GREENIE WATCH -- by Dr. John Ray

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

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31 May, 2018

Racial attitudes are related to climate skepticism

New research by Salil Benegal finds a link between racial attitudes and climate skepticism. I attach the journal abstract to the bottom of the article below. The article below draws conclusions that go beyond what was found in the research so I will confine my comments to what is said in the academic journal article.

His finding that racial and environmental attitudes became more closely allied during the Obama regime is interesting but much caution is needed in looking at what the causal chain might be. Mr Benegal appears to see a straight causal relationship between the two but the correlation could be merely coincidental. Correlation is not causation.

But if Mr Benegal can theorize so can I. I suspect that the repeated failures of Warmist prophecies gradually got through to those who were willing to hear it but not to the Warmists, to whom Warmism is an item of faith. And conservatives have always been much more interested in the facts than in theory. And given its status as a prophecy about the future, Warmism can be nothing but a theory at this stage.

Mr Benegal thinks that Obama was somehow involved in the causal chain but that is just an assumption. I am inclined to think that Obama just happened to be there at a time of change.

But it is beyond dispute that attitude to climate studies is now heavily polarized politically. Conservatives worldwide think it is a lot of hokum. So skepticism about Leftist racial urgencies (Affirmative action, white privilege) among conservatives are simply conservative continuities unrelated to climate beliefs.

And I think the correlation is because the Left back Warmism so heavily while conservatives don't see anything much happening now or any likelihood of much happening to the climate in the foreseeable future.

It really does come down to the facts. Warmism is a prophecy so can in principle have no facts to back it. We can't see the future. Even if we conceded that there has been some recent warming we have no warrant that the warming will continue. There have been both warming and cooling periods in the past so to identify a few years as part of a trend that will continue for many decades is egregious

There is of course the CO2 theory but that was from the outset disconfirmed. The theory is that CO2 emissions leaped after WWII and that caused a rapid rise in global temperatures. The CO2 levels certainly did leap in that period but temperatures did not. There was a global temperature plateau between 1945 to 1975: A full 30 years of NO warming. So CO2 and temperature clearly go their separate ways without any effect on one another. That is the science of the matter.

So I think Mr Benegal still has some thinking to do.

After Barack Obama took office, white Americans were less likely to see climate change as a serious problem, according to a recent paper published in the journal Environmental Politics. The study further finds evidence of a link between racial resentment and climate change denial. This is not to suggest that all climate deniers are racists, merely that racial resentment may, in part, be driving climate denial.

“There has been increasing polarization on this issue?—?and this is one thing my own research has been examining for a while?—?trying to figure out what are some of the root causes of this polarization,” said study author Salil Benegal, a political scientist at DePauw University.

Researchers have thoroughly investigated the link between ideology and attitudes toward climate change, finding that conservatives are significantly more likely to reject climate science, not because they misapprehend the facts, but because they are taking their cues from conservative elites, many of whom have close ties to the fossil fuel industry. Thus, while scientists have grown more certain about the causes and perils of climate change, attitudes toward the carbon crisis have become more and more polarized. While Democrats have grown more concerned about climate change, among Republicans, climate denial has become increasingly calcified.

Separately, researchers have studied how racial resentment among white Americans has worsened economic anxiety and driven opposition to welfare, Medicaid and other government initiatives. (As it happens, white Americans are the largest beneficiaries of these programs.) Writing in the Washington Post, political scientists Adam Enders and Jamil Scott explained that, while racial resentment has remained stable over time, “More and more, white Americans use their racial attitudes to help them decide their positions on political questions such as whom to vote for or what stance to take on important issues including welfare and health care.” They added, “Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency further strengthened the relationship between racial resentment and political attitudes.”

Benegal’s study links these two fields of research by asking if, and to what extent, racial resentment has fueled climate change denial. He began by examining the views of black and white Americans on climate change before and during Obama’s presidency, comparing Pew surveys taken between 2006 and 2008 with surveys taken between 2009 and 2014. Obama, who named climate change a top priority on the campaign trail, tried and failed to pass cap and trade in 2009.

Before the 2008 election, Benegal said, there was no significant difference between white and black Americans on climate change, when controlling for partisanship, ideology, education, church attendance and employment. In the years after Obama took office, the views of black Americans stayed roughly the same. White Americans, however, were 18 percent less likely to see climate change as a very serious problem.

For the second part of his study, Benegal investigated the relationship between racial resentment and climate denial using data from the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Studies. First, he created an index of racial resentment based on how much people agreed or disagreed with statements like, “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough, if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites,” and, “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.” Then, he looked at how racial prejudice interacted with views about climate change.

“I found that the racial resentment scale was incredibly significant in predicting whether or not people agreed with the scientific consensus,” Benegal said. Controlling for age, ideology and education, he found that white Republicans who scored high on racial resentment were significantly more likely than those who scored low to say that climate change isn’t happening or that humans aren’t the cause.

“It is not so much that elites would highlight Obama’s race specifically and then bring up climate or other health policies,” Benegal said. “It’s more that when certain voters associated Obama with an issue, they inherently saw Obama through this racial lens and immediately viewed almost anything he was associated with as some kind of racial issue.” And Obama did a lot on climate change?—?setting ambitious fuel standards, creating the Clean Power Plan, joining the Paris Agreement.

None of this is to say that racial resentment is the sole driver of climate denial. Rather, this study shows that racial resentment could be one of several factors shaping views about climate change. Benegal suggested future research could investigate how political elites talk about climate change?—?how they may be tapping into racial resentment to stoke climate denial, just as they have capitalized on resentment against black and, increasingly, Hispanic Americans to court white voters.

While Benegal’s research makes an important contribution to understanding attitudes toward climate change, political scientists Adam Enders and Jamil Scott, who were not affiliated with the study, noted its limitations. Enders, an assistant professor at the University of Louisville, said that it is difficult to separate racial resentment from partisanship as climate change is highly politicized, and people are more likely to hear about the issue from politicians than from scientists.

Scott, a Phd candidate at Michigan State University, noted how polarized the issue has become. “Climate change is an issue that is ‘owned’ by the Democratic Party. Thus, Democrat identifiers tend to buy into the message of climate change and Republican identifiers do not,” she said, explaining that “a stronger test of the racialization hypothesis would tease out the difference between negative attitudes toward climate change as a partisan concern, which by extension includes Obama as the head of the party, versus negative attitudes toward climate change as a racial concern because of its association with Obama. There is subtle, but important difference there.”

Benegal said he intends this study as first step in understanding this relationship, explaining that “we need to examine other elements of partisanship or factors that may amplify or intensify partisan values or behaviors”?—?including racial resentment. He added, “I’m hoping this paper acts as a step in that direction to start exploring some of those interactions, specifically those between race and party ID.”

Benegal worries that, as some have suggested, the political parties are sorting according to feelings of about race. “Maybe we need to look at race or racial resentment much more critically,” he said. “The concern for me is that if climate change as an issue has become more racialized… it may make it harder to actually persuade individuals to shift their views.”

SOURCE

The spillover of race and racial attitudes into public opinion about climate change

By Salil D. Benegal

ABSTRACT

The relationship between racial attitudes and public opinion about climate change is examined. Public opinion data from Pew and American National Election Studies surveys are used to show that racial identification and prejudices are increasingly correlated with opinions about climate change during the Obama presidency. Results show that racial identification became a significant predictor of climate change concern following Obama’s election in 2008, and that high levels of racial resentment are strongly correlated with reduced agreement with the scientific consensus on climate change. These results offer evidence for an effect termed the spillover of racialization. This helps further explain why the public remains so polarized on climate change, given the extent to which racial grievances and identities have become entangled with elite communication about climate change and its related policies today.

SOURCE

Three New Papers: Permian Mass Extinction Coincided With Global Cooling—Not Global Warming

Warmth encourages life. Cold threatens it

In the past, it has been widely reported that high and abruptly changing CO2 concentrations during the Permian led to climate conditions that were “too hot for complex life to survive” on the planet.

Today, scientists have determined that the opposite may be true: the Permian mass extinction event occurred during a period of global cooling, expansive ice sheet growth, relatively low CO2 levels, and a marine-habitat-destroying sea level drop of 100 meters.

A year ago, the press release for a paper published in Scientific Reports argued that during the Permian mass extinction event, “the majority of marine species” were killed off by an “extreme cold” period that coincided with widespread glaciation and a dramatic drop in global sea levels.

“Analysis of the newly dated layers showed a significant reduction of seawater levels during the [Permian] extinction event. The only explanation for such a dramatic decrease in water levels is a sudden increase in ice. The ice age lasted just 80,000 years, but the extreme cold was enough to kill off the majority of marine species.”

Within the last few months, at least two more papers have been published that also affirm that the Permian mass extinction event that annihilated up to 90% of marine species and 70% of land-dwelling species coincided with extreme global cooling, ice sheet expansion over land, and dramatically-falling sea levels — 100 meters lower than they were in previously warmer climates.

The lowering of sea levels alone may have been enough to destroy a substantial percentage of marine habitats, and the expansion of ice sheets may have austerely limited the habitat ranges for land-dwelling fauna.

Further analysis reveals that, contrary to commonly popularized claims, neither the Ordovician mass extinction event nor the Permian mass extinction event had a clear causal link to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Indeed, it has long been documented that CO2 concentrations may have fluctuated between about 280 ppm and 2800 ppm during the Permian, with the low CO2 values coinciding with cool periods and the high values coinciding with warm periods (Saunders and Reichow, 2009).

While both extinction events occurred during global cooling periods accompanied by significantly lowered sea levels, the CO2 concentrations were relatively high (“over 2000 ppm”) during the Ordovician but relatively low (~300 ppm) during the Permian extinction event.

The latter CO2 values would appear to undermine the contention that CO2-driven ocean “acidification” and too-high CO2 concentration levels were causally connected to the extinction of marine species during the Permian.

And the relatively high CO2 values during the Ordovician are not compatible with the accompanying global cooling, glaciation, and plummeting sea levels of that period.

In sum, a growing body of evidence suggests that commonly-held assumptions about a direct causal link between CO2 concentration flux and mass extinction events may not be as clear as previously thought.

SOURCE

Activist Behind ESA Listing Of Polar Bears Says It Didn’t Achieve Her ‘Political Goals’

The activist lawyer primarily responsible for polar bears being listed as ‘threatened’ on the US Endangered Species List (ESA) in 2008 is frustrated that those efforts have not generated her preferred political action.

Kassie Siegel also claims in another 10 years it will be too late to save polar bears from extinction — despite clear evidence to the contrary.

In an emotional rant over at The Hill with a predictably hysterical headline, Siegel perhaps reveals more than she should about her motivation (“Keeping fossil fuels in the ground is the only way to save polar bears ravaged by climate change,” 26 May 2018).

Siegel takes a lot of credit for the ESA listing, as well she should, although she couldn’t have done it without the speculation provided by a couple of Canadian polar bear researchers (Derocher and Stirling 2004; Stirling and Derocher 1993).

She also seems to admit her three-year-long legal efforts to make polar bears the first species to be classified as ‘threatened’ by climate change were motivated more by a desire to have stringent curbs put on fossil fuel use than to protect the bears:

“Ten years ago this month, I was anxiously awaiting a decision that could change environmental policy forever. I was in my office with butterflies in my stomach and a film crew in the next room ready to record my reaction.

Then the news hit. The polar bears won protection throughout their range as a “threatened” species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

As an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, I fought for that protection for more than three years.

The polar bear’s listing was a watershed decision. It was the first time a species was protected solely because of the threat from global warming. It was an acknowledgment from the federal government that climate change is real, urgent and dangerous enough to wipe out a species.

But today, I’m more worried than ever about polar bears and other climate-threatened wildlife — and it’s not just because President Trump has turned the White House into the capital of climate denial.

Our hope a decade ago was that the listing would help spur swift and aggressive action to curb fossil fuel pollution, the largest climate culprit.

The science was clear: Keeping the vast majority of the world’s fossil fuels in the ground is critical not only to save the polar bear, but to preserve a livable planet for all of us.

Fossil fuels are still being extracted and burned at a furious rate. And the polar bear’s habitat is melting away even faster than predicted....

Keeping fossil fuels in the ground now is the only way to save the polar bear’s icy Arctic home. It is the only way to address the health and justice crisis caused by dirty oil extraction in our communities.

That’s why Brown must act now — on the 20-year anniversary of the polar bear’s listing, it will be far too late. ”

Read the entire piece here. The headline claim that polar bears are being “ravaged by climate change” is without foundation.

Even Environment Canada has acknowledged that polar bears are doing fine (Environment Canada 2018, see slide with map below) — as have Russian scientists working in the Chukchi Sea (Feb 2018 announcement) and Norwegian scientists working in the Barents Sea (Aars et al. 2017) — despite the fact that summer sea ice has declined faster than expected (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017, 2018; Crockford and Geist 2018; York et al. 2016).

Siegel’s parting shot is that it will be too late to save polar bears by 2028 (10 years from now) without action on climate change, but that’s just political theatre. Don’t forget Siegel is a lawyer for a well-funded lobby organization, not a scientist. No polar bear researcher has published any such prediction.

However, Siegel’s rant does echo the sentiments expressed by former USGS biologist Steven Amstrup (Amstrup et al. 2007) a few weeks ago (11 May 2018) on the website of another activist organization, Polar Bears International.

It includes a similarly over-the-top headline — including a claim that polar bears are “more at risk than ever” — even though no one is quoted making that such a statement and no reference is made to any study that does:

“I never would have predicted that a decade after the listing, we would not have taken the actions necessary to save polar bears,” said Dr. Steve Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bears International. “In fact, with 10 years of inaction, we’ve lost another million square kilometers of summer sea ice. Polar bears rely on sea ice to hunt, breed, and sometimes to den. With 10 more years of continued warming and sea ice loss, the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever.” ....

