: Fanatical warmist high school teacher allegedly berated students who wanted airconditioning turned on in 30C-plus heat

Schoolteachers are refusing to turn on classroom airconditioning, citing climate change as the reason to keep the kids sweating, a frustrated parent has claimed.

The father of a student at Corinda State High School in Brisbane’s west claims the teacher refused cool air relief to uncomfortable Year 9 pupils on November 4, saying she would consider turning it on if the temperature hit 40C.

The Courier-Mail has been told the aircon has remained off since that date, including days over 30C with extreme humidity

The parent claims the teacher berated the class about their lack of interest in climate change and called them “ignorant and selfish”. Corinda State High School has solar panels generating 266.6kW of power.

As the Queensland Government works towards completing its $447 million program to install airconditioners in all state schools by next June, the parent said teachers needed to be aware of what the Department of Education’s policy was on airconditioning, and needed to adhere to the policy regardless of any personal climate change beliefs.

“Several pupils spoke up to the teachers requesting aircon,” the parent said. “She advised the students she’d reconsider the request if the temperature reached 40C – a preposterous position by any reckoning.

“She didn’t appreciate the way the students were thinking about the issue of climate change and they should be grateful previous generations are doing things to prevent climate change.

“Her comments are unwarranted, abusive and harassing — contrary to her obligations under the fiduciary relationship which exists in her classroom.”

The parent claims the school has not responded to an email asking for an apology to the Year 9 students.

The use of airconditioning and its impact on the planet is a hot topic as the warmer it gets the more airconditioning is used.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said that the department is aware that an anonymous complaint email was received.

“To date, the anonymous complainant has not responded to the principal’s invitation to address their concerns,” she said.

“The school has diligently investigated these claims, however, none of the classroom students confirmed the allegations or expressed concerns regarding classroom temperatures or the teacher’s conduct.

“Teachers use airconditioning in their classrooms as needed to ensure that everyone in the classroom benefits from the best conditions for learning.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/education-queensland/claims-teacher-refused-aircon-and-berated-kids-on-climate-change/news-story/019c0fe0808738fe3b037242006e79b3

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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24 November, 2021

Reporters Exploit Normal Weather to Fan Climate Fear

Exaggeration of weather events to sell climate crisis is not something new. In the case of a Sky News account of flooding in one Indian city, my own observations — backed up by independent data — are absolutely contrary to the news report.

Chennai — my home state’s capital, formerly known as Madras — is prone to floods, whose severity I’ve personally witnessed. In fact, the last time Chennai was flooded, I narrowly escaped by fleeing the city at the last hour. But, for me, that trauma does not make any more reasonable the media’s melodrama about climate’s role in floods.

The city is prone to yearly deluges from the strong Northeast Monsoon system during the months of October – January. This, coupled with poor planning and destruction of natural waterways, has led to an urban nightmare of flooding as a common event.

However, Sky News’ international Twitter report did not let the facts get in the way of its climate narrative. Standing in knee-high water, the reporter said, “We know that as a result of our warming planet, we are going to see more radical and frequent shifts in extreme weather – extreme heat to extreme rain.”

Except for a massive deluge in 2015, Chennai — located on India’s southeastern coast — has had a relatively steady amount of rainfall since 1969. For example, yearly rainfall variation (in the image below) shows that years of both intense and light rainfall have been common for the city.

Monthly data for the city also show the sporadic nature of rainfall in the city with many high rainfall months since 1969. This means that intense downpours are not uncommon in the city.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, a meteorological expert said, “These extreme rains have happened several times in the past too. It is not due to any climatic change. The record for the highest rainfall in Chennai on a single day in November is still 1976.”

The main reason for the flooding is the unplanned expansion of the city, which resulted in the encroachment of natural reservoirs and the blocking of key natural drains for rainwater. This is a well-established fact backed up by satellite imagery.

A 2020 report from the Indian Government, titled Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region, laid out a comprehensive analysis of various factors affecting the climate in the country. According to the report, a medium-range analysis of cyclone frequency in the North Indian Ocean Basin revealed a decrease in frequency of severe cyclones between 1951 and 2018.

The data may be surprising to the reader because the mainstream media — like the Sky News journalist — regularly claim that extreme weather events increased in this period because of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. But the reality is completely different.

“Long-term observations (1891–2018) indicate a significant reduction in annual frequency of tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean basin.”

In addition, there has been no significant warming in the city since 2004. In fact, satellite measurements captured a global pause in warming between 2000 and 2020, a trend like that observed in Chennai.

So, rainfall, cyclone landfall, and temperature have shown no dangerous increase in the city of Chennai. This case of interweaving the theory of climate crisis into a normal weather event by Sky News is typical of mainstream media. Either Sky News assumed its international viewers were unlikely to research the real reasons behind the flooding, or the news channel is ignorant of the facts itself.

We recommend applying a healthy dose of skepticism to assertions of climate-induced weather events. You also might want to follow more responsible outlets for your facts, such as the CO2 Coalition.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/11/the-facts-reporters-exploit-normal-weather-to-fan-climate-fear/

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Bill Gates’ vision for next-generation nuclear power in Wyoming coal country

KEMMERER, Wyoming — In a triangle-shaped park, a bronze statue honors the legacy of J.C. Penney. In 1902, he opened a dry-goods store here to serve workers who dug coal from a nearby mine. The entrepreneur would go on to forge a nationwide retail empire.

More than a century later, a J.C. Penney department store still sells clothing in this town of fewer than 3,000 people. In the blocks surrounding the park, many businesses have closed, leaving behind aging storefronts. Some that remain open have “for sale” signs in the windows.

Kemmerer’s decline has come as the coal industry, despite a recent surge in demand, has suffered a long-term loss of markets to cleaner, cheaper sources of electricity. In 2025, the town faces a stark reckoning when Rocky Mountain Power’s Naughton coal plant is scheduled to close, which also will leave a more difficult future for a nearby mine.

“With the power plant shutting down in five years, would you open a new restaurant or new business of any kind?” said Tom Crank, a former state legislator and civil engineer who has lived in Kemmerer since 1968. “This is slowly eating away at the community.”

This week came big news, and fresh hope for an economic revival of Kemmerer.

TerraPower, a Bellevue-based nuclear energy company founded by Bill Gates, announced plans to build a new reactor called Natrium — cooled by liquid sodium — at the site of the Naughton coal plant.

The plant was one of four scheduled for closure that were under consideration for TerraPower’s Wyoming Advanced Nuclear Demonstration Project.

“We think Natrium will be a game-changer for the energy industry,” Gates said in a June virtual appearance in Wyoming. “Wyoming has been a leader in energy for over a century. And we hope that our investment in Natrium will allow Wyoming to stay in the lead for many decades to come.”

Nuclear power generates electricity without the direct combustion of fossil fuels that releases greenhouse gases. And Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has been one of America’s most high-profile proponents of nuclear power to help the nation reach net-zero emissions by 2050. In his virtual appearance, Gates promoted Natrium as a safer, more flexible and less-expensive reactor than those cooled by water in conventional plants.

Gates’ advocacy has earned him praise — and pushback — amid a global debate about nuclear power’s role in the 21st century. In Europe, Germany plans to shut down its last nuclear power plants in 2022, while France remains dependent on nuclear for most of its electricity. In China, the government is backing a program of nuclear expansion that until U.S. restrictions were imposed in 2019 included a TerraPower proposal to build an experimental reactor south of Beijing.

In the United States, where nuclear provides 20% of the electricity, critics say it remains a costly option with unresolved issues over long-term waste storage. And they say the potential of advanced reactors is being oversold.

“Many of the claims that are being made about these types of reactors are simply untrue or highly misleading,” said Edwin Lyman, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists who this year published a report on advanced nuclear technology that included a harsh critique of TerraPower’s project.

Shannon Anderson, staff attorney with Wyoming’s Powder River Basin Resource Council, said the TerraPower reactor is “no silver bullet solution,” and would be too little, too late to address climate change or the economic impacts of coal’s decline in Wyoming. “It doesn’t answer the tough questions that we really need to have answered in the state,” Anderson said.

Since 2009, TerraPower has spent more than $1.4 million on contributions to national campaigns and lobbying, according to Open Secrets, a nonprofit tracking money in politics.

TerraPower has benefitted from bipartisan political support.

During the June announcement of the four sites, Gates was joined by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and Gov. Mark Gordon — eager to launch nuclear power generation in the nation’s largest coal-producing state.

TerraPower’s Wyoming project is projected to cost nearly $4 billion. Taxpayers, under contract terms, pick up half that, matching private sector spending dollar for dollar.

Congress already has allocated most of the nearly $2 billion to the Energy Department to spend on TerraPower, much of it in the infrastructure bill signed into law Monday by President Joe Biden. The company’s CEO, Chris Levesque, calls it the largest public investment in an advanced nuclear power project in the nation’s history.

The Energy Department’s contract stipulates the Natrium reactor must be operating by 2028 — lightning speed in the nuclear world. A partner in the project is Rocky Mountain Power’s parent company, PacifiCorp, controlled by Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company led by Gates’ billionaire friend Warren Buffett.

The 345-megawatt TerraPower reactor is designed to generate electricity around the clock and would be coupled with a molten-salt system to store heat and enable the plant to surge up to 500 megawatts for over five hours — enough electricity for about 400,000 homes.

The project would employ 2,000 workers during construction and 250 others to operate the plant. TerraPower officials hope this project can be replicated at other U.S. coal plants.

“This [TerraPower] technology is amazing — there’s no other word for it,” said Gary W. Hoogeven, president and CEO of Rocky Mountain Power, which plans to close 19 coal-fired power plant units by 2040.

“I couldn’t be more excited for you, those communities and our employees that there is a solution. It’s coming, and TerraPower, I believe, is it,” Hoogeven said as the project was announced.

In Kemmerer, a conservative town in a fiercely Republican state, some are wary of Gates’ wide-ranging agenda, from combating climate change to developing COVID-19 vaccines.

But many people strongly support the new nuclear plant.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bill-gates-vision-for-next-generation-nuclear-power-in-wyoming-coal-country/

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Biden’s Energy Secretary Has No Idea How Much Oil Americans Need

Speaking to reporters at the White House Tuesday afternoon, Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked how many barrels of oil Americans consume and need each day. She claimed she didn't have the answer.

The answer is 18 million barrels, which exposes President Biden's move to release 50 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a futile, political move.

In recent weeks, Granholm laughed off riding energy prices and admitted during remarks this week that the United States is in the middle of a "transition" away from oil and gas, which is causing pain at the pump.

SOURCE

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Australian Labor Party senator warns party about reacting to climate ‘extremists’

Victorian Labor senator Raff Ciccone has warned his colleagues against demonising regional industries, particularly forestry, as the federal opposition prepares to finalise its climate policy ahead of next year’s election.

In a speech to the Senate on Tuesday night, Senator Ciccone said “extremists” who sought to damage or disrupt the activities of timber workers were not only hurting the livelihoods of families but would make it harder for Australia to hit its climate goals.

The senator has been a vocal advocate for timber workers and has criticised his side of politics over the Victorian Labor government’s decision to phase out native forest harvesting from 2024, with a full shutdown by 2030.

The federal opposition is close to settling its climate policy, which is likely to include revised emissions reductions targets, but is wary of creating a blue-collar worker backlash after failing to convince voters over climate change during the past decade.

Senator Ciccone told the Senate on Tuesday evening the timber industry would prove critical to Australia’s hopes of hitting net zero by 2050, which the federal government officially signed up to at this month United Nations climate summit.

Labor climate policy poised to respond to PM scare tactics
“We cannot afford to be distracted by radicals more concerned with making themselves feel good than protecting our planet,” Senator Ciccone told the Senate.

“The real climate heroes are providing sustainable, green building materials to our construction industry. They are taking and storing carbon from our forests and re-growing the harvested trees to store even more carbon.”

He cited research from the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University, released earlier this month, which found the forestry industry would almost double as decarbonisation boosted tree planting to take advantage of bio-sequestration opportunities.

The report found a net-zero policy would lead to significant increases in forested land and increased sales of logs for processing and export as forest pulp.

Senator Ciccone said the paper showed the forestry industry was Australia’s greenest form of carbon capture and would need to grow to meet climate targets.

“Radical activists need to understand that attacking the timber industry is not going to prevent climate change. You are targeting an industry that needs to get bigger, not smaller, to protect our planet.”

He said the Coalition government also needed to show greater support for the industry by spruiking the role forestry would play in reaching emissions targets over the coming decades.

“The Morrison-Joyce government needs to understand that leadership isn’t just waving a brochure around at a press conference,” he said. “Leadership is assessing the impact of your decisions on the Australian economy, so we can help those who will need a leg-up and create the jobs of the future right here in Australia.”

The industry has argued Australia has untapped potential as a bioenergy powerhouse through industrial heat in the future renewable energy mix. The federal government’s road map forecast that bioenergy could make up a fifth of Australia’s resource potential.

Veteran CFMEU forestry union leader Michael O’Connor has criticised Victorian Labor’s “disgraceful” treatment of timber workers in the state and warned it was under­mining federal Labor’s pitch to voters that workers and communities reliant on transitioning industries would be looked after.

“Federal Labor’s task of convincing blue-collar workers and communities they will be looked after is threatened by the approach of the Andrews government toward timber workers and their communities. Because these workers are being thrown on the scrap heap,” Mr O’Connor said last month ahead of the Glasgow climate summit.

Source

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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23 November, 2021

After Glasgow, The 1.5°C Target Is Dead – Get Over It

The Glasgow climate conference represents a strategic defeat for the West, and for Britain in particular. Boris Johnson unleashed everything he could muster. The royal family hosted receptions for multibillionaires. The Foreign Office sent climate envoys around the world.

Glasgow would show the world that Britain could outdo France’s performance six years ago at the Paris climate conference.

Wrong. Whereas the French knew what they were doing in Paris, the British were at sea in Glasgow. The result was a display of the rank amateurishness of the British state.

If Boris Johnson and his ministers had done their homework, they would have known they were on a road to nowhere. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol failed because it exempted the developing world from cutting its emissions.

The West attempted to remedy this at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 with a climate treaty that would bring the major emerging economies under a multilateral regime of emission targets and timetables.

The attempt was sunk by China, India, South Africa, and Brazil acting in concert.

The West accounts for a declining share of global emissions. “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” Barack Obama had boasted in 2008.

Obama and the West were desperate for a climate agreement to justify increasingly punitive domestic climate policies.

The Paris agreement is the climate equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Sinatra Doctrine, under which the captive nations of eastern Europe could do it their way. It signaled that the Soviet Union had lost the Cold War.

In a similar fashion, the Paris agreement signaled that the West had accepted its defeat and had given up its attempt to create a multilateral regime of emission cuts.

Instead, the Paris agreement is based on nationally determined contributions. Each party to the agreement would do it its way.

After Copenhagen, small island states lobbied intensely to tighten the temperature target from 2 degrees above industrial levels to 1.5 degrees.

Their islands, they claimed, were in danger of sinking beneath the waves. The West swallowed the sinking island sob story, which is how 1.5 degrees came to be included in the Paris agreement as a subsidiary ambition to the 2-degree target.

It was fake science, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) later confirmed.

“Observations, models, and other evidence indicate that unconstrained Pacific atolls have kept pace with [sea level rise], with little reduction in size or net gain in land,” the IPCC said in its net-zero report.

Because Paris included 1.5 in its text, the IPCC brought forward the indicative timetable for net-zero from the second half of the current century to 2050.

In the waning days of her premiership in 2019, Theresa May decided to make net-zero her legacy. She was effectively setting the UK on a path of economic suicide.

It was incorporated as a binding target under the 2008 Climate Change Act after a ninety-minute debate in the House of Commons, even though MPs had no idea how much it would cost or whether it was remotely feasible.

But one thing is clear: whatever net zero costs Britain, it is pointless for Britain to decarbonize if the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit.

The regulatory-impact assessment accompanying the Climate Change Act signed by Ed Miliband as climate and energy secretary could not have been clearer: “The UK continuing to act while the rest of the world does not, would result in a large net cost for the UK.”

The benefits of UK climate action would be distributed around the world, but the UK would bear all the costs.

The Climate Change Act was passed in the runup to the Copenhagen climate conference, which was supposed to produce a binding climate treaty.

“Showing leadership through the Climate Change Act, the UK will help to drive a global deal,” Miliband asserted, showing that climate hubris is embraced by all Britain’s political parties.

Now, for a second time, a UN climate conference has produced a dud. The fantasy that Britain would lead and the rest of the world would follow has been exposed.

The question mark over net-zero has been answered. After Glasgow, we now know that net-zero is all pain for no gain.

https://principia-scientific.com/after-glasgow-the-1-5c-target-is-dead-get-over-it/

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How green activists mislead and hold back progress

Exaggerating and impractical, the climate movement undermines its cause and everyone suffers, says environmental writer TED NORDHAUS

TWELVE YEARS ago, the UN’s climate summit in Copenhagen, COP15, was dubbed “Hopenhagen”. The 11-day event opened with a short film depicting a fictional Scandinavian girl having a nightmare: an Earth wracked by climate change opens up to swallow her and violent waters threaten to drown her. She wakes up screaming, watches world leaders giving speeches about climate change on the COP15 website, and then videos herself begging the politicians to “please help the world!”

But the proceedings ended in failure. Environmental groups and European officials blamed America. Small island nations blamed China. China and India blamed rich countries.

Today, a real Scandinavian girl insists the nightmare has come true—and blames world leaders for failing to act. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood,” Greta Thunberg thundered, to cheers from the global climate commentariat at the UN General Assembly in 2019. “There is no Planet B,” she sneered, “blah blah blah,” mocking the French president, Emmanuel Macron, for adopting the long-time slogan of environmental activists, at a youth climate summit in September.

At the UN climate conference in Glasgow, COP26, the phony optimism of Hopenhagen and the adolescent cynicism of Greta were present in roughly equal measure, two sides of the same apocalyptic coin. Activists, scientists and commentators conjured up catastrophic futures and bemoaned the lack of progress, while inveighing against “doomism” and demanding an immediate, dramatic social and political transformation.

Taken at face value, doom would not be an irrational reaction to the claims of the climate movement. If planetary catastrophe, societal collapse and perhaps even human extinction are likely (absent a complete transformation of human civilisation), then fatalism is a reasonable response. But the realities of climate change are less terrifying and the global response more promising than the reductive claims of environmental activists might lead people to believe.

Neither dystopian not utopian

Deaths around the world from climate-related disasters are at an all-time low. People’s vulnerability to extreme weather has fallen rapidly in recent decades. Recent research in Global Environmental Change shows that climate vulnerability has declined the most in recent decades among the poor globally, owing to the resilience that comes with economic growth and development.

At the same time, long-running efforts to slow the growth of emissions appear to be working. Global emissions appear close to a peak and the International Energy Agency projects that the world is on track for less than 3°C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, a far cry from forecasts of 5°C or more that many thought likely a decade ago. Admittedly, a warming of 3°C is not a walk in the park. But given continuing economic growth and development, it is likely to be a future in which human societies will fare reasonably well. The good news is that if countries uphold their commitments from the past several years to sharply cut emissions, the world will be in position to limit warming closer to 2°C, the long-standing international target for climate stabilisation.

Unfazed by these less-than-dystopian assessments, the global climate-industrial complex—a nexus of campaigners, green charities and sustainable-business practitioners who are aided, abetted and amplified by their ideologically (and socially) aligned handmaidens in academia and stenographers in media—has simply moved the goalposts for climate stabilisation, from 2°C to 1.5°C warming above pre-industrial levels, precisely when major emitting countries had found a workable framework to limit warming to 2°C, or at least be within shouting distance of it.

The 1.5°C target, by contrast, is implausible (and, like all temperature targets, largely arbitrary). Achieving it would require rebuilding the entire global energy economy within a decade or so. That means inventing technologies to make steel, cement and fertiliser, and to power ships, aircraft and much else on a similar timeframe, as well as removing vast quantities of carbon from the atmosphere over the latter half of the century. The activist community further insists upon re-engineering the global economy without many of the technologies that most technical analyses conclude would be necessary, including nuclear energy, carbon capture and carbon removal.

The exaggerations and impractical demands of the global climate movement are frequently excused as useful idiocies, a prod to national leaders to take more ambitious action. But there are other consequences that are far less salutary. To appease influential domestic environmental constituencies, Western political leaders have made far-reaching but non-binding commitments to cut emissions that they almost certainly cannot keep. To justify those commitments politically, even as theatre, those same leaders need to demonstrate that they are demanding similar commitments from emerging economies, notably China and India.

And so, even as China has promised to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 and India by 2070, many national leaders and environmentalists demand ever more, such as a phase out of all new coal generation by the end of the decade, despite the fact that most wealthy nations continue to depend heavily on coal, oil and natural gas themselves.

China and India are large and powerful enough not to be bullied. But other poor countries are not. Finance for even natural gas, the least emitting of all fossil fuels, has dried up across Africa and much of the developing world, under pressure from Western countries and Western-led development institutions.

From the perspective of fairness, economic development and (not incidentally) climate resilience, fossil-fuel infrastructure arguably has the highest value in poor countries. Historically, international-development finance has underwritten those investments. But in the hothouse that is international climate politics, those are the investments that the climate movement and Western political leaders insist must be abandoned, ironically in the name of climate justice, even as rich countries pursue projects like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the Cumbria coal mine in the name of energy security.

The resulting contradictions are head-spinning. Tough talk by Western leaders to appease the climate movement is followed by commitments that are modest, symbolic and unenforceable. Grand agreements to end deforestation and phase out fossil-fuel infrastructure within a decade, turn out, upon closer examination, to be vague and subject to wildly different interpretations.

The costs, predictably, fall on the global poor. Stoked by an apocalyptic panic among the chattering classes in the richest countries in the world, unable to give up fossil fuels domestically or force their emerging economic competitors to do so, Western leaders punch down on the poorest nations in the world.

See the world as it is

Therein lies the fundamental tension within the climate movement. To acknowledge progress or recognise that climate-mitigation objectives need to be balanced with other societal priorities—not least the adaptive capacity that is enabled by the continuing use of fossil fuels—would require abandoning pseudo-scientific claims that hard biophysical boundaries loom, and jettisoning utopian fantasies of global government and a world powered entirely by renewable energy. Moreover, it would mean giving up self-flattering notions that the future of humanity hangs on the outcome of an epic struggle between corporations and environmentalists.

A climate movement less in thrall to fever dreams of apocalypse would focus more on balancing long-term emissions reductions with growth, development and adaptation in the here and now, recognising that the former will take decades to achieve while the latter confer not only much greater climate resilience today, but a range of further benefits for people far into the future.

Unfortunately, doing this serves none of the discursive needs of the climate-industrial complex, which seems to grow both larger and wealthier with every failure. The real outcome of the COP26 meeting is to further entrench the sad reality that the global poor are on their own. Practical action to cut emissions and improve resilience will remain primarily a national, not global, enterprise.

More than a decade after COP15, poor nations are still waiting for the modest pledges of technology transfer and climate-adaptation aid made at Copenhagen. Meanwhile, Western nations and development institutions, egged on by the climate movement, will proceed with efforts to choke off virtually all finance for fossil-fuel-based infrastructure in poor countries. It’s easy pickings for Western environmentalists, UN functionaries and political leaders alike, and there is no one capable of stopping them.

What would a constructive way forward look like? An activist movement that took its concerns about climate justice seriously would acknowledge that the environmental impacts happen at the intersection of a warming climate and poverty—and it would support, rather than oppose, continuing access to fossil fuels for the poorest people in the world, since they’re too expensive to replace for the moment and they make poor countries more resilient to the impact of climate change. Moreover, the movement would understand that because energy economies are path-dependent and emergent, they won’t yield quickly to calls for sweeping and immediate transformation and that, as such, there are limits to what both politics and protest can accomplish.

Most importantly, a wiser green-activist movement would recognise that when it places Western leaders between impossible demands and the realities of their domestic political economies, it is the poor, not the activist class, that end up paying for it.

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/11/19/ted-nordhaus-on-how-green-activists-mislead-and-hold-back-progress

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Metals firm fights Peru’s plans to close mines over environmental impact

UK metals firm Hochschild Mining is to fight plans by Peru’s government to hasten the closure of four mines in the southern Ayacucho region because of concerns over their environmental impact.

The London-listed mining company has promised to “vigorously defend” its plan to continue mining gold and silver from two mines – Pallancata and Inmaculada – which it claims operate under the “highest environmental standards”.

Ignacio Bustamante, the Hochschild chief executive, said he was “surprised” by the “illegal nature” of the government’s planned action and would “vigorously defend its rights to operate these mines using all available legal avenues”.

Shares in Hochschild plunged nearly 40% on Monday morning, wiping more than £300m off the value of the company, after the Peruvian prime minister, Mirtha Vásquez, told local media over the weekend that four mines in the southern Ayacucho region would be barred from further expansion, and would be closed “as soon as possible”.

Hochschild said it had “not received any formal communication from the government regarding this matter”.

The plan could have severe consequences for Lima-headquartered Hochschild, which sources more than two-thirds of its gold and silver from its Peruvian mines.

The announcement is likely to raise hackles throughout the mining sector in Peru, the world’s second largest producer of copper, which includes UK miners Anglo American, Newmont, Glencore and Freeport-McMoRan. Peru’s mines are also operated by China’s MMG and Chinalco alongside local producers such as Buenaventura.

Peru’s mining industry has been linked to a string of environmental issues in recent years including deforestation, pollution and the mistreatment of environmental activists.

Bustamante said: “Our goal is to continue investing in Peru, growing our resources and extending mine lives, in accordance with the Peruvian legal framework.”

Hochschid said it was a significant employer in the region, employing more than 5,000 people directly and about 40,000 indirectly, and has long-term investment plans for the local region.

“We are prepared to enter into a dialogue with the government in order to resolve any misunderstandings with respect to our mining operations. However, given the illegal nature of the proposed action, the company will vigorously defend its rights to operate these mines using all available legal avenues,” Bustamante added.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/uknews/uks-hochschild-fights-perus-plans-to-close-mines-over-environmental-impact/ar-AAQZC03?ocid=chromentpnews

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Australia: Climate weed sentenced to 12 months in prison over coal train disruption

A climate activist involved in protests that disrupted the Hunter region's rail network for two weeks has been sentenced to a year in prison.

Eric Serge Herbert was sentenced in Newcastle Local Court to 12 months' imprisonment with a non-parole period of six months.

The charges included causing obstruction to a railway locomotive or rolling stock, attempted hinder working of mining equipment and attempted assist in obstruction of rail locomotive or rolling stock.

A police strike force was established last week in response to the ongoing protest action, which impacted coal, grain and passenger trains trying to access the Port of Newcastle.

The NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller delivered a stern warning to protesters, announcing that the continued behaviour could result in charges laid under the Criminal Act that carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

The ABC approached Police Commissioner Mick Fuller to comment on the sentence but he was unavailable.

Group says it's a 'matter of concern'

Climate activist group Blockade Australia held a press conference in Newcastle this morning, describing the police action to stop the ongoing protests as "repression" and an "outrage".

One spokeswoman, 21 year old Hannah Doole, said she was "angry and scared on Sergio's behalf".

"This is a matter of concern for everybody that expresses dissent to the current political system and to politics in this country in whatever form.

"This is a young person who is fighting for their life, fighting for all life on the planet.

"And they have just been sentenced to six months no parole. 12 months imprisonment is an outrage," she said.

Another Blockade Australia representative, 24 year old Jarrah Kershaw, said he did not believe protesters would be deterred.

"Last week, people were threatened with 25 years in jail. And for the next three days, people continued to take action despite that," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-23/12-month-jail-sentence-for-newcastle-coal-protester/100642414

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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22 November, 2021

Tesla drivers angry after app outage stops them using their cars

I use a metal key to enter and start my conventional car and it has never yet had an "outage"

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has apologised on Twitter after hundreds of car owners were locked out of their vehicles due to an outage of the manufacturer’s app.

A number of Tesla drivers around the world complained on social media on Friday that they were unable to use their cars with their phone apps and had to rely on keycards if they happened to be carrying their keycards with them.

Eventually, Mr Musk announced late on Friday that “server issues” which had caused the problem with the app had been resolved.

Musk responded directly to a South Korean driver who reported receiving a message about a server error while attempting to connect with his Tesla Model 3 via the app on his iPhone.

Functionality should “be coming back online now. Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic,” Musk tweeted. “Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

But drivers had already posted a multitude of complaints online, such as one who tweeted: “I’m stuck an hour away from home because I normally use my phone to start car.”

Another wrote: “THOUSANDS of @Tesla owners are locked out of their vehicles because Tesla servers went down over two hours ago.

“I’m one of them. They said we’d be helping the environment by owning an electric vehicle, but ‘walking’ isn’t what I had in mind.”

The problem seemed to be widespread, with tweets surfacing in countries such as the US, Canada, Denmark and Germany.

Source

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Climate change: Wet wipes face ban in the war on waste

A ban on wet wipes in England is being considered in government plans to tackle plastic pollution in rivers and seas.

Ministers announced a call for evidence on how to tackle common plastic litter including wet wipes, tobacco filters and single-use cups.

It comes after a consultation was announced in August over the use of other plastic items including single use plates and cutlery. It will also look at alternatives to plastic balloon sticks.

Campaigners have long called for a ban on wet wipes that contain plastic, warning that they pile up on beaches and riverbanks and turn into tiny plastic fibres when broken down.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/climate-change-wet-wipes-face-ban-in-the-war-on-waste-hd7f8pr80

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A Convenient Myth: Climate risk and the financial system

In an October 21 press release, Janet Yellen — Treasury secretary and head of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the umbrella group that unites all U.S. financial regulators — eloquently summarized a vast program to implement climate policy via financial regulation:

"FSOC is recognizing that climate change is an emerging and increasing threat to U.S. financial stability. This report puts climate change squarely at the forefront of the agenda of its member agencies and is a critical first step forward in addressing the threat of climate change."

You do not have to disagree with one iota of climate science — and I will not do so in this essay — to find this program outrageous, an affront to effective financial regulation, to effective climate policy, and to our system of government.

Of all the threats posed by a slowly warming climate, why is Ms. Yellen talking about financial stability? The answer is simple: Financial regulators are not supposed to implement each administration’s policies on non-financial matters. Financial regulators may only act if they think financial stability is at risk.

Why? Imagine that Trump returns. He declares, “Illegal immigration is an existential crisis. I can’t get Congress to do anything about it. Financial regulators: Tell banks to freeze the bank accounts of any customers who can’t prove legal status. Scour people’s accounts for payments to illegal employees. Freeze out any business that hires an illegal.” You would be shocked. The nation would be shocked. Ms. Yellen would be shocked. There is no financial risk here, we would all say. This is a vast abuse of power.

Financial regulation can only touch climate policy if there is a risk to the financial system that only coincidentally involves climate. But how could climate possibly pose a risk to the financial system?

A “risk to the financial system” does not mean that someone, somewhere, someday, might lose money on an unwise investment. A risk to the financial system means an event like 2008: a shock so big, so pervasive, and so fueled by short-term debt that it sparks a widespread run, a wave of defaults, and threatens the ability of the whole system to function. “Financial regulation” means looking at the assets and liabilities of financial institutions to mitigate such a risk. It can at best look a few years in the future.

So, if we use plain English, a “climate risk to the financial system” that “financial regulators” can contain must mean the climate might change so drastically, so abruptly, and so unexpectedly, in the next five years, that the economy tanks so terribly that financial institutions blow through the cushions of equity and long-term debt, to spark a widespread systemic crisis like 2008 or worse.

The trouble is, there is absolutely nothing in even the most extreme scientific speculations to support that possibility. Climate is the probability distribution of weather: the chance of heat and cold waves, floods, fires, and so forth. We know with great precision what the climate will be for the next five years. Nobody writing insurance in Florida is unaware of the chance of hurricanes. The chances of extreme weather are not going to change unexpectedly in even ten years. The sea level is rising. It will continue to rise, about 4 millimeters per year – 2 cm in the next five years – slowly and predictably. Risk is the unknown. This is known.

Moreover, even weather extremes just don’t move the economy that much. We have had many financial crises in history. Not one was sparked by an extreme weather event. Our modern, national economy is remarkably immune to weather.

It is simply not true that the economic damage of extreme weather events is either large or substantially increasing. Weather-related damages were 0.18 percent of global GDP in 2020. That’s tiny, and it’s decreasing, down from 0.26 percent in 1990. The part of it that could be described as unexpected, threatening financial reserves, is tinier still. GDP fell 10 percent during the COVID recession. Unexpected climate risks would have to be 50 times larger in the next few years to approach that level of damage. Even the most extreme weather events are local, a blip on the national economy and the assets of diversified banks.

In 1900, half a million people died in storms, floods, droughts, wildfires and extreme temperatures. By 2020, the number had declined to 14,000. So far, 5,500 people have died from climate-related disasters in 2021. There are about 35,000 car crash deaths each year in the U.S. alone, and COVID has killed 750,000 Americans.

Still, one could defend the effort. Our financial regulators completely missed the possibility that mortgage-backed securities might bring down the financial system in 2008. Despite the army of Dodd-Frank regulators and stress-testers, regulators missed the possibility that a pandemic threatened to do the same in 2020. Only another massive round of bailouts saved us from another 2008. The Fed went on to completely miss the chance that inflation might break out, while it orchestrated the printing of $3 trillion sent out to people as checks. A dispassionate, honest effort to look at out-of-the-box risks to the financial system, together with a humble attitude towards regulators’ ability to foresee them, is a good idea.

What might that effort find? What if (when?) China invades Taiwan, and the U.S. and allies blockade China? A huge global recession. What if the U.S. chooses to fight and loses? Greater catastrophe. What if the Middle East blows up, or a nuclear weapon goes off? What if we have a real pandemic, one that kills 10 percent of the people it infects as plague, cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis did? What if that pandemic comes out of a lab, this time deliberately? What about a massive financial cyberattack? What if bond investors give up on U.S. Treasury debt and force a sovereign-debt crisis? These are all unlikely. But the chance of any of these is thousands of times greater than the danger of climate change to the financial system.

And what should one do about such risks? Does it make sense for bank regulators and stress testers to demand that each bank rank the sensitivity of each loan it makes for its exposure to Chinese-invasion risk, and calibrate its portfolio accordingly? Or, as is increasingly popular, to interact these risks and model general-equilibrium effects? No. The response to out-of-the box unquantifiable risks is simply to demand that banks finance themselves with much more equity capital, which can absorb unforeseen losses without imperiling the bank and financial system.

It is patently obvious that regulators did not evenhandedly open this Pandora’s box, or consider why, of all the risks to the financial system, climate change is the only one worth talking about. Regulators want to tell banks to stop lending to fossil-fuel companies while, coincidentally, the political parts of the administration decided on the same climate policy. And given their method, to regulate bank investments against “climate risks” that they cannot even define, rather than protect the system with equity (financial adaptation!), they are clearly not interested in actually protecting the financial system against unknowable catastrophes.

Pressed, advocates will quickly admit that’s not what they mean. Instead, they say, they worry about the risk of “stranded assets,” “transition risks,” losses in fossil fuel and other legacy industries.

Will environmental regulators, legislators, presidents, prime ministers, really fly back from Glasgow and pass laws and regulations so onerous that they tank the economy and financial system? Well, they just might. But then at least one might be honest and call it “climate-policy risk!”

But even this story does not pass muster. Climate-policy advocates are turning to financial regulation precisely because presidents and legislatures, accountable to voters, are refusing to impose draconian carbon-killing policies. It has some chutzpah, too: Carbon regulations might kill the fossil-fuel industry. So we have to. . . kill the fossil-fuel industry first.

This view has resonated through financial-policy circles for the last few years, though a tiny dose of econ-101 common sense told us that if you restrict fossil-fuel supply, prices and profits go up, not down. Today’s spike in coal, natural-gas and oil prices illustrates just how competent this effort is.

We are in an energy transition. But old, dying technologies never cause crises. New ones do. The 1929 stock-market crash did not come from the horse and buggy industries; radio, movies, and cars crashed. The 1999 stock market crash did not come from the typewriter, slide rule, carbon paper, and landline-telephone industries. Tech, slightly ahead of its time, failed. Tesla, valued at $1 trillion, upwards of ten times more than GM — now there is a teetering domino! Since the tulips themselves, so-called bubbles have always come from exciting new technologies, often fueled by subsidies and cheered on by central banks and regulators, not from slowly decaying legacy industries.

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-convenient-myth-climate-risk-and.html

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Australia: Natural gas mining project under fire from Greenies

Woodside is set to make a final investment decision on a major LNG project in Western Australia's north within weeks, but opponents are vowing to push on with their attempts to stop it.

But Woodside says the project has been through rigorous environmental assessment processes

The project — which has been labelled Australia's biggest new fossil fuel investment in nearly a decade — involves developing the Scarborough gas field, west of Karratha, and expanding its current Pluto facility on the Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara, where the gas would go for processing.

If the project goes ahead, it is expected to emit millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually at a time when countries are being urged to decarbonise.

large pipe with gas plant infrastructure in the background
Woodside says it's set a target for its expanded Pluto LNG facility to reach net zero emissions by 2050. (Supplied)
Woodside received an important financial boost this week, selling a 49 per cent stake in its $7.6 billion proposed second train at Pluto to New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).

As the clock ticks on Woodside's financial commitment to the project's future, former WA Labor Premier turned Conservation Council President, Carmen Lawrence, has spoken out against the plan, fearing the environmental impacts it could cause.

"I don't see how anyone living in Western Australia can ignore this because it adds to our emissions," Dr Lawrence said.

"Climate change is happening now, it's real, it's destructive and anything that adds to it, surely has to be questioned."

Woodside's chief executive Meg O'Neill received a fresh legal letter from the Conservation Council of WA last week, warning the project could have a negative impact on the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, on the other side of the country.

The ABC requested to interview Ms O'Neill, but she was unavailable all week.

A spokesperson for Woodside said the primary environmental approvals from both the Commonwealth and state governments were in place to support the final investment decision, but requests to start drilling were still being assessed by Australia's offshore energy regulator.

"The development of Scarborough has been assessed by the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority, the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and the Australian National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority," the spokesperson said.

"These environmental assessment processes concluded the proposal may be implemented, subject to conditions and activity-specific Environment Plans."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-22/woodside-scarborough-gas-project-under-fire/100570746

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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21 November, 2021

EVs in Norway are CHEAPER than regular cars

Money talks: EVs have gone from making up less than 2 per cent of new car sales to more than three quarters

In the early 1990s, Norway began introducing the policies that would later drive an EV transition, including abolishing or waiving various taxes to reduce the up-front and lifetime cost of EVs.

Strangely enough, one catalyst for this was the Norwegian '80s synth-pop band A-ha, otherwise best known for the song Take On Me.

In 1989, two members of the trio bought a converted EV (range: 45km) and drove it around Norway, stubbornly refusing to pay road tolls or registration, to protest the disincentives to owning an electric car.

The government caved and waived the tolls and fees for EVs, which cost little because there were so few EVs at the time.

Unintentionally, however, it had introduced the first EV purchase incentives and laid the groundwork for the coming boom in EV sales.

In 2001, the most important of these incentives was introduced when EVs were made exempt from the hefty 25 per cent GST.

All up, EVs in Norway are cheaper to buy than regular cars.

The tax breaks, combined with lower ongoing fuel and maintenance costs and reduced fees for toll roads and parking, makes a persuasive economic argument, says Snorre Sletvold, business developer for the Norwegian EV Association. "I think you need purchase incentives," he said.

"Maybe not zero per cent sales tax like we have in Norway, but some subsidies to kick off the markets."

Once enough people start buying EVs, others follow, he says. Sales snowball through personal recommendations, or what he calls "neighbourhood effect".

"We have the people talking to each other in the neighbourhood, they say, 'You're using an EV, don't you run out of energy on your battery?' "They say, 'No, not at all, it works pretty well.'"

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-11-20/electric-vehicles-incentives-what-australia-learn-norway/100615800

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Prince Charles's dirty secret: Diesel generators power winter lights display at Sandringham

At the Cop26 summit this month he made an impassioned plea to stop climate change and warned we were in the ‘last chance saloon’. But Prince Charles’s green credentials were called into question yesterday as it emerged a winter lights display at Sandringham is running on diesel generators.

The Luminate attraction at the Queen’s Norfolk estate is powered by the generators, along with a funfair and car park floodlights erected for the five-week event.

Visitors saw six machines around the estate, which is now largely run by Charles in an effort to shoulder some of the Queen’s day-to-day tasks.

At the summit in Glasgow, Charles warned that ‘the future of humanity and nature herself are at stake’.

Despite his powerful speech, the Luminate show uses some 60,000 bulbs. Visitors pay up to £18.50 to follow the mile-long trail, which features 13 installations. The night-time light displays operate for at least four hours a day.

SOURCE

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Climate campaigners take South Africa to court over coal policy

South Africa’s plan to build new coal-fired power stations during the climate crisis is being challenged in court for breaching the rights of current and future generations.

Three civil society organisations have launched a constitutional lawsuit in the North Gauteng high court against the South African government, arguing that its energy policy is incompatible with the national constitution.

Coal makes up about 80% of South Africa’s energy mix, and the government intends to add 1,500MW more over the next six years as part of its 2019 integrated resource plan.

Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency said no new coal-fired power stations could be built if the world is to stay within safe limits of global heating.

Although South Africa has not explicitly agreed to phase out the fossil fuel, it was one of 197 countries to commit to “phasing down” coal at the Cop26 global climate summit in Glasgow last week.

Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, admits the climate crisis is “the most pressing issue of our time” and that developing economies are particularly vulnerable. As well as the direct dangers of rising temperatures, the climate emergency poses a particular threat to South Africa because of its existing water and food insecurity.

But, despite being given about $8.5bn (£6.3bn)_from European countries and the US to help it move away from coal, Gwede Mantashe, the energy minister, said it would continue to play a significant role in the nation’s electricity generation.

Campaigners say the problem is not being taken seriously enough, pointing to research by the University of Cape Town and the Climate Equity Reference Project that shows the coal plans are not compatible with South Africa meeting its climate commitments.

The youth-led African Climate Alliance, the Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action and Groundwork argue that continuing coal development breaches constitutional rights to life, dignity and equality, the right to a healthy environment and children’s rights.

The campaigners say there is no justifiable basis for limiting their constitutional rights because renewable energy is a feasible alternative and is cleaner and cheaper than new coal power.

SOURCE

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Australia: Greenies don't like hydrogen either

Owners of Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX:FMG) shares may want to know about a threat to Fortescue Future Industries’ (FFI) hydrogen plans.

Fortescue Future Industries says it’s taking a global leadership position in the renewable energy and green products industry and has a vision to make green hydrogen the most globally traded seaborne commodity in the world.

But not everyone likes the plans that Fortescue Future Industries is doing.

According to reporting by the Australian Financial Review, the former leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, has said that green hydrogen must not be “based on mega dam projects, bird-killing wind farms or without a “social licence” that returns foreign earnings to communities.”

Energy Minister Angus Taylor reportedly released modelling that showed green hydrogen could replace LNG as the top energy export, with $50 billion of revenue by 2050.

The AFR speculated that the Greens could use any balance of political power to block hydrogen projects that sustain fossil-fuel industries, like ‘blue hydrogen’.

The Bob Brown Foundation took out a full-page advert in the AFR this week to challenge some of Dr Forrest’s claims and Fortescue Future Industries’ potential projects including hydroelectric dams in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Papua New Guinea.

What’s the problem?

Why doesn’t Dr Brown like these projects? The Bob Brown Foundation said the aim is to foster debate about the environmental and social impacts of Fortescue Future Industries’ global hydrogen production. Bob Brown said:

He is promoting huge hydro-electric schemes on some of the world’s last remaining great rivers and there would be massive social and environmental consequences. As reported in the AFR, he has contracted with the president of the DRC for a scheme on the Congo River twice the size of China’s Twin Gorges Dam. It is reported to threaten the displacement of 25,000 people, involves massive transmission lines, and has been dropped by previous interested parties including the World Bank.

In Papua New Guinea, Forrest’s hydrogen vision brings dams on a number of major rivers into focus. There can have been no time to consult the local populations nor to assess the impact on some of the most spectacular tropical gorges on Earth. His global vision deserves global scrutiny. We want him to get social licences. That is what we seek.

We support a hydrogen economy based on renewable energy where the production of that energy does not contribute to climate change, damage the environment or cause social dislocation. That is going to take a lot more considered judgement than is evident in Dr Forrest’s global mission.

Time will tell what impact, if any, this has on Fortescue Future Industries, the Fortescue share price and FFI’s green hydrogen plans.

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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19 November, 2021

Garbage in, Garbage out in Glasgow, Scotland

By DAVID R. LEGATES

No doubt you’ve heard—and always at ear-splitting decibels—that “97 percent of all climate scientists agree” that climate change is real, will be devastating to life on earth, and is largely or entirely due to human emissions of greenhouse gases. The participants at the COP26, United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, have been screaming pretty much nothing else for days.

Problem is, the “97 percent” is pure fiction.

I should know. In 2013, I and several other researchers wrote in Science & Education that the “97 percent” figure came from John Cook and colleagues at the University of Western Australia—who basically cooked the books.

Cook and his comrades did not in fact poll the world’s climate scientists. Not even close. They simply collected the abstracts of nearly 12,000 journal articles and then subjectively designated whether the abstract of a given paper either endorsed or rejected “the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

Two-thirds of the abstracts, however, expressed no opinion, and of the remaining nearly 4,000 very few explicitly agreed—by the authors’ own assessment—with the stated consensus position. My colleagues and I were forced to conclude that “the 97% consensus claimed by Cook et al. turns out upon inspection to be not 97.1% but 0.3%.”

The “97 percent” consensus is, as we said then, “one of the greatest items of misinformation that has been circulated on either side of the climate debate.”

But the propaganda continued; and continues to this day—and is now more extreme. Just in time for COP26, and published in the same journal in which the first “consensus” was announced, a new group, led by researchers at Cornell University, wrote an article entitled, “Greater than 99% Consensus on Human Caused Climate Change in the Peer-reviewed Scientific Literature.”

Incredibly, the methodology in that article is even more flawed than that employed in the first. This latest clutch of climate alarmists randomly selected a mere 3,000 papers from more than 88,000 climate-related papers published since Cook—and then applied Cook’s subjective assessment to this tiny fraction of the available abstracts. Surprised to learn that only four were determined to be skeptical of human-caused global warming?

And the authors were also biased regarding the rest of the abstracts. For example, they noted that “a majority” did not state a position on whether climate change was human caused. But unlike Cook et al., who discarded such papers, this new group of researchers simply asserted that the act of publishing on climate change— in fact, just the authors’ mentioning of the term—was enough to have those articles logged as favoring the consensus. One would be hard pressed to come up with a more perfect example of circular reasoning.

The situation would be laughable but for the draconian measures the climate alarmists, citing this “99 percent” so-called consensus, have been calling for in Glasgow—which, mercifully, ends today. If these persons get their way, the needless human suffering will be no joke; and, as always, it will be the poor in all countries—who can stay alive only when affordable energy is plentiful—who will be harmed the most. And, unless the thinking part of US electorate starts a sustained revolt at the polls, you, thanks to your tax dollars, will be helping to finance that misery.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13866&omhide=true

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Hydrogen planes may offer a possible solution to 'flight shame'. But can they safely provide greener air travel?

Why religious freedom bill is a culture war sugar hit — and not much more

As the world looks for new ways to combat climate change, hydrogen has emerged as a potential saviour for polluting industries like aviation.

It's the most common element in the world, and packs more energy than conventional aviation jet fuel without the side effect of producing massive emissions of carbon dioxide.

But hydrogen and air travel have a complicated history.

More than 80 years ago the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg airship burst into flames when attempting to moor at Lakehurst in New Jersey.

The extent to which the buoyant hydrogen gas can be blamed for the disaster has been the subject of much debate.

But the image of the airship crashing to the ground is something the aviation industry is hoping to leave behind as it re-embraces hydrogen.

One company is confident it can make it work, and is hoping to take paying passengers on a hydrogen-powered flight within just a few years.

The push for hydrogen flight

From its base at Kemble in England's scenic Cotswolds, ZeroAvia is developing an aircraft that could make the world's first commercial hydrogen-electric flight in 2024, between London and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The benefit of using hydrogen fuel cells, ZeroAvia argues, is that the only waste product is clean water.

"It's essentially a zero-emission process," says Sergey Kiselev, who heads ZeroAvia's Europe division.

"The only by-product is water vapour."

The concept has won financial backing from the UK government and from IAG, the parent company of British Airways.

While hydrogen played at least a partial role in the Hindenburg crash, the team at ZeroAvia says modern storage systems make it a reliable fuel.

"Certainly hydrogen is safe," says John Kells, the company's head of technical operations.

"Today there are electric vehicles with hydrogen fuel cell systems and it's not more dangerous than kerosene [which fuels modern-day jets]."

Hydrogen is much lighter than air, so will quickly dissipate when released, unlike regular fuel, ZeroAvia says.

But developing the plane hasn't been easy.

In September 2020, the team from ZeroAvia reached a major milestone after performing a take-off, circuits and landing in a six-seater Piper Malibu powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

The plane carried out dozens of successful test flights. Then in April this year, it crashed.

The plane made a forced landing in a field near Cranfield airport, in Bedfordshire. While trying to come to a stop on the uneven surface, one of its wings was torn off. Nobody was hurt.

"I think when you test novel technology, things like that happen," Mr Kiselev tells the ABC.

He says while the incident is still being investigated, the hydrogen itself was not the cause.

"We've gone through quite a bit of learning … to avoid that and make sure that doesn't happen again."

Stephen Lawes, who was on the plane when it crashed, is still convinced hydrogen is the future. "The technology we've got today works," he says. "You don't have to wait until 2030, 2040, 2050. You can do it now, basically."

Just outside ZeroAvia's hangar at the airport in the Cotswolds are dozens of fossil-fuel-guzzling passenger jets.

They were sent there for temporary storage during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the long-term future of some of these jets is in doubt, amid a push for greener flying.

SOURCE

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‘King Coal’ Roars Back

Although the COP26 virtuous don’t want you to know it, rebounding economies and the ongoing global energy crisis have vaulted much-maligned coal to the top of the energy food chain, once again.

President Biden’s energy-climate policies have apparently been more friendly to coal than those of President Trump.

New federal data has U.S. coal-fired power generation leaping 22% in 2021 to 945 terawatt-hours - the first annual increase for coal since 2014.

Coal will generate nearly a quarter of U.S. electricity this year, with competitor natural gas prices doubling since June to over $6.00.

The demand boom has U.S. coal companies now offering miners six-figure salaries. Not too shabby for a commodity that the media has loved to leave for dead for well over a decade now. “Coal’s burnout,” The Washington Post declared on January 2, 2011.

Personal politics permeating “journalism” continues to leave us energy-climate stupid.

Adding a whopping 38,400 MW, China built more new coal generation capacity last year than the rest of the world retired.

The International Energy Agency says that China’s coal demand will hit a new record this year, some seven years after the Sierra Club promised that China’s coal use was “drying up.”

In addition, after decades of trying to “get off coal,” even small-growth Europe is realizing what happens when the real alternative becomes unaffordable: “Coal Is Making A Comeback In Europe As Gas Prices Explode.”

Yet, the rebound in coal is not surprising when we look at the numbers.

Only ~20% of global coal usage is internationally traded, making coal a largely domestic resource with huge energy security advantages for consumers. By comparison, ~33% of gas and ~75% of oil are swapped from country to country.

Coal is a foundational resource in all-important Asia, so demand typically grows as the population and economy expand.

Globally, coal is still easily the main source of electricity at 37-40% of all generation.

Coal accounts for 60-65% of the electricity generation in China and 68-73% in India – the two most significant incremental energy users that hold ~35% of humanity.

Coal demand has been so high in China this year that supply shortages have forced electricity to be rationed, with “alternatives” to coal not quite as available as some like to insist.

In the most energy-deprived nation on Earth, booming coal demand in India has also left the country short of supply: “Without coal, you cannot survive...It’s not possible to keep the lights on without coal.”

With 85% of the global population struggling in the still developing countries, the United Nations has affirmed that human progress trumps all:

“Economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing countries,” United Nations

And I doubt very highly that the American taxpayers want tens of billions of their dollars going into some ambiguous, and surely untrackable, global “climate fund.”