Prior to joining PBI, Amstrup was the head of polar bear research in Alaska for 30 years. One of his last major tasks as a government scientist was to lead the U.S. Geological Survey team that produced the series of reports convincing the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to grant the polar bear threatened status.

“We’ve learned much about polar bears in the intervening years,” Amstrup said, “and the new information has only corroborated the information we provided 10 years ago.”

The lack of action on climate led Amstrup to retire from his government job in 2010 to become chief scientist at Polar Bears International.

“I left the USGS not because I’d lost my interest in research, but because I knew that inspiring action to halt global warming was the only way to save polar bears,” he said. “Now, as the U.S. government works to derail recent climate progress, inspiring action within the general public is more important than ever,” he emphasized. “

In my current role, I can speak freely, without government-imposed restrictions, about the need for all of us to minimize our personal greenhouse gas footprints and vote for leaders concerned about the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren.”

Read the entire piece here. No other major news outlet picked up the PBI piece, hence (I assume) Siegel’s attempt yesterday to get some media traction as the 10 year anniversary of the ESA decision on the polar bear (14 May 20108) passed without notice (see original news reports here and here) as the predicted catastrophe failed to materialize.

SOURCE

B.C. Files Legal Challenge Law Limiting Alberta Oil In Trans-Mountain Pipeline

The British Columbia government filed a constitutional lawsuit Tuesday countering an Alberta government bill that would limit fuel being sent to the province.

It comes weeks after the B.C. government asked its highest court to decide if it has the right to limit the flow of bitumen in the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley saw some irony in B.C.’s position.

“It’s very interesting, on one hand, they don’t want our oil and on the other hand they’re suing us to give them our oil,” she told a news conference in Edmonton on Tuesday.

The latest legal action further strains an acrimonious relationship between the two provinces over the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Attorney General David Eby said B.C. is prepared to ask for an injunction and financial damages against Alberta if it restricts the flow of fuel.

Notley said the lawsuit is just one of several tactics to create uncertainty over the Kinder Morgan pipeline project.

“They must think everybody was born yesterday,” Notley said. “They are still reserving the right to play legal rope-a-dope until the cows come home. That is not a thing we are going to let happen.”

Plans to triple the capacity of Kinder Morgan’s existing Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby have pitted Alberta and the federal government against B.C., which says the risk of a bitumen spill is too great for the province’s environment and economy.

Eby said the Alberta and the federal government are causing delays by refusing to accept B.C.’s invitations to join legal cases, or take legal arguments straight to the Supreme Court of Canada where the outcomes are final.

The B.C. government has filed a reference case in the provincial Court of Appeal to determine if it has jurisdiction to regulate heavy oil shipments. It also joined two other lawsuits launched by Indigenous groups opposed to the $7.4-billion pipeline project.

Eby said the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench challenges the constitutionality of Alberta’s law because it is intended to punish B.C.

“We believe it would be reckless in the extreme and therefore highly unlikely that Alberta will actually attempt to use the powers they granted themselves in Bill 12,” he told a conference call. “If Alberta did take the remarkable step of attempting to use this law, we are prepared to immediately file an injunction. We will not hesitate.”

Notley bowed out of a Western premier’s meeting on Wednesday in Yellowknife, saying she could not discuss issues like a national prescription drug plan in the presence of B.C. Premier John Horgan while his government is trying to stop the pipeline project.

“Pharmacare does not grow on trees,” Notley said. “In order to protect and improve the things that matter to people, like pharmacare, we need a strong, functioning national economy.”

Before he left for the meeting, Horgan said he didn’t expect tensions over the pipeline to dominate discussions among the premiers.

Kinder Morgan has ceased all non-essential spending on the project until it receives assurances it can proceed without delays, setting a May 31 deadline for those guarantees.

SOURCE

The love of government power trumps concern for the environent in SF

Bay City bureaucrats are uncomfortable with permissionless innovation

San Francisco has given e-scooter companies an ultimatum: Get your vehicles off our streets by June 4 or risk fines of $100 per day per scooter. And we just might take the scooters too.

Some companies might be allowed to rent out their electric dockless scooters again, but not until they secure permits from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA), which won't be issuing them until late June at the earliest.

The announcement comes a month after the city issued cease-and-desist letters to several e-scooter companies and began impounding improperly parked vehicles. (Austin, Texas, chased e-scooter companies off the streets earlier this year too.)

The permits themselves were unveiled yesterday. They come with numerous new requirements for the e-scooter companies, whose dockless vehicles—rentable via smartphone app—started cropping up in San Francisco earlier this year.

The application costs alone are $5,000. Once approved, scooter companies such as Lime, Bird, and Spin will have to pay another $35,000 to the city. The number of rentable e-scooters available for all companies will be capped at 1,250 city-wide for six months (then rising to 2,500), and companies will have to provide service area plans, which will be subject to city approval.

These rules are necessary, city officials say, to combat the threat e-scooters pose to some deeply held San Francisco values.

"We can have convenience, but it can't sacrifice privacy and equity along the way," City Attorney Dennis Herrera informed everyone in a Thursday press release. "Everyone needs to play by a set of rules for cities to function efficiently, safely and equitably—even corporations," added San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the author of the city's new e-scooter regulations.

To achieve this end, the city's new permits will also require scooter companies to offer their website and apps in multiple languages (including but not limited to Chinese and Spanish), to make their customer interface technology accessible to the disabled, and to offer discounts and cash payment options to low-income people.

If officials' primary concern is ensuring more people can have access to e-scooters, it seems a counter-productive strategy to demand that all scooters be taken off the road. So does capping the total number of scooters. And piling on a lot of new regulations that raise the costs of providing the vehicles.

Costs come down and accessibility increases when service providers can respond and grow with demand, not when they are artificially constrained by regulatory caps and costs.

Uber is a great example of this, starting as essentially a luxury town car provider before evolving into a popular transit service used by all kinds of people.

The deeper motivation behind these new restrictions appears to be a discomfort about any innovation that is not pre-planned, pre-approved, or in conformance with pre-established city goals.

SFMTA chief Ed Reiskin summed up the attitude when he said, "Just because something is innovative doesn't mean it's good for our city."

SOURCE

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

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

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30 May, 2018

Cities Suing Big Oil Over Climate Change Forced To Answer About The Benefits Of Fossil Fuels

California cities suing over climate change must examine the benefits fossil fuels have had on civilization, per an assignment from a federal judge.

San Francisco and Oakland have initiated a lawsuit against five major oil companies in an attempt to hold them financially responsible for climate change.

The case is being heard in the United States District Court in San Francisco. The oil companies being targeted — Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell — have urged U.S. District Judge William Alsup to dismiss the case.

Environmentalists have increasing taken to the judicial branch to wage war against energy companies, with a similar lawsuittaking place in Colorado.

On Thursday, Judge Alsup gave attorneys for Oakland, San Francisco and Chevron Corp. an interesting homework assignment: create a 10-page legal analysis on whether the benefits of years of U.S. dependence on fossil fuels were worth the climate change it caused. (RELATED: An Oil Company Just Earned A Huge Settlement After Environmentalists Brought False Charges)

“We needed oil and fossil fuels to get from 1859 to the present,” Judge Alsup stated. “Yes, that’s causing global warming. But against that negative, we need to weigh-in the larger benefits that have flowed from the use of fossil fuels. It’s been a huge, huge benefit.”

Judge Alsup centered his questions on the “broader sweep of history” and the role fossil fuels played in both World Wars and the economic boom the U.S. experienced afterward. All five oil companies are seeking dismissal, but only Chevron will respond to the judge’s assignment since the other defendants are seeking dismissal on jurisdictional grounds.

“You’re asking for billions of dollars for something that hasn’t happened yet,” Alsup said during a back-and-forth with Steve Berman, the plaintiff’s attorney. “We’re trying to predict how bad global warming will be in 75 years.”

SOURCE

Did the Church of Scotland just dodge a climate change bullet?

YESTERDAY, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland debated a motion on the subject of climate change and, more specifically, how quickly to divest themselves of investments in fossil fuels.

In the event, wisdom prevailed, the motion falling with only 24 per cent support, but it may be that the Assembly just dodged a bullet. The harms that the motion’s proposers were seeking to avert are hypothetical, and pencilled in for a timeslot that is far in the future – but lack of access to fossil fuels causes harms that are immediate, and very, very ugly.

Here at the Global Warming Policy Foundation, we have recently published a pair of briefing papers written by Dr Mikko Paunio, an eminent Finnish epidemiologist. Paunio’s powerfully worded case is that for millions of people around the world, getting their hands on fossil fuels is their onlyhope of escape from lives that are nasty, polluted, and short.

For instance, one of the biggest causes of premature death in the developing world is diarrhoea, and the best way to fix this is to improve domestic hygiene. For that, you need convenient and abundant water supplies, which in turn depend on the availability of a reliable electricity supply. For the time being, that almost certainly means fossil fuels.

In the same countries, untold millions of lives are also blighted by indoor air pollution, mostly caused by having to cook on open stoves fuelled by crude biofuels – wood or animal dung – or by coal. The resulting death toll runs into millions every year. A decision to divest would have hindered these poor people’s chance of following the well-trodden path to cleaner air: from biofuels, to coal, to kerosene, and ultimately to grid-based energy, either electricity or natural gas.

Of course, some will object to this analysis. The other day, the BBC’s Roger Harrabin wondered why people like me don’t support the expansion of solar power in Africa. However, once you have considered the cost and the lack of availability at night, the idea becomes a bit silly. And once you further consider the cost of adding battery storage, it borders on the ridiculous.

Similarly, the “what about modern cookstoves” objection that is often bandied about is given short shrift by Mikko Paunio. In the second of his papers, he notes that “No large-scale cookstove program to date has achieved reductions in [indoor air pollution] or provided any health benefits”.

There are no simple choices here, but only a trade-off, between, on the one hand, deaths that are happening here and now, can be quantified, and for which there is a well-understood path to prevention, and on the other, a vague idea of future trouble that emerges from a series of computer simulations of the climate of the distant future.

A decision to sacrifice all those millions who are suffering in the here and now, in order to avert some hypothetical harm a century hence would have been nothing short of inhuman. Fortunately, sanity – or rather humanity – prevailed.

SOURCE

Is environmental damage in the eye of the beholder?

OVER more than a decade the Scientific Alliance has tried to provide a voice of reason on some important matters, often being critical of mainstream environmentalism, but hopefully supported by evidence. When it comes to something as important (and divisive) as climate change, for example, there is a very fine line to tread in keeping people reading. Preaching to the converted is ultimately futile, but engaging with the undecided, lukewarm or agnostic can help to open minds.

The fact that such pieces have continued to be quite widely read I hope means that the balance is about right. Even with this in mind, it is difficult to get approval from fellow sceptics while not alienating those who subscribe more closely to mainstream views. For me, sceptics is a word that I see in a very positive sense, all those who claim to be scientists should act as professional sceptics.

There are others whose faith will never be shaken by reasoned criticism. They are best described as Deep Greens, and for them protecting species other than our own and minimising human influence on the environment has effectively become a religion. Moderate environmentalists will hopefully continue to influence policy more than such extremists.

The environmentalist movement is in essence a campaigning one, so strong and eye-catching messages are the norm. It is easy to forget when we hear a stream of what is wrong that, by and large, the environment is now much better cared for than a few decades ago. Many of the issues highlighted in the early days of Greenpeace have now been incorporated into mainstream public policy.

Admittedly, a number of wildlife species are under pressure, often still because of changes to how we manage landscapes. Evolving arable and livestock farming are perhaps the most important factors in this overall, but it is easy to forget that farming in any form has transformed landscapes worldwide. Forests have been cleared, but this has created habitat for a wide variety of other flora and fauna.

The fall in numbers of farmland birds is often highlighted as a problem, but we are in fact comparing current numbers with those nurtured more intensively by earlier forms of farming, not with the relatively low biodiversity levels in the ancient woodlands cleared by our ancestors to provide farmland.

The very concept of environmental damage is to an extent in the eye of the beholder. What we should more accurately talk about is environmental change. Whether or not we find such changes to our liking is a matter of choice, although this does presuppose that any changes do not wipe out other species or, say, create deserts.

Politicians continue to at least pay lip service to big environmental issues, the overarching one at present being climate change. However, it is difficult not to think that the international effort to control climate – including the Paris agreement – is losing momentum as the sheer difficulty of slashing emissions without compromising our way of life becomes increasingly apparent.

The rhetoric from both Greens and politicians will remain essentially unchanged, but climate change will continue to drop down the list of priorities for the great majority of voters. At some stage, a breakthrough in energy generation or storage technology may provide an economic and secure way to decarbonise economies, in which case societies will undoubtedly follow that route. Oil will not continue to be the mainstay of the global economy ad infinitum.

But, barring that, words will continue to speak louder than action. China and India will not compromise their economic growth in the name of reducing global emissions. Action in the USA during this presidential term will be largely from the private sector (and therefore necessarily economically viable) and even the EU cheerleaders will probably disappoint campaigners by the (voluntary) action they take under the Paris agreement. In a decade or two, whatever has been achieved will probably still be claimed as at least a partial triumph for environmental activism even if (as I think likely) temperatures continue to rise more slowly than the models predict.

SOURCE

Due To China’s Participation, Global Warming Industry Tops $82 Billion For 2018

The global warming industry has become a big business. With China now participating, the World Bank estimates that the worldwide value of carbon pricing has reached $82 billion this year – a stunning 56 percent increase from 2017.