Sorry, but I choose our precious resources to go to educational equity and economic opportunity for the poor and neglected Black neighborhoods of Homewood in Pittsburgh and Adamsville in Atlanta…..not for windmills in India. The American voting public deserves and should be demanding that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2021/10/27/king-coal-roars-back/

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Australia: Dark roofs ditched, commercial buildings must be net-zero from 2022

Coming from a warm climate, I have always favoured white or silver-coloured roofs as they help keep the house cool -- so the policy below has its merits

All large commercial buildings designed from next year will be required to operate at net-zero in a major climate policy announcement by the NSW Planning Minister.

Rob Stokes said dark roofing will be discontinued on homes built across Sydney and has taken a swipe at the Commonwealth’s climate agenda while unveiling a suite of measures to ramp up the state’s emissions reductions response.

Speaking to an online forum for urban think-tank Committee for Sydney, Mr Stokes also targeted parts of the property sector for their backlash over an earlier decision this year to mandate paler roofs in the south-west growth area, saying he found it “incredible” legislation was required to force change.

“There are no practical reasons why we shouldn’t be ditching dark roofing on new homes permanently to ensure that future communities of Sydney’s west don’t experience the urban heat that many communities do now,” he said, revealing he had asked planners to include the policy switch under a new umbrella approach to emissions.

The proposed rules will be contained in planning mechanisms developers must adhere to under Mr Stokes’ showpiece Design and Place policy, a wide-ranging document that aims to lift the statewide standards of sustainable urban design.

In his speech Mr Stokes referenced recent University of NSW research, commissioned by the federal government, that found switching to cool roofing would lower Sydney’s summer temperatures by up to 2.4 degrees.

He also revealed office skyscrapers, hotels and shopping centres would be among commercial developments in which energy usage must run at net-zero emissions from 2022. He said the vast majority of buildings operating under the NABERS emissions rating system already had net-zero commitments well ahead of 2050.

Stockland, which runs major shopping centres as well as residential developments and retirement villages, has committed to achieving net-zero by 2028.

The announcement was lauded by Committee for Sydney chief executive Gabriel Metcalf, who said it would “propel NSW event further into a leadership role on climate action”.

The Green Building Council’s chief executive Davina Rooney said constructing buildings powered by renewable energy was the best way to achieve this.

“We’d also encourage owners of large commercial office buildings to take strong action in reducing upfront carbon emissions from products and materials,” she said, referring to a new focus within the industry to cut down on embodied carbon.

As part of the state government changes, new residential developments will also be asked to meet higher energy ratings standards.

Property Council of Australia western Sydney director Ross Grove urged the government to allow time “to ensure building designers and developers can make the necessary upgrades”.

Steve Mann, chief executive of the NSW branch of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, said policy changes needed to be considered in light of the crisis around housing affordability and supply.

“Anything that means we’ve got to reset our supply pipelines would have some short-term impacts,” he said, adding that certain councils mandated against lighter roofs because of reflectivity. He said there could also be cost impacts to material supply chains: “[Colorbond] Ironstone is the strongest in demand at the moment.”

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean announced earlier this month that the state had signed a pledge with the United Nations Climate Change Conference to boost electric vehicle sales and was on track to make 50 per cent of all new vehicles sold in the state electric by 2030.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hit campaign mode with a “technology not taxes” mantra in regard to emissions reduction, announcing plans such as investment in charging stations for electric vehicles and a $1 billion scheme to be co-funded by private investors to decarbonise the economy.

Mr Stokes, who is temporarily juggling the transport portfolio, said he was left “bemused” by Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s comments to a business forum earlier this year during which he said net-zero wouldn’t be achieved in inner-city cafés and wine bars.

“He was making a different point but ... actually we won’t achieve net-zero without including our wine bars and inner-city cafes,” Mr Stokes said.

“Thankfully, the anti-climate rhetoric emanating from sections of Canberra has cooled significantly over recent months.”

He added that, while COP26 didn’t go as far on commitments as hoped, “it did put climate firmly on the agenda of our federal counterparts”.

Conversely, Mr Stokes said NSW’s response had shown a Coalition government was capable of an “ambitious” climate response while managing economic factors. He said his government not only wanted to act but, in light of recent legal and oversight decisions, was obliged to.

NSW independent MLC Justin Field said caution was needed in regard to increasing the role for timber in net-zero buildings.

“Expanding sustainable softwood timber plantations as a renewable construction resource makes sense, however we get exponentially greater carbon benefit from allowing our native forests to grow old while also building the resilience of the environment to adapt to a climate change,” he said.

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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18 November, 2021

British obstructionists are all JAILED: Judge sends eight eco-warriors to prison for four months for breaking injunction... and locks up ninth for six months

The British bulldog finally barks

Nine Insulate Britain activists were today jailed at the High Court for breaching an injunction designed to prevent the group's road blockades on the M25.

Most will given four months in prison, but one of them - Ben Taylor - received six months after telling the judge he would immediately block the motorway again.

An Insulate Britain spokesman said today: 'This morning our Insulate Britain supporters have been sentenced. We are being failed and betrayed by our government. Our nine chose not to standby and be complicit in genocide.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10212087/Nine-Insulate-Britain-activists-jailed-High-Court.html

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Climate Activists Aren't Going to Like Biden's Latest Move

After President Biden — along with a good portion of his cabinet — returned from a U.N. climate summit in Scotland, his administration proceeded with the sale of oil drilling rights covering more than 100,000 square miles — some eight million acres — in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday in the latest instance of Biden's pandering to the woke crowd not working in the real world.

As The Associated Press reported from Scotland, Biden bowed before climate change fanatics as he told world leaders that "the United States and other energy-gulping developed nations bear much of the responsibility for climate change, and said actions taken this decade to contain global warming will be decisive in preventing future generations from suffering."

But back in the United States — and apparently reality — Biden's lofty but delusional talk of a future without fossil fuels just doesn't add up.

Wednesday's auction for rights to drill in federal waters in the Gulf is something Biden fought against in court, apparently trying to keep his word, but it was a battle he ultimately lost to Republican attorneys general who sued to allow the auction to take place.

The oil rights being auctioned off by Biden's Interior Department will allow some 1.1 billion barrels of crude oil to be produced, also according to AP. It's another broken campaign promise for Biden, AP's report points out, who wooed progressives by promising them he would prevent federal lands from being used for new fossil fuel projects:

Biden campaigned on promises to curb fossil fuels from public lands and waters, which including coal account for about a quarter of U.S. carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

During the Democratic presidential primary, Biden said in a debate that his position would be "no more subsidies for [the] fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period."

As the Green New Deal crowd is learning along with the rest of the country, what Biden said on the trail and what he does in office are often two very different things.

Even NBC News called Biden out for promising one thing and doing another:

The Guardian didn't blunt its criticism of the Biden administration, either:

The enormous size of the lease sale – covering an area that is twice as large as Florida – is a blunt repudiation of Biden’s previous promise to shut down new drilling on public lands and waters. It has stunned environmentalists who argue the auction punctures the US’s shaky credibility on the climate crisis and will make it harder to avert catastrophic impacts from soaring global heating.

Those poor stunned environmentalists? The joke is really on other nations that attended the climate summit in Glasgow and agreed to stunt their own economies based on Biden's "leadership" on the issue only to find him selling oil rights to the energy companies demonized by climate activists

SOURCE

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Low emission zone a failure

Campaigners today called for London's 'money-grabbing' Ultra Low Emissions Zone to be scrapped after scientists warned it has barely had any impact on improving the capital's dirty air in the month after it launched.

Researchers from Imperial College London say the controversial scheme – which was last month expanded and made 18 times bigger – is not effective on its own.

The team looked at the level of pollutants over a 12-week period, starting before and ending after the ULEZ was launched by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in April 2019.

They found just a 3 per cent reduction in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels over this time, and 'insignificant' drops in levels of ozone (O3), which can damage the lungs, and tiny particles of dirt and liquid called PM2.5 that are thought to reach the brain.

Amazingly, at some sites around the capital, air pollution actually worsened, despite the ULEZ coming into force.

These new findings show that the ULEZ – which costs drivers of diesel vehicles that do not comply a whopping £12.50/day – is 'not a silver bullet' in tackling air pollution. It comes less than a month after London's ULEZ zone was widened to include all areas within the North and South Circular roads, catching another 130,000 drivers.

Hugh Bladon, from the Alliance of British Drivers, called ULEZ 'ridiculous' and suggested it should be scrapped.

'There is a mindset in this country of having a hatred of people driving around in cars and vans - they don't seem to realise that people need to get about,' he told MailOnline.

'If you've got to go in five days a week it's going to cost more than £60 - that is ridiculous. And the biggest problem is it hits those who can least afford it, as better-off people are able to buy newer cars.

'This is an example of officials trying to rob motorists of whatever pennies they have in their pockets.'

AA spokesman Luke Bosdet told MailOnline: 'I think we have to bear in mind that confidence in public transport has not yet returned to pre-covid levels. Some of those would-be passengers will be making car trips. Road traffic is only one source of low-level pollution but is the easy hit for trying to reduce levels. It is also very lucrative in generating charges and fines income for London.

'One of the big failures of London transport planning has been not providing the means for commuters and drivers to leave their vehicles on the outskirts and take public transport or cycle into the city.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10207377/Londons-ULEZ-reduced-nitrogen-dioxide-levels-3-study-says.html

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Peter Ridd and the reef

The essay below by Jennifer Marohasy dates from October 13. I have hesitated in putting it up because it is so long. It does however provide an excellent coverage of a number of points so repays the effort of reading it.

I was pleased that she mentions water-level variations as a factor in coral death. I had thought I was the only one pointing that out

Coral reefs can be messy, and so can court cases. And so it is with the case of Peter Ridd, sacked by James Cook University because he exercised his intellectual freedom. The only thing that is neatly settled from this case is apparently ‘the science’, never mind that this is only because anyone who publicly disagrees with it is censored or sacked. In the case of Peter Ridd, even after he managed to raise over A$1.4 million to appeal his sacking by James Cook University all the way to the High Court of Australia, he lost.

This sends a very strong message to all politically astute academics: if they are likely to make findings that do not accord with the consensus, these findings should be hidden within phrases that are unintelligible gobbledygook. In other words, their findings should be communicated in language that is meaningless, or is made unintelligible by the excessive use of technical jargon. They should certainly not translate their findings into plain English, or, worse, air them on national television, because that way the average Australian would have some understanding of what they are actually funding with their hard-earned taxes.

The climate science literature is replete with hidden meaning and technical jargon. The extent of the gobbledygook is such that the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently concluded that humans are the main cause of global warming and the role of the sun is inconsequential, never mind that there is prestigious scientific literature that arguably comes to the opposite conclusion – which is that much of the global warming we have been experiencing can be explained in terms of solar variability. This extensive literature was recently reviewed by Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon and 20 of their colleagues from 14 countries and published in the international journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Volume 21). However, it appears that tenured academics are not allowed to argue, at least not publicly.

There was a sense of irony this morning that made me smile. As I waited for the High Court judgement, I looked through a paper by Peter Ridd’s former colleagues – Emma Ryan, Scott Smithers and others – entitled ‘Chronostratigraphy of Bramston Reef reveals a long-term record of fringing reef growth under muddy conditions in the central Great Barrier Reef’ published in the very respectable journal Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeoecology (Volume 441, page 734–747, 2016).

It would be difficult for the non-specialist to decipher this jargon-filled technical analysis that essentially supports what Peter Ridd has been saying for some years – and which earned him his first censure by the University, but, in short, it says there is still healthy coral reef in Bowen Harbour.

It’s cold comfort, by the way, for the High Court to find in passing that the 2016 censure was unlawful, especially when it led directly to the 2018 censure, which, in turn, resulted in Peter’s employment being terminated.

Anyway, I’m told Scott Smithers is a very competent scientist and an all-round good guy. He never replies to my emails. Perhaps this is because I could translate his gobbledygook into plain English. His potentially subversive publications would then be understood by the intelligent layperson for what they are – which is that they back up what Peter Ridd is saying and provide a very detailed explanation of how many inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef have been in decline for more than 1,000 years because of falling (yes, falling) sea levels.

Because academics are not allowed to speak freely about controversial subjects most people have no understanding the cyclical nature of sea levels. The general public are under the misconception that the most important global trend is one of sea-level rise. There are cycles within cycles and the most significant cycle has been one of sea-level fall, by some 1.5 metres over the last 2,000 or so years, notwithstanding that there has been sea-level rise of some 40 centimetres since the industrial revolution, which coincides with the end of the Little Ice Age (circa AD 1303 to AD 1835).

To put all of this in some context, along the Great Barrier Reef there is a large and variable daily tidal range. For example, at Hay Point the tide varies by as much as 7.14 metres; at Mackay by 6.58 metres; and at Gladstone by 4.83 metres.

The daily cycles can be averaged to show that sea levels can change even more dramatically over geological time frames. For example, just 19,500 years ago, during the depths of the last major ice age, sea levels were 120 metres lower (yes, lower) than they are today. And the Great Barrier Reef did not exist. This very long record shows changes in temperature precede their parallel changes in carbon dioxide by 800 to 2000 years. This vital point establishes that carbon dioxide cannot be the primary forcing agent for temperature change at the glacial-interglacial scale, but this reality is mostly hidden by the modern astute geologist and ice-core expert who arguably cares more for his career than the truth. If this were not the case, they would be marching on Glasgow.

The modern Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system to have ever existed on planet Earth, according to Peter J. Davies writing in the Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. It is but a thin veneer growing on top of at least five previous extensive reef systems, each destroyed by dramatic falls in sea level in the past. The modern reef has grown up on top of extinct reefs, the last of which existed 120,000 years ago. In some places the depth of the coral growth since the last ice age, which had begun by 100,000 years ago, is 28 metres – layer upon layer. This growth is now constrained by sea level.

Many of the nearly 3,000 reefs that make up the modern Great Barrier Reef have a crest that is flat-topped because the most recent 1.5 metre drop in sea level has sliced this much off their tops. So, the crests of these reefs expose dead coral that is thousands of years old, sometimes capped with coralline algae. These reef crests were dead long before European settlement. Yet it is surveys of exactly this reef habitat, taken from the window of a plane by Peter Ridd’s nemesis Terry Hughes flying at an altitude of 150 metres, which have made media headlines around the world, and which suggest that the Great Barrier Reef is more than half dead. Worse, they were used in a recent Australian Academy of Sciences report (March 2021) to claim the imminent demise of the Great Barrier Reef due to carbon dioxide emissions and thus the need for a commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Glasgow. It is all nonsense, and politics. But beware the academic who explains as much in plain English, especially following this morning’s ruling by the High Court of Australia.

On 2 May 2018, Peter Ridd was sacked by James Cook University for serious misconduct. It all started when he called-out Terry Hughes, whom he believed was falsely claiming that the inshore coral reefs at Bowen, specifically Bramston Reef, were dead because of climate change and the deteriorating water quality.

Professor Ridd had been complaining quietly for years. He had already published peer-reviewed papers explaining in detail some of the serious issues with the official science. It was nevertheless a tough decision to go public, which he made in full knowledge that there could be consequences. At the same time there was a feeling of optimism; eventually, the truth would win out and the University would acknowledge the importance of implementing some form of quality assurance over the various pronouncements made by one or two high-profile academics. These academics, whom he believed were speaking beyond their area of expertise and hammering the theme of the reef being dead in order to progress their own personal political agenda and, at the same time, their careers.

Former Chairman of the Institute of Public Affairs, Janet Albrechtsen, wrote in The Australian on 25 July 2020:

“Remember that Ridd wasn’t querying the interpretation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He was raising questions, in one particular area of his expertise, about the quality of climate change science. One of the fundamental challenges of our generation is to get the science right so we can settle on the right climate change policies. JCU told Ridd to keep quiet, then it sacked him.”

Peter Ridd did win the first round in the Federal Circuit Court back in April 2019. Judge Salvatore Vasta found in his favour and order that the 17 findings made by the University, the two speech directions, the five confidentiality directions, the no satire direction and the censure and the final censure given by the University and the termination of employment of Professor Ridd by the University were all unlawful.

Then the University appealed, and the Federal Court of Australia overturned the decision of the Federal Circuit Court. That decision, according to Dr Albrechtsen, has sent intellectual inquiry down the gurgler in the 21st century at an institution fundamental to Western civilisations:

“Is that to be the legacy of JCU’s vice-chancellor Sandra Harding? And what oversight has JCU’s governing council provided to this reputational damage, not to mention the waste of taxpayer dollars, in pursuing a distinguished scientist who was admired by his students?

"Following this decision, no academic can assume that an Australian university will allow the kind of robust debate held at Oxford University in 1860 between the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, and Thomas Henry Huxley, a biologist and proponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution.

"The Historical Journal records how this legendary encounter unfolded: ‘The Bishop rose, and in a light scoffing tone, florid and fluent he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution: rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons have always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey? On this Mr Huxley slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure stern and pale, very quiet and very grave, he stood before us, and spoke those tremendous words ... He was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth.’

"Not for nothing, Ridd’s lawyers submitted this example of intellectual freedom during the first trial. In sacking Ridd, and to win in court, JCU had to argue against the means that seeks the truth – intellectual freedom.

"In deciding whether to grant special leave for the appeal, the High Court considered whether the case involved ‘a question of law that is of public importance’. It was the first time the High Court had been called upon to consider the meaning of ‘academic and intellectual freedom’, a term that is used in enterprise agreements covering staff at almost all Australian universities.”

We now have a judgement. For the High Court, it seems that intellectual freedom is like a delicate flower that does not survive being plucked. It can be contemplated from afar but cannot be held or given as a gift. Intellectual freedom survives in academia only if limited to gobbledygook that alludes to the truth in such a way that no member of the pubic could understand how deeply that truth contradicts the official scientific consensus. Perhaps I already knew that.

Some argue there are other legal avenues – not through the courts – that could, perhaps, have been pursued and may have achieved a different outcome, but which may or may not have provided some vindication. But as for the courts: if you have to raise A$1.4 million and put in a further A$300,000 of your own money, as Peter Ridd has done, just to run one argument all the way to the High Court, how much would you need to fight on the substance of each issue?

This alternative strategy might have been to try and get the matter raised under the Queensland whistle-blower legislation. Peter Ridd would at least have been, theoretically, protected while an investigation was conducted. The focus would have been on science rather than a narrow construction of employment law and the procedures laid out in the University’s Code of Conduct. But given the determination of James Cook University to silence its critics, and the need for this to have included testimony from colleagues desperate to avoid controversy – lest they are admonished by their family and communities for failing to be respectable, thereby jeopardising their own careers – it is unclear this would have been any more fruitful.

And so to this day there has never been any consideration given by the courts or any other independent body to the actual state of the corals in Bowen Harbour, including at Bramston Reef, even though this was the reason for the first censure that the High Court has ruled should not have been issued in the first place. Yes, the ruling this morning clearly states, in agreement with Judge Vasta, that Professor Ridd’s initial comments about his colleague Terry Hughes and the state of the corals in Bowen Harbour were reasonable and that the censure should not have been issued. Yet that is where all the other allegations subsequently came from as Peter Ridd tried to defend himself in the public domain.

Following today’s decision, Peter Ridd has accepted an invitation to join the Institute of Public Affairs as a Research Fellow, without salary, to lead a newly established project for ‘Real Science’. The Project’s aims are to improve science quality assurance and to support academics speaking out for integrity in science and research. You can support this project by way of a tax deductable donation to the IPA. It is the case that long ago scientific inquiry was mostly privately funded, now is your opportunity to be a part of this new initiative for open and honest inquiry.

https://mailchi.mp/1e5825fd681a/academics-warned-to-use-gobbledygook?fbclid=IwAR2zw36b7fYgPZxO8WGNR7aRY_vg6y_7BgTW4ewXEN3L7EKFMbD48eWf_6Y

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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17 November, 2021

Scotland: Green housing schemes have nowhere to park your car

New housing schemes and business parks across Scotland will be designed with little or no car parking space under plans to accelerate the transition to public transport.

The proposal to “disincentivise unsustainable travel” through planning rules is part of a new strategy to help Scotland reach net-zero emissions by 2045.

Among the recommendations, likely to become law by July 2022, are moves to improve transit links in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, to reduce congestion and a reliance on cars.

Tom Arthur, the planning minister, suggested this week that there will sometimes be “uncomfortable choices"

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/green-housing-schemes-have-nowhere-to-park-your-car-mlrtcvc5r

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Electric cars are not a magic bullet for air pollution

Brake and tire wear from road transport vehicles is responsible for more fine particle emissions than exhaust fumes

The benefits of switching to electric vehicles to clean up our toxic air has been given much airtime, both at Cop26 and by the UK government in recent weeks (‘What if we just gave up cars?’: Cop26 leaders urged to dream big, 10 November). However, evidence shows that electric cars still emit PM2.5 particles, the most worrying form of air pollution for humans.

Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
The threat posed by air pollution cannot be overstated – the air we breathe can have a catastrophic effect on our health, right from the moment we are born. More than a third of maternity units in England are in air pollution hotspots that fail to meet the World Health Organization’s 2005 air quality guidelines. This means that every two minutes, a baby is born into areas surrounded by toxic levels of air pollution. Children are then likely to grow up, learn and play in these areas of lethal pollution. If we’re going to stop babies being born into toxic air, more electric cars won’t cut it. We need fewer vehicles on our roads altogether, not just cleaner ones.

SOURCE

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Who says burning wood is good?

All over the Southeast—that there are at least 20 mills from Virginia to Texas chopping wood into tiny pellets, and that millions of tons of the stuff are already being shipped each year from at least 10 different ports in the region.

It’s as if a giant funnel were draining Southeastern woods into European furnaces, one cigarette filter-sized pellet at a time—all in the name of fighting climate change. And it’s all based on a fundamental error, many scientists say.

When the European Union set up its pioneering carbon emissions trading scheme in 2005, it defined wood as a zero-emissions fuel, Sarah Gibbens reports. At first, that seemed to make sense: If a new tree grows to replace the one that was burned, it will absorb carbon from the air to offset the emissions from the burning.

“The whole wood pellet industry is basically being driven by this,” Princeton researcher Tim Searchinger told Gibbens. Coal-fired power plants in the U.K. and elsewhere have been switching to wood pellets, thereby reducing their emissions fees—but not their actual emissions.

The problem, Searchinger and many other scientists say, is that while trees do indeed absorb carbon, they do so only in the long run—they take decades longer to grow than they do to burn. But in the long run the glaciers will have melted; we don’t have decades to wait to cut emissions. And right now, most evidence suggests, burning whole trees puts more carbon in the air than coal, because wood is less efficient. (Pictured at top, young pines in Virginia; below left, the pellets; below right, logs at a North Carolina pellet factory.)

At the COP26 environmental summit that ended last weekend in Glasgow, more than 130 countries signed a pledge to end deforestation by 2030. But the issue of burning trees for energy wasn’t on the agenda.

The loophole that defines wood as a zero-emissions fuel emerged from an earlier COP meeting, Searchinger told Gibbens. In the last session in Glasgow, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans talked about how Europe had gotten rich off the coal-fired Industrial Revolution. “Coal has no future” now, he said. He didn’t mention that European countries had switched to coal back in the 18th century only after cutting down and burning most of their own forests. From that perspective, importing pellets from North America, in order to switch from coal back to wood, seems like a historic step backward.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/europe-burns-controversial-renewable-energy-trees-from-us

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Anti-coal protesters in Australian region face 25 years in prison

A group of climate activists have been blocking coal trains in the Hunter Region from entering the Port of Newcastle for more than a week, resulting in NSW Police establishing Strike Force Tuohy.

On Tuesday, Police Commissioner Mick Fuller issued a statement, saying the ongoing protests were placing public safety at risk and endangering the lives of those who use the rail network. “They will not be tolerated,” he said.

“I have sought further legal advice and am warning anyone who intends on behaving in the manner we’ve seen over the past week that they could be charged with offences ... which carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.”

Mr Fuller said this was in addition to the various trespass and rail disruption offences numerous protesters have been charged with since Friday, November 5.

The statement from Mr Fuller comes after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce claimed protesters had disrupted $60 million worth of coal exports in the past week.

“If they’ve got other ways that the nation can earn money right now, then we’re all ears,” Mr Joyce said from the Singleton train station on Monday.

“In the meantime, we've got to make a buck. “For each one of these (trains) that goes through, that’s about $1 million in export dollars.

“It’s about $100,000 in royalties, so what you’ve got here is payments for your NDIS … payments for pensions and unemployment benefit.”

Mr Joyce said protesters believed their views were “more important than the law”. “They are a different breed,” he said. “(They) believe they can shut things down, a legal industry that underpins their standard of living.”

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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16 November, 2021

WH: Gas Prices 'Prove' Gov't Should Spend More on Green Energy

If you have been wondering why President Joe Biden is working so diligently to close the pipelines and jack up the gas prices, now you know! On Friday, the White House announced that the rising gas prices just "prove" that the government needs to spend more money on "green energy."

Of course, the government wants to take more of our money to spend on useless things. What else is new?

“The rise in gas prices over the long term makes an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

Breitbart reports:

She blamed market fluctuations driven by OPEC for rising gas prices and repeated that the Biden administration would continue monitoring any cases of possible price gouging by energy companies.

When asked if the current prices were acceptable, Psaki replied, “We certainly don’t think that.”

Psaki did not have any response to questions about whether the Biden administration would act immediately to alleviate high gas prices.

Some of the proposals for the administration include banning exports of fossil fuels, easing bio-fuel blending requirements, or releasing fuel from the strategic oil reserves, some of them even endorsed by Senate Democrats.

Psaki did not respond to any of the proposals, but said that the White House was “monitoring” the situation but had no specific actions to preview.

What a crapshow.

https://dailypatriotreport.com/wh-gas-prices-prove-govt-should-spend-more-on-green-energy/

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Paris culture guru flees 'violent and dirty' city

Under its "Green" mayor

One of France's leading culture experts is quitting Paris to live in the countryside, because the capital has become a 'rubbish bin' under its controversial socialist mayor.

Stéphane Bern, 58, who was hired by Emmanuel Macron as a cultural adviser, said the city has now become a hotbed of violence and ugliness following a series of unpopular reforms by Anne Hidalgo.

The left-wing mayor has overseen a series of sweeping reforms to make the city 'greener' including concrete cycle lanes, plans to turn the Champs-Elysées into a garden, and the removal of traditional 19th century benches because they are 'sexist', all while failing to clean up the streets.

Hidalgo, who is running for president next year, has also attracted ire for pushing through plans for a controversial new £600million glass skyscraper likened to a 'giant piece of brie' that critics say will ruin the Paris skyline.

Bern, a journalist and TV presenter, has now vowed to move from his flat in Pigalle, a Paris neighbourhood known for its nightlife and home to the Moulin Rouge, to Perche in northern France.

Bern said: 'Where has the City of Lights gone?'

'I still marvel at the beauty but I deplore that it is letting itself go to a certain extent, and even growing uglier in general.

'Paris has become a rubbish bin where people throw anything away, anywhere and any old how.'

Bern will be moving to a disused military school that he purchased in 2013 when he vacates the capital.

His comments have renewed debate about the state of Paris as critics say the City of Love has started to lose its lustre.

Hidalgo has pushed for many pro-cycling measures including controversial new lanes last year which are separated from the roads by giant concrete blocks, which have been branded an eyesore.

She also introduced large plastic flower pots across the city in a bid to allow locals to tend the flowerbeds, but many have been left unkempt and overgrown.

The mayor is currently facing a backlash over the proposed Triangle Tour glass skyscraper which is set to be built this year.

Plans for the tower, unfavourably compared to The Shard, were first approved more than a decade ago but legal wrangling from activists, environmentalists and architects has pushed back construction.

The 42-storey building is designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron and will include office spaces and a four-star hotel.

Art historian Didier Rykner blasted the project as a 'big piece of brie in the sky that can be seen from everywhere' while French news outlet Télérama said the building is an 'outdated, ecologically absurd project being built out of place'.

A court overturned previous rulings this month to grant planning permission but opponents are still hoping for a last ditched attempt to derail it.

Philippe Goujon, the conservative mayor of the 15th arrondissement where the building will be located, will formally ask for it to be postponed at a city council meeting this week.

Prosecutors are also investigating alleged 'favouritism' by Hidalgo's office towards Viparis, the company that manages the construction site.

She and other backers say the tower will generate more than 5,000 jobs and be a major asset for Paris.

But others say the city already has 1.5million square metres of empty office space and its irregular shape would make it vastly less energy efficient.

Separately, one of Hidalgo's most unpopular moves was the removal of Paris's traditional wooden and wrought-iron benches which had been designed by Gabriel Davioud in the late 19th century.

Hidalgo and feminists say they are mainly used by men and women are scared to use them out of fear of being harassed.

She replaced them with deconstructed benches, which resemble long tables and slabs of concrete, to encourage women to sit together, but Bern blasted them as 'frightful'.

He said he was horrified by the 'dirtiness, the holes in the road, the permanent building sites, the noise and especially the violence' in the capital.

He added: 'You should hear how people talk to each other. Traffic is an incredible source of tension. Cars against pedestrians, scooters against bicycles, scooters against cars... this war of wheels is intolerable.'

Bern previously worked under Macron and remains close to the President, having been tasked with preserving French heritage in the culture ministry.

He has been influential with setting up a heritage lottery similar to the one in Britain and he previously presented a number of acclaimed documentaries about French royalty.

SOURCE

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Al Gore Pushes Mass Surveillance as Key to Fighting Climate Change

Over the course of the last several decades, there have been numerous suggestions regarding how we can best tackle the idea of “climate change”, a theory previously known as “global warming”.

Much of the hullabaloo came as a direct result of former Vice President Al Gore and his film An Inconvenient Truth. This was the watershed moment for the climate change movement, and the former veep has continued to push the issue with ever-more desperate dialogue.

This week was no exception.

In the interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Gore declared that technology created by the so called Climate TRACE coalition will monitor greenhouse gas emissions and root out the culprits.

“We get data consistently from 300 existing satellites, more than 11,000 ground-based, air-based, sea-based sensors, multiple internet data streams and using artificial intelligence,” Gore explained, adding

“All that information is combined, visible light, infrared, all of the other information that is brought in, and we can now accurately determine where the greenhouse gas emissions are coming from.”

Of course, there is something to be said for Al Gore and his fellow wealthmongers’ impact on the global climate.

New research by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has found that by 2030, the carbon footprints of the wealthiest 1% of humanity are on track to be 30 times larger than the size compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century, the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious temperature target.

The report notes that should current trends continue, the richest 1% will account for 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2030.

The paper notes that “They increasingly drive the extent of global inequality, and likely have a greater impact on the political and social acceptability of national emissions reduction efforts,” adding “It is therefore notable that in all of the major emitting countries, the richest 10% and 1% nationally are set to have per capita consumption footprints substantially above the 1.5?C global per capita level.”

And let’s not forget about the energy cost of all of this surveillance either, with a great deal of American electricity still being generated by not-so-green means.

https://steadfastdaily.com/al-gore-pushes-mass-surveillance-as-key-to-fighting-climate-change/

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Glasgow summit is 'green light' for more coal mines, Australian Senator says

The Glasgow COP26 climate summit was a "great result" for the Australian coal industry, Senator Matt Canavan has said.

His declaration came us UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UN get-together had sounded the "death knell" for coal power.

Appearing on Today with a screen behind him displaying the slogan "Glasgow: A huge win for coal", Senator Canavan said there had "never been stronger demand" for the industry.

"Given the fact that the agreement did not say that coal needs to be phased down or taken out, it is a green light for us to build more coal mines," he said.

The agreement finally reached by 197 countries yesterday did in fact include a commitment to "phase down" the use of coal, but the phrase was changed from "phase out" after an intervention by India.

Senator Canavan also speculated that numerous countries would not take the commitment seriously. "The agreements themselves have wiggle room," he said. "We always see countries not comply with the agreements."

He claimed there was "not really any country around the world" taking it seriously. "The countries in our region, like India, like China, like South-East Asia, are growing and developing their industries, and their demand for coal almost has no limit," he said.

"So, we have got the best quality coal in the world and we should be supplying that to the world, because it is good for the environment to do that, and it is, of course, very good for people's growth, development, and getting people out of poverty."

Negotiators at Glasgow said the final agreement was aimed at keeping alive the overarching goal of limiting warming to 1.5C since pre-industrial times. The world has already warmed 1.1C.

Coal is among the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the UN climate summit as a "game-changing agreement" that sounded the "death knell for coal power" - although he added that his delight at the progress on fighting climate change was "tinged with disappointment."

Mr Johnson said it was "beyond question" that the deal coming out of the Glasgow conference marks an important moment in the use of coal, because most of western Europe and North America have agreed to pull the plug on financial support for all overseas fossil fuel projects by this time next year.

Mr Johnson also said the compromise that saw the language changed to "phase down" did not make "that much of a difference."

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/glasgow-summit-is-green-light-for-more-coal-mines-senator-says/ar-AAQHni3

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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15 November, 2021

Toyota Forms ‘Team Japan’ To Help Keep Combustion Engine Alive

Toyota has assembled a team consisting of themselves and four other Japanese marques in an effort to keep ICE vehicles relevant.

Toyota’s continued resistance to BEVs is becoming more and more prevalent. Just days after refusing to sign a climate pledge aiming to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles by 2040, Toyota has organized a team to promote the combustion engine in the electric age. ‘Team Japan’ consists of Toyota, Subaru, Mazda, Kawasaki and Yamaha. The group will work together on the development of greener fueling options as well as hydrogen tech.

The coalition will see the five companies develop carbon-neutral fuels for racing, meanwhile Toyota and Mazda will together to develop a 1.5-liter Skyactiv-D engine powered by biodiesel. Subaru will work with Toyota for 2022’s Super Taikyu Series endurance season, with both companies collaborating to make a biomass-derived synthetic fuel. Furthermore, Yamaha and Kawasaki are considering working on a hydrogen engine for motorcycles.

Toyota clearly believes other solutions such as hydrogen will play their part in a sustainable future, an idea Tesla CEO Elon Musk has labelled “mind-bogglingly stupid” in the past. Despite all this, Toyota still intends to compete in the BEV space through the bz4x crossover which will arrive in mid-2022.

Toyota released the following statement after the announcement of the coalition:

"By promoting further collaboration in producing, transporting and using fuel in combination with internal combustion engines, the five companies aim to provide customers with greater choice."

Greater choice? Perhaps, although only time will tell if the proposed alternatives are viable solutions. Toyota has seen limited success with the hydrogen-powered Mirai, with a lack of infrastructure and high running costs being key obstacles for consumers.

Source

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U.S. court voids emissions rules for heavy-duty truck trailers

A U.S. appeals court on Friday tossed out greenhouse gas emissions rules for heavy-duty truck trailers, ruling two government agencies had exceeded their authority.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2016 set rules for the first time requiring trailer manufacturers to adopt fuel-saving technologies like side skirts and automatic tire pressure systems. An industry group challenged the rule, which was put on hold by the court pending the review.

The administration of then-President Barack Obama said it was important to regulate the fuel efficiency of the trailer portion of commercial tractor-trailers "because large tractor-trailers account for 60% of the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from heavy-duty vehicles."

The court ruled that if it allowed the trailer regulations, then "NHTSA could regulate bike racks, rooftop cargo carriers, or anything similar that would impact the fuel efficiency of a vehicle." The court added: "NHTSA can regulate tractors based on the trailers they pull, as can the EPA. But neither NHTSA nor the EPA can regulate trailers themselves."

The EPA said in 2016 as much as one-third of potential reductions in tractor-trailer emissions could be achieved through regulation of the trailer’s equipment and design alone.

The EPA and NHTSA did not immediately comment.

The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA), which had sued to block the rules, said it was still reading the ruling and did not immediately comment. The group had argued that the rules were improper because trailers do not consume fuel, as they are not self-propelled.

TTMA said earlier its members, which manufacture 90% of U.S. truck trailers, would incur "unrecoverable compliance costs," including from reconfiguring assembly lines.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/us/us-court-voids-emissions-rules-for-heavy-duty-truck-trailers/ar-AAQDEIW

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Africa has sights set on hydrocarbon haul despite global shift

Several African countries plan to exploit their oil and gas reserves to tackle poverty and energy shortages, representatives gathered in Dubai said this week in the face of pressure to end fossil fuel extraction to curb global warming.

Officials and industry executives stressed that Africa as a whole has a relatively small carbon footprint, which Statista estimated accounted for 3.7% of global CO2 emissions in 2020.

"We want to develop our resources as Africa, just as our brothers in the West have done," John Munyes, Kenya's minister of petroleum and mining, told the Africa Oil Week conference in Dubai, which coincided with the second week of the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

"Much of Kenya is renewables, we just want to tap into what God has given us: hydrocarbons," he added.

Across the African continent, where some 600 million people lack electricity, both well-established and emerging producers are seeking to accelerate hydrocarbon extraction.

"We understand that we have to mitigate the damage to the planet. That's why we have signed up to the energy transition," Thomas Camara, Ivory Coast's minister of mines, petroleum and energy, said.

"But for our African nations, we have to ensure that our populations have access to energy … We will not turn our back to oil and energy companies so we can ensure the happiness - and even the existence - of our populations."

Some two dozen African countries pitched their energy sectors to investors during the event in Dubai.

OPEC member Angola, where production peaked in 2008 and has been steadily declining for the past half-decade, plans to develop more fields including through licensing rounds for onshore blocks in 2023 and offshore blocks in 2025.

Output in 2031 is projected to slightly exceed last year's roughly 1.3 million barrels a day.

Ghana, which discovered oil in 2007 and began extraction at the end of 2010, will channel investments to oil and gas development to then use the proceeds to invest in infrastructure and social welfare such as healthcare and education, its deputy energy minister, Andrew Egyapa Mercer, said.

"We believe strongly in oil and gas, and in particular gas" to ensure reliable energy baseloads, he added.

Western oil and gas companies looking to develop deposits in Africa face growing pressure over environmental concerns, which are leading them to accelerate plans as the world transitions to renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind.

"We have to come up with processes that enable us to convert a discovery into production as quickly as we can, because the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking in terms of the energy transition," said Paul McCafferty, senior vice president Africa at Norwegian energy major Equinor.

Industry executives said among the challenges they now face was securing sufficient capital for hydrocarbon projects.

Top oil exporters Angola, and to a lesser extent Nigeria, are facing crude production declines due to lack of investment in expensive deepwater oil fields, partly because oil companies are allotting less funding to fossil fuels.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/us/africa-has-sights-set-on-hydrocarbon-haul-despite-global-shift/ar-AAQCXm7

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Northern hemisphere energy crisis hits Australian fertilizer supply

With so many coal-based generators shut down for Greenie reasons, Europe is grabbing natural gas supplies for electricity generation. And that is causing gas prices to soar worldwide

With global prices soaring, it seemed odd timing this week for Incitec Pivot to announce plans to close one of Australia's largest fertiliser plants.

The rising cost of another commodity — natural gas — appears to have sealed the fate for Incitec's Gibson Island facility in Brisbane.

"Despite extensive efforts, [we have] been unable to secure an economically viable long-term gas supply," the company said in a statement to the ASX.

"The decision to close the Gibson Island manufacturing facility after more than 50 years of operation is expected to impact up to 170 employees."

The company said it would cease manufacturing with natural gas at the end of 2022 but was looking into the potential of green ammonia.

The facility has spent decades converting gas into fertiliser products. According to its website, it has the capacity each year to manufacture 300,000 tonnes of ammonia, 280,000 tonnes of urea and 200,000 tonnes of ammonium.

China has enforced a ban on some ports exporting fertilisers, and more recently Russia invoked a six-month quota on its fertiliser exports.

"Incitec's [announcement] is not ideal in light of the other dynamics going on ... and we need to get our product from somewhere, so it's going to be a challenge," GrainGrowers chair Brett Hosking said.

"So to hear reports [about Incitec] has thrown another spanner into the works and that little bit of extra complexity in a grower's mind around how do I make sure I'm covered and how do I make sure I've got product?"

According to Thomas Elders Markets analyst Andrew Whitelaw, the announcement by Russia was another "death by a thousand cuts" for Australian farmers.

"The China ban is worse for us," he said. "Russia's quota will mean hundreds or thousands of tonnes, not millions of tonnes lost to the global market, but it comes at a time when we need every tonne available.

"So it's another weight against the fertiliser price, which is a really big challenge for Australia."

Research by Mr Whitelaw shows Australian wheat farmers need 2.8 tonnes of wheat sold to buy a tonne of diammonium phosphate (DAP).

"The biggest risk for a grain farmer in the coming year is buying high-priced inputs but not having high-priced grain," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2021-11-13/incitec-pivot-shut-brisbane-plant-amidst-fertiliser-price-boom/100610750

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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14 November, 2021

Elon Musk sells off another 600,000 Tesla shares worth $687million for a total of $5.8billion this week

He knows he is benefiting from a huge bubble and is getting out before it pops. The bubble will pop when enough people realize that electric cars are virtually useless in a Northern winter. Heating is a huge drain on batteries but comes as a free byproduct in a conventional car

Tesla CEO Elon Musk pawned off another $687 million worth of Tesla shares Thursday after offloading $5 billion of his stake in the company in two separate transactions earlier this week, following the CEO's promise to sell $25 billion worth of the stock.

The string of sales comes less than a week after Musk's much-publicized Twitter poll where he asked followers if he should sell his $250 billion stake in the electric-car maker to pay President Joe Biden's proposed 'billionaire's tax.'

In the Saturday post, the world's richest person and Tesla's top shareholder criticized the controversial new tax plan proposed by the president's administration, saying that he does not earn a salary from the company and his only source of income is stocks, and that the only way for him to pay taxes would be to sell some of his stake.

Musk, 50, who founded the car company in 2003, then declared to his 63.1 million followers that he would sell 10 percent of his shares - which would equate to roughly $25 billion - if they approved the move.

'Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,' Musk, 50, wrote in the November 6 post.

The exec then implored his 63.1 million followers: 'Do you support this?'

They did - with more than 2 million of the 3.5 million social media users surveyed voting that he should, spurring the CEO's massive sell-off.

The shares were sold at prices ranging from around $1,056.03 to $1,104.15 in multiple transactions, the filings reveal.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10194951/Teslas-Musk-sells-639-737-shares-Twitter-poll.html

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Climate summit stalls

Update: In the final COP26 pact, countries failed to agree to “phase out” coal. An intervention by India ensured agreement to “phase down” fossil fuels. India was insistent right to the very end on the need to retain fossil fuels. Indian Environment and Climate Minister Bhupender Yadav said: “The world needs to awaken to this reality. Fossil fuels and their use have enabled parts of the world to attain high levels of wealth and wellbeing.” Yadav said “targeting any particular industry is uncalled-for” and stressed developing countries were entitled to use fossil fuels given developed nations had used them for decades and were responsible for historic emissions."

Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, India and Brazil were privately blamed for frustrating progress on phasing out coal, while a collection of nearly 140 developing nations known as the G77 dug its heels in over demands for wealthy nations to hand over billions of dollars to address loss and damage already caused by climate change. The bloc has the support of China, the world’s largest emitter and a key player in the talks.

Forcing nations such as Australia to take more action this decade is seen as essential to avoiding temperature rises of above 1.5 degrees.

The push to make Australia and other countries that failed to update their 2030 targets at Glasgow instead update their climate plans within the next 12 months is a central part of the proposed declaration.

A draft released earlier this week said countries would be “urged” to update their pledges in 2022 but the latest iteration changed that word to “requested” - something lawyers argued was stronger.

The previous draft also called for the accelerated phase-out of “coal and subsidies for fossil fuels”, but the latest version only calls for the elimination of “unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.

Negotiators argued the term “inefficient” had to be inserted because some developing countries offer legitimate financial support for people to access basic energy needs. But they also conceded the change would give major emitters cover to continue propping up highly polluting industries.

John Kerry, the US climate envoy, revealed the US would not support any further softening of the summit’s position on fossil fuels over the next 24 hours.

“That language [on] unabated coal must stay,” he said. “We’re not talking about all coal. We’re not talking about eliminating [coal].

SOURCE

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Toyota Refuses To Commit To Climate Pledge

A bit of refreshing realism

Toyota has avoided signing a zero-emissions pledge that promises to phase out fossil-fuel cars by 2040. Six other major automakers agreed to the the Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Cars and Vans including Ford, General Motors, Daimler and Volvo. Interestingly, Volkswagen also refused to commit to the pledge despite their continued heavy investment in EVs.

A Toyota spokesperson told Reuters that concerns over customer readiness, energy availability and charging infrastructure in Asia, Africa and the Middle East all lead to their decision not to sign the deal. However, in other regions such as Europe and North America Toyota is “ready to accelerate and help support with appropriate zero-emission vehicles."

“In many areas of the world such as Asia, Africa, Middle East ... an environment suitable for promoting full zero emission transport has not yet been established. We think it will take more time to make progress ... thus, it is difficult for us to commit to the joint statement at this stage."

Toyota plans to launch their first mass-produced, globally available EV next year – the bz4x. Powered by a 71.4 kWh battery pack, Toyota claims the bz4x will be good for around 280 miles of WLTP range.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/toyota-refuses-to-commit-to-climate-pledge/ar-AAQDBbH?ocid=chromentpnews

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Australia’s only working carbon capture and storage project fails to meet target

Australia’s only working carbon capture and storage project in Western Australia has failed to meet its target to lock away greenhouse gases from a major gas processing plant.

Chevron, an America-based multinational oil and gas company, was given a target by the WA government to capture at least 80% of the CO2 that would otherwise be released at its Gorgon LNG project.

But the company has said it fell short of the target by 5.23Mt and will buy the equivalent amount in carbon credits while also investing $40m in unspecified “low carbon energy projects” in the state.

Based on today’s prices for carbon offsets – which analysts say are rising – Chevron would have to pay between $78m and $194m.

Chevron announced last month it made more than $8bn profit in the most recent financial quarter.

The Morrison government is prioritising CCS technology as a way to lower emissions, even though its impact after decades of promises and about $4bn in Australian taxpayer cash has been marginal.

Environmental campaigners said the shortfall in emissions reductions at Gorgon showed CCS should not be relied on as justification for allowing fossil fuel production to increase.

Chevron has not said what kind of accredited carbon offsets it will buy, but analysts told the Guardian the cost to Chevron could range from $15 per tonne for some overseas credits to as high as $37 per tonne for Australian credits.

Calculated over a five-year average with the clock starting in July 2016, Chevron said it had missed the 80% target because of technical problems that delayed the CO2 injection into geological formations under Barrow Island.

Since injection started in August 2019, the company says it had captured and stored 5.5Mt of CO2.

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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12 November, 2021

Biden nominee wants oil & gas companies to go bankrupt

President Biden's nominee to lead a branch of the Treasury Department, Saule Omarova, said in a recently resurfaced video that she supports the idea of energy industries going "bankrupt" to combat climate change.

The Cornell University law professor, who has been nominated to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, first made the remarks during a February "Social Wealth Seminar" event hosted by the Jain Family Institute, a nonprofit research organization. The nonprofit group American Accountability Foundation (AAF) recently dug up the clip from her discussion at the event and posted it to social media.

Naming the coal, oil and gas industries, specifically, Omarova said "a lot" of the "small players" in those industries "are going to probably go bankrupt in short order," adding: "At least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change, right?"

Omarova during her presentation was making the case for a U.S. National Investment Authority – a proposed federal agency that would work with the Treasury and the Fed to allocate public and private capital to green infrastructure companies, according to Data for Progress.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/treasury-saule-omarova-energy-industries-bankrupt

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UK: Drivers reveal why they don't want to switch to electric cars

A flurry of new reports have laid bare a reasons why swathes of drivers are still unwilling to switch to electric cars, with concerns on the Government's ability to deliver suitable infrastructure, range anxiety and cars being quickly outdated.

The studies were published during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, where a rapid transition to EVs is being highlighted as a key factor to help nations meet net zero targets.

But despite the reservations, the UK's automotive trade body says pure-electric cars will outsell diesels next year, as the recent boom in EV demand takes its first internal-combustion victim ahead of the ban on sales of new petrols and oil-burners from 2030.

A new study by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has found that many drivers are deterred from making a complete switch to fully electric vehicles as they have little faith in the Government's ability to deliver the necessary infrastructure.

It comes after local authorities voiced their concerns about a 'lack of coherent strategic direction at a national level, including no articulation of the vision for the future and lack of clarity over the role authorities were expected to play in delivering EV charging infrastructure'.

A survey of 3,404 UK licence holders found that almost two thirds (63 per cent) are not confident that the politicians will able to create a sufficient infrastructure for there to be a smooth transition to fully electric vehicles by the government's own deadline at the end of the decade.

The report was revealed the same day that a British firm announced its plans to install 190,000 public charging points across the country before 2030, with most of the new devices funded by government-issued subsidies.

RSC's survey there is enough public hesitancy about the transition to electric motoring that it could potentially derail MPs' efforts to reduce air pollution levels, with over a third (34 per cent) of the panel said they do not intend to purchase a fully electric vehicle in the next decade.

Crucially, however, almost half (46 per cent) did not feel they had enough information to make an informed decision about whether their next car or van should be a fully electric vehicle or not.

Professor Tom Welton, president at the RSC, said: 'After we heard that the Government is delaying its Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, this research shows there is much work to be done to fully convince the public at large of the merits of switching to fully electric vehicles – but more pressingly, that efforts to deliver critical infrastructure for both charging and recycling EV batteries should be a government priority.

'We must improve the flow of information around the government's plans for transitioning to an entirely electric vehicle network, the ecosystem to support this and electric vehicles capabilities, all of which can help drivers to make informed purchasing decisions.'

Well over a third (40 per cent) of drivers polled by the RSC expressed concerns that EVs might have a negative impact on the environment, with over half of them (57 per cent) worrying there may be a lack of recycling options for electric vehicle batteries.

Another 55 per cent are concerned by a shortage of the natural resources used to produce the batteries for EVs.

A third of all respondents said they were unlikely to buy an EV until their batteries contain less 'increasingly scarce and precious elements'.

Range anxiety still a concern despite latest EVs covering over 300 miles on a single charge

Almost all UK drivers overestimate the number of breakdowns as a result of problems with EV charging infrastructure and vehicle range, according to a new report by the AA.

In 2020, its patrols attended around 13,000 electric vehicle breakdowns, of which just under 4 per cent were for vehicles running out of charge. This figure has halved in the last few years.

However, only 1 per cent of 14,500 drivers polled could correctly estimate the frequency of this issue, with the average guess being two thirds (65 per cent) of all EV breakdowns were due to the main driving battery running out.

The reality is that the top two breakdowns for combustion engine vehicles and EVs are the same, with tyres and the smaller 12-volt battery being the main causes of faults.

Drivers were also asked what they believed to be the average distance an EV could travel on a single charge, with only a quarter (25 per cent) correctly identifying a range of up to 200 miles.

Some 6 per cent believed the latest models are providing less than 100 miles from a single charge.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/motoring/news/drivers-reveal-why-they-don-t-want-to-switch-to-electric-cars/ar-AAQv4N9

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Rolls-Royce gets funding to develop mini nuclear reactors

Rolls-Royce has been backed by a consortium of private investors and the UK government to develop small nuclear reactors to generate cleaner energy.

The creation of the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) business was announced following a £195m cash injection from private firms and a £210m grant from the government.

It is hoped the new company could create up to 40,000 jobs by 2050.

However, critics say the focus should be on renewable power, not new nuclear. Currently, about 16% of UK electricity generation comes from nuclear power.

Small modular reactors are nuclear fission reactors but are smaller than conventional ones.

The investment by Rolls-Royce Group, BNF Resources, Exelon Generation and the government will go towards developing Rolls-Royce's SMR design and take it through regulatory processes to assess whether it is suitable to be deployed in the UK.

It will also identify sites which will manufacture the reactors' parts and most of the venture's investment is expected to be focused in the north of the UK, where there is existing nuclear expertise.

Rolls-Royce's share price jumped by 4.2% to 147.85p each following the announcement.

Rolls-Royce SMR said one of its power stations would occupy about one tenth of the size of a conventional nuclear plant - the equivalent footprint of two football pitches - and power approximately one million homes.

The firm said a plant would have the capacity to generate 470MW of power, which it added would be the same produced by more than 150 onshore wind turbines.

Warren East, Rolls-Royce chief executive, said the company's SMR technology offered a "clean energy solution" which help tackle climate change.

Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said SMRs offered opportunities to "cut costs and build more quickly, ensuring we can bring clean electricity to people's homes and cut our already-dwindling use of volatile fossil fuels even further".