The World Bank released a report showing how the once-moribund carbon markets are rebounding. More states are levying carbon taxes on their people, following the example of China. The world’s top polluter unveiled a comprehensive carbon tax plan late last year.

A long-time investor and proponent of these so-called carbon markets is former US Vice President Al Gore, who applauded Chinese participation in the scheme that he has been promoting for many years.

“China’s carbon trading system is yet another powerful sign that a global sustainability revolution is underway,” Al Gore said.

“With the top global polluter enacting policies to support the Paris Agreement and transition to a low carbon economy, it is clear that we’re at a tipping point in the climate crisis”, he said.

According to the World Bank, 51 carbon pricing initiatives – comprised of 25 emissions trading schemes and 26 carbon taxes – currently exist throughout the world. It is estimated that this covers up to 20 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and the World Bank hopes to increase that number next year with Singapore and Argentina planning to levy a carbon tax on their people in 2018.

“Governments at all levels are starting to see the effectiveness of carbon pricing in their efforts to cut harmful carbon pollution while also raising revenues for climate and other policies, including environmental action,” said John Roome, who works as Senior Director for Climate Change for the World Bank. “As countries take stock of their Paris Agreement commitments and set a path towards increased ambition, carbon pricing mechanisms with robust pricing levels are proving to be essential elements of the toolkit.”

While the World Bank and other globalist entities push global warming and urge nations to sign onto the Paris accords and enact carbon tax schemes to combat this supposed menace, President Donald Trump is taking a different approach. He wants to bring jobs back to the United States and believes that is more important than bolstering an international carbon market at the behest of globalists.

“The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production,” Trump said last year when he officially pulled America out of the Paris agreement.

SOURCE

Betty Crocker: Pro-GMO And Proud Of It

There's a lot of money to be made in kowtowing to the latest dietary fads and unsubstantiated health scares. As a result, organic products -- which are sold to people based on the myths that they are safer, healthier, and tastier than conventional products -- are now a nearly $50-billion-industry in the U.S.

Other companies have noticed and jumped aboard the bandwagon. If there is money to be made, they are eager to throw science under the bus in order to prey on a scientifically illiterate populace. The proliferation of ridiculous labels -- from "non-GMO" salt to "gluten-free" water -- serves as a case-in-point. They believe the average person is ignorant enough to fall for that sort of nonsense... and they're right.

Consider Panera Bread, a company that shamelessly launched a full-frontal assault on chemistry. Last year, they ran an ad bragging that their food didn't contain scary sounding chemicals, taking a page straight out of the Food Babe's playbook. Then, they boasted that their food didn't contain artificial preservatives, apparently unaware that food waste -- something that preservatives help prevent -- is a gigantic problem that needs to be solved*.

Or consider all the money that can be made by accusing and suing food companies over perfectly safe products. An entire industry has been built around California's Proposition 65, a gold mine for unethical activists and lawyers. The latest travesty forces manufacturers to place cancer warning labels on coffee.

Given the thoroughly unscientific and litigious milieu in which we live, companies find themselves scrambling to appease the uneducated Twitter mob and apologizing for being in business. That's why it's such a breath of fresh air when a company stands up to the hysteria.

Betty Crocker: Pro-GMO and Proud of It

In response to a critic who was unhappy that one of its labels said, "partially produced with genetic engineering," Betty Crocker responded:

Fantastic response! A full-throated endorsement of biotechnology is a beautiful thing.

May Betty Crocker live long and prosper. And may companies like Panera Bread learn that honesty is a far better marketing strategy than deceitful fearmongering.

*Note: As it so happens, karma struck. Panera had to issue a recall over possible Listeria contamination.

SOURCE

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

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

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29 May, 2018

Last week a group of climate scientists published a paper that admitted the estimates of global warming used for years were, er, wrong

IN February 2016, climate scientist Dr. John Christy presented testimony to Congress demonstrating that the UN IPCC’s CMIP5 climate models grossly exaggerate and over estimate the impact of atmospheric CO2 levels on global temperatures. Dr. Christy noted in his testimony that “models over-warm the tropical atmosphere by a factor of approximately three?.

Dr. Christy was 100% correct …

A landmark paper by warmist scientists in Nature Geoscience now concedes the world has indeed not warmed as predicted, thanks to a slowdown in the first 15 years of this century. One of its authors, Michael Grubb, professor of international energy and climate change at University College London, admits his past predictions of runaway warming were too alarmist.

“When the facts change, I change my mind. We are in a better place than I thought.”

ANOTHER author, Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at Oxford, confessed that too many of the mathematical models used by climate scientists to predict future warming “were on the hot side” — meaning they exaggerated.

“We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models.”

“We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.” Myles Allen – professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford

SO, the sceptics – the “climate deniers” – were spot-on, again.

AND yet we have spent literally trillions of dollars of other peoples’ (taxpayers) money on alarmist global warming climate change policies, schemes and rent-seeking scams (windmills, solar panels, mothballed desal plants, pink bats, carbon taxes etc) on the advice of overheated, predictive computer models that do not even observe real-world reality!?

DON’T expect an apology or your money back anytime soon. The climate juggernaut will keep digging at your hip pocket a little while longer – too much money is on the line and too many reputations are now at stake.

SOURCE

Some desert animals can weather climate change better than expected

Ecologists have no doubt that climate change will affect animals and plants on Earth. Just how exactly? That's often hard to predict. There are already indications that some species shift their distribution area. On the other hand, much less is known about how individual animals and populations react to the changes. Scientists of the UFZ in Leipzig have now investigated this with nocturnal desert geckos. In the journal Ecological Monographs they come to encouraging findings. Therefore, with the heat alone, the animals will probably not get into trouble so quickly. And the negative consequences of the increasing drought can compensate them to some extent. The same could apply to other desert reptiles.

In the world of reptiles there are certainly more spectacular species than Gehyra variegata . And yet, this small, nocturnal gecko has managed to add a whole new dimension to the discussion about the ecological consequences of climate change. The approximately five-centimeters large animals with the gray or brownish skin live in the deserts of Australia. For them, the hollow trunks of eucalyptus trees are the perfect refuges. After hunting insects overnight, they spend the hot days there, when temperatures can easily climb to more than 40 degrees Celsius.

Especially in such hot deserts climate scientists expect even more extreme conditions in the future. It's supposed to get hotter and drier all over the world. But how will the unique flora and fauna of these ecosystems respond to these new challenges? Using the example of the small gecko, which is representative of other nocturnal desert inhabitants, the researchers have pursued this question.

Prof. Klaus Henle, who heads the Department of Conservation Research at the UFZ, began in the 1980s with data on Gehyra variegatagather. In the Kinchega National Park in eastern Australia, he and his colleagues have been capturing reptiles for over 30 years, measuring them, photographing them for identification purposes and then releasing them with a marker. The UFZ researchers have now placed this information in relation to the weather conditions on site, but also to global climatic phenomena - and have come to surprising results. "We had expected that both higher temperatures and greater drought would adversely affect the animals and their stocks," says biologist Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth. After all, reptiles need a certain amount of moisture so that, for example, egg development and skinning work properly. When the animals dry out, it becomes life-threatening for them. And the same applies if they overheat due to high temperatures.

"But with our geckos we have found that they grow and survive particularly well in hot years," says the researcher. "So you are in better shape and the stock is increasing rather than decreasing." But why can that be? To find out, Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth has observed the behavior of the reptiles and measured their body temperature. At night, she has targeted the hunting animals with an infrared thermometer that can determine the temperature from a distance. In order to be able to detect the geckos also in their day resting places, small passive transmitters were used, as they are used for example also as identification chips for dogs. Usually these are implanted under the skin. But a five-centimeter-long reptile dwarf just is not big enough for that. So the researchers made the animals small backpacks in which the chip was close to the body. He then had himself targeted with a radio frequency antenna. He betrayed not only the whereabouts, but also the temperature of each candidate.

It showed that geckos do not choose particularly cool spots despite the heat of the desert. 30 to 35 degrees Celsius should already have the refuge. "These high temperatures need the animals to properly digest their food," explains the researcher. So sometimes they crawl specifically into particularly sun-exposed branches. In a rather chilly year, the UFZ employee even noticed to her surprise that the geckos left their tree and took sunbaths. This search for enough heat costs energy. And if it is not successful, digestion will not work optimally. That could be the reason that cool years have a negative effect on the geckos.

Even the most pleasant temperatures are of no use if it is too dry. Because then the animals not only get physical problems. There are also fewer insects in those phases that could eat them. As expected, the geckos actually experience hard times during periods of drought. Decisive are not only the precipitation on site. Every few years, the climate anomaly La Niña brings torrential rains to the Australian East Coast. Months later, the water also reaches the desert via the rivers - where it ensures higher humidity and plenty of insects. "In addition to the local conditions, global climate phenomena also play a role for the animals," emphasizes the researcher. One must therefore look beyond the rim of the respective area,

So far, everything speaks for the fact that the geckos probably will not get a heat, but rather a drought problem. However, they can obviously compensate for this to a certain extent. The study also shows that the animals are emaciated in dry years. But their stocks do not shrink anyway. "That's because in bad times they reduce their growth and reproduction," explains Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth. Then they focus on surviving until next year. As these reptiles grow unusually old at the age of 28, they can easily afford one or the other lost breeding season. And when the times are better again, they catch up on the missed.

Even if climate change worsens the living conditions for the geckos, they are unlikely to die out right away. And according to the UFZ researchers, this optimistic message should also apply to other long-lived desert animals. However, that is not a license to make climate change easy. "If several very dry years follow each other, the animals can not buffer this," says Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth. At some point, even the most hardened survivor will end up.

SOURCE (Translated)

Let's Celebrate Engines and Electricity

Viv Forbes

Most chapters of human history are defined by the tools and machines that were used.

In the Stone Age, the first tools were “green tools” – digging sticks, spears, boomerangs, bows and arrows made of wood; and axes, clubs, knives and grinders made of stone. These were all powered by human energy.

Then humans learned how to control fire for warmth, cooking, warfare and hunting.

Another clever person invented the wheel and we harnessed animal power using donkeys, horses, mules and oxen, and made better tools like bridles, saddles and yokes from wood, fibre and leather.

All of these tools made hunting, gathering and trade easier and more reliable.

Then wooden ploughs revolutionised the cultivation of wild grasses for food for animals and humans. Farming started.

Trade and exchange was made easier with money using rare commodities like gold, silver, gems and shells.

Tool-making made a huge advance in the Bronze Age with the discovery of how to extract metals like copper, lead, zinc and tin from natural ores using charcoal. Brass, bronze and pewter made many useful tools. These were then replaced with better tools when man discovered how to smelt iron and make steel.

Then along came the game-changers – engines and electricity.

The steam engine, running on wood and then on coal or oil, revolutionised life with steam-driven pumps, traction engines and locomotives releasing millions of draught animals from transport duty.

Then came electricity when steam engines were used to drive generators. All the windmills, coaches, sailing ships, lamps, stoves and dryers powered by green energy (wind, water, wood, animal energy, whale oil and beeswax) became obsolete.

Mankind made another leap forward with the invention of internal combustion engines using petroleum liquids and gases for fuel.

An even bigger leap was the harnessing of nuclear power to produce almost unlimited clean energy from controlled reactions using tiny amounts of fuel.

Nothing in life is without risk, and every tool or engine can be misused. On balance, however, tools, engines and electricity have allowed humans to live better from less land and natural resources per person than ever before. Societies with an abundance of capital equipment are richer, have lower population growth and have the leisure and resources to provide far more environmental protection.

Therefore we should spend “Earth Day” celebrating “Engines and Electricity”.

SOURCE

Sea Level Rise: Human Portion is Small

By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

There is a continuing debate over sea level rise, especially how much will occur in the future. The most annoying part of the news media reporting on the issue is that they imply sea level rise is all the fault of humans.

This is why the acceleration of sea level rise is what is usually debated, because sea level has been rising naturally, for at least 100 years before humans could be blamed. So, the two questions really are (1) Has sea level rise accelerated?, and (2) how much of the acceleration is due to humans?

Yesterday’s spat between Gavin Schmidt and Willis Eschenbach dealt with the question of whether sea level rise has accelerated or not. Gavin says it has. Willis says not, or at least not by a statistically significant amount.

I’m going to look at the data in a very simple and straightforward manner. I’ll use what I believe are the same data they did (Church & White, from CSIRO, updated through 2013 here), and plot a trend line for the data before 1950 (before humans could reasonably be blamed), and one for the data after 1950:

If we assume that the trend prior to 1950 was natural (we really did not emit much CO2 into the atmosphere before then), and that the following increase in the trend since 1950 was 100% due to humans, we get a human influence of only about 0.3 inches per decade, or 1 inch every 30 years.

Even though it looks like there is some evidence of even stronger acceleration more recently, sea level has varied naturally on multi-decadal time scales, and it is dangerous to extrapolate any short term trends far into the future. Climate models aren’t of much help in determining the human contribution because we have no idea how much of recent warming and glacial melt was natural versus human-caused. Models still can’t explain why glaciers started melting in the mid-1800s, just like they can’t explain why it warmed up so much from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s.

The bottom line is that, even if (1) we assume the Church & White tide gauge data are correct, and (2) 100% of the recent acceleration is due to humans, it leads to only 0.3 inches per decade that is our fault, a total of 2 inches since 1950.

As Judith Curry mentioned in her continuing series of posts on sea level rise, we should heed the words of the famous oceanographer, Carl Wunsch, who said,

“At best, the determination and attribution of global-mean sea-level change lies at the very edge of knowledge and technology. Both systematic and random errors are of concern, the former particularly, because of the changes in technology and sampling methods over the many decades, the latter from the very great spatial and temporal variability. It remains possible that the database is insufficient to compute mean sea-level trends with the accuracy necessary to discuss the impact of global warming, as disappointing as this conclusion may be.”