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the UK to deploy more low carbon energy than ever before and ensure greater energy independence", he added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59212983

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Last homes in asbestos-riddled Australian town to be demolished, but some want to stay

Nobody seems to be taking into account what it means that there are elderly people still living there. So if asbestos is so bad for you how come? Shouldn't they all be dead?

What it shows is that the toxicity of asbestos is very low. You only get ill if you have been breathing in a lot of it for many years. So the hysteria about it is greatly exaggerated. Asbestos products in peoples homes ("fibro") are no threat to health at all

The former asbestos mining town of Wittenoom has claimed many lives, but it is not enough to deter some who proudly call it home.

After years of compensation offers, the WA government will turn to forcibly removing the remaining properties, under a bill expected to pass Parliament.

It is hoped the clearing of the former town site will reduce the attraction for visitors, who ignore significant health warnings of asbestos fibres on the ground and in the air at Wittenoom. Just 12km away lies three million tonnes of asbestos tailings.

Peter Heyward moved to the area in the 90s and said he knew of the dangers but enjoyed the lifestyle. "This is just beautiful living here," he said.

"Looking at the mountains, you get the view of the savanna and you're right beside a gorge that's got water all year round."

Long-term resident Lorraine Thomas said she had options if she was forced to leave, but she hoped to live out her life in Wittenoom. "This is home, and I haven't got anywhere else that I've found in this state or in this country that I'd like to call home," she said.

"They can't move the hills, the whole area… I love the weather. "No person can take that from me."

The WA government's planned eviction and demolition would come with an undisclosed amount of compensation.

Mario Hartmann is one of the residents who recently took up an offer to hand over his property, but it has not kept him away. "It's too cold down south so I come in winter to enjoy the warm weather," he said.

Tourists warned to stay away

With more West Australians exploring their own state during the pandemic's travel restrictions, Mr Hartmann noticed a surge in visitors.

"This year I've never seen that many people come here, some days you would have 50, 60 cars going out [to the gorge and the asbestos tailings]," he said.

It is an alarming figure for Curtin University Associate Professor Alison Reid, who has examined the health impact of the mine.

"People [who visit Wittenoom] are putting themselves unnecessarily at risk," she said. "We know that the risk of mesothelioma [a rare cancer] can occur with low exposure, so I think in that case it should be closed."

At least 1,200 former Wittenoom residents and workers have died from lung cancer and mesothelioma, according to a database maintained by UWA's Occupational Respiratory Epidemiology Group.

"The Flying Doctors used to hone in on the town of Wittenoom from the blue haze on the horizon and that was the dust…that's how the workers and the people in the town got exposed, through that dust. "It has made Western Australia have the highest rates of mesothelioma in the world."

The area is no longer on official maps, it was declared a contaminated site and the state government have repeatedly warned the public against visiting.

Lands Minister Tony Buti said visitors posed a risk to the wider public because cars could spread particles beyond the area.

"There is no question that this area is one of the saddest chapters in WA history," he said. "However, we must be realistic, and the fact is it's unlikely Wittenoom will ever again be a safe place to live or visit."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-12/wittenoom-closure/100599722

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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11 November, 2021

Teslas more dangerous in a crash

A mother of five in Ohio driving a Tesla was killed in a crash near an elementary school, police said.

Christy Corder was driving a Tesla on 8 November morning when it overturned after going off the side of the road and caught fire

A family friend confirmed to WLWT that Corder was killed in a crash around 4.15am on Gaskins Road near Merwin Elementary School in Clermont County, Ohio.

Captain Mike Masterson of Pierce Township Fire Department told WCPO that the electric car made it difficult to extinguish the fire.

He said: “A standard car fire, typically, once we get the fire extinguisher, it’s out. It’s done, we’re good to go. What we’re finding with this one is the batteries are shorting out on us, and they just keep generating heat and keep reigniting.”

The local media reported that Corder’s car struck a pole during the crash causing the nearby elementary school — Merwin Elementary School — to lose power.

According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the driver was driving a 2021 Tesla Model Y.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/mother-of-five-killed-in-tesla-fire-in-ohio/ar-AAQwITK?ocid=chromentpnews

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Six major carmakers agree to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles by 2040

A great opportunity for China. China supplies whatever the market wants. And they already make lots of good conventional cars. It looks like they will be getting a lot more orders for them

Six major automakers on Wednesday will commit to phasing out the production of fossil-fuel vehicles around the world by 2040, as part of global efforts to cut carbon emissions, the British government said in a statement.

But sources familiar with the pledge's contents said some big carmakers including the world's top two, Toyota Motor Corp and Volkswagen AG, and crucial car markets China, the United States and Germany have not signed up. That highlighted the challenges that remain in shifting to a zero-emission future.

Cars, trucks, ships, buses and planes account for about a quarter of all global carbon emissions, data from the International Energy Agency showed, of which the bulk comes from road vehicles.

Sweden's Volvo, U.S. automakers Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co , Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz, China's BYD Co Ltd and Jaguar Land Rover, a unit of India's Tata Motors Ltd , were set to sign the pledge at climate talks in Glasgow, the latest initiative to help cap global warming by mid-century.

Volvo has already committed to going fully electric by 2030.

Britain, which is hosting the COP26 summit, said four new countries including New Zealand and Poland were joining other nations already committed to ensuring all new cars and vans are zero emission by 2040 or earlier.

The statement comes on a day dedicated to transport at the conference.

SOURCE

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United States and China stun COP26 with joint climate change pact

China and the United States have unveiled a shock new pact at the Glasgow climate talks, declaring global warming an existential crisis which demands co-operation between the superpowers.

In a boost to the flagging COP26 talks and sign of a possible thawing in the fractured relationship between both countries, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and his US counterpart John Kerry stunned observers by unveiling the joint declaration pledging tougher action this decade.

The agreement between the world’s two largest emitters was negotiated in secret for months during about 30 virtual meetings and negotiation sessions in Shanghai, London and Washington before final terms were settled in Glasgow on Wednesday night local-time.

“Co-operation is the only choice for both China and the United States,” Xie told reporters via a translator.

“By working together, our two countries can achieve many important things that are beneficial not only to our two countries, but to the world as a whole. As two major powers in the world, China and the US shoulder special international responsibilities and obligations.

“We need to think big and feel responsible. We need to work … hard to promote world peace and development. We need to actively address climate change through cooperation, bringing benefits to both our two peoples and peoples around the world.”

The announcement appeared to take Britain, the host of the COP26 summit, by surprise given Prime Minister Boris Johnson had only hours earlier warned momentum at the talks was slowing.

The Glasgow declaration was released just a week after US President Joe Biden attacked Chinese President Xi Jinping for not attending the summit in person, describing it as a “big mistake”.

“The rest of the world is going to look to China and say, ‘what value added are they providing?’,” Biden said last week. “They’ve lost the ability to influence the people around the world and all the people here at COP.”

SOURCE

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Australian PM says ‘can-do capitalism’ will solve climate change

Scott Morrison says the Glasgow climate summit had marked a “passing of the baton” from government-imposed targets and timetables to private enterprise and consumer-led solutions as the world’s leading economies seek to become carbon neutral by mid-century.

Launching a new fund for fledging companies aiming to develop emerging low-emission technologies, Mr Morrison said the biggest change since the Paris agreement was struck in 2015 had been $100 trillion of private capital which was “pouring like a waterfall into climate technology solutions”.

He said he believed climate change would ultimately be solved by “can-do capitalism; not don’t-do governments” who were “seeking to control people’s lives and tell them what to do” with interventionist regulation and taxes that would force up the cost of living and force businesses to close.

“The world does not need to be punished for climate change, we just need to fix it. And it will be fixed painstakingly, step-by-step, by the entrepreneurs, by scientists, by technologists, by innovators, by industrialists, by financiers, by risk-takers,” he told the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry breakfast in Melbourne.

“That’s the Australian way. That’s the way I’ve been championing on the world stage. And, you know, like-minded capitalist market-based economics should be doing the same.”

Sharpening his attack lines on the opposition ahead of the election, Mr Morrison said after two years of the pandemic he believed Australians were now over governments telling them what to do.

He said he had imposed restrictions on Australians along with state governments was necessary at the time, but it was important to let those who drive the economy be able to do that again as soon as possible.

Mr Morrison told hundreds of people who gathered for the annual business breakfast that Australia was now entering a “new energy economy”, with countries with net zero commitments covering more than 80 per cent of world’s GDP.

“And 90 per cent of Australia’s exports are to countries with net zero commitments. That of course is going to have an impact here in Australia. These are decisions being taken in other countries,” he said.

“We can’t ignore the reality of this. We cannot just sort of wish it away.”

He defended criticism from other world leaders and his domestic opponents by refusing to sign up for hard deadlines to phase out coal-fired power, saying the summit reinforced his view that Australia must chart its own unique path for achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Mr Morrison said Australia’s geography, demography, resources and export profile all meant the nation’s pathway would be quite different from relatively small, densely populated, services-based advanced economies in Europe.

“Just because it works in the North Atlantic doesn’t mean it’s going to work in the Indo-Pacific, in countries in the same way like Australia and certainly not in the developing countries of our region who we do business with every day,” he said.

“This is why we will continue to join others in opposing prescriptive deadlines for phasing out particular fuels or gutting our agricultural sector – demands that are disconnected from realities, our industries, and our people, particularly in rural and regional Australia.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-says-can-do-capitalism-will-solve-climate-change-20211110-p597pb.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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10 November, 2021

Macron boosts nuclear power plans to meet France’s net-zero ambitions

Macron is a surprisingly sensible guy at times. French pragmatism?

France will construct a series of large nuclear power plants for the first time in decades, as the nuclear powerhouse seeks to neutralise carbon emissions by 2050 and reduce its reliance on unreliable gas imports.

The announcement, made by French President Emmanuel Macron in a televised address to the nation just five months out from national elections, will revive debate in Europe over the role of nuclear technology in combating climate change but also carries the risk of huge cost blowouts and construction delays.

More than 70 per cent of the country’s electricity generation comes from its 56 reactors, although Macron had promised early in his term to lower nuclear contribution to 50 per cent by 2035.

But in a shift, the French President on Tuesday night, Paris time (Wednesday morning AEDT) said the country would rededicate itself to atomic power.

“To guarantee France’s energy independence, to guarantee our country’s electricity supply, and to reach our goals - notably carbon neutrality in 2050 - we will for the first time in decades revive the construction of nuclear reactors in our country, and continue to develop renewable energy,” Macron said.

He did not give details but the comments were seen as a reference to the expected green-lighting of as many as 14 next-generation nuclear plants proposed by grid operator RTE.

Macron made the announcement against the background of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, where new forms of electricity generation have been identified as a key issue in the fight against climate change, and an energy crisis in Europe triggered by falling gas supplies and an unusually calm summer and autumn which has affected the output of wind turbines.

While confidence in nuclear took a hit in France following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, it is still a relatively uncontroversial technology compared to other countries such as Australia, where some Coalition MPs are pushing Prime Minister Scott Morrison to explore its feasibility.

Macron sought to tie the new nuclear push to French innovation and national pride - key themes for the President as he enters a tough presidential election campaign in 2022.

The vast majority of France’s nuclear facilities were built in the 1970s and 1980s. A third reactor is being added to a plant in Flamanville, in the Normandy region, but the project which started in 2007 has been plagued by cost overruns and huge delays.

Greenpeace France energy transition campaigner Nicolas Nace condemned Macron’s latest announcement and pointed to the Flamanville project to claim nuclear power was “too expensive, too slow and too dangerous”.

A new nuclear facility being constructed in Somerset, England, has also been hit by delays and cost blowouts.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/macron-backs-nuclear-power-to-meet-france-s-net-zero-ambitions-20211110-p597kk.html

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Fossil fuels form the basis of our medical and food supply chains

Under President Joe Biden’s plan to rid America of fossil fuels, such a plan would eliminate the medical industry that is completely reliant on the products made from petroleum derivatives, and eliminate oil-based fertilizers to grow the crops that feed the 8 billion people on planet earth. Surprisingly, Biden must be oblivious to the consequences of his plan, as efforts to cease the use of oil could be the greatest threat to civilization—not climate change.

Biden supports the end of fracking, oil exploration, and oil importing which cuts off the supply chain of crude oil to refineries. Without any crude oil to manufacture, elimination of the supply chain to the 131 operating refineries in the U.S. would eliminate that manufacturing sector.

Without refineries, there will be none of the oil derivatives that are manufactured from crude oil—the basis of more than 6,000 products in our economy and lifestyles.

Without the supply chain of crude oil, not only is the refining industry history, but the domino effects of the destructive impacts will be taken upon the medical, food supply, electronics, and communications industries, as they are all totally dependent on the products made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil. Any grade-school-educated kid can understand that breezes and sunshine, can only make weather-dependent intermittent electricity.

The medical industry is reliant on the products derived from the derivatives manufactured from oil that produce all the critical medical equipment such as: ultrasound systems, defibrillators, exhalation valves, inhalation valves, CT systems, X-ray, medicines, masks, gloves, soap, hand sanitizers for hospitals, protective gowns, gloves, and face shields for doctors and nurses.

Is Biden oblivious to the fact that all of those medical products begin from crude oil, or as the Wall Street Journal states—”Big Oil to the Coronavirus Rescue”? Vaccines need refrigeration, and refrigeration needs electricity, especially in the hospital sector where redundant generation capacity for continuous, uninterruptable electricity, is a mandate.

While Biden attempts to lower emissions at any cost, in favor of some weather-dependent electricity from breezes and sunshine that can only survive with massive subsidies, coal imports and exports continue to increase internationally to meet the electricity generation needs of developing countries, as reflected in the Merrill Lynch Global Energy Weekly report.

At least 80 percent of humanity, or more than 6 billion in this world cannot subsidize themselves out of a paper bag as they are living on less than $10 a day. To reduce emissions in the developing countries that control most emissions, the wealthy countries would need to step up and subsidize electricity generation from breezes and sunshine, to then replace more than 3,000 coal fired power plants in developing countries like China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Africa, and Vietnam—with billions of people seeking affordable electricity.

The oil that reduced infant mortality, extended longevity to more than 80 years of age, and allowed the world to populate from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 short years, is now required to provide the food, medical, communications, and transportation infrastructures to maintain and grow that population.

A key question for President Biden before America attends the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC/COP26) Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in November:

How dare pro-humanity individuals and governments support banishment of fossil fuels, when their banishment would be the greatest threat to civilization resulting in billions dying from starvation, diseases, and weather-related deaths?

Eliminating the use of fossil fuels would reverse most of the progress humanity has made over the last few centuries. The inventions of the automobile, airplane, and the use of petroleum in the early 1900’s led us into the Industrial Revolution, and victories in World War I and II. The healthier and wealthier countries of today now have more than 6,000 products that did not exist a few hundred years ago, all manufactured from fossil fuels—the same fossil fuels that Biden wants to eliminate.

Under Biden’s plan to rid American lifestyles and economies of fossil fuels, such a plan would ground the military, the space program, and Air Force One. It would also mothball the huge energy demands of airlines, cruise ships, merchant ships, and eliminate the medical, electronics, and the communications industry that are totally reliant on the 6,000 products made from petroleum derivatives.

The first use of oil-based fertilizers took place in 1946, and today our food supply is dependent on hydrocarbons. The world’s population of 8 billion souls depends on oil-based fertilizers in order to grow the crops, and feed the animals that are consumed each year. Any cessation of hydrocarbons will immediately result in the annihilation of billions of souls, returning the globe to a 1950 population count of approximately 2.5 billion souls.

How can a pro-humanity President Biden support COVID vaccines to save thousands of lives, and simultaneously support ridding the world of fossil fuels that would be the greatest threat to civilization, resulting in billions dying from starvation, diseases, and weather-related deaths?

https://www.cfact.org/2021/10/19/pharmaceutical-production-isometric-multistore-composition/

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U.S. Coal Industry Says Almost Sold-Out For 2022

U.S. coal miners are enjoying the surge in demand for the fossil fuel, with almost all of their production through the end of next year—and some into 2023 even—already sold, according to a Bloomberg report.

Prices are higher, too. According to the report, Arch Resources, the second-largest coal miner in the United States, has sold its 2022 output at prices 20 percent above current spot market rates. This suggests that this year’s surge in coal demand may not be just a short-lived hiccup in the energy transition.

Share prices of coal miners are also rising amid the demand surge. Peabody Energy Corp., America’s largest coal miner, saw its stock gain 17 percent within a day earlier this month.

U.S. coal-fired electricity generation is expected to increase this year for the first time since 2014, after years of decline, according to information published by the Energy Information Administration. The increase from 2020 is seen at a hefty 21 percent. Yet this will be a short-lived trend as the EIA also noted that as much as 30 percent of coal-fired power plants have been retired since 2010 and no new plants have been built since 2013 as the country shifts towards low-carbon energy generation.

Yet demand for coal from other parts of the world, namely Asia, is likely to remain strong in the coming years, opening up export opportunities. China is building new coal plants at a fast rate, and India continues to rely on coal for 70 percent of its electricity generation.

Meanwhile, however, coal stocks in the United States are shrinking. Down by 13.2 percent in August from a month earlier, coal stockpiles stood at 84 million tons, according to the Energy Information Administration. This is the lowest August total since 2001 when records of this nature began

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Coal-Industry-Says-Almost-Sold-Out-For-2022.html

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Well done! Australia has been ranked last for its climate policies behind Russia and Brazil

Like most conservatives wordwide, Australian conservativs don't think global warming is a serious threat. So our conservative PM just puts out flim-flam policies about it, with minimal damage to the economy

But Australia is not alone in walking on both sides of the street. Germany claims great climate virtue but is busily building coal-fired power stations -- including brown coal, the most polluting coal of all. Everybody else is supposed to be phasing out coal. I wonder why Australia's coal exports are at a record high?

Australia's climate policies have been ranked last out of 64 countries and the nation is among the worst offenders for emissions, renewables and energy use.

The country slipped four spots to 58th overall place in the latest Climate Change Performance Index unveiled at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Australia ranked last among 64 countries behind the likes of Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Brazil in terms of climate policy.

The country's highest ranking was 52 for renewables, followed by a score of 54 for energy use and 56 for greenhouse gas emissions.

The index criticised Australia for bringing to Glasgow a 2050 target of net zero emissions that involved no new policies or plans.

Its 'technology investment roadmap' was deemed insufficient to decarbonise the economy, cut fossil fuel use and promote renewables.

'This failure to promote renewables ... is exacerbated by inadequate infrastructure investment despite subsidies for fossil fuel production and promotion of a 'gas-led' economic recovery following COVID-19,' the ranking said.

'The country's international standing has been damaged by climate denialism by politicians, refusal to increase ambition and refusal to recommit to international green finance mechanisms.'

The annual ranking designed by German environmentalists has compared the performance of countries responsible for 90 per cent of global emissions since 2005 across four key categories.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has emphasised Australia's 'technology not taxes' approach to climate change led by private investment over government leavers.

The latest policy is a $250million 'future fuels' plan aimed at getting up to 1.7 million electric and hybrid vehicles on Australian roads by 2030.

'It's the private sector that now is responding to consumers, they're responding to what people want,' Mr Morrison said.

'Governments don't have to step in and tell everybody what to do anymore when it comes to this, if they ever did.'

The plan was criticised by the electric vehicle industry for leaving out tax incentives or fuel efficiency standards.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10181887/Australia-ranked-climate-policies-likes-Saudi-Arabia-Russia-Brazil.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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9 November, 2021

Saving nuclear plant could help California hit climate goals

California should extend the life of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to meet state climate goals, a report by academics and a consulting company said on Monday.

The report by researchers at Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and LucidCatalyst, LLC said delaying closure of the plant to 2025 would reduce California's carbon emissions from power plants by more than 10% from 2017 levels, reduce dependency on natural gas, and save up to $21 billion in power system costs.

The Diablo Canyon plant generates about 8% of California's in-state electricity and 15% of its carbon-free power. Keeping it open to 2045 could save up to $21 billion in power system costs and spare 90,000 acres of land from use for energy production, it said.

Starting in 2016, utility PG&E decided to allow the licenses for two reactors at Diablo Canyon to expire in 2024 and 2025, which would close the last nuclear power plant in the country's most populous state. The move came amid public concerns about earthquakes, nuclear waste and the use of water to cool the plants.

The planned closure also came with the belief that power generated by wind and solar energy would make up the lost electricity. But California struggled with rotating power outages in August 2020 during a heat wave; hydroelectric generation has sagged with droughts; and the switch to electric vehicles is likely to add stress to the grid.

Steven Chu, a U.S. secretary of energy under former President Barack Obama, said that when Japan and Germany shut nuclear power plants in recent years it led to a rise in carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

"In order to combat climate change in the best possible way, I think nuclear power ... is something that we should really consider and ask PG&E to reconsider," said Chu, now a Stanford physics professor.

PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn pointed out the state's legislature and regulators approved the plan to shut the plant. "Our focus therefore remains on safely and reliably operating the plant until the end" of its licenses, Hosn said.

The 2,240 megawatt Diablo Canyon plant could also provide power for plants that desalinate ocean water for drinking water and agriculture, and to produce cleaner-burning hydrogen gas, the report said. It did not address how nuclear power proponents could convince PG&E and California politicians and regulators to complete the complicated process of keeping the plant open.

But Jacopo Buongiorno, a report author and director of advanced nuclear energy systems at MIT, said the researchers have shared the results with some California officials. "We really hope that the debate starts now," he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/us/saving-nuclear-plant-could-help-california-hit-climate-goals-report/ar-AAQsK50

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The uses and abuses of green finance

Why the net-zero pledges of financial firms won’t save the world

Alas, the cop26 summit in Glasgow is shaping up to be a disappointment. The hope that emerging markets, which belch out much of the world’s greenhouse gases, would announce ambitious proposals is being dashed. The plans of China, India and Brazil all underwhelm. There is no sign this will be the cop that kills coal, as Britain, the host, wanted. World leaders have still not agreed to stop subsidising fossil fuels.

But one area where enthusiasm is growing is climate finance. Financial institutions representing nearly $9trn in assets pledged to uproot deforestation from their investment portfolios. The most striking announcement has come from the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (gfanz), a coalition co-chaired by Mark Carney, a former governor of the Bank of England. Its members, which include asset owners, asset managers, banks and insurers, hold about $130trn of assets. They will try to cut the emissions from their lending and investing to net zero by 2050. Can the financial industry really save the world?

In principle, it has a huge role to play. Shifting the economy from fossil fuels to clean sources of energy requires a vast reallocation of capital. By 2030, around $4trn of investment in clean energy will be needed each year, a tripling of current levels. Spending on fossil fuels must decline. In an ideal world the profit incentive of institutional investors would be aligned with reducing emissions, and these owners and financiers would control the global assets that create emissions. Asset owners would have both the motive and the means to reinvent the economy.

The reality of green investing falls short of this ideal. The first problem is coverage. The Economist estimates that listed firms which are not state-controlled account for only 14-32% of the world’s emissions. State-controlled companies, such as Coal India or Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, are a big part of the problem and they do not operate under the sway of institutional fund managers and private-sector bankers.

A second issue is measurement. There is as yet no way to accurately assess the carbon footprint of a portfolio without double counting. Emissions from a barrel of oil could appear in the carbon accounts of the firms that are drilling, refining and burning the stuff. Methodologies behind attributing emissions to financial flows are even sketchier. How should shareholders, lenders and insurers divvy up the emissions from a coal-fired power plant, for instance?

The third problem is incentives. Private financial firms aim to maximise risk-adjusted profits for their clients and owners. This is not well-aligned with cutting carbon. The easiest way to cut the carbon footprint of a diversified portfolio is to sell the part of it invested in dirty assets and put the proceeds in firms that never emitted much, such as, say, Facebook. Together, the five biggest American tech firms have a carbon intensity (emissions per unit of sales) of about 3% of the s&p500 average.

Heavily polluting firms or assets will often find new owners. If you can brush off the stigma, it can be profitable to hold assets that can legally generate untaxed externalities—in this case pollution. As shareholders urge oil majors to clean up, the oilfields they sell are being bought by private-equity firms and hedge funds, away from the public eye. Pledges alone do not alter the fact that firms have little reason to invest trillions in green technologies that still have mediocre risk-adjusted returns.

What should be done? Fine-tuning can help. Measurement should be improved. The eu is rolling out mandatory carbon reporting for businesses; America is considering it. Some accounting bodies want to standardise how climate measures are disclosed. Asset owners, such as pension funds, should hold on to their investments in polluting firms and use them to help bring about change. Institutional investors also need to build up their venture-capital arms to finance new technologies, such as green cement.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/the-uses-and-abuses-of-green-finance/21806111

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New Study Finds Electric Cars Cost More To Refuel Than Gasoline Powered Cars

Anderson Economic Group EV Transition Series: Report

The Anderson study noted that Electronic Vehicles (EVs) are, “often presumed to be less expensive to fuel than their ICE counterparts. There is a rationale in physics for this: due to greater thermal efficiency, electric motors convert energy more efficiently than combustion engines. However, this cost is only one of five.”

For a complete picture, Anderson notes that we consumers must consider:

Commercial and residential electric power/fuel costs.

Registration taxes.

Equipment (e.g., chargers) and installation costs.

Deadhead miles incurred driving to a charger or fueling station.

The cost of time spent refueling

The study found:

There are four additional costs to powering EVs beyond electricity: cost of a home charger, commercial charging, the EV tax and “deadhead” miles.

For now, EVs cost more to power than gasoline costs to fuel an internal combustion car that gets reasonable gas mileage.
Charging costs vary more widely than gasoline prices.
There are significant time costs to finding reliable public chargers – even then a charger could take 30 minutes to go from 20% to an 80% charge.

In the Anderson Economic Group’s October 21, 2021 column “Real-World Electric Vehicle Fueling Costs May Surprise New EV Drivers” they wrote:

6 months of independent research finds fueling costs for electric vehicles (EV) are often higher than for internal combustion engines (ICE)

East Lansing, MI–October 21, 2021: Anderson Economic Group released today the first in a series of analyses examining the transition from ICE vehicles to EVs.

This initial 36-page study is the culmination of comprehensive research comparing the “apples-to-apples” costs involved in fueling both EVs and ICE vehicles. AEG undertook this study after noting that many commonly cited figures did not account for the true costs associated with EV charging.

AEG calculated the cost of chargers, additional road taxes, commercial charging fees, and “deadhead” miles for three different EV driving scenarios and compared these with 3 analogous ICE vehicle scenarios. The research found that fueling an EV is often more expensive than fueling an ICE vehicle.

It further found that fueling costs are far more variable for EVs. The authors go on to note the significant time costs imposed on EV drivers as a result of both inadequate infrastructure and wait times associated with fueling, which can be five to ten times the cost for ICE drivers.

According to study author Patrick Anderson, “These numbers may be surprising to those who haven’t relied upon an electric vehicle, but it’s important we safeguard the public from ‘charger shock.’ Before consumers can feel comfortable buying EVs in large numbers, they need to understand the true costs involved.”

https://drrichswier.com/2021/10/24/new-study-finds-electric-cars-cost-more-to-refuel-than-gasoline-powered-cars/

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Australian government commits to expanding electric vehicle charging stations but no subsidies to increase uptake

The Prime Minister says he will not do anything to force Australians into electric cars, as the government announces its new strategy for zero emissions vehicles.

Instead, the federal government will partner with the private sector to fund 50,000 charging stations in Australian homes, in a bid to encourage more people to buy electric vehicles.

The long-awaited Future Fuels strategy does not include subsidies, tax incentives, sales targets or minimum fuel emission standards that would make electric vehicles more affordable though, according to industry groups.

However, it is a pivot from the government's 2019 assertion that Labor's electric vehicle policy was "a war on the weekend".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had no problem with electric vehicles, but he opposed governments telling people what to do.

Mr Morrison said customers should be able to lead the pace of change to electric vehicles, but his government would make sure the infrastructure was there to support them.

"Reducing the total cost of ownership through subsidies would not represent value for the taxpayer, particularly as industry is rapidly working through technological developments to make battery electric vehicles cheaper," the government's strategy said.

It instead aligns with the "technology not taxes" mantra that underpins the government's broader approach to emissions reductions.

The strategy includes expanding the Future Fuels Fund to a total of $250 million of taxpayers' funds, which the government estimates will create 2,600 jobs over three years.

It does not say exactly how or where those jobs will be created but does point to employment opportunities through supply chains and manufacturing needed to sustain an electric vehicle market.

The government argues its investment will help ensure companies do not concentrate charging stations in inner-city areas, which may dissuade people in outer suburban or rural areas from purchasing an electric vehicle.

"We will not be forcing Australians out of the car they want to drive or penalising those who can least afford it through bans or taxes," Mr Morrison said.

"Instead, the strategy will work to drive down the cost of low and zero-emission vehicles and enhance consumer choice."

The federal government will ask state and territory energy ministers to incentivise the use of smart chargers in homes and work with energy regulators to ensure the electricity grid can handle more batteries

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-08/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-no-subsidies-government-plan/100604122

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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8 November, 2021

Canadian doctor clinically diagnoses patient as suffering from 'climate change'

People have it drummed into them these days that any bad weather is a result of climate change. But weather is intrinsically variable and none of the dupes think to check history for other instances of similar bad weather. The statistics would surprise them. There is a long history of weather catastrophes. Tony Heller has documented a lot of it


When a patient in her 70s came into the emergency department at Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson, B.C., Dr. Kyle Merritt had no idea hundreds of people were dying of heat across the province.

It was late June, and British Columbia was consumed under a heat wave that would soon go down as both the hottest and deadliest in Canadian history.

The head of the hospital’s emergency department, Merritt could see the aggravated toll the extreme heat took on patients battling multiple health problems at once, often with little money.

“She has diabetes. She has some heart failure. … She lives in a trailer, no air conditioning,” says Merritt of the senior patient. “All of her health problems have all been worsened. And she's really struggling to stay hydrated.”

As the mercury climbed, more patients arrived and pressure on the hospital mounted. Merritt and his colleagues tried to make sense of a surge in heat illness most had only seen in medical school. “We were having to figure out how do we cool someone in the emergency department,” says the doctor. “People are running out to the Dollar Store to buy spray bottles.”

Merritt remembers hitting a tipping point, the extreme heat an opening salvo in another summer of crisis. He started contacting other doctors and nurses, in Prince George, Kamloops, Vancouver and Victoria.

The response was immediate. Roughly 40 doctors and nurses at the small hospital — all busy trying to manage a pandemic and their regular professional lives — came together under the banner Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health.

“I was worried about the summer that was coming,” says Merritt of the rising number of health-care workers desperate to talk about how climate change is affecting their patients’ health. “I was really quite amazed at how many people have decided to jump in.”

Just as doctors and nurses started to make sense of the record heat, it cleared — only to be replaced by a blanket of wildfire smoke.

Climate change enters the ER

Like so many summers in recent memory, this summer, Nelson’s air turned the colour of pea soup, leading to a spike in patients suffering respiratory problems.

B.C.’s Interior suffers some of the greatest fallout from air pollution in the country.

Between 2013 and 2018, the 10 census divisions in the country with the greatest exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were all in B.C.’s Interior, according to a 2021 Health Canada analysis of the impacts of air pollution on human health.

Of those, half the census divisions — including Central Kootenay, where Nelson is located — were among the top 10 slices of the country with the highest per capita rates of premature death.

“A lot of people in the Kootenays sort of thought that this would be a good place to hide out while the rest of the world falls apart. But it's, of course, hitting us here, just like it's hitting many places, and we're really seeing the impacts,” says Merritt.

https://www.timescolonist.com/bc-news/bc-doctor-clinically-diagnoses-patient-as-suffering-from-climate-change-4723540

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Climate concerns deleted from infrastructure bill

Late Friday night the House, with the help of 13 Republicans, passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. As it turns out, though, it's missing a key provision when it comes to climate.

As Tanya Snyder wrote for POLITICO on Saturday, the final version "falls far short of Biden's original vision, which promised to dramatically reduce the climate impacts of transportation, the single largest source of pollution. In the end, the final product was the victim of the bipartisan focus it took to get the bill done and is an example of the razor thin governing majority Democrats must navigate."

She went on the write that even with what's in the infrastructure and reconciliation spending bills "do not approach how Biden promised to move the nation toward carbon neutrality and zero emission vehicles soon after he took office."

Snyder also addresses Amtrak, which was trending over Twitter on Saturday. In a subheading of "Amtrak supercharged," she quotes an expert who warns not to get too excited:

But Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president for the Rail Passengers Association, a passenger rail advocacy group, said while welcome, it won't be enough to create a true transformation in the country's passenger rail system.

The bill could enable Amtrak to boost its frequency and reliability across its network, but Jeans-Gail said it won't be enough to start "launching something from nothing," like new service corridors. He noted that much of the money could be eaten up with basic maintenance needs like track upgrades, upholstery of train cars and station ventilation. It will also fund studies and corridor identification exercises that will then need even more funding to carry out, he said.

“I think a lot of what we’re going to fund [with the infrastructure package] is environmental review, route analysis, coming up with a national concrete plan and doing design work and start constructing the corridors," Jeans-Gail said. "And there needs to be that next package to bring home a lot of that planning work, a lot of that environmental work, a lot of that design work.”

He noted that given "these goals that we still have to decarbonize the transportation sector and to get as many people on to mass transit as possible ... we’d hoped for more.”

Typical big government bureaucracy is also perhaps best summed up in this one paragraph:
Despite the large figures, it could take months or even years to start seeing shovels in the ground, as regulators eager to avoid comparisons to former President Barack Obama's stimulus program focus on good projects rather than immediate projects. The current labor shortage, compounding longtime workforce issues in the construction trades, could also slow down the pace of building and make projects more expensive, experts warn.

This is an administration that is laser focused on addressing what it calls the "climate crisis." It is so inherently devoted to climate and climate only that Climate Czar John Kerry has admittedly dismissed addressing China's human rights abuses and acts of genocide so that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be more open to a discussion where they'll pretend they're going to try harder to reduce emissions.

During a meeting with Chinese counterparts in April, Kerry had said it was "very important" for the two countries to "try to keep those other things away."

He make even worse remarks more recently during an interview with Bloomberg in September. When asked why there's a priority for climate change over addressing the human rights abuses caused by the slave labor inflicted on Uyghurs, Kerry casually responded that "life is always full of tough choices."

For how preoccupied each and every part of the administration is with climate, Biden hasn't been able to secure many successes on this issue as of late. Sure, Xi Jinping attended Biden's virtual climate summit in April.

When it comes to the recent climate action summit in Glasgow, during which Biden apologized for how former President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Accords, China's the Global Times, published an opinion piece by Ai Jun, who wrote that "Biden’s apology in Glasgow shows hypocrisy, powerlessness of US politicians."

More recently, and closer to home, a climate provision was reported to be likely to be taken out of the Build Back Better reconciliation spending bill due to Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-WV) opposition.

SOURCE

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Biden admin considering shutting down another pipeline, drawing criticism and dire warnings as winter nears

The Biden administration is reportedly weighing the potential market consequences of shutting down an oil pipeline in Michigan, drawing criticism from opponents. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Biden's energy secretary, predicted Sunday that heating prices will rise this winter regardless of the Biden administration's decision on the pipeline. "Yeah, this is going to happen. It will be more expensive this year than last year," Granholm told CNN.

The administration has yet to decide on what to do with Line 5 and officials were gathering information only to present a clear picture of the situation, according to sources who spoke to Politico.

Line 5 is part of a network that moves crude oil and other petroleum products from western Canada, transporting about 540,000 barrels per day. Petroleum is taken from the pipeline in Escanaba, Michigan.

Jason Hayes, the director of environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, blasted the Biden administration for its energy policies, telling Fox News that their work on Line 5 is "just one more example of being divorced from reality."

"They're planning to power an industrial nation like the United States on solar panels and wind turbines," Hayes said, while noting that even the solar panels and wind turbines require "oil, natural gas, nuclear and even coal" to be produced.

Hayes presented a dire picture of what shutting Line 5 could mean if people are unable to get natural gas or the electricity it provides as the nation heads into winter.

"I hope it doesn't end like this, but where I see it going is unfortunately the same thing that happened in February in Texas: People freezing in their homes," he said, adding, "Most of the time when it's extremely cold or there's a real bad polar vortex situation, typically it's pretty cloudy and there's not a lot of wind."

Explaining he has trouble understanding why some Western leaders seem unable to grasp the importance of reliable, affordable energy and electricity for everyday citizens, Hayes said, "It seems like the only nations that understand that we require reliable, affordable dispatchable energy is China and Russia. And they're the only ones that are producing energy and they're more than happy to hold that energy hostage for the rest of the world."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-considering-shutting-down-michigan-pipeline

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Cyclones Downs, Corals Up – Except in Glasgow

Written by Jennifer Marohasy in Australia

It is impossible to reconcile the official statistics and what is under-the-water with the media reporting – including the reporting from Glasgow. There are meant to be more cyclones and less coral, but we have quite the reverse according to the official statistics. It is also making no sense that those who purport to care so much about the Great Barrier Reef still haven’t visited it. Then there are those who have visited it once, and then there are those who have visited it but never actually got in the water. Some of them are in Glasgow.

It was not for nothing that former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – he apparently visited Magnetic Island some years ago but never got in the water – approved a A$443 million grant to the tiny Great Barrier Reef Foundation. As far as I can tell it is paid out in little bits to all those in proximity who are prepared to lament how the corals are dying. I’ve meet so many who have received something, and so the useful idiots are paid off by the special people now in Glasgow.

On the eve of Glasgow, the same foundation put out comment:

Insufficient global action on climate change is taking a serious toll on the health of our Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs around the world. The facts are clear – coral reefs and their communities are on the front line. We know current climate change commitments don’t go far enough to protect them and we know this is the critical decade in which to act with urgency. Next month’s UN Climate Change Conference – COP26 – will be a pivotal moment in the global response to climate change.

On Tuesday 13th October 2020, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology put out a media release ‘Tropical Cyclone seasonal outlook for The Coral Sea’ in which it was acknowledged that, and I quote: "Recent decades have seen a decline in the number of tropical cyclones in our region."

Bureau climatologist, Greg Browning, went on to explain that this summer is likely to buck that trend, and that: "On average Australia sees 9 to 11 tropical cyclones each year, with 4 crossing the coast."

Cyclones can be devastating to coral reefs. Huge waves pound relentlessly smashing branching and fan corals. Sponges and squirts are upended. Massive Porites can be lifted and thrown metres – sometimes beyond the reef proper and onto the beach.

Given the Great Barrier Reef, as one ecosystem comprising nearly 3,000 individual reefs stretching for more than 2,000 kilometres, cyclone damaged areas can almost always be found somewhere. A coral reef that is mature and spectacular today, may be smashed by a cyclone tomorrow. So, I’m always in a hurry to visit my next reef particularly given all the modelling suggesting an inevitable increase in the number of cyclones and an inevitable decline in coral cover.

Yet!

The 2020–21 Australian region cyclone season was another ‘below average’ season, producing a total of just 8 tropical cyclones with just 3 of these categorised as severe. So since records began it is a case of less cyclones and less severe cyclones which must be good for the corals.

The Bureau has not updated this chart since the 2016/2017 season. The trend continues a downward trajectory with just 8 tropical cyclones last season (2020/2021) with 3 categorised as severe.

http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml

Perhaps not surprisingly we are also seeing an increase in coral cover, and this is exactly what the latest report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science concludes. According to their Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP) based on surveys of 127 reefs conducted between August 2020 and April 2021, and I quote: "In 2021, widespread recovery was underway, largely due to increases in fast growing Acropora corals.

Survey reefs experienced low levels of acute stressors over the past 12 months with no prolonged high temperatures or major cyclones. Numbers of outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish on survey reefs have generally decreased; however, there remain ongoing outbreaks on some reefs in the Southern GBR.

On the Northern GBR, region-wide hard coral cover was moderate and had continued to increase to 27% from the most recent low point in 2017.

On the Central GBR region-wide hard coral cover was moderate and had increased to 26% in 2021.

Region-wide hard coral cover on reefs in the Southern GBR was high and had increased to 39% in 2021."

More information at https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2020-2021

Meanwhile former US President Barack Obama – who has never ever actually visited the Great Barrier Reef – confirmed he will attend the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow. He is apparently meeting young climate change activists and highlighting their work around the world. I’m wondering when he will bring them to see the corals. The closest he has got, so far, is to Brisbane back in November 2014. He gave a speech at my old university lamenting the parlous state of the corals and claiming he wanted to take his daughters to see the corals before they were all gone.

But. We are still waiting. As far as I can tell, like Malcolm Turnbull, Barack Obama frightens the children about that which they have never actually seen or experienced with his own eyes – and with opinion that often does not even accord with the available statistics.

Former US President Bill Clinton hasn’t made it to Glasgow, but he did visit the Great Barrier Reef back in November 1996. He apparently spent a short hour snorkelling at a reef off Port Douglas.

If I didn’t know something about the scientific method, greenhouse gases, the Great Barrier Reef, and that foundation, I would be inclined to believe there was a crisis – and that there really was something I should do about it. As it is, I know that coral bleaching occurs as part of a natural cycle that will repeat irrespective of any agreements made in Glasgow. I also know as fact that there has been no increase in the incidence of cyclones and that coral cover is good and improving. It is also fact that coral reefs would benefit if there was rising sea levels because they could keep growing-up and also that they grow faster as sea temperatures increase.

Did you know that there are arguably more colourful corals and even better coral cover in waters just a few degrees warmers? The warmer waters are just to the north of Australia around New Guinea and Indonesia.

https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/cyclones-downs-corals-up-except-in-glasgow

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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7 November, 2021

Tesla car breaks down at the worst possible time trapping 10 other cars

If it had been a conventional car, someone would only have to empty a jerrycan of fuel into it and the problem would have been over immediately

A hi-tech electric car has broken down at the worst possible time trapping motorists for hours inside a shopping centre carpark.

Motorists were stuck at the exit of the five-storey Westfield car park in London after the vehicle ran out of charge while trying to exit the building.

The story went viral on Reddit after a user, called Henry, posted about the lengthy wait time.

“Perfect, a Tesla ran out of battery and stopped at the ramp of a five-storey car park at Westfield. It has been three hours and counting,” he said.

As the wait continued, the Reddit user added photos to the thread – with one showing cars looping around the sloped spiral exit ramp.

The Teslas have a similar range as petrol-powered cars. The Model S – which appeared to cause the delays – can travel 580km on one charge.

This further infuriated readers on the Reddit post about the delay. “Considering the huge range these cars have, there’s really no excuse for this.” One wrote. “Especially as the cars still have quite a bit of range (10-20 miles) even after hitting 0 per cent. The driver had plenty of warning.” Another agreed.

“Westfield even has a large capacity Tesla charging station lol. “But yeah like others say over 3 hours is bad management imo. Get an extension lead at that point.

A spokesperson for Westfield told The Sun there were about 10 vehicles stuck behind the Tesla.

“A customer’s Tesla vehicle broke down on the entry ramp of the car park at around 6pm due to an empty battery,” they said. “Westfield London’s car park team assisted the broken down vehicle and guided 10 vehicles that were behind the Tesla around it.

“Tesla car park assistance then arrived on site to support the broken down vehicle.”

https://www.news.com.au/technology/tesla-breaks-down-at-the-worst-possible-time-trapping-10-cars/news-story/0126433c6be1fc51f1433c6c73124f5f

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Europe’s energy crisis better wake America up

Modern housing and energy systems enable people to adapt to and survive even the most extreme heat and cold – even in Antarctica, which just experienced the coldest average winter temperatures ever recorded: -61 C (-78 F).

Survival becomes far less likely, however, if climate treaties and energy policies prohibit efficient air conditioning and heating, ration them, subject them to recurrent blackouts, or make them harder to afford amid rising oil, natural gas, coal and electricity prices.

Yet that is exactly what’s being advocated and implemented. Britain and various US cities and states want to ban natural gas heating and cooking – and replace them with expensive heat pumps and other electric appliances, powered by expensive, weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels. Meanwhile, energy prices have been skyrocketing in response to Covid recovery and anti-fossil-fuel policies.

Climate theory has long held that most 21st-century warming will occur in northern latitudes during winter months. But now we’re now told a warming Arctic could also be causing colder winters, which could endanger far more people than rising temperatures or more frequent heat waves.

Actually, far more people die in cold weather than in hot weather or heat waves. In the United States and Canada, cold causes 45 times more deaths per year than heat: 113,000 from cold versus 2,500 from heat. Worldwide, where air conditioning is far less available, some 1,700,000 people die annually from cold versus 300,000 from heat – a ratio of almost 6:1.

Energy policies that favor wind and solar over fossil fuels beget “fuel poverty” that can make adequate heating impossible, causing numerous health problems and deaths. Poor, minority, elderly and fixed-income families are most severely and inequitably affected, it found.

Cold homes bring increased risks of respiratory and circulatory problems (including asthma, bronchitis, flu, cardiovascular disease and stroke) and exacerbate existing adverse health conditions. Cold household temperatures also increase depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Already vulnerable groups – young children, older people and those with preexisting health issues – are especially susceptible to hypothermia, more illness and death.

Public Health England calculated that one-tenth of all “excess winter deaths” in England and Wales are directly attributable to fuel poverty, and 21.5% of excess winter deaths are attributable to the coldest 25% of homes. 30,000 to 40,000 people died each year in England and Wales since 1990 who would not have perished if their homes hadn’t been so cold, researchers estimated.

Adjusted for population, this is equivalent to 165,000 to 220,000 excess American winter deaths per year.

In 2017, Germany endured 172,000 localized blackouts; in 2019, 350,000 German families had their electricity cut off because they couldn’t pay their power bills.

Coal, oil, natural gas, electricity and home heating costs have risen significantly since those studies were prepared, likely increasing the excess winter death toll markedly. In fact, 2021 European gas prices skyrocketed nearly 600% over 2020 prices, and Rotterdam coal futures soared from $60/ton in October 2020 to $265/ton in September 2021. Energy prices are still rising, affecting jobs and living costs.

Global demand for gas and coal has surged as the world recovers from Covid. British gas production has plunged by 60 % since 2000; Britain and Europe have banned fracking; Putin is playing politics over how much gas it will deliver to Europe; and President Biden has stymied leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines, and oil and gas exports. Many coal and nuclear power plants have been shut down. Meanwhile, Europe’s heavily subsidized wind turbines generated far less electricity in 2021 due to unfavorable winds.

This perfect storm of misinformed policies could bring unprecedented excess deaths as winter sets in.

Schools, hospitals and clinics could also be much chillier – and deadlier. At 11¢ per kilowatt-hour (average US business rate), a 650,000-square-foot hospital would pay about $2.2 million annually for electricity. At 25¢ per kWh (UK), the annual cost jumps to $5 million; at 35¢ per kWh (Germany), to $7 million! Those soaring costs would likely result in employee layoffs, higher medical bills, reduced patient care, colder conditions, and more deaths.

Adding to these woes, Citigroup says EU natural gas prices could hit $100 per mcf (per thousand cubic feet or million Btu) if this winter is particularly cold and more Gulf of Mexico hurricanes disrupt production. News outlets report that energy companies supplying six million UK homes face collapse, and several elder care homes have warned that crippling energy bills could force closures, leaving many old and infirm people homeless.

Britain’s energy minister has said a “very difficult winter” lies ahead, as gas prices soar amid fear of blackouts and food shortages. Many households “will not be able to cope.”

US energy prices remain well below Europe’s, but threats to American families are also rising. The average monthly Henry Hub spot price for natural gas has shot from $1.63 in June 2020 to $5.16 in September 2021. That’s well below the highest-ever price ($13.42 in October 2005) but still ominous.

One-third of American households already had difficulty six years ago adequately heating and cooling their homes – and one-fifth of households had to reduce or forego food, medicine and other necessities to pay energy bills. Even before Covid, low-income, Black, Hispanic and Native American families were spending a greater portion of their incomes on energy than average US households.

Nearly half of US households that heat with natural gas will spend 22-50% more this winter than last year, depending on how cold it gets. Families that use electricity, propane or fuel oil to heat their homes will also pay significantly more. Energy-intensive factories may have to cut back hours and production, lay people off, and move operations overseas (where they will continue to burn fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases).

Americans are also being impacted by gasoline prices that have risen more than a dollar a gallon for regular since the 2020 election and recently reached $5.00 per gallon in New York and $7.60 in one southern California town.

The overall effect of these anti-fossil-fuel policies on livelihoods, living standards, health and life spans will be profoundly negative. Countless people will perish, many of them cold and jobless in the dark.

Under Joe Biden, the United States is already on a trajectory to Europe’s real climate crisis: unaffordable, unreliable energy. That crisis better wake America up. Otherwise, self-righteous activists and governing classes will destroy middle class jobs, families – and lives.

https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/europes-energy-crisis-better-wake-america-up?vgo_ee=8hjBct8wxos7yZwE%2FDdWXL35hO7C%2FF3J%2FgQB9Uu3XAY%3D

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Volvo comes clean: Admits that making an electric car produces emissions that are 70% HIGHER for a normal car

They say that after 70,000 miles emissions saved cancel that out. But that assumes that electricity will come from somewhere at no greater cost than now

Volvo has said that emissions from the production of electric cars are far higher than a petrol equivalent, as it called on world leaders and energy providers to significantly boost investments in green energy.

But the Swedish car maker said that over a car's lifetime the electric version will become greener overall, once it has covered more than 70,000 miles.

To coincide with the COP26 climate summit taking place in Glasgow - and as part of a revolutionary new transparency approach adopted by Volvo - it publishing its latest 'Life Cycle Assessment' report for the pure-electric £57,400 C40 Recharge.

It shows that greenhouse gas emissions during production of the electric vehicle are nearly 70 per cent higher than a petrol model, which is mainly due to the carbon intensity of battery and steel production, as well as from the increased share of aluminium in the plug-in car.

But Volvo said as an EV the C40 Recharge has a far lower carbon footprint than its comparable petrol version during the 'use phase', although it will need to be driven around 70,000 miles before it offsets its higher emissions from production.

Volvo says the aim of its new reveal-all reports is to encourage decision makers to make improvements so that it and other electric cars can 'deliver on their true potential in terms of climate benefit'.

It said that if this is done then EVs built and charged using clean renewable energy will have huge potential CO2 reductions.

The Swedish company - now owned by Chinese group Geely - has already outlined its aims to become a fully electric car maker by 2030.

Part of its plan is to roll out a new family of pure electric cars in the coming years, in one of the industry’s most ambitious electrification schedules.

This includes becoming a climate-neutral company by 2040, as it works to consistently cut carbon emissions across its business.

SOURCE

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Australia eyes more oil and gas fields as COP26 seeks fossil phase-out

Morrison's flim flam at Glasgow has left Australia free to pursue its best interests

Australia’s coastline could soon be opened up to more oil and gas drilling even as the United Nations declares the world cannot afford to increase fossil fuel production if it wants to avoid catastrophic global warming and 80 nations pledge to cut methane emissions.

The federal government is preparing to begin community consultations on potential exploration activities spanning new parts of Western Australia’s Bonaparte, Browse and North Carnarvon basins and Victoria’s Gippsland Basin, which oil and gas companies have identified as areas of interest.

Environmental advocates on Wednesday described the push for new fossil fuel exploration along Australia’s coastline as “callous and cynical”.

“This is an attempt to broaden the footprint of fossil fuels, while Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor attempt to make friends in Glasgow,” Wilderness Society WA campaigns manager Patrick Gardner said.

“The mindless creep of fossil fuel expansion is being pushed onto communities that do not want it.”

The launch of community consultations – after which exploration companies must bid for a release and be assessed as a deserving applicant – comes amid growing warnings against ramping up production of planet-heating fossil fuels.

Supporters of gas, including the Morrison government, describe it as a necessary “transition fuel” in the green power shift, as a comparatively less-emitting alternative to coal that can keep energy reliable and affordable in periods when weather conditions for wind and solar generation are unfavourable. Gas is also used as a raw material in a range of manufacturing processes.

But the fossil fuel’s future is increasingly under question, with scientists and climate advocates arguing gas remains a heavy source of emissions and its role must be urgently reduced not expanded.

Another major achievement at Glasgow came with the agreement from 40 nations including Australia, which together generate 40 per cent of global GDP, committing to collaborate on clean technology to replace carbon-intensive industries like steelmaking and power generation.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-eyes-more-oil-and-gas-fields-as-cop26-seeks-fossil-phase-out-20211103-p595oc.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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5 November, 2021

Traffic jams deadly for electric cars

Unless you can turn all heating off

Has anyone actually thought it through? If all cars were electrically powered__ Imagine three hours of traffic jam, battery flat, what are you going to do?