SOURCE

Do Tourists Cause Global Warming?

The scientific journal Nature Climate Change yesterday published a study measuring the “carbon footprint of global tourism.” It’s big. Taking into account all tourism-related expenditures for transport, shopping, and food, it adds up to 4.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases a year, or 8 percent of global emissions. Here’s the study’s abstract:

Tourism contributes significantly to global gross domestic product, and is forecast to grow at an annual 4 percent, thus outpacing many other economic sectors. However, global carbon emissions related to tourism are currently not well quantified. Here, we quantify tourism-related global carbon flows between 160 countries, and their carbon footprints under origin and destination accounting perspectives. We find that, between 2009 and 2013, tourism’s global carbon footprint has increased from 3.9 to 4.5?GtCO2e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Transport, shopping and food are significant contributors. The majority of this footprint is exerted by and in high-income countries. The rapid increase in tourism demand is effectively outstripping the decarbonization of tourism-related technology. We project that, due to its high carbon intensity and continuing growth, tourism will constitute a growing part of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“The majority of this footprint is exerted by and in high-income countries.” So you might suppose people in rich countries should eschew or at least dramatically cut back on cruises, jet-setting, and tourism in foreign lands. But the economic fallout for many poor countries would be nasty. As a review article in today’s Climatewire points out, for “small islands popular among travelers . . . the footprint of international visitors . . . may account for as much as 80 percent of their national emissions.” But that means tourism accounts for most of their national incomes. For example, in 2017, the Maldives got 76.6 percent of its national income from tourism.

Maldives and other members of the Association of Small Island States are among the most aggressive advocates of penalizing and restricting fossil fuel consumption in industrialized nations. Have they thought things through?

According to the Nature study, the association between personal wealth and travel is so strong that in countries where per capita income exceeds $40,000, a 10 percent increase in per capita income yields a 13 percent increase in carbon footprint. Even a “modest” carbon tax like that advocated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would have significant negative impacts on U.S. economic growth, household purchasing power, and employment. That would put a damper on many U.S. households’ vacation plans.

The Nature study looks only at tourism-related emissions, but the carbon footprint for all forms of travel is larger still. In a 2009 report, Beyond Transport Policy, the European Environment Agency (EEA) fretted that despite high motor fuel taxes and tough fuel economy mandates, European Union transport sector emissions had increased by 26 percent during 1990-2006. Here (lightly edited) is how I summarized the agency’s angst at the time:

Why have taxes and mandates failed to reduce transport sector emissions? The EEA report spotlights the unheard-of fact that the “key drivers” of demand for transport services are “external” to the transport sector. So despite what you’ve been told, people don’t drive just for the heck of it, buy airplane tickets for the sheer thrill of flying, ship products or order deliveries just to keep things moving. No, most people use transport vehicles to shop, work, educate their children, vacation, or supply products to customers. And—horrors—they do these things “without considering the consequences on transport demand and greenhouse gas emissions”!

What this implies, of course, is that we cannot have what the EEA calls a “sustainable transport system” until politicians and bureaucrats control those pesky “external drivers”—the other economic sectors that generate the demand for transport services.

The EEA report provides detailed case studies on how three external drivers—food production and consumption, short-haul air travel for business and leisure travel, and education—increase emissions by increasing the demand for transport. Each study reveals what every sober adult should already know. Work causes emissions. Play causes emissions. Education causes emissions.

In short, life causes emissions, especially where people are prosperous, free to come and go as they please, and seek to work, play, and learn.

While acknowledging that transport demand comes from “external drivers” on which transport policies have had little impact, the EEA report fails to go “beyond transport policy.” Despite promising a new approach, the EEA’s solution to the alleged problem of too many people driving, flying, shipping, and importing turns out to be imposing taxes on fuels, imports, passengers, and vehicles.

Both the recent Nature study and the older EEA report miss the big picture. A tourism industry big enough to account for 8 percent of global emissions is a big contributor to human well-being. Here’s how the World Travel & Tourism Council describes the sector in its 2017 annual report:

Despite the ever-increasing and unpredictable shocks from terrorist attacks and political instability, to health pandemics and natural disasters, Travel & Tourism continued to show its resilience in 2016, contributing direct GDP growth of 3.1 percent and supporting 6 million net additional jobs in the sector. In total, Travel & Tourism generated US$7.6 trillion (10.2 percent of global GDP) and 292 million jobs in 2016, equivalent to 1 in 10 jobs in the global economy. The sector accounted for 6.6 percent of total global exports and almost 30 percent of total global service exports.

For the sixth successive year, growth in Travel & Tourism outpaced that of the global economy (2.5 percent). Additionally in 2016, direct Travel & Tourism GDP growth not only outperformed the economy-wide growth recorded in 116 of the 185 countries covered by the annual economic impact research (including in major Travel & Tourism economies such as Australia, Canada, China, India, Mexico and South Africa), but it also was stronger than the growth recorded in the financial and business services, manufacturing, public services, retail and distribution, and transport sectors.

So by all means, let’s tax fuels, passengers, and vehicles—it won’t harm anyone except a few oil barons and coal magnates! And if climate campaigners really believe that, I’ve got some bridges in Brooklyn I’d like to sell them.

SOURCE

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

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

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28 May, 2018

Spurious Correlations in Climate Science

Naive statistics underlie many causal claims in climate "science"

You know who Charles Darwin is of course but you may not have heard of his mad cousin Francis Galton who did the math for Darwin’s theory of evolution. Two of the many procedures Sir Galton came up with to help him make sense of the data are still used today and are possibly the two most widely used tools in all of statistics. They are ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression and OLS correlation. [Soon after these amazing mathematical innovations, Sir Galton retired from the evolution business and devoted the rest of his life to making the perfect cup of tea.]

Both of these statistics are measures of a linear relationship between two variables X and Y. Linear regression coefficient B of Y against X is a measure of how much Y changes on average for a unit change in X and the linear correlation R is a measure of how close the observed changes are to the average. The regression and correlation metrics are demonstrated below with data generated by Monte Carlo simulation used to control the degree of correlation.

In the HIGH (R=0.94) and VERY HIGH (R=0.98) correlation charts, linear regression tells us that on average, a unit change in X causes Y to change by about B=5 and this assessment is very consistent. The consistency in this case derives from a low variance of the regression coefficient implied by high correlation. The strong correlation also implies that the observed changes in Y for a unit increases in X is close the the average value of B=5 over the full span of the data and for any selected sub-span of the time series.

In the LOW (R=0.36) and MID (R=0.7) correlation charts, the regression coefficients are correspondingly less precise varying from B=1.8 to B=7.1 for LOW-R and B=3.5 to B=5.6 for MID-R in the five random estimates presented. The point here is that without a sufficient degree of correlation between the time series at the time scale of interest, though regression coefficients can be computed, the computed coefficients may have no interpretation. The weak correlations in these cases also imply that the observed changes in Y for a unit increases in X would be different in sub-spans of the time series. The so called “split-half” test, which compares the first half of the time series to the second half, may be used to examine the instability of the regression coefficient imposed by low correlation.

Correlation is a necessary but not sufficient evidence of causation. Although correlation may imply causation in controlled experiments, field data do not offer that interpretation. If Y is correlated with X in field data, it may mean that X causes Y, or that Y causes X, or that a third variable Z causes both X and Y, or that the correlation is a fluke of the data without a causation interpretation. However, because correlation is a necessary condition for causation, the absence of correlation serves as evidence to refute a theory of causation.

An issue specific to the analysis of time series data is that the observed correlation in the source data must be separated into the portion that derives from shared long term trends (that has no interpretation at the time scale of interest) from the responsiveness of Y to changes in X at the time scale of interest. If this separation is not made, the correlation used in the evaluation may be, and often is spurious. An example of such a spurious correlation is shown in the graphic below. It was provided by the TylerVigen collection of spurious correlations.

As is evident, the spurious correlation derives from a shared trend. The fluctuations around the trend at an appropriate time scale (whether annual or decadal) are clearly not correlated. The separation of these effects may be carried out using detrended correlation analysis. Briefly, the trend component is removed from both time series and the residuals are tested for the responsiveness of Y for changes in X at the appropriate time scale. The procedure and its motivation are described quite well in Alex Tolley’s Lecture available on Youtube.

The motivation and procedure for detecting and removing such spurious correlations in time series data are described in a short paper available for download at this link: Spurious Correlations in Time Series Data . The abstract of this paper follows: Unrelated time series data can show spurious correlations by virtue of a shared drift in the long term trend. The spuriousness of such correlations is demonstrated with examples. The SP500 stock market index, GDP at current prices for the USA, and the number of homicides in England and Wales in the sample period 1968 to 2002 are used for this demonstration. Detrended analysis shows the expected result that at an annual time scale the GDP and SP500 series are related and that neither of these time series is related to the homicide series. Correlations between the source data and those between cumulative values show spurious correlations of the two financial time series with the homicide series.

It is for these reasons the argument that “the theory that X causes Y is supported by the data because X shows a rising trend and at the same time we see that Y has also been going up” is specious because for the data to be declared consistent with causation theory it must be shown that Y is responsive to X at the appropriate time scale when the spurious effect of the shared trend is removed. Some examples from climate science are presented in the papers below along with the URL to their download sites.

Are fossil fuel emissions since the Industrial Revolution causing atmospheric CO2 levels to rise? Responsiveness of Atmospheric CO2 to Fossil Fuel Emissions

Can sea level rise be attenuated by reducing or eliminating fossil fuel emissions? A Test of the Anthropogenic Sea Level Rise Hypothesis

Can ocean acidification be attenuated by reducing or eliminating fossil fuel emissions? An Empirical Study of Fossil Fuel Emissions and Ocean Acidification

Is surface temperature responsive to atmospheric CO2 levels? #1 Validity and Reliability of the Charney Climate Sensitivity Function

Is surface temperature responsive to atmospheric CO2 levels? #2 Uncertainty in Empirical Climate Sensitivity Estimates 1850-2017

Is surface temperature responsive to atmospheric CO2 levels? #3 The Charney Sensitivity of Homicides to Atmospheric CO2: A Parody

A further caution needed in regression and correlation analysis of time series data arises when the source data are preprocessed prior to analysis. In most cases, the effective sample size of the preprocessed data is less than that of the source data because preprocessing involves using data values more than once. For example taking moving averages involves multiplicity in the use of the data that reduces the effective sample size (EFFN) and the effect of that on the degrees of freedom (DF) must be taken into account when carrying out hypothesis tests. The procedures and their rationale are described in this freely downloadable paper Illusory Statistical Power in Time Series Analysis.

Failure to correct for this effect on DF may result in a false sense of statistical power and faux rejection of the null in hypothesis tests as shown in this analysis of Kerry Emmanuel’s famous paper on what he called “increasing destructiveness” of North Atlantic hurricanes: Circular Reasoning in Climate Change Research.

An extreme case of the effect of preprocessing on degrees of freedom occurs when a time series of cumulative values is derived from the source data as in the famous Matthews paper on the proportionality of warming to cumulative emissions [Matthews, H. Damon, et al. “The proportionality of global warming to cumulative carbon emissions.” Nature 459.7248 (2009): 829].

It has been shown in these downloadable papers that the time series of cumulative values has an effective sample size of EFFN=2 and therefore there are no degrees of freedom and no statistical power.

Degrees of freedom lost in moving window preprocessing Effective Sample Size of the Cumulative Values of a Time Series

Degrees of freedom lost in a time series of the cumulative values of another time series #1 Limitations of the TCRE: Transient Climate Response to Cumulative Emissions

Degrees of freedom lost in a time series of the cumulative values of another time series #2 From Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity to Carbon Climate Response

Degrees of freedom lost in a time series of the cumulative values of another time series #3 The Spuriousness of Correlations between Cumulative Values

SOURCE

Extinction of Puffins premature

The Telegraph sent its science reporter up to the Farne Islands in Northumbria to write up a story it dramatically headlined ‘UK puffins may go the way of the dodo with fears of extinction in 50 years.’ It claimed:

    So far the news has been bleak. The puffins arrived four weeks later than usual and initial estimates suggest the number of breeding pairs has fallen by 12 per cent. A combination of climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution and extreme weather has left the little seabirds struggling for survival.

This was followed up by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and also by the Daily Mail.

But the story is #fakenews.

First, as one reader pointed out, puffin colony numbers go up and down all the time.

Second, as Paul Homewood notes, all that stuff about “climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution and extreme weather” is just pabulum. It’s like a catechism that true believers are required to chant – a ritual demonstration of faith, not the thorough examination of facts that you might hope for from a responsible specialist reporter.

Yes, there seems to be evidence that industrial fishing of sand eels has had a deleterious impact on puffin colonies. But definitely not climate change.

    If numbers rose from 3000 in 1939, to 55000 in 2003, when supposedly we have had global warming, how can it now be responsible for a decline?

Well indeed.

You might argue there’s no harm when the legacy media runs stories like this: all they’re trying to do is sex up a nice nature pic with a bit of attention-grabbing doom and gloom scribble underneath, and it all helps to raise awareness of environmental issues.

But I’d disagree.

#Fakenews environmental crisis stories like this, repeated day in day out, have a cumulative impact in generating precisely the kind of mass hysteria which has led to the great climate change scare.

People feel in their bones that something needs to be done – and urgently – because why would newspapers and the BBC be running this stuff if it weren’t true and a real problem?

Politicians, in turn, feel compelled to respond to this apparent crisis. The resultant policies are invariably disastrous.

SOURCE

Climate change should HELP Midwest corn production

Climate change and global warming put some forms of life at risk, but researchers found one instance that might not feel the heat – corn.

Contrary to previous analyses, research published by Michigan State University shows that projected changes in temperature and humidity will not lead to greater water use in corn. This means that while changes in temperatures and humidity trend as they have in the past 50 years, crop yields can not only survive – but thrive.

“There is a lot of optimism looking at the future for farmers, especially in the Midwest,” said Bruno Basso, lead author of the study and University Distinguished professor.

Basso and his colleague Joe Ritchie, co-author on the study, calculated how much energy crops receive from the sun and how it is converted to evaporative loss from the crop, known as evapotranspiration.

“Think of the energy balance like a bank account. There are additions and subtractions,” Basso said. “The energy coming from the sun is a known, measured quantity that adds to the bank account. The primary subtraction is liquid water from the crop, and soil using the solar energy to convert the water to vapor.”

The researchers used the energy balance to calculate the evaporative water loss for 2017, which set a world record yield of 542 bushels per acre. They found that the water loss was the same as it was for lower yielding crops because the energy balance was about the same.

The trend for the past 50 years of a slightly more humid environment decreases the energy for the crops’ water use.

“Our analysis, and that of other climate researchers, shows that the amount of water vapor in the air is gradually increasing in the summers because the daily low temperatures are getting gradually warmer, but the daily high temperatures are cooling – or staying the same – in many areas of the Midwest,” Basso said. “This causes more humidity and slightly decreases how much energy is used for evaporation.”

Basso also tested a water balance calculation on the crop models that, similar to the energy balance, has additions from rainfall and irrigation and subtractions from evaporation from the crop.

“A water balance is just like the bank account of an energy for crops,” Basso said. “There must be a balance to make crops ‘happy’ so that all the energy reaching the crop surface is evaporated.”

In the United States, as a result of improved hybrids and agronomic practices, corn production has steadily increased by an average of two bushels per acre every year for the past 40 years.

Basso explained that data from the National Corn Growers Association competition for high yields shows the potential for continued higher yields in the future. His findings support that climate change won’t hinder its production if the trend of the past 50 years continues into the next 50 years.

“The energy for evaporation is changing little, so if the number of days the crop grows and uses water is the same now and, in the future, the evaporation loss will be the same and slightly less,” Basso said. “In fact, the warmer temperatures allow the use of longer season hybrids that will make for even greater yield possibilities.”

SOURCE

The German wind energy market is threatened by a sharp downturn after years of continuous growth. Ten thousand jobs have already been cut last year

Düsseldorf: When Volker Malmen sat on stage in a hotel in Bremerhaven just over a week ago, the head of Orsted Germany could not help laughing when the moderator asked him which countries were important for the wind industry as a growth market. “Well, Germany probably not,” replied the managing director. And Malmen’s statement has weight in the industry – the Danish company is one of the world’s leading wind farm operators. The Orsted boss is not alone in his opinion.

According to a survey by the market research institute Windresearch, together with WindEnergy Hamburg, the largest wind fair in the world, the mood in the industry is basically positive – but in Germany the surveyed project planners, operators and manufacturers are not so optimistic about the situation, in some cases even consider it “very negative”. The survey is exclusively available to Handelsblatt.

Germany is the most important sales market for wind power in Europe; last year alone, more wind turbines were installed here than ever before. But while the global wind industry is booming, the German market is threatened by a sharp downturn after years of continuous growth.

In 2017, around 1800 new wind turbines with an output of 5330 megawatts were added in Germany, but in the worst case scenario it could only be 1100 megawatts in 2019. The German Wind Energy Association warns against the loss of thousands of jobs. Ten thousand jobs had already been cut last year.

On the one hand, the industry is facing enormous price erosion due to the worldwide reduction in subsidies and the switch to tenders. On the other hand, Germany is considered a particularly difficult market. Here, the demand for wind turbines had almost collapsed due to the auction system introduced only in 2017.

Over 1200 companies from all over the world were surveyed in the WindEnergy Trend Index 2018, both in the onshore and offshore wind sectors. In both cases, the interviewees assess the situation in Germany as significantly worse than for the rest of Europe, Asia or North America. The onshore industry seems to be particularly concerned, with 38 percent rating the current situation as negative to very negative.

Dirk Briese, Managing Director of windresearch, attributes this to the tenders. “In other countries such auction systems have existed for some time. In addition, the lowest results to date were achieved in Germany. And in the shortest time,” Briese explains.

The operators Orsted, EnBW, Vattenfall and also the Spanish energy supplier Iberdrola won part of the projects with zero-cent bids in two tender rounds. They then want to market their electricity completely without EEG compensation at the price traded on the stock exchange. To date a novelty in the wind industry. According to Briese, this is a very rapid and radical change.

Nevertheless, the majority of people believe that they have grown at this turn of time. They are already expecting a more optimistic mood in the offshore sector this year. It is hoped that the situation could brighten further from 2020. Only half of twenty percent currently believe that the German market is in a negative starting position. The prospects for onshore wind energy are not quite as bright. Here, 19 percent do not believe in an improvement in two years either. However, more than forty percent even assess the situation as positive to very positive in two years’ time.

One reason for this optimism could be further cost reductions in the construction of wind turbines. There’s still potential down here. All those surveyed agree that the biggest leap in offshore wind energy is imminent. Almost seventy percent of those surveyed estimate the chances of saving even more at high to very high levels.

Siemens offshore CEO Andreas Nauen recently called in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper for politicians to improve the general conditions in order to prevent Germany from falling behind. “If Germany wants to stay at the top and not fall behind other countries, something has to change. We hope that the expansion corridor for offshore wind energy will widen considerably,” said Nauen. According to the government’s targets, this is 15,000 megawatts (MW) by 2030, Nauen says, which is too little.

The operators Orsted, EnBW, Vattenfall and also the Spanish energy supplier Iberdrola won part of the projects with zero-cent bids in two tender rounds. They then want to market their electricity completely without EEG compensation at the price traded on the stock exchange. To date a novelty in the wind industry. According to Briese, this is a very rapid and radical change.

In the results of the second tender round for onshore wind energy last week, the tendered volume was not reached for the first time. Of 670 MW, only 111 bids with a volume of 604 MW were received.

Companies see markets such as China, India or Taiwan as more promising. The respondents see the best opportunities for the onshore sector from 2020 onwards in Asia, while in the offshore sector they see better conditions for Europe.

In principle, however, growth is increasingly shifting from Europe to Asia and is becoming smaller. This also became clear at the Windforce trade fair in Bremerhaven. The assessment of the industry experts: New projects are being implemented in Asia, while the German market is sluggish.

SOURCE

How 19 Wealthy Foundations Control The Anti-Fossil Fuel Agenda And Escape Scrutiny

Nearly 20 wealthy foundations funneled hundreds of millions of dollars between 2011 and 2015 into a network of environmental organizations to attack the fossil fuel industry, according to a new study published this week by Matthew Nisbet, Ph.D., a Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University.

The study, which only analyzed a subset of the organizations active on climate issues, provides a glimpse at the massive funding apparatus behind the anti-fossil fuel echo chamber – and the lack of scrutiny that this big money campaign has faced.

Energy In Depth has previously exposed how wealthy anti-fossil fuel foundations like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund are financing a wide range of activist groups.

These foundations have admitted to funding studies that attack the oil and gas industry, media outlets that provide favorable coverage of those studies, and activist groups to trumpet their anti-fossil fuel agenda online and in the press.

Nisbet’s paper notes that there has been relatively little scrutiny of the presumed independence of these voices in the media:

“When left?of?center and progressive foundations are covered in the U.S. press, coverage tends to be predominantly positive and uncritical, deepening a lack of public scrutiny relative to their philanthropic activities, successes, and failures.

“These grantmakers are also among the major patrons for academics and their work and are the main supporters of the rapidly growing nonprofit journalism sector. Many scholars and journalists, therefore, have reason to be cautious in their assessment (Reckhow, 2013).” (emphasis added)

Nisbet emphasizes how the 19 foundations examined in his study, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bloomberg Foundation, and Hewlett Foundation, have shaped the conversation on climate change, due to the immense concentration of grant money:

“Far from being passive supporters of actions to address climate change, major U.S. foundations for several decades have played an active role in defining a common roadmap for their grantees and partners.

“By framing the challenges, defining the priorities, and promoting specific ideas, philanthropists have actively shaped common ways of thinking that have bound together otherwise disconnected organizations and leaders into shared approaches and strategies.” (emphasis added)

Nisbet cited other literature that described the impact of the foundation approach as an “outsize megaphone, both actively shaping how people view social problems and championing specific methods through which these problems can be addressed.”

The largest of these foundations is the Energy Foundation, and the study describes how its size allows philanthropists to exert major control over the environmental community to focus work on its preferred policies:

“Launched in 1991, the Energy Foundation has been the main instrument that a network of influential U.S. philanthropists has used to define a portfolio of policy options, political strategies, and energy technologies to address climate change.

“Set up by way of large block grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and MacArthur Foundation, and supported in later years by the Hewlett Foundation, Packard Foundation, and other funders, the principal function of the Energy Foundation has been to leverage money in a highly concentrated pattern on behalf of policies that shift markets, industry, and consumers in the direction of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency practices.” (emphasis added)

The outsized influence exerted by a small number of wealthy foundations has led to group-think in the climate change conversation and has increased political polarization around the issue by focusing on divisive, anti-fossil fuel policies.

Nisbet cited a few specific strategies supported by the foundations that have had this impact:

“Yet related to these strategies, campaigns opposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline and natural gas fracking along with new causes related to racial, gender, and identity?based justice have also likely contributed to deepening political polarization, serving as potent symbols for Republican donors and activists to rally voters around.

“These issues also divide liberal and centrist Democrats, and were a major point of contention during the Democratic primaries.” (emphasis added)

The efforts to support the agendas of these foundations is all-encompassing and includes communications, promotion of renewable technologies, and efforts to limit fossil fuel development.

In fact, the “Park Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund…are notable for supporting strategies that directly target the fossil-fuel industry by way of communication, media, and mobilization campaigns,” Nisbet writes.

Meanwhile, the analysis of foundation spending shows alternative ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change remain largely ignored or even attacked.

For example, the study found that $6,834,000 was spent specifically to “oppose, limit natural gas development,” even though increased use of natural gas has allowed for a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the United States

Emissions of carbon dioxide in the United States have decreased 13 percent from 2005-2016 while natural gas consumption increased 25 percent over the same period.

The study breaks down the attack on natural gas:

“Specific to natural gas fracking, $6.8 million was provided to restrict or ban drilling, $2.1 million to protect drinking water supplies; and $3.9 million for research on health and environmental impacts.

“To support efforts to ban/restrict fracking, Schmidt ($3.3 million), Hewlett ($1.5 million), Park ($1.1 million), and Heinz ($1 million) were the leading funders. Schmidt gave to a mix of national? and state?based groups. Hewlett gave primarily to the Colorado Conservation Fund ($1.3 million).

“Park gave primarily to groups working in New York state, and Heinz to groups in Pennsylvania. Relative to protecting drinking water supplies, major funders included Heinz ($1 million) for efforts in Pennsylvania; and Park ($760,000) for work in North Carolina and New York.

“Major funders of research on fracking’s health and environmental impacts included Heinz ($2.7 million), Park ($780,000), and Schmidt ($390,000). These funds were given to a mix of universities and environmental groups.”

The foundations only granted $1.3 million to support work on carbon capture and sequestration and just $55,000 to promote “fossil fuel industry innovation to limit emissions.”

Nisbet concludes his paper by predicting the next steps in the anti-fossil fuel campaign and the public’s ability to hold these wealthy foundations and their political allies accountable:

“In coming years, as the endowments of major foundations continue to grow, providing philanthropists with ever greater resources, they are likely to play an even more active and strategic role in funding actions to address climate change in the United States and elsewhere.

“In 2017, the Hewlett Foundation, for example, announced it would spend $600 million over the next decade to combat the problem (Gunther, 2018). By framing the challenges and defining the solutions to climate change, as they did in the years following the defeat of the cap and trade bill, Hewlett and other major philanthropies are likely to deepen their ability to bind together organizations and leaders into shared approaches and strategies.

“In an era of political dysfunction and diminished public spending, many will look to philanthropy and their resources for answers. Yet in contrast to elected officials and government agendas, there are few channels to hold funders accountable for their decisions or to a shine a light on their actions…

“Financial support for efforts restricting fossil fuel development and for turning public opinion against the industry is also likely to expand. Examples include municipal lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies to recover damages for climate change impacts; and decisions by states and cities to divest their pension plans of energy-related stocks.

“To aid these efforts, some funders will also deepen their support for journalistic investigations of the fossil fuel industry. Such strategies, however, are likely to intensify controversy over the ties between funders, advocacy groups, and journalists.” (emphasis added)

SOURCE

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

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27 May, 2018

Doing the numbers on renewable energy

Wind and solar are still currently small in global terms. Which is why advocates never mention absolute size or even relative size, but focus on growth rates. They also never talk about the wildlife impacts.

In Australia, there is little research on such matters, but some figures are coming in from the US. The Gibson paper cites estimates that wind farms are killing 600,000 to 880,000 bats a year, which now makes them the second biggest risk to bats behind White Nose Syndrome. Birds are also getting killed in large numbers, but not large enough to rate next to motor vehicles and transmission lines; unless you are a bird.