There is practically no heating in an electric vehicle over extended periods. If you are stuck in traffic during the night, no battery energy left, so no heat at all

Call the breakdown services to collect women and children!! They can't even get there because the roads are choked

When the road is cleared no one can move, (flat batteries). How are the hundreds or thousands of cars going to be recharged

It's going to be the same in the summer traffic jams. That's going to be perpetual jams with dead batteries.

Unknown author

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China Warming

Richard S. Lindzen

Many of the world’s leaders appear to believe that emissions of carbon dioxide (CO?) constitute an existential threat whose impact is already severe and will become impossible to deal with within a very few years. This has resulted in a number of international agreements, beginning with the Rio Pact of 1992 and continuing up through the 2016 Paris Accords. Despite these agreements, the increase in the concentration of CO? in the atmosphere continues unabated (see Figure 1). In surveying the underlying science, it becomes clear that the role played by China in this story is indicative of a more general cynicism inherent in many of the supposed “solutions” to climate change.

From a minimum in temperature around 1960 (basically the end of a modest cooling trend beginning around 1939, which led to concerns over global cooling) until 1998, the global mean temperature anomaly (the index used to describe the Earth’s temperature) did increase by about 0.5 degrees Celsius. That’s a small change compared to the typical change between breakfast and lunch, though the net increase since then has been relatively insignificant (except for a major El Niño in 2014-16) and appreciably less than predicted by all climate models. It should be noted that the increase was small compared to what was happening in any given region, and temperatures at any given location were almost as likely to be cooling as warming. Despite the fact that increases of CO? thus far have been accompanied by the greatest increase in human welfare in history, and despite the fact that there have been large increases in the Earth’s vegetated area largely due to increases in CO?’s role in photosynthesis, governments seem to have concluded that another 0.5 C will spell doom.

One sees frequent references to the agreement of 97% of the world’s scientists. However, as pointed out by Joseph Bast and Roy Spencer (and myself), this claim is specious. One also sees references to increases in things like sea level, hurricanes, and other weather extremes, but as been widely noted, these claims are based on the illegitimate cherry picking of starting dates for the trends. There is also the important question of what exactly constitutes an existential threat. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we continue along the present path, using the current models that seem to overestimate warming, there would be in 2100 a reduction of global gross domestic product of less than 4% (of a total GDP that would be much higher than what we have today). It is hard to call this an existential threat.

Let us ignore the above problems for the moment, and ask why emissions that presumably have led to the observed increase in CO? have continued to increase. Figure 2 below shows the likely answer. Increasing emissions from China, India, and the rest of the developing world swamp the small reductions in the Anglosphere and the European Union. Indeed, if emissions from the Anglosphere and the EU were to cease (which is of course an impossibility), it would make little difference. According to the Global Energy Monitor, China is planning the addition of 200 GW of coal-fired generating capacity by 2025. If we assume this is a four-year period and that a large-scale power plant is 1 GW, that would be about one plant per week over the next four years. Why would China intentionally pursue the presumed destruction of the Earth?Moreover, why are the Anglosphere and the EU pursuing hugely disruptive, destructive, and expensive policies intended to reduce their already largely irrelevant emissions?

The answer to the first question is likely to be that China sees the threat of climate change as readily manageable regardless of what one believes about the underlying physics (remember that China’s leaders, as opposed to ours, tend to have technical backgrounds). But they also recognize that climate hysteria in the West leads to policies that clearly benefit China. Indeed, China is actually promoting activities like the Sino-American Youth Dialogue on climate change to promote climate alarm among young American activists. In a recent announcement sent to students at MIT, the Youth Dialogue’s Committee stated:

“With rapid growth of the global population and the continuous expansion of the world economy, carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere have surged. Extreme disasters induced by global warming keep popping up. The world is undergoing irreversible climate change. It is in everyone’s stake to protect the planet we call home. We must confront the problems brought to mother nature by climate change and seek solutions in cooperation, sharing responsibility as two major countries and collectively building ‘a community with a shared future for mankind.”

The letter went on to offer modest cash rewards to those making the most “compelling” arguments. At the same time, the Chinese, unlike the World Bank, have been happy to fund coal projects in developing countries. (It will be interesting to see how the Communist Party implements Chairman Xi’s recent pledge to cease this practice.)

The second question is more worrisome because of the patent illogic of proposals claiming to address climate change. Confronted with natural disasters, it is obvious that richer societies are more resilient than poorer societies. For example, earthquakes in Haiti can result in thousands of deaths. Similar earthquakes in California result in orders of magnitude fewer deaths. Thus, it would seem that confronted with what is claimed is an existential threat over which we, in fact, have almost no influence, it seems obvious that the correct policy would be to increase resilience against disasters. Instead, the West is proposing to do the very opposite. It is hard to think of good or virtuous reasons for such a policy. Perhaps our policymakers have a pseudo-religious wish to expiate the sin of letting ordinary people reach comfortable middle-class standards of living. The encouragement of such policies by China is undoubtedly one of the reasons; certainly, many of the proposed Western responses (electric cars, windmills, and solar panels) will involve heavy investments in China, which dominates the global solar industry and is already the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles.

But I doubt that this is the main reason. To be sure, the common response of politicians to any purported problem is to do “something.” These “somethings” often involve some short-term benefits to the politicians and institutions that support such policies. But in the case of climate alarm, one has to wonder if those politicians who are investing in waterfront property are really concerned about the climate. Nor is the rejection of nuclear power indicative of seriousness.

Debate over this issue has been avoided and even actively suppressed under the fatuous claim that the science is “settled.” Indeed by 1988 Newsweek had already claimed that all scientists were agreed on the subject, even though nothing could have been further from the truth. And the truth has been buried ever since. As former Energy Undersecretary for Science in the Obama administration Steven Koonin compellingly illustrates in Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, the issue remains far from actually being settled. The book relies entirely on the science from the official assessments of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and from similar official U.S. assessment reports. The vicious attacks on Koonin since the book’s release in May indicate the absence of almost any level of discourse. Yet, given what is at issue, the need for an open debate over both our assessment of climate science and the proposed policies is, indeed, desperately needed.

https://co2coalition.org/2021/10/22/china-warming/

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New Zealand plan to halve greenhouse gases criticised as an ‘accounting trick’

They are not alone in that

Climate change experts have warned that New Zealand has employed “accounting tricks” to create a target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts that looks far more ambitious than it really is.

On Sunday the country pledged to halve its emissions by 2030 aspart of the Paris agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C. The announcement was made on the eve of the United Nations Cop26 climate conference.

The previous target, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), was to reduce emissions by an average of 30% from 2005 levels, over the 2021-2030 period.

Related: Facing pressure at home, New Zealand’s climate change minister steels himself for Cop26

The updated NDC, has a target of reducing net emissions by 50% below the gross 2005 levels come 2030, or to reduce average annual net emissions over the next decade to 41% below 2005 gross levels.

The target roughly aligns with commitments by the European Union, Newsroom reports, the primary difference being that the European Union aims to reduce most of its emissions within its own borders. New Zealand, on the other hand, expects that less than a third of its emissions will be reduced onshore.

While New Zealand’s share of global greenhouse gas emissions is small, its gross emissions per capita are high and it is one of the world’s worst performers on emission increases. Emissions in New Zealand rose 57% between 1990 and 2018 – the second-greatest increase of all industrialised countries. Earlier this year, data showed New Zealand’s emissions had increased by 2% in 2018-19.

The Climate Action Tracker has given the country a “highly insufficient” rating, pointing out that despite net-zero emissions by 2050 being enshrined in law, the government’s policies focus too heavily on offsetting carbon overseas and through forestry, rather than addressing the root causes such as agriculture.

Bill Hare, from Climate Analytics, a partner organisation to Climate Action Tracker said New Zealand’s latest announcement employs “various accounting tricks”.

SOURCE

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Climate Democracy Dies in Darkness

A British leftist group calling itself the Center for Countering Digital Hate has issued a report on what it calls the "Toxic Ten," which are so-called fringe websites spreading "climate change denial." The ten include our group, the Media Research Center, as well as Breitbart, The Daily Wire, Townhall Media, Newsmax, The Washington Times and The Western Journal.

So, any challenge to Greenpeace climate-crackdown orthodoxy is now classified as "toxic" and "digital hate."

Their solution? To press Facebook and Google to "stop monetizing" these conservative sites, stop allowing them to buy ads and to "comprehensively label" their climate reporting as misinformation. You don't have to prove conservatives wrong. Just "comprehensively label" them as false.

Once again, the left wants to win debates by stopping any debate from happening. The founder of this "Digital Hate" squad is a man named Imran Ahmed, who previously co-authored the book "The New Serfdom: The Triumph of Conservative Ideas and How to Defeat Them," with Angela Eagle, a Labour Party member of Parliament.

Ahmed can already count on jihad from the "objective media." Their British socialist friends at The Guardian awarded their report with the headline "'Super polluters': the top 10 publishers denying the climate crisis on Facebook."

Offering any criticism of climate panic (and climate policy) is "super polluting." Does this sound like science, or does it sound like political hyperbole? Naturally, Ahmed told The Guardian, "big tech is once again on the wrong side of science, truth and human progress."

The Washington Post also provided a pliant piece headlined "Breitbart has outsized influence over climate change denial on Facebook, report says." Tech reporter Cat Zakrzewski warned, "The far-right news and commentary site is one of just 10 publishers responsible for nearly 70 percent of interactions with climate change denial content on Facebook."

On Twitter, Zakrzewski gushed, "The nonprofit has been effective in drawing policymakers' attention to falsehoods on social media, as it did with its 'disinformation dozen' report earlier this year."

The Post reporter avoided any evidence of "falsehoods" by engaging with conservative articles. She blithely wrote that, "For years, Facebook has faced pressure to issue a broad ban on climate misinformation," and that somehow doesn't strike her as distasteful censorship.

My column on ClimateDepot founder Marc Morano's book "Green Fraud" was pictured under the Daily Wire section of the report. The MRC section is illustrated with a Joseph Vazquez article on NewsBusters about ... Marc Morano. He's apparently Digital Hater No. 1.

In my Morano column, I noted that the climate panic lobby is never held accountable for failed predictions of doom from decades ago. In one PBS series called "Race to Save the Planet," Meryl Streep claimed, "By the year 2000 -- that's less than 10 years away -- the earth's climate will be warmer than it's been in over 100,000 years. If we don't do something, there'll be enormous calamities in a very short time."

In 2021, that can be defined as climate misinformation.

But panic helps Democrats sell a crackdown. The Post story quoted Sen. Sheldon "Whites Only" Whitehouse complaining, "Facebook and other social media companies make money when they send users down rabbit holes of climate change denial. That's a very dangerous business model for the future of the planet."

Apparently, the "business model" is this: Only the leftists get to talk on climate policy; everyone else should be suppressed. No one is allowed to question the failed predictions and overwrought "solutions" of climate experts like Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The Washington Post should embrace their business model with the slogan "Climate Democracy Dies in Darkness."

https://townhall.com/columnists/timgraham/2021/11/03/climate-democracy-dies-in-darkness-n2598461

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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4 November, 2021

Climate change will cause corn, wheat and soybeans crops to go haywire by 2030, DECADES sooner than expected, damning NASA study says

These modelling exercises are another case of GIGO. What you get out of them reflects what you put into them. The authors admit that wheat crops will increase -- as well they might. Canada already produces a huge wheat crop and warming would expand that.

As far as corn is concerned, there are already varieties in India that grow well in hot conditions.

And the guff below is based on CMIP6 assumptions, which posit extreme temperature rises, not the most probable ones

The world's crop staples, including corn, wheat and soybeans, are likely to be drastically impacted by climate change as soon as 2030, 'several decades sooner than estimated,' according to a newly published study.

The research — stemming from NASA scientists — notes that in a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, corn crop yields will drop a staggering 24 percent.

Corn is considered 'the most important global crop in terms of total production and food security in many regions,' according to the study.

Soybeans and rice are also set to be negatively impacted, though the models created by the researchers give varying levels of impact, ranging from a decline of 2 percent to as low as 21 percent.

Rice could see a drop from 23 percent growth to 2 percent growth or as low as a 15 percent decline. However, wheat crops could grow 17 percent, the researchers concluded.

'We introduce the concept of climate impact emergence to the field of agriculture impacts, highlighting that major shifts in global crop productivity due to climate change are projected to occur within the next 20 [years], several decades sooner than estimates based on previous model projections,' the authors wrote in the study.

The researchers used advanced climate and agricultural modeling to look for changes in yields based on several factors, including projected increases in temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and a rise in carbon dioxide concentrations.

'We did not expect to see such a fundamental shift, as compared to crop yield projections from the previous generation of climate and crop models conducted in 2014,' said the study's lead author Jonas Jägermeyr, a crop modeler and climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute, in a statement.

Jägermeyr was especially concerned at the projected decline in corn, adding, 'a 20% decrease from current production levels could have severe implications worldwide.'

Although wheat crop yields will increase globally, it will be uneven and will not last forever, according to the study.

South Asia, the southern U.S., Mexico and parts of South America will be able to grow the crop longer, as will certain parts of the northern U.S., Canada and other East Africa.

However, the gains may start to 'level off mid-century,' NASA said in the statement.

'Even under optimistic climate change scenarios, where societies enact ambitious efforts to limit global temperature rise, global agriculture is facing a new climate reality,' Jägermeyr added.

'And with the interconnectedness of the global food system, impacts in even one region's breadbasket will be felt worldwide.'

The researchers used the climate model simulations from the International Climate Model Intercomparison Project-Phase 6 (CMIP6) and simulations for 12 crop models from Columbia University's Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) to come up with their findings.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10160901/Climate-change-cause-corn-wheat-soybeans-crops-haywire-2030.html

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Man-made Disaster for Ireland

Up to 1.3 million cattle would have to be culled in Ireland to reach anticipated government targets for reducing greenhouse gases in the agriculture sector, a new report has concluded.

Irish farmers are expecting the worst after taoiseach Micheál Martin described the report by KPMG, commissioned by weekly newspaper the Irish Farmers Journal, as “scaremongering”.

The debate over agriculture’s role in reducing carbon emissions is a hugely controversial topic in Ireland, pitting Dublin against rural communities.

The country, which does not have a significant manufacturing sector, has long relied on farming, alongside multinational investment, to drive its economy. Irish beef and dairy brands such as Kerrygold and Pilgrims Choice are among its most successful exports.

But Irish agriculture is under huge pressure: 35% of national greenhouse gases come from the sector, the highest level in Europe, where the average is 11%. And more than 60% of that comes from methane associated with belching by ruminant animals.

Ninety countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 in Glasgow on Tuesday in an initiative put forward by the US and the EU. Although methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Reducing these emissions has been touted as one of the most immediate opportunities to slow global heating.

Stephen Prendiville, head of sustainability at the EY consultancy in Dublin, said the debate about methane “had been lost” in the narrative about the climate emergency and this would help countries reliant on agriculture to focus on how to “operationalise” reductions.

The Irish government is due to unveil its sector-by-sector climate emergency plans on Thursday and is considering a 21% to 30% cut in carbon emissions from the agriculture sector.

KPMG looked at four scenarios, concluding that rural Ireland faced a €4bn hit to the economy and the loss of more than 56,000 jobs if the government opted for the 30% target.

It also warned that a 30% cut would require a 20% cut in cattle numbers, 22% of the beef herd and 18% of the dairy herd.

With 6.5 million cattle in the country according to official Central Statistics Office data this equates to a reduction of 1.3 million of the national herd.

The lower target of 21% would mean a reduction of about 5%, or 325,000 cattle, according to the KPMG analysis.

“Farmers desperately hope that it doesn’t come to this [culling],” said Phelim O’Neill, editor of the Irish Farmers Journal. “There is widespread acknowledgement that we need to reduce emissions”, he said but he had commissioned the report to put some facts back into the “heated debate” that is giving famers “climate anxiety” about their futures.

The debate has pitted Dublin versus rural Ireland, with farmers feeling they are being unfairly targeted without government assessments of the impact on their industry.

SOURCE

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Uncertain future for battery metals

As the EV boom and the broader clean energy transition gathers pace, investors are monitoring the demand outlooks for key metals and rare earths that will play a central role in the shift.

On that front, a new report by the CSIRO this week offers some insights into the future of that supply and demand outlook.

The report ‘Known Unknowns: the devil in the details of energy metal demand’ uses the Physical Stocks and Flows Framework (PSFF) tool to look at three EV battery metals (cobalt, lithium and nickel) under three different EV uptake scenarios.

Among the key questions for users to explore, is how technological change and recycling recovery rates will impact the demand and supply of metals.

It suggests that metals used in electric vehicles may be more complicated than what is currently accepted.

CSIRO’s critical energy metals mission-in-development lead, Dr Jerad Ford, said the PSFF tool uses factors not currently accounted for in traditional forecasts to test the demand and supply assumptions.

“We know that demand for many metals will increase substantially as the world transitions to a low carbon economy,” Dr Ford said.

However, unsophisticated models based on current supply levels and recycling levels could lead to “many mischaracterisations of the real opportunities in both metal mining and recycling”.

“They ignore the dynamics of materials flows on a global scale, and the expected changes in underlying technologies,” Ford said.

Cobalt and nickel could have an extremely short demand cycle
Ford and his team framed their research with scenario-based analysis for three different supply/demand projections, based on the variables outlined above.

For instance, it is commonly assumed that demand for newly-mined metals like cobalt and nickel will continue to increase for the foreseeable future, as they are essential for high performance lithium-ion batteries used in EVs.

However, by “Accounting for additional factors such as changes in battery chemistry, quicker EV uptake, and higher levels of recycling, the PSFF tool suggests that cobalt demand may have a short demand window before an extended glut”, Ford said.

The CSIRO’s model also calculated a scenario where nickel demand also peaks early before falling back, while lithium remains “stronger for longer before also trailing off in the out-years”.

“This challenges conventional wisdom that the demand for these battery metals will mirror each other,” Ford said.

SOURCE

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'First Victim' of Build Back Better Agenda Torches Biden for Killing Energy Jobs

"It's definitely not something that I'm proud of, but I may have been the first casualty of the 'Build Back Better' plan," explained Neal Crabtree, a pipeline welder and union member who testified before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday.

"Three hours after President Biden's inauguration, I lost my job on the construction of the Keystone Pipeline," Crabtree explained. "Now I realize this was only one project, but what I really feared was the consequences the decisions would have on my future. And now I see those fears being realized. Not only did I lose an opportunity for employment on the Keystone, but I'm losing employment opportunities."

"All this is happening while the demand for energy is rising — Build Back Better shouldn't mean the total neglect and destruction of our energy infrastructure as we know it," Crabtree said. "Instead of being built or being in service they're now canceled," he added of pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure projects. "They were canceled because of overregulation and in a push for a green new energy sector that just isn't capable or reliable enough to provide the energy that we need right now."

Crabtree, who's worked on pipelines for decades, stated how he too is feeling the price crunch brought on by growing inflation that's hitting Americans at the gas pump and in their utility bills.

"People from coast to coast are feeling the pain of rising energy prices and there seems to be no thought given to the hundreds of thousands of workers in this industry or the millions of products that we use every single day that, you know, are provided by fossil fuels," he said. "There shouldn't be a fear of a heating shortage in the northeast this coming winter, yet here we are."

"Rising prices are a direct result of the lack of infrastructure that it takes to get the products moved to where they're needed most and it's mainly pipeline construction," Crabtree said, highlighting the problems that are driving up fossil fuel costs — a similar situation to the supply chain crisis playing out at several American ports.

"Every penny in the increase of energy on Americans takes about a billion dollars out of the pockets of Americans over a year's time and I can't see how that's a popular decision right now," explained Crabtree. If the root causes of increased fossil fuel prices aren't addressed, "I believe that elections in the coming years are going to prove that point," he stated.

"The disruption of the Colonial Pipeline earlier this year should've proven just how important the work that myself and these companies do really is," Crabtree pointed out. "We took one pipeline that was down for one week and we saw the panic it caused. Why do we only have one pipeline servicing such an important part of this country," Crabtree asked rhetorically before giving the answer: "It costs more to permit and plan a new pipeline than it does to actually build one."

Crabtree isn't anti-green energy, though. He said he believes "it's going to take an all-of-the-above approach for our energy future" but that future doesn't mean demonizing the fossil fuel industry, something that is "only going to hurt the economy and the country."

On a more personal note, Crabtree also explained what the Biden administration's anti-fossil fuel energy agenda means to him and those in similar situations. "I belong to a union that specializes in pipeline construction and I've spent over 25 years developing the skills that I have and I'm compensated well for it," he explained. "The government's idea of shutting down my industry and retraining me in another career is not realistic — I'm too far in life to be starting over at an entry level position."

"There's a whole generation of workers coming up that if they want to pursue careers in green energy then I support that just like I support private companies' rights to develop green energy," he said again proving he's not anti-green energy. "What I don't support is the government limiting my employment opportunities in my chosen field, especially when the product is in huge demand."

SOURCE

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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3 November, 2021

Another very negative view of COP 26

It's just a great excuse for the rich and powerful to have a satisfying get-together. It CANNOT achieve anything. Change is up to the national legislatures

By DAN WOOTTON

I don't know which image of unbridled hypocrisy, sickening privilege and total tone-deafness made me fume more.

The parade of 400 private jets parked up at Scottish airports as world leaders, royalty and billionaires gushed out more carbon within a 24-hour period than most of us will in a lifetime in order to arrive at Cop26 and preach that we must all change our lives forever more in order to reach Net Zero by 2050.

Or the dangerous Insulate Britain criminals splayed once more on the roads, this time in Manchester, to stop more hardworking Brits from going to work, taking their kids to school or getting to hospital when most of these eco-terrorists haven't even bothered to properly insulate their own homes.

And that's just the start of the maddening spectacle of Flop26 over the past 48 hours.

The parade of 400 private jets parked up at Scottish airports as world leaders, royalty and billionaires gushed out more carbon within a 24-hour period than most of us will in a lifetime +5
The parade of 400 private jets parked up at Scottish airports as world leaders, royalty and billionaires gushed out more carbon within a 24-hour period than most of us will in a lifetime

There have been hyperbolic statements about the end of the world designed to terrify our children from the great and the good; a sweary display from that omnipresent sulky teen Greta Thunberg; no shows from China and Russia; the Archbishop of Canterbury comparing the climate debate to Nazi appeasement; and Prince Charles blatantly wading into politics yet again by demanding a 'vast military-style campaign' to reduce emissions.

In fact, I'd go as far to say there's never been a bigger disconnect between everyday Brits and the political, business and media elite determined to tell us what we must do while not changing a thing about their own lovely lives.

And I say all of this as a passionate environmentalist.

I actually spent much of my own youth as some sort of 1980s Kiwi Thunberg wannabe, writing songs and campaigning about the hole in the Ozone Layer that, you might remember, was going to lead to our imminent demise.

Yup, I was one of those terrified youngsters back then who listened to the environmental doomsday merchants with complete terror.

But guess what? Moderate changes to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in spray cans and refrigerants over a period of time have meant that the Ozone hole has actually shrunk in recent years!

The world survived the warnings from the hysterical campaigners (again) and I learnt a big lesson that constant scare campaigns from people who jet around the globe in private jets is not the best way to tackle climate change or environmental issues.

This is where you would hope the so-called independent British broadcast media would step in to bring a degree of perspective to Cop26 proceedings.

Chance would be a fine thing.

Instead, we've had hysterical Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow tweeting on his way to the summit: 'En route to COP26 - trees and branches affected by climate change have slowed our rail journey - tho the branches have been cleared we are doen (sic) to 5mph - What an irony! What a message! We MUST change! Dare we hope that we shall?'

Er, is a so-called impartial broadcaster really trying to claim that branches never fell onto train lines thanks to storms before the so-called 'climate emergency'?

Sky News' craven coverage has been unsurprising, given they are an official sponsor of Cop26 and run a dire daily climate show.

But I'd like to see one of their journalists question the company's own chief executive Dana Strong, who spent the first half of the year commuting to her job in London from Philadelphia in the US via – you guessed it – private jet!

And, despite forcing its own TV dramas to start including characters driving electric cars and rejecting meat for vegan dishes, Sky had the audacity to defend the 3,500-mile transatlantic commute.

A spokesperson for the company said: 'Many CEOs leading multinational companies have schedules that mean it is appropriate to use different modes of transport. It is critical to counterbalance this, that is why we offset carbon emissions caused by the business travel of Sky employees.'

Translation: While we're telling our viewers to stop going on holiday and reduce meat consumption, if you're rich, you don't need to change a damn thing.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10157499/I-want-save-planet-resent-told-it.html

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Europe's Energy Crisis Better Wake America Up

COP-26, the twenty-sixth massive climate control “conference of parties,” goes live in Glasgow, Scotland on Halloween. That’s certainly appropriate since its primary purpose is to further terrify humanity to “take action” to prevent the “existential threat” of “manmade climate cataclysms.”

Thousands of politicians and climate activists will take private jets and limos to the lecture and hector halls – to demand that “commoners” be restricted to one Basic Economy flight every three years, meatless diets, public transportation, and keeping 640-square-foot homes at 65 F all winter and 85 F all summer.

Otherwise, they say, countless people will die as our planet “overheats” by up to 4.1 degrees C (7.2 F) by 2100. Real-world science and data provide no support for temperature spikes of this magnitude. But just in time for COP-26, Columbia University concocted a “new study” and “new metric” on the “mortality cost of carbon,” based on these scary computer-modeled temperature forecasts.

Bloomberg News gave the death-by-global-warming fable prominent coverage.83 million people(equivalent to the entire population of Germany) “could be killed” this century by rising planetary temperatures caused by fossil fuel use, it asserted. Nonsense.

Modern housing and energy systems enable people to adapt to and survive even the most extreme heat and cold – even in Antarctica, which just experienced the coldest average winter temperatures ever recorded: -61 C (-78 F).

Survival becomes far less likely, however, if climate treaties and energy policies prohibit efficient air conditioning and heating, ration them, subject them to recurrent blackouts, or make them harder to afford amid rising oil, natural gas, coal and electricity prices.

Yet that is exactly what’s being advocated and implemented. Britain and various US cities and states want to ban natural gas heating and cooking– and replace them with expensive heat pumps and other electric appliances, powered by expensive, weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels. Meanwhile, energy prices have been skyrocketing in response to Covid recovery and anti-fossil-fuel policies.