But intermittent renewables like wind and solar need a much bigger transmission network than traditional grids, so they will also increase the avian transmission line death and injury toll. How much bigger does the transmission network need to be for wind and solar? 5-10 times. And those 600,000+ bats killed annually in the US are being killed for a power source that generates just 6.3 percent of US electricity.

The Jacobson plan (see Part I or critique here) calls to expand the 82 GW of wind turbine capacity in the US to 2449 GW; so we can expect this to also cost 18 to 26 million dead bats a year. We can also expect the current wind farm toll of half a million birds annually, including 83,000 raptors, to rise by perhaps a factor of 32.

But all these animal and environmental problems wouldn’t be so bad if the technology could both provide a reliable grid while also solving our climate problem… but it can’t.

In Germany, solar power is still only about 6 percent of electricity, but is already stuck.

The following figure shows that solar power growth is levelling off in all the key European countries who spent big on subsidising solar growth. The German data for solar output in 2017 is available and is much the same as for 2016.

Some of this is due to simply running out of money. But the much bigger problem is structural. It doesn’t matter how cheap it is if you can’t sell it. Solar power output in Germany will certainly rise a little more, but it’s unlikely to pass its predicted maximum of about 11 percent of German electricity.

Prediction? What prediction? I don’t know who spotted it first, but this article contains a description of why intermittent renewables will tend to level of at around what’s called the capacity factor… 11 percent for solar power in Germany, and 16 percent for solar power in sunny Australia.

Why? Put briefly, and using wind power, as an example, when you have enough wind turbines to meet 100 percent of the electricity demand on windy days, then the incentive to build more turbines starts to decline. Why? Think about what will happen on windy days after you double the amount of wind power? You’ll simply have to throw half of your electricity out; you can’t sell it.

How much electricity will you get from wind over a year if you satisfy 100 percent of the demand on windy days? This number is called the capacity factor. It’s just the annual average output divided by the theoretical maximum if every day was maximally windy at all turbine locations. It’s about 33 percent, give or take a bit.

So without large amounts of storage, profitability ceases and growth gradually stops, rather like what you can see in the graph.

The largest battery in the world was recently installed with great fanfare in South Australia, but can it store large amounts of energy? No. That was never the intention; as an energy storage device, it’s tiny.

SA typically uses 1,500 megawatt-hours of energy each hour, and the battery could store about 4 minutes worth of this. The battery was never intended to store energy; that’s just a side effect. Its purpose is to reduce frequency fluctuations during generator outages. Not that it will do that particularly well either. ACOLA reckoned it would need to be 6 times bigger to have prevented the September 2016 blackout.

So it won’t store much energy and won’t be much use to stop blackouts; so what’s it for? As a means of securing votes from renewable energy junkies, it’s priceless.

The only available technology which can store significant amounts of electricity to allow renewables to expand beyond their capacity factor is… can you guess? … flooded valleys; otherwise known as pumped-hydro.

So while renewable advocates cheered early exponential growth of solar and wind power, the rates were always destined to be logistic… meaning that they grow exponentially until hit by limiting factors which cause an equally fast levelling off.

If I had included China in the graph, you’d see a massive solar increase during the past few years, because she’s still on the exponential growth segment of the curve. But the limiting factors will eventually kick in, exactly as they have done in the EU countries. In fact, at a local level throwing out excess wind power in China is already a problem.

A few years back AEMO did a study on how to meet Australia’s electricity demand with 100 percent renewable sources. They put forward two plans, both involved putting a baseload sub-system underneath wind and solar; one plan was based on burning forests and the other on geonuclear.

Geonuclear is where you drill a hole in the earth’s crust deep enough to tap into the heat generated by radioactive decay in the earth’s mantle and crust. You might know it as geothermal, but it’s a power source based on radioactive decay so why not call a spade a spade? And did I mention the radioactive material being bought to the surface and spread over the landscape by this industry?

Is it a problem? Absolutely not. Meaning that it is a well understood micro-problem which people solve in many similar industries. But could I construct a true but totally misleading scare story about it?

For some people, I probably just did. Not everybody appreciates the irony of opposition to digging big holes to drop radioactive material down (nuclear waste repositories) while supporting digging big holes down to where extraordinary quantities of radioactive material is generating heat.

And what if you don’t want burning forests or geonuclear? A recent study of the US showed what happens when you try and power the US with just wind, solar and storage. It quantifies the lack of end game with these technologies. It’s like trying to build a 10-story building with inadequate materials and design. Things may go brilliantly until level 9 and then you suddenly realise you are screwed.

The US electricity grid is currently about 99.97 reliable, ours is generally even better. The study found that that you can get an 80 per cent reliable grid with wind and solar without too much trouble. And then it starts getting hard; really quickly. By without too much trouble, I mean lots of overbuilding and extra transmission lines.

Look at the bottom graph, which assumes 75 per cent wind and 25 per cent solar. The black line shows how big an overbuild you need if you want a grid of specified reliability. The reliability is given along the X axis and the overbuild factor on the right.

Draw a horizontal line with your eyes from the overbuild factor of 10 and see where it hits the black line. Somewhere about 99.8 percent reliability. So if you want a 99.8 percent reliable supply of 1 gigawatt, then you need to build 7.5 gigawatts of wind and 2.5 gigawatts of solar.

This is very much an optimistic estimate. There are plenty of unrealistic assumptions here, like a perfect transmission system and all your turbines in the best spots. It’s the best you can do; it’s just that the best isn’t really very good.

Now draw a horizontal line with your eyes from the overbuild factor of 5 to the 12 hour storage line. This shows that you can get a 96 per cent reliable supply of 1 gigawatt by building 3.75 GW of wind and 1.25 GW of solar if you have 12 gigwatt-hours of storage.

You’d have to repeat the study with Australian data to see what happens here, but it’s worth thinking about what 12 hours of storage looks like. In Australia, our average power use is about 28 gigawatts, so to store 12 hours worth of energy would require about 3,100 of those ‘biggest battery in the world’ devices in South Australia. There are plenty of other tiny storage systems that it’s fun to pretend might one day scale to the sizes required, but only flooded valleys have a proven track record.

As it happens, someone has done a very similar study using Australian data. The recently released ACF report A Plan to Repowe Australia lists the study (by Manfred Lenzen of UNSW and others) among its evidence base. It finds pretty much what the US study found; namely that you could power Australia, meaning supply our 28 gigawatts worth of demand) with wind, sun and storage and all you’d need to do is build 160 gigawatts worth of wind and solar farms, including 19 gigawatts worth of biomass burning backup.

A one gigawatt power plant is a large structure, whether it’s burning wood, coal or gas. The 19 biomass burners would be doing nothing for 90 percent of the time, but we’d need them just to plug the holes when there are low wind and sunshine periods. Oh, and they also postulate 15 hours of storage for the 61 gigawatts of solar farms.

How would this be provided? The main paper didn’t say, and I didn’t buy the Supplementary material. But you could do it with about 8,000 “biggest battery in the world” Li-ion batteries. Alternatively you could use fertiliser; otherwise known as molten salt. This is a mix of sodium and potassium nitrate. All you’d need would be about 26 million tonnes, which is over 8 years worth of the entire planet’s annual global production (see here and here); all of which is currently ear marked to grow food.

In South Australia, our wind energy supplies us with a little over the capacity factor percentage of energy; which means we are starting to throw away electricity when it’s windy, while relying on gas or coal power from Victoria when it isn’t.

Which is why the new Liberal Government wants to build another inter-connector. That’s fine as a short-term fix, but eventually the whole NEM will saturate with wind and solar. And then where do you build an inter-connector to?

The statewide blackout of 2016 was also a wakeup call that the automatic frequency control delivered by synchronous energy sources but not by wind and solar actually mattered; big time. Without it you are in trouble when events of any kind take out some of your generation capacity.

But ignoring the problems and assuming the US results apply, then we could surely plough on and build another 6.5 times more wind power plus considerably more solar and also buy another 180 of those Elon Musk special batteries and we could have a working, but sub-standard, grid.

This assumes we added all the rest of the required transmission infrastructure to connect all those wind and solar farms. That’s the thing with solar and wind. It may seem attractive when you kick the problems down the road and rave about the short-term successes. But the devil is in the detail and the total lack of end-game.

SOURCE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)

Global warming could produce MORE farming land, scientists admit

CLIMATE change could increase the overall amount of boreal land ready for farming by up to 44 percent, a study has claimed

The threat of global warming and rising sea levels is increasingly likely, scientists have warned.

But a team of international scientists may have now found a potential upside to rising global temperatures. A study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, claims the impacts of global warming could unlock boreal regions for farming by 2099.

Currently, only 32 percent of the world’s boreal areas in the northern hemisphere are arable.

Study co-author Professor Joseph Holden, University of Leeds, explained: “Climate change will have a profound impact on our agricultural regions.

“A projected consequence is the loss of farmland and crops from areas that are currently productive, which is cause for concern regarding long-term global food security.

“Therefore we need to know whether in northern high latitudes new areas will become suitable for crops."

The world’s boreal regions are found in great swathes of the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

But the study also warned increasing the world’s arable land could have a negative impact on agriculture in other parts of the globe by upsetting climatic water balance. [Rubbish! A warmer world would evaporate more moisture off the oceans, meaning that overall rain and snowfall would INCREASE]

Study lead author Dr Adrian Unc, from Memorial University Canada, said: "We must not forget that any changes in land use has extensive impacts on the entire natural ecosystem, impacts that must be understood and included in any planning effort."

SOURCE

EPA’s Pruitt is far cleaner than critics claim

His security, DC bedroom and policies are legitimate and defensible, under any fair standard

Deroy Murdock

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been hounded lately by allegations of rich spending and poor judgment. While he could have detonated himself during recent congressional-oversight hearings, the former Oklahoma prosecutor seems to have survived those tests. Nonetheless, EPA’s inspector general, the Government Accountability Office, and various congressional panels continue to probe Pruitt’s official conduct. While Pruitt has plenty for which to answer, on at least three key counts, he seems to be cleaner than his critics claim.

Pruitt’s foes have attacked him for allocating too much on bodyguards. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) slammed Pruitt for “taking 30 EPA enforcement officers away from investigating polluters to serve as his round-the-clock personal security detail.” The Associate Press counts 20, not 30, in Pruitt’s full-time protective detail. Its cost, AP reports, “approached $3 million when pay is added in travel expenses.”

But an August 16 EPA report suggests that Pruitt’s personal-defense outlays are fueled by genuine safety concerns rather than self-aggrandizement. This document cites 14 threats against Pruitt and his family in Fiscal Year 2017. Among them:

* Pruitt’s daughter has been menaced via Facebook. e.g., “I hope your father dies soon, suffering as your mother watches in horror for hours on end.”

* An e-mail sent to the Washington, D.C. office of Senator James Lankford (R - Oklahoma) threatened to assassinate Pruitt, President Trump, and Vice President Pence.

* One message to EPA said, “I hope your head administrator (Scott Pruitt), dies a very painful and horrible death through poisoning. Please explain the scientific method to this freaking neanderthal [sic].”

* Another spooky character stated via Twitter, “Pruitt, I am gonna find you and put a bullet between your eyes. Don’t even think I’m joking. I’m planning this.”

* A postcard sent to Pruitt read, “Get out while you still can, Scott, you are evil incarnate you ignorant fuck.”

* “Dear Mr. Pruitt,” another postcard began. “CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL!! We are watching you. For the sake of our planet, our children & our grandchildren, will you be a reasonable man? I repeat, we are watching you! Myrna, Michele, Chris, Signe, Lucy, Olivia and Isabel.”

* A trespasser entered EPA headquarters on March 6, CBS News reported. He claimed to be a student attending a “Microsoft event,” said EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan. “The person asked about Scott Pruitt and wanted to know where Pruitt’s office was and if Pruitt ever walked in the hallway outside the room.” Although the intruder was escorted off the premises, he later phoned an employee’s office number and left voicemails in which he said, as Sullivan explained, “he can gain entry into EPA space anytime he wants.”

* Not content simply to write, one critic showed up in person. An EPA sentry stopped him. “During the confrontation, the subject was able to acquire the security officer’s duty weapon and discharge a round into a nearby chair.” The guard disarmed the visitor, who later was indicted for assaulting a federal officer/employee.

These and other concrete provocations justify Pruitt’s focus on security. The Left’s hatred of President Donald J. Trump and his supporters, including Pruitt, is incandescent. One cannot fault Pruitt’s caution, especially after James T. Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer, shot and nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise (R - Louisiana) and four others at the GOP congressional baseball team’s practice last June in Alexandria, Virginia.

Just a few days ago, Miami-Dade Police arrested Jonathan Oddi. Officers say they nabbed Oddi after he fired gunshots in the lobby of the Trump National Doral, one of the chief executive’s golf resorts. Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez said Oddi shouted “anti-Trump, President Trump rhetoric.”

A similar attack that maimed or killed Pruitt – and perhaps EPA personnel and innocent bystanders – is hardly fanciful. Such a scenario is worth devoting resources to prevent.

Also under review: Pruitt’s 2017 housing arrangements in Washington, DC. Pruitt’s accusers claim he got a special, below-cost deal in some sort of bed-for-bribe swap. Had Pruitt been billeted for pennies in a Georgetown townhouse or an Embassy Row mansion, these worries would be legitimate. However, Pruitt rented a room in a Capitol Hill condominium and paid only for the evenings when he actually slept there. He shelled out $50 per night, equal to $1,500 per month. According to Pruitt’s lease, “Enjoyment is limited to one bedroom that cannot be locked. All other space is controlled by the landlord.”

In an April 4 EPA memorandum, Designated Agency Ethics Official Kevin S. Minoli stated that “within a six-block radius” of Pruitt’s crash pad, there were “seven (7) private bedrooms that could be rented for $55 or less/day.” Minoli, who also is EPA’s principal deputy general counsel, also found 38 such rooms “across a broader section of Capitol Hill.” As a result of its research, Minoli explained, “the ethics office estimated $50/day to be a reasonable market value of the use authorized by the terms of the lease. As such, the use of the property according to the terms of the lease would not constitute a gift under the Federal ethics regulations.”

No gift, no graft.

Some also have fretted about the fact that this property is owned by energy lobbyist Steven Hart and his wife Vicki. Pruitt told the Washington Examiner that they were old friends from Oklahoma. “I’ve known him for years,” Pruitt said. “He’s the outside counsel for the National Rifle Association, has no clients that are before this agency, nor does his wife have any clients that have appeared before this agency.”

Pruitt reportedly requested and was given multiple extensions on his lease until last summer. Having overstayed his welcome, the Harts eventually asked Pruitt to make way for an incoming renter. The Harts changed the locks behind Pruitt. If this couple wanted to curry special favor with the EPA chief, this seems like a rather fruitless strategy.

It’s no surprise that these and other actions by Pruitt are under a microscope. For many on the Left, battling so-called “global warming” borders on religion. As they see it, the science is “settled,” this creed is beyond debate, and the heretics who question this faith should be jailed, as Bill Nye the Science Guy has suggested, or executed, as University of Graz, Austria Professor Richard Parncutt has proposed.

Someone like Pruitt, who rejects manmade-global-warmist alarmism and is powerful enough to implement his ideas (e.g. persuading President Trump to junk Obama’s Clean Power Plan and withdraw America from the Paris Climate Treaty) embodies the Left’s worst nightmares. To the warmists, Pruitt is a torch-bearing arsonist, scurrying maliciously through their Vatican. And he must be stopped.

Even if Pruitt winds up scot-free, his situation should serve as a cautionary tale for every member of Team Trump – from the president on down: Their margin of error is thinner than Saran Wrap. President Trump and all who work for him should act as if their every action and utterance were being broadcast live on MSNBC, with Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough offering scathing, bitter and unforgiving commentary. No one on Team Trump ever will get the benefit of the doubt. When the First Lady gets slammed, even for unveiling an anti-cyberbullying initiative, it is safe to assume that everyone in this administration will be scrutinized with the deepest suspicions.

As much as these actions by Scott Pruitt can be defended, these days require an even higher level of purity. It may be as physically unobtainable as 250-proof alcohol. Regardless, and unfair as it may be, this must be the ideal to which every member of the Trump Administration, the Republican Congress, and pretty much each American conservative must aspire.

SOURCE

Liberals Upset by superhero movie's Message: Environmentalism = Mass Murder

Progressives are worried about Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War. They think its villain Thanos, whose solution to the overpopulation problem is to wipe out half the planet, gives the wrong impression that environmentalists are evil.

At Yale Climate Connections, Michael Svoboda complains: By ascribing selfless motives to Thanos, AIW tacitly delivers this toxic message: environmentalism = mass murder.

Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of the environmental PR agency Futerra, also finds the movie’s message too close for comfort. At Forbes, she writes: The Mad Titan sounds worryingly like some environmentalists. Over the years the need for ‘population control and reduction’ has been widely called for as the necessary solution to our resource and sustainability crisis. Thanos is the ultimate Malthusian. After he fulfills his purpose, crumbling half of life in the universe into dust, he retires to an idyll many environmentalists would enjoy – a simple rural hut set in sunlit dappled fields. He had promised “not suffering, but salvation,” and in the final shot a tiny smile is playing on his face after a job well done. Ouch.

For Svoboda, this is a horrible distortion of the essential goodness with which environmentalists are imbued. Not only is it “repugnant” but it fails to take into account all the many wonderful possibilities that greens are now considering as part of their plan to save the world.

In AIW, no one ever points to a country or world that has learned to live sustainably, even though at least two places in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Asgard and Wakanda, appear to have been moving in that direction.

Neither does anyone point out other ways to solve the problem of environmental degradation, or even other ways to pursue Thanos’s preferred solution. Empowering women, for example, is a peaceful way to constrain and then reverse population growth.

Except, as Maddie Stone argues here, Thanos’s attitude is actually a pretty accurate representation of how many environmentalists think.

To me at least, it came across as a clear denouncement of a certain breed of solutions-oriented environmentalism that centers planetary “balance” over people.

The early history of environmentalism is festooned with warnings of a population apocalypse, beginning with 18th century scholar Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population, which concluded that rising human numbers would inevitably lead to widespread poverty and famine. As Malthus’ pessimistic predictions failed to materialize, he was declared a false prophet.

But his ideas stuck around, re-emerging with force in the mid-20th century following the viral popularity of works like Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb(1968), which predicted “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970s, and The Limits to Growth (1972), an MIT research report that concluded “The basic behavior of the world system is exponential growth of population and capital, followed by collapse.”

So yeah, Thanos’ concern about galactic population control? Definitely something we’ve thought about here on Earth. And while the most dire doomsday predictions haven’t come true—thanks largely to industrialization and the green revolution in agriculture—this school of thinking has had real-world consequences, including racist campaigns to sterilize millions of women in the developing world, and China’s fraught one-child policy.

Avengers: Infinity War isn’t the first movie to buck Hollywood’s “environmentalism = fluffy and good” trend. One of the first to do so was Michael Crichton’s State of Fear (2004) in which eco-terrorists plot mass murder to raise awareness of global warming.

The evil mastermind in Kingsman: The Secret Service was also an environmentalist. Richmond Valentine (Samuel L Jackson) is a billionaire philanthropist who believes the only way to save humanity from overpopulation is to wipe out everybody except his favorite celebrities and politicians.

SOURCE

Democrats Blame Trump for High Gas Prices

Meanwhile, Dems regularly call for more tax hikes on gasoline

Gas prices across the nation have been steadily rising and have now reached levels not seen since November 2014. The average price of gas this week is $2.92 per gallon, 55 cents higher than this time last year. And while summer gas price hikes are nothing unusual, the fact of the matter is it’s an election year and Democrats are looking for any political narrative to spin in their favor.

Lobbing baseless accusations from the political peanut gallery, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) bloviated, “President Trump’s reckless decision to pull out of the Iran deal has led to higher oil prices.” He continued, “These higher oil prices are translating directly to soaring gas prices, something we know disproportionately hurts middle and lower income people.” Ah, so “controlling” the inherently uncontrollable and regularly fluctuating price of gas is more important than pulling out of a terrible deal that did nothing but give cover to a villainous, terror-funding regime on its march toward nuclear weapons? Schumer’s simply trying to kill two birds with one stone. That’s because he’s worried that the widely anticipated “blue wave” may prove to be nothing more than a ripple.

So why do gas prices fluctuate so regularly, and why in particular do they rise during the summer months? First, the leading factor in the price of gas is OPEC. In November 2016, OPEC decided to limit oil production with the express purpose of increasing the price. Second, the EPA requires refiners to change their gas formulas in the spring to accommodate air-quality regulations, driving up production costs, which are then passed on to the consumer. And finally, economics 101 — America’s growing economy has increased the demand for gas, which in turn raises the price. None of these factors are directly controlled by this or any president.

In fact, the only real direct control politicians have over the price of gas is via taxation. Ironically, while Schumer and his fellow Democrats are running around blaming Trump and Republicans for higher gas prices, the fact is Democrats have for years advocated raising gas taxes. As Investor’s Business Daily notes, “As recently as 2015, Democrats were pushing to nearly double the federal gasoline tax. At the time, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that it was the perfect time to do so because ‘if there’s ever going to be an opportunity to raise the gas tax, the time when gas prices are so low — oil prices are so low — is the time to do it.’” Democrat-controlled states like California already have raised gas taxes.

So the next time you fill up and wince at the price, remember just how much of the price is already due to Democrat taxes, and how much higher they’d prefer those prices to be.

SOURCE

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

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

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25 May, 2018

Air pollution scare debunked

Greenies love to condemn urban air pollution and say how bad for us it is. Faulty science on fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) was the bedrock of the Obama EPA’s war on coal. Particulates don’t just make you sick; they are directly related “to dying sooner than you should,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson falsely told Congress. There is no level “at which premature mortality effects do not occur,” Mr. Obama’s next Administrator Gina McCarthy dishonestly testified. See also some of my previous comments here

The latest research findings below are very powerful evidence on the question. The study included the entire Medicare population from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2012. And their finding that only one in a million people die from particulate air pollution is pretty decisive. If you bother about that tiny risk, you should never get out of bed.

The authors pretend that their findings support the Greenies but they would have been reviled if they had said the truth: That their findings show that air pollution is not dangerous.

Air pollution from smoky cooking-fires has probably been part of the human experience for something like a million years and we have adapted to it. We just cough it up.

Association of Short-term Exposure to Air Pollution With Mortality in Older Adults

Key Points

Question: What is the association between short-term exposure to air pollution below current air quality standards and all-cause mortality?

Finding: In a case-crossover study of more than 22 million deaths, each 10-?g/m3 daily increase in fine particulate matter and 10–parts-per-billion daily increase in warm-season ozone exposures were associated with a statistically significant increase of 1.42 and 0.66 deaths per 1 million persons at risk per day, respectively.

Meaning: Day-to-day changes in fine particulate matter and ozone exposures were significantly associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality at levels below current air quality standards, suggesting that those standards may need to be reevaluated.

Abstract

Importance: The US Environmental Protection Agency is required to reexamine its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) every 5 years, but evidence of mortality risk is lacking at air pollution levels below the current daily NAAQS in unmonitored areas and for sensitive subgroups.

Objective: To estimate the association between short-term exposures to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone, and at levels below the current daily NAAQS, and mortality in the continental United States.

Design, Setting, and Participants: Case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression to estimate the association between short-term exposures to PM2.5 and ozone (mean of daily exposure on the same day of death and 1 day prior) and mortality in 2-pollutant models. The study included the entire Medicare population from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2012, residing in 39?182 zip codes.

Exposures: Daily PM2.5 and ozone levels in a 1-km × 1-km grid were estimated using published and validated air pollution prediction models based on land use, chemical transport modeling, and satellite remote sensing data. From these gridded exposures, daily exposures were calculated for every zip code in the United States. Warm-season ozone was defined as ozone levels for the months April to September of each year.

Main Outcomes and Measures: All-cause mortality in the entire Medicare population from 2000 to 2012.

Results: During the study period, there were 22?433?862 million case days and 76?143?209 control days. Of all case and control days, 93.6% had PM2.5 levels below 25 ?g/m3, during which 95.2% of deaths occurred (21?353?817 of 22?433?862), and 91.1% of days had ozone levels below 60 parts per billion, during which 93.4% of deaths occurred (20?955?387 of 22?433?862). The baseline daily mortality rates were 137.33 and 129.44 (per 1 million persons at risk per day) for the entire year and for the warm season, respectively. Each short-term increase of 10 ?g/m3 in PM2.5 (adjusted by ozone) and 10 parts per billion (10?9) in warm-season ozone (adjusted by PM2.5) were statistically significantly associated with a relative increase of 1.05% (95% CI, 0.95%-1.15%) and 0.51% (95% CI, 0.41%-0.61%) in daily mortality rate, respectively. Absolute risk differences in daily mortality rate were 1.42 (95% CI, 1.29-1.56) and 0.66 (95% CI, 0.53-0.78) per 1 million persons at risk per day. There was no evidence of a threshold in the exposure-response relationship.

Conclusions and Relevance: In the US Medicare population from 2000 to 2012, short-term exposures to PM2.5 and warm-season ozone were significantly associated with increased risk of mortality. This risk occurred at levels below current national air quality standards, suggesting that these standards may need to be reevaluated.

SOURCE

Putting U.S. Energy Production in Perspective

"The increase in oil and gas production is equal to seven times the energy output of all domestic solar and wind."

As we previously reported, oil production in the U.S. is truly something to behold. It doesn’t get much attention, but in February the Energy Information Administration calculated that more than 10 million barrels’ worth of oil is generated every single day in the U.S. — a five-decade high. However, you might be wondering how oil and natural gas production together fare in comparison to some of the Left’s coveted renewable energy projects. In a recent op-ed, the Manhattan Institute’s Robert Bryce provides the fascinating answer:

Over the past decade, merely the increase — I repeat, just the increase — in US oil and gas production is equal to seven times the total energy production of every wind turbine and solar project in the United States. … In 2008, US oil production was about 5.2 million barrels per day. Today, it’s about 10.2 million barrels per day. In 2008, domestic gas production averaged about 55.1 billion cubic feet per day. Today, it’s about 87.6 billion cubic feet per day. That’s an increase of about 32.5 billion cubic feet per day, which is equivalent to about 5.5 million barrels of oil per day. Thus, over the past decade, US oil and gas output has jumped by about 10.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Let’s compare that to domestic solar and wind production which, since 2008, has increased by 4,800 percent and 450 percent, respectively. While those percentage increases are impressive, the total energy produced from those sources remains small when compared to oil and gas. In 2017, according to the Energy Information Administration, US solar production totaled about 77 terawatt-hours and wind production totaled about 254 terawatt-hours, for a combined total of 331 terawatt-hours. That’s the equivalent of about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. Simple division (10.5 divided by 1.5) shows that since 2008, the increase in energy production from oil and gas is equal to seven times the energy output of all domestic solar and wind.

That’s an incredible statistic. Consider just how many billions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown at renewable energy projects, and then compare the relatively lackluster results with what the free market has accomplished on its own. As we opined in February, America’s robust energy production is emblematic of the positive developments that occur when onerous regulations are repealed and innovation takes hold. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that prices at the pump will reflect U.S. production. In New York, for example, some drivers are facing $5/gallon gas.

To help explain some of this discrepancy, our own Michael Swartz recently wrote, “While it isn’t as much of a factor on the supply side, OPEC can still be a price driver. In this case, both Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC Russia have put aside their foreign policy differences and enforced an 18-month-long production cut between themselves — a slowdown that has eliminated the supply glut (and low prices) we enjoyed over the last few years. And since those two nations are the second- and third-largest producers of crude oil (trailing only the U.S.), their coalition significantly influences the market.”

But if anything, this should actually encourage the U.S. to pursue oil and gas extraction to an even greater degree. The limit to what energy companies can do here in America has always been underappreciated, so providing a good environment for them to further flourish should be a high priority if our goal is genuine energy independence. The less we have to worry about what OPEC is doing behind the scenes, the better off consumers — and our national security — will be. Based on the numbers alone, wind and solar energy production aren’t going to get us there.

SOURCE

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mines

As a generalization, it’s safe to say that there are few things in this world more odious to an environmentalist than the mining of metals and minerals, except if those activities are conducted in an obscure, faraway place, and if the fruits of those activities bear the cool, sleek moniker of “clean.”

There’s a modern-day “Heart of Darkness” being perpetrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where tens of thousands of children as young as four are forced to haul rocks to the surface from mines dug by hand as part of a cobalt-mining operation, under conditions that would make Upton Sinclair, or, for that matter, Joseph Conrad, blush.

Last August, the Daily Mail printed an article describing these conditions, where they also reported that each electric car requires an average 15 kg (33 lbs) of cobalt in its batteries.

To give credit where due, according to Benchmark Minerals, Panasonic has enabled Tesla to reduce its cobalt consumption by 60% over the last six years by utilizing nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) technology versus nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM), which remains the standard for the electric vehicle (E.V.) industry.

Nevertheless, replacement technology for cobalt is still at least ten years out, and the projected “EV surge is far more significant than the reduction of cobalt intensity which is close to its limit[.] … [M]ore cobalt will be needed and the reliance on the Democratic Republic of Congo as the primary supplier [60% of worldwide production] will increase.”

On May 17, 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that “prices of lithium and cobalt more than doubled from 2016 through last year, but the rally has cooled off recently amid worries about oversupply.”

The market responded in typical fashion by ramping up worldwide production (i.e., mining) of lithium and, to a lesser extent, cobalt. Consumption levels of nickel, manganese, and aluminum are no doubt on the rise as well.

E.V.s and plug-in hybrids are eligible for federal tax credits up to $7,500, depending upon the battery capacity, and most E.V.s are eligible for the maximum amount. Some states offer additional subsidies. Colorado is the most generous. This from Complete Colorado:

Currently those with EV or AFV [Alternative Fuel] vehicles receive up to $20,000 in Colorado income tax credits over and above the $7,500 the federal government already grants. The credit is based on size and weight of vehicle. Light passenger vehicles get $5,000, which, unlike most states and the federal credit, can be used as a rebate, and trucks get $7,000-$20,000.

As of 4/18/2018, a bill to repeal this electric vehicle subsidy (S.B. 18-047) was postponed indefinitely by the Colorado House Committee on Transportation and Energy.

All such subsidies should be eliminated. If we stopped subsidizing electric trucks and buses, for example, we would likely see more conversions of truck and bus fleets to compressed natural gas (CNG), which is cheaper; more efficient; and, I argue, more environmentally desirable than the electric alternative.

All are imperfect, but the market is not the insidious spawn of Darth Vader. We’re better off if complex, dynamic solutions have to prove their worth by competing on many levels in the real world, as opposed to a having a few masterminds (at the prodding, or shall we say incentivizing, of parties with vested interests) distort the field with edicts from above.

SOURCE

NY Dems’ Anti-Energy Policies Forced New Yorkers To Pay 46 Times More For Power

Natural gas prices in the New York City region skyrocketed in January, costing New Yorkers roughly 46 times more than the 2017 average for the area, according to a Tuesday report from the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA).

Despite neighboring natural gas-rich Pennsylvania, New York residents pay 44 percent more for energy than the national average. A lack of transportation infrastructure between the two states has effectively cut off New Yorkers from a large supply of fuel.

“Spot market prices in the New York City region jumped to a record high of $140.25 for natural gas, as compared to the average natural gas spot market price for New York in 2017 was $3.08,” CEA found. “New Yorkers were subjected to prices that were $137 higher due to self-inflicted capacity constraints created by their own elected officials.”

Due largely to a lack of oil and gas infrastructure, much of New England was forced to rely on imported natural gas from Russia to keep neighborhoods heated during over the winter.

Parts of New England sit on one of the largest deposits of shale oil in the U.S., the Marcellus shale formation that covers parts of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Natural gas makes up a significant part of the energy mix in New York, despite the limits to infrastructure imposed by state officials. More than half of all New York residents heat their homes with natural gas, and the sector supports nearly 200,000 jobs in the state.

“This report highlights the often-overlooked benefits New York’s communities are receiving because of the U.S. energy revolution, enhanced infrastructure, and pipelines,” CEA Mid-Atlantic Director Mike Butler said in a statement.

“However, New York families, businesses, and households will not be able to realize the full potential of these benefits until natural gas plays a larger role in the state to offset intermittency issues and the physical realities of the state’s electric grid.”

SOURCE

Scott Pruitt’s Mission to Make EPA Operate More Efficiently

The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced the creation of an Office of Continuous Improvement to implement a lean management system. It’s part of Administrator Scott Pruitt’s effort to make the EPA—a government agency known for its expansive reach—work more efficiently on behalf of American taxpayers.

EPA Chief of Operations Henry Darwin spoke exclusively to The Daily Signal about the new office and the work that its director, Serena McIlwain, would be doing. A lightly edited transcript of the interview is below.

Rob Bluey: Administrator Scott Pruitt recently announced a new Office of Continuous Improvement at the EPA. Can you tell us what it’s going to do and why it matters?

Henry Darwin: The Office of Continuous Improvement is a group of EPA staff that will be helping me, as the chief of operations, deploy a new management system based upon lean principles. Initially, the vast majority of their time will be spent on deploying the new system, but over time, their time will be spent more so on performing problem solving and process improvements as we identify opportunities under the new management system.

Bluey: Let’s take a step back. What is lean management and how exactly are you applying it at EPA?

Darwin: Lean management is a system that is specifically designed to help identify opportunities for improvement and then to monitor performance to see whether or not there are additional opportunities for improvement. And also to make sure that, as we make improvements, that they’re sustained over time.

Typically what happens with most lean organizations, or organizations who say they’re lean, is they do a series of projects that result in theoretical process improvements. Without a system that is specifically designed to make sure that those processes do in fact improve and that there’s measurement in place to make sure that those processes improve, it’s often the case that those projects are not as successful as they would have otherwise been, had there been a system in place to support them.

Bluey: So how would you say that this is making the EPA operate more efficiently?

Darwin: EPA has a long history of using lean to improve processes. What it was lacking, and what we’re trying to implement for the first time, is a system that helps us identify strategic opportunities for us to use lean to improve our processes.

So whereas the previous administration merely asked or required the programs to perform lean events, we’re actually setting very strategic goals and objectives with high targets and we’re asking the programs and regional offices to meet those targets using lean. And then through the management system, we’re monitoring whether or not those improvements are actually occurring.

If they’re not, then we have the group of people now, the Office of Continuous Improvement, that can come in and analyze as to why those improvements aren’t happening or if there’s additional process improvements using lean that are needed in order to get them to where we want them to be as the administrator that sets forth goals and objectives for the agency.

Bluey: Under the Trump administration, you’ve made it a priority to track permitting, meeting legal deadlines, and correcting environmental violations. What did you find when you first took the job and how have things changed since then?

Darwin: The EPA has a history of measuring very long-term outcomes—outcomes that aren’t measurable on a regular basis. And what they had failed to do and what we’re starting to do is to measure those things that we can measure on a more frequent basis, those things that are important to our customers.

“Just like businesses have investors, we have investors. And our investors expect a return on their investment, which is clean air, clean land, clean water, and safe chemicals.”

Now, there are a lot of people out there that suggest we shouldn’t be calling those who we regulate our customers, but I’m not one of them. I believe that we do and should recognize our regulated community as our customers so we can apply business-related principles to our work.

With that said, we always have to remember that we have investors. Just like businesses have investors, we have investors. And our investors expect a return on their investment, which is clean air, clean land, clean water, and safe chemicals.

We always have to be mindful of the fact that even though we want to be paying attention to our customers’ needs as they get permits or licenses, or we’re working with them to achieve compliance, we also have to remember that our taxpayer investors expect a return on our investment. So we also have to be measuring those outcomes, those mission-related outcome measures, related to clean air, clean land, and safe chemicals.

Bluey: Let’s take permitting, for example. I know it’s something that Administrator Pruitt has talked about. He says that he wants to get permitting down to a certain period of time because in past administrations there was an indefinite period where people just didn’t get an answer, a yes or a no. He wants you to be able to say yes or no. What are some of the goals that you’re trying to do with regard to permitting specifically?

Darwin: When we arrived here in this administration, what we found was that we had heard anecdotally, from our customers, that the permitting process was simply taking too long.

What we also found was that the EPA did not have a system for tracking the amount of time it took to issue permits. So we simply went to the programs that issue permits and asked them for the last six months, how long was it taking for us to issue permits? And what we found was fairly surprising, that in some areas they were as long as three years to issue permits, which is simply unacceptable.

In having conversations with the administrator and talking about what a reasonable target or goal would be initially we agreed, he set the standard, or the goal, for issuing permits within six months. So that’s our goal.

Our goal is to, for every permit that’s directly issued by EPA, our goal is to reduce the amount of time it takes from whatever it is right now, which could be upwards of three years, down to six months.

Henry Darwin, the EPA’s chief of operations, discusses the agency’s lean management system at the announcement of the Office of Continuous Improvement on May 14. (Photo courtesy of EPA)
Bluey: In an interview with The Daily Signal, Administrator Pruitt spoke about what you’re doing as the Darwin Effect, named after you. How did you come to embrace these management principles in your line of work?

Darwin: I’m a lifelong environmental professional. I have 18 years of experience working for a state environmental agency. I became the director of that state environmental agency in Arizona about seven years ago and was the director there for five years. Over the course of my experience there, I found an appreciation for lean and a system that could support lean efforts.

We were able to, in my agency, reduce permitting timeframes on the order of 70 percent, 80 percent, and in some instances, 90 percent using lean principles and as supported by a lean management system. I, after that experience, was asked by the governor of Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey, to do the same lean management system deployment for the entire state.

Over the course of two years, I was in the process of deploying a lean management system in 35 state agencies with 35,000 employees and we were seeing the same types of results. They continue to see those same types of results in Arizona using the same business processes and principles.

Bluey: Like Administrator Pruitt, who was prior to his appointment the attorney general of Oklahoma, you come from state government as well. How would you say that experience, both working in the environmental field and then working as Arizona’s chief of operations, prepared you for the job that you’re doing today?

Darwin: I hope that it did prepare me. But there are some significant differences between state government and the federal government. The federal government, rightly or wrongly so, is a much bigger bureaucracy. So the efforts that we had been undertaking at the state level, although not impossible, is actually more difficult now that we’re here doing this work at the federal level. But with that said, it’s more rewarding.

The zone of influence, or the impact that we are making here, it’s to the benefit of not just a single state but the entire country. So even though it may be more difficult, it’s more rewarding. And I can’t think of a better place to be right now.

Bluey: Can you talk about the reaction to the Office of Continuous Improvement within the agency? And also the lean management system.

Darwin: I’m very fortunate in the fact that before I arrived there was a pretty strong appreciation for what lean could be. With that said, EPA had not found a way of making lean all it could be.

I received a lot of support internally for this idea of bringing a system to EPA that could be used to realize, and bring to life, a lot of those improvement ideas that had been identified under previous administrations.

This is as much about carrying forward the work that had been done previously and bringing discipline to actually executing on the plans and the improvements that had been identified but not necessarily followed through on from previous administrations. It has received a lot of positive feedback, a lot of energy and positive energy around the work that we’re here to do.

Bluey: Who are you going to have directing the new office?

Darwin: The director of the Office of Continuous Improvement is a woman named Serena McIlwain. She comes most recently from a region in San Francisco, Region 9. She has a lot of experience, not only at EPA but also in the federal government. So she can help me navigate some of those bureaucracies.

She was the person at EPA who was probably the biggest proponent of lean. She was actually teaching lean tools and principles from Region 9 to the entire agency. She’s been a fantastic fit so far and I know that she’s going to do a great job.

Serena McIlwain, the EPA’s director of the Office of Continuous Improvement, explains her new role. (Photo courtesy of EPA)
Bluey: As a conservative, I have to ask this because any time government is creating a new office, you might have Americans out there who are skeptical and believe in smaller government. What’s your message to those who say, “How is this going to improve performance and not create more bureaucracy?”

Darwin: As a conservative myself, I would share those concerns or sentiments. What I will say is that even though this is a new office, this is not new employees.

We have not grown the size of the EPA. Those who are performing this work were already EPA employees. We have pulled these staff members and managers from within the agency, so we’re just redirecting them to what I believe to be higher value or more value-added work.

Instead of focusing their efforts on performing lean projects that had questionable or limited results, we’re focusing them on areas where we actually will see results. So they’re actually providing higher value, not only to the EPA but our taxpayer investors.

Bluey: And finally—I’ve posed this question to Administrator Pruitt as well—how do you ensure that the changes you’re making at EPA today last many, many years into the future?

Darwin: A lot of it is institutionalizing