Climate theory has long held that most 21st-century warming will occur in northern latitudes during winter months. But now we’re now told a warming Arctic could also be causing colder winters, which could endanger far more people than rising temperatures or more frequent heatwaves.

Actually,far more people die in cold weather than in hot weather or heat waves. In the United States and Canada, cold causes 45 times more deaths per year than heat: 113,000 from cold versus 2,500 from heat. Worldwide, where air conditioning is far less available, some 1,700,000 people die annually from cold versus 300,000 from heat – a ratio of almost 6:1.

Energy policies that favor wind and solar over fossil fuels beget “fuel poverty” that can make adequate heating impossible, causing numerous health problems and deaths. Poor, minority, elderly and fixed-income families are most severely and inequitably affected, it found.

Cold homes bring increased risks of respiratory and circulatory problems (including asthma, bronchitis, flu, cardiovascular disease and stroke) and exacerbate existing adverse health conditions. Cold household temperatures also increase depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Already vulnerable groups – young children, older people and those with preexisting health issues – are especially susceptible to hypothermia, more illness and death.

Public Health Englandcalculated that one-tenth of all “excess winter deaths” in England and Wales are directly attributable to fuel poverty, and 21.5% of excess winter deaths are attributable to the coldest 25% of homes.30,000 to 40,000 people died each year in England and Wales since 1990 who would not have perished if their homes hadn’t been so cold, researchers estimated.

Adjusted for population, this is equivalent to 165,000 to 220,000 excessAmericanwinter deaths per year.

In 2017, Germany endured172,000 localized blackouts; in 2019,350,000 German families had their electricity cut off because they couldn’t pay their power bills.

Coal, oil, natural gas, electricity and home heating costs have risen significantly since those studies were prepared, likely increasing the excess winter death toll markedly. In fact, 2021 European gas prices skyrocketed nearly 600% over 2020 prices, and Rotterdam coal futures soared from $60/ton in October 2020 to $265/ton in September 2021. Energy prices are still rising, affecting jobs and living costs.

Global demand for gas and coal has surged as the world recovers from Covid. British gas production has plunged by 60 % since 2000; Britain and Europe have banned fracking;Putin is playing politics over how much gas it will deliver to Europe; and President Biden has stymied leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines, and oil and gas exports. Many coal and nuclear power plants have been shut down. Meanwhile, Europe’s heavily subsidized wind turbines generated far less electricity in 2021 due to unfavorable winds.

This perfect storm of misinformed policies could bring unprecedented excess deaths as winter sets in.

Schools, hospitals and clinics could also be much chillier – and deadlier. At 11¢ per kilowatt-hour (average US business rate), a 650,000-square-foot hospital would pay about $2.2 million annually for electricity. At 25¢ per kWh (UK), the annual cost jumps to $5 million; at 35¢ per kWh (Germany), to $7 million! Those soaring costs would likely result in employee layoffs, higher medical bills, reduced patient care, colder conditions, and more deaths.

Adding to these woes, Citigroup says EU natural gas prices could hit $100 per mcf (per thousand cubic feet or million Btu) if this winter is particularly cold and moreGulf of Mexico hurricanes disrupt production. News outlets report that energy companies supplying six million UK homes face collapse, and several elder care homes have warned that crippling energy bills could force closures, leaving many old and infirm people homeless.

Britain’s energy minister has said a “very difficult winter” lies ahead, as gas prices soar amid fear of blackouts and food shortages. Many households “will not be able to cope.”

US energy prices remain well below Europe’s, but threats to American families are also rising. The average monthly Henry Hub spot price for natural gas has shot from $1.63 in June 2020 to $5.16 in September 2021. That’s well below the highest-ever price ($13.42 in October 2005) but still ominous.

One-third of American households already had difficulty six years ago adequately heating and cooling their homes – and one-fifth of households had to reduce or forgo food, medicine and other necessities to pay energy bills. Even before Covid, low-income, Black, Hispanic and Native American families were spending a greater portion of their incomes on energy than average US households.

Nearly half of US households that heat with natural gas will spend 22-50% more this winter than last year, depending on how cold it gets. Families that use electricity, propane or fuel oil to heat their homes will also pay significantly more. Energy-intensive factories may have to cut back hours and production, lay people off, and move operations overseas (where they will continue to burn fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases).

Americans are also being impacted by gasoline prices that haverisen more than a dollar a gallon for regular since the 2020 election and recently reached $5.00 per gallon in New York and $7.60 in one southern California town.

The overall effect of these anti-fossil-fuel policies on livelihoods, living standards, health and life spans will be profoundly negative. Countless people will perish, many of them cold and jobless in the dark.

Under Joe Biden, the United States is already on a trajectory to Europe’sreal climate crisis: unaffordable, unreliable energy. That crisis better wake America up. Otherwise, self-righteous activists and governing classes will destroy middle-class jobs, families – and lives.

https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2021/10/30/europes-energy-crisis-better-wake-america-up-n2598303

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In Glasgow, the world moves to halt deforestation

I can get with that

Glasgow: Global deforestation would be halted by the end of the decade under a plan to be endorsed by over 100 world leaders on the second day of United Nations climate talks.

Leaders representing land which is home to over 85 per cent of the world’s forests are expected to commit to halting and reversing deforestation and land degradation by 2030.

Among the signers, countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have seen struggled with deforestation for decades. The nonprofit World Resources Institute calculates forests absorb roughly 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.

The deforestation announcement is not part of the formal COP26 negotiations, but reflects the efforts of the UK hosts of the climate talks to use the moment to drive forward a range of initiatives to help tackle climate change through side deals to the talks. Other signers of the pact are expected to be Australia, Canada, Colombia, Russia, and Norway.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made his mantra for action on “coal, cars, cash and trees” central to the Glasgow talks.

The British government’s determination to secure significant side deals is widely seen as part of an effort to ensure that COP26 can succeed in advancing efforts to control climate change even if world leaders gathered here do not commit to the headline emission reductions.

Those reductions are part of the 2015 Paris agreement targets of keeping warming to well below two degrees.

The plan to reverse deforestation is expected to include a commitment of US$12 billion ($16 billion) in public funds from 12 countries between 2021 and 2025 to protect and restore forests, as well as US$7.2 billion of newly-mobilised private investment.

This would include a new US$1.5 billion fund to protect the Congo Basin, which is home to the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world.

Although forests take the emissions out of the atmosphere, this natural climate buffer is rapidly disappearing.

Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil's space research centre INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy.

The world lost 258,000 square kilometres of forest in 2020, according to WRI’s deforestation tracking initiative Global Forest Watch, an area larger than the United Kingdom. The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation said that parts of the Amazon rainforest have gone from being a carbon “sink” that sucks carbon dioxide from the air to a source of CO2 due to deforestation and reduced humidity in the region.

Monday’s agreement vastly expands a similar commitment made by 40 countries as part of the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests and goes further than ever before in laying out the resources to reach that goal.

Alongside this more than 30 financial institutions with over US$8.7 trillion of global assets – including Aviva, Schroders and Axa – are expected to commit to eliminate investment in activities linked to deforestation.

“Today we celebrate - tomorrow we will start pressing for the deal to be delivered,” said Roberto Waack, a Brazilian business leader and biologist and Chatham House visiting fellow.

“The deal is a significant milestone on the road to protecting our precious forests and tackling the climate crisis.

Executive director of Trillion Trees, a joint venture between BirdLife International, Wildlife Conservation Society and WWF, John Lotspeich, said it was “fantastic” that leaders were “finally” addressing deforestation.

“Yes, we must restore forests and plant trees to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. “But at the same time, if forests continue to disappear at the current catastrophic rate, all this work will be to no avail. And frankly, the silence around the value of intact forests has been deafening.”

The United Nations climate office warned this week that the world remains off target for meeting its goal of cutting emissions as part of international efforts to curb global warming.

SOURCE

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Big business 'sniffs' the green dollar at COP26

Climate change conferences, such as today's COP26, were once the domain of scientists and bureaucrats.

Now, they are increasingly attended by big business delegations eyeing off the "green dollar" — former climate negotiator for Australia, Richie Merzian, calls it a "trade show" for climate change.

It's a sign that climate change is as much an economic challenge as it is a scientific one.

In fact, one of the four goals of Glasgow is "mobilising finance"; $90 trillion is needed for infrastructure to assist the economy to decarbonise by 2030, according to the World Bank.

One of Australia's biggest investors in renewables, Mike Cannon-Brookes, said "$90 trillion is probably an understatement".

"The challenge with Australia's commitments and the promises we are taking to COP26 in Glasgow is that they don't give our economy any stability," he told 7.30.

"There's no legislation, there's no planned interim targets, which means as an investor, you can't be sure what environment you're investing in, which means you're going to need a higher return because the risk is higher, which means the cost of doing business in Australia is going to go up."

COP26 will see an unprecedented showing of corporations, bringing the quality of their commitments — and motives — into sharp focus.

Polluters tackling emissions

Australia's largest independent fossil fuel supplier, Ampol, is switching some of their petrol stations to fast-charging electric vehicle stations, according to CEO Matt Halliday.

"We do view ourselves as a distributor of energy. Over time, we'll be distributing different forms of energy," Mr Halliday told 7.30.

"We're rolling out 121 stations across our network initially, in partnership with ARENA."

Despite Ampol's 1 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, it is part of a business delegation called the Climate Leaders Coalition — which includes BHP, CBA and Coles — and has sent representatives to Glasgow.

"I don't think it's appropriate to rely on any one group, government or organisation. It's about a coalition working across value chains, working together on policy settings," he said.

The rise of 'greenwashing'

Increasingly, carbon-intensive businesses like Ampol — who pledge to deliver net zero on emissions by 2040 — will come under the microscope.

Critically, Ampol's plan will not deal with "scope 3" emissions — the emissions from customers burning their fuels — according to Richie Merzian.

"Companies will try and greenwash their way into only offsetting the emissions from scope 1 and 2, their domestic emissions," Mr Merzian told 7.30.

"And if you're a major fossil fuel producer, the majority of your emissions are when your goods are burnt.

"We're seeing a rise of greenwashing. We're seeing more junk credits being put on the market and purchased up by big polluters. We're seeing a lot more marketing, and not a lot of action. And that's the real risk."

In Australia, one in five carbon credits generated here could very well be hot air, according to new research by the Australian Conservation Foundation.

However, COP26 will see new commitments from some of the industries hardest to abate.

World's largest cement maker tackles scope 3
Holcim is the world's largest cement and building material producer. It's also a member of US climate envoy John Kerry's First Movers Coalition, a group of emissions intensive industries attending COP26.

Holcim's chief sustainability and innovation officer, Magali Anderson, told 7.30 that the new targets they were taking to COP26 meant they would now reduce their scope 3 emissions — emissions created down their supply chain by customers using their building products — by 90 per cent, a goal endorsed by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi).

"Scope 3 emissions represent 20 per cent of our total footprint," Ms Anderson said.

"[For] some companies, it represents 80 to 90 per cent.

"Which means 80 per cent of our emissions are actually under our control.

"Steel and cement are part of this famous 'hard to abate' sector. Myself, I hate this nomination; I love to call it [a] 'full of opportunities' sector, because whenever we reduce, the type of reduction we're going to make will have an enormous impact."

Mr Cannon-Brookes, whose software firm Atlassian also has endorsement from SBTi, said COP26 would bring new promises from the corporate sector, but transparency and governance was required.

"We need to call out and be clear about what people are actually committing to, whether it's an individual, whether it's a business or whether it's a government," he told 7.30.

"When people are making a net zero pledge, we should ask things like, is it legislated? As a government, that's laws, as a business, that's in some sort of actual policies, penalties, incentives, that sort of thing.

"We should ask, does it involve scope 3 emissions?

"None of Australia's policies involve scope 3. Very few of those large, generally fossil fuel-based businesses involves scope 3. That's a really important point."

Attempting to address the authenticity of green investments, the Climate Bonds Initiative is a not-for-profit that developed an accreditation system now adopted by the EU and China — and investors are hungry for ways to 'green up' their portfolios, according to CEO Sean Kidney.

"There is money pouring out of our ears looking for green," he told 7.30.

"In the recent auction, when the European Commission went to market seeking money for its green bond, they were 11 times oversubscribed.

"That means that they placed 12 billion euros a bond. They got 11 times the orders.

"This COP26 will be replete with corporations, with investors, with ministries of finance, not just ministers of climate change.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-01/big-businesses-cop26-green-dollar-economic-challenge/100580928

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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2 November, 2021

Climate skeptics and prominent Greenies are in agreement for once: COP 26 is a farce

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano and a contingent of climate skeptics will descend upon the UN climate summit in Glasgow Scotland next week. The climate skeptics will be joining a growing coalition of climate activists who realize that UN summits are meaningless and will support the accurate claims of Schwarzenegger, Greta, Kerry, Hansen and others.

’30 years of blah blah blah’: Thunberg (correctly) questions value of climate talks – Greta: “There is no Planet Blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” … “Net zero, blah, blah, blah. Climate neutral, blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders — words, words that sound great but so far, has led to no action or hopes and dreams. Empty words and promises.”

Schwarzenegger gets it right: ‘Nothing is getting done’ at UN climate summits – Echoes Greta’s ‘Blah Blah Blah’ analysis

Shock graph of rising CO2 emissions despite ‘planet-saving’ UN climate pacts shows ‘farce’ of ‘climate action’

26 futile years

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South Australia adopts electric vehicle tax, joining New South Wales and Victoria

Many unhappy Greenies

Electric car buyers in South Australia will soon be charged for every kilometre they drive, with the state joining New South Wales and Victoria in adopting electric vehicle taxes.

The new tax will come into effect in July 2027, or when electric vehicles make up 30 per cent of the market, whichever is earliest

South Australia was the first Australian state to propose an electric vehicle (EV) tax in November last year, but delayed the introduction of legislation amid debate and community opposition.

A bill to allow the tax passed South Australia's Legislative Council on Thursday, with SA Best's MLCs Connie Bonaros and Frank Pangallo as well as independent MLC John Darley voting with the government to approve it.

In order to secure its passage, the government offered some short-term sweeteners, including a three-year registration fee exemption for new electric vehicles, and a $3,000 subsidy for the first 7,000 electric vehicles sold.

Those subsidies will not apply for hybrid vehicles, or those priced at more than $68,750.

The bill will also establish a parliamentary committee to examine the rollout of electric vehicles.

The new tax will come into effect in July 2027, or when electric vehicles make up 30 per cent of the market, whichever is earliest.

Owners of plug-in hybrid vehicles will be charged an indexed fee of 2 cents per kilometre, while the owners of any other electric vehicles will be charged an indexed fee of 2.5 cents per kilometre.

The charge will be levied in arrears as part of the vehicle registration process, with the final cost calculated on the distance travelled since the previous registration renewal.

Treasurer Rob Lucas said that, while South Australia was the first to propose the tax, it would not be the last state to enact it.

"Look, I think it's a recognition that this is inevitable," he said. "Sooner rather than later, we're going to be almost 100 per cent electric vehicles on our roads.

"And we're going to have to have a mechanism which funds the maintenance and replacement of our road network, because fuel excise will completely disappear."

Fuel excise is currently charged by the federal government.

Opponents of the new tax said its passage would slow the state's ambition to be a national leader of electric vehicle uptake.

"While statements and goals are good, adequate policy commitments to support the EV sector are now needed," said the Australia Institute's South Australian director, Noah Schultz-Byard.

"Our research shows the EV package in South Australia falls well short of what is being offered by the SA government's Coalition counterparts in New South Wales."

The Labor opposition said the passage of the bill days before the Glasgow Climate Change Conference sent the wrong message.

"This is a state government trying to fix a federal government revenue issue while the planet is literally on the verge of climate catastrophe," Deputy Labor Leader Susan Close said.

"While most of the rest of the world is trying to incentivise take-up of electric cars, Steven Marshall's government has just brought in a big new tax to act as a disincentive.

"Sadly, it seems the reckless climate policies of the Liberals at a federal level are now infecting the Liberals here in SA.

Greens MLC Robert Simms said the vote on the bill was an "embarrassing day for South Australia".

"Much like the Morrison federal government, the Liberals here in South Australia just aren't taking the threat of climate change seriously," Mr Simms said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-28/sa-adopts-electric-vehicle-tax/100576568#:~:text=Plug%2Din%20hybrid%20vehicle%20owners,the%20market%2C%20whichever%20is%20earliest

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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1 November, 2021

Climate change fueled witch hunts… Then and now

European witch hunts of the 15th to 17th centuries targeted witches that were thought to be responsible for epidemics and crop failures related to declining temperatures of the Little Ice Age. A belief that evil humans were negatively affecting the climate and weather patterns was the “consensus” opinion of that time. How eerily similar is that notion to the the current oft-repeated mantra that Man’s actions are controlling the climate and leading to catastrophic consequences?

The first extensive European witch hunts coincided with plunging temperatures as the continent transitioned away from the beneficial warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1250 AD). Increasing cold that began in the 13th century ushered in nearly five centuries of advancing mountain glaciers and prolonged periods of rainy or cool weather. This time of naturally-driven climate change was accompanied by crop failure, hunger, rising prices, epidemics and mass depopulation.

Large systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s and were advanced later in the century by an Alsatian Dominican friar and papal Inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer. At Kramer’s urging, Pope Innocence VIII issued an encyclical enshrining the persecution and eradication of weather-changing witches through this papal edict. The worst of the Inquisition’s abuses and later systemic witch hunts were, in part, empowered by this decree.

This initial period of cooler temperatures and failing crops continued through the first couple of decades of the 16th century, when a slight warming was accompanied by improvements in harvests. Clearly, the pogrom against the weather-changing witches had been successful!

Unfortunately for the people of the Late Middle Ages, the forty years or so of slight warming gave ground to a more severe bout of cooling. The summer of 1560 brought a return of coldness and wetness that led to severe decline in harvest, crop failure and increases in infant mortality and epidemics. Bear in mind that this was an agrarian subsistence culture, nearly totally dependent on the yearly harvest to survive. One bad harvest could be tolerated, but back-to-back failures would cause horrific consequences, and indeed they did.

Of course, the people’s misfortunes were attributed to weather-changing witches who had triggered the death-dealing weather, most often in the form of cold, rain, frost and devastating hailstorms. Horrific atrocities were alleged of the witches, including Franconian witches who “confessed” to flying through the air to spread an ointment made of children’s fat in order to cause a killing frost. Across the continent of Europe, from the 15th to the 17th centuries there were likely many tens of thousands of supposed witches burnt at the stake, many of these old women living without husbands on the margins of society.

The worst of the witch hunts occurred during the bitter cold from 1560 to about 1680. The frenzy of killing culminated in the killing of 63 witches in the German territory of Wiesensteig in the year 1563 alone. Across Europe, though, the numbers of witches continued to increase and peaked at more than 500 per year in the mid-1600s. Most were burned at the stake; others were hung.

The end of the witch hunts and killings tie closely to the beginning of our current warming trend at the close of the 17th century. That warming trend started more than 300 years ago and continues in fits and starts to this day.

In the Late Middle Ages, a large segment of the population actually believed that evil people could negatively affect the climate. It appears that we haven’t learned the lessons of the 16th century and the dangers of stirring unfounded fears concerning changes to our climate. Perhaps in the not too distant future we will have the benefit of hindsight and realize that people like Al Gore and Dr. Michael Mann were the Heinrich Kramers of the early 21st century, trying to convince us all that we can control the uncontrollable — the natural cycles of the Sun and Earth that are operating today, just as they have for many millions of years.

https://co2coalition.org/2021/10/29/climate-change-fueled-witch-hunts-then-and-now/

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Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

As gas prices soar across the country, President Joe Biden attempted to explain the benefits of electric cars. Predictably, his explanation was more confusing than it was helpful.

Biden was giving a speech Thursday describing his two massive spending sprees, also known as the Build Back Better plan and infrastructure bill.

According to a White House transcript, Biden was describing the need to replace buses and cars with electric alternatives like rail and electric cars.

“When you buy an electric vehicle, you can go across America on a single tank of gas, figuratively speaking,” Biden said. “It’s not gas. You plug it in.”

Biden at least admitted his “tank of gas” analogy was figurative, so he apparently understands electric cars do not actually run on gas. That is where his knowledge of electric cars seems to end.

Biden’s suggestion that you can drive across the country in an electric car on the equivalent of one tank of gas is false on multiple levels.

First, electric cars have a shorter range than gas cars. The average electric car can travel 250-350 miles on a single charge, the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies reported. The 350-mile range is comparable to many gas cars, but UC Davis said only higher-end brands like Tesla have that range.

To most logical people, the equivalent of one tank of gas would be a full charge in an electric vehicle. Considering the country is a lot longer than 350 miles, it would be impossible to travel across the country on one charge.

Once the electric car does run out of gas, re-charging it is not nearly as simple as getting a tank of gas.

UC Davis reported in a standard 120V outlet like the ones in a normal home, a fully electric car can take 20 or more hours to charge. Even with a 240V outlet, full charging takes four to eight hours.

Some vehicles are equipped for “fast charging,” meaning they can get an 80 percent charge in about 20 minutes. That is still significantly longer than a typical stop for gas.

This is not to say that no one should buy an electric car, because they certainly have benefits. However, stopping for 20 minutes every 250-350 miles on a road trip is undoubtedly an inconvenience.

When Biden says electric cars can go across the country in one figurative tank of gas, his comment is at best misleading and at worst completely ignorant. In reality, electric cars have to stop more often and for longer than gas cars.

It is easy to see why Biden would want to start pushing electric cars. In just the last couple of months, gas prices have skyrocketed at an alarming rate around the country.

According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.399 as of Thursday. That was an increase of more than 20 cents since the previous month, when the average was $3.187.

On Oct. 28, 2020, the average gallon of gas in the United States cost $2.151. In just 365 days, the average price has risen about $1.25 per gallon.

Every time Americans go to the gas pump, price increases remind them of the current state of our country under Biden. He can lie about electric cars all he wants, but he cannot hide what’s happening in the United States.

https://flagandcross.com/biden-tries-to-explain-driving-cross-country-in-an-electric-car-it-goes-horribly-wrong/

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Broken chargers, limited ports, queues: The reality of driving from London to Glasgow using an electric car

At a rough estimate it took him 15 hours to make a trip which would have taken five in an ordinary car

It was at my first charging stop that I realised driving an electric car from London to Glasgow might not be as straightforward as I had thought.

I had started in Westminster feeling upbeat about my challenge. I was driving a Kia e-Niro, a family SUV with a range of about 275 miles. With the map telling me it was 400 miles to Glasgow city centre, I reckoned two charges should see me through.

So the journey to my first charging stop at Norton Crane Services on the M6 Toll was a breeze. That's where reality hit home. Only three of the four rapid charging points were working - nowhere near enough for the number of electric vehicles wanting a top-up.

Some people gave up, but I stuck it out. Even when I got to the front of the queue it took several attempts for the car and charger to talk to each other and for the electrons to flow.

Sorosh told me to get used to it. He'd had an electric car for three months and rated his experience 50:50. He loved his car, but not the charging infrastructure. "There is a lot of work to do if they are scrapping all diesel cars by 2030. It's nowhere near ready," he said. "They have got two charging spots here when you need at least 10."

For part of my journey, I was joined by Philippa Oldham, a director and engineer at the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK.

She said cars have become a serious proposition for motorists, with many now capable of well over 200 miles, roughly three times the range of the best-selling electric just eight years ago.

But my car could still take almost an hour to charge up - far longer than I would normally spend at a service station.

"It is a long time," Philippa agreed. "But is that the time for a lunch stop, to make a few phone calls and check emails?

My next charging stop was Tebay Services. But once again I hit a hitch. Two rapid charging points were out of action. Another wouldn't work because the machine was already charging another car.

It was exasperating. It was 8.30pm, I still had 270 miles to go and just 70 miles left on the battery.

This wasn't range anxiety. This was charger anxiety. If I drove on to the next service station would I find a working machine or have to call for a breakdown truck?

I gambled and won. At Southwaite Services, south of Carlisle, I had four chargers to myself, all working. It was a massive relief.

According to Zap Map, the UK has just over 26,600 chargers. But a report by the Competition and Markets Authority this summer found one in 25 of those aren't working at any given time on average. For rapid chargers, the kind I was using, it's one in 10.

I made it to Glasgow at midnight after a stressful drive.

The government has allocated more money to upgrade the charging network. But one has to wonder whether that is going to happen fast enough for all the drivers now doing the right thing and buying electric.

SOURCE

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'World's greenest residential building' reduced to 20 storeys after Brisbane City Council questions size

A planned 32-storey apartment tower touted as the "world's greenest residential building" has been significantly scaled back after Brisbane City Council expressed concerns about its size.

Lodged in July last year, Aria Property Group's Urban Forest development originally proposed a 32-storey, 382-unit apartment tower on Glenelg Street in South Brisbane.

Designed by Koichi Takada Architects, the application received international attention for its promise to be a tower covered in greenery including trees and shrubs, hiding much of the building structure under plants.

The tower was designed to have nearly 300 per cent green coverage and aims to secure a 5-star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia on the back of its subtropical design.

The original assessment report lodged with the council for the tower last year said the design's "unprecedented level of landscaping" would create a striking building on the city skyline.

However, the plan generated concern from locals who feared the tower was oversized and would permanently change the inner-city suburb's character.

Concerns about its impact on a neighbouring heritage-listed church, a local school, and the number of apartments were also raised in submissions.

More than a year later, the application is still being assessed by Brisbane City Council.

Earlier this year, at the council's request, Aria reduced the size of the tower to 24 storeys, but the council was not satisfied.

In August a council planner requested further reduction of its size to fit the neighbourhood plan.

"The overall proposed building height and number of storeys is required to be reduced in response to ... the South Brisbane riverside neighbourhood plan code," the officer wrote.

The planning code covering that area of South Brisbane has a height limit of 12 storeys, which many residents in submissions on the development insist should be heeded.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/urban-forest-building-downsizes-south-brisbane/100571768

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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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. 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

Most pictures that I use in the body of the blog should stay up throughout the year. But how long they stay up after that is uncertain. At the end of every year therefore I intend to put up a collection of all pictures used on the blog in that year. That should enable missing pictures to be replaced. The archive of last year's pictures on this blog is therefore now up. Note that the filename of the picture is clickable and reflects the date on which the picture was posted. See here



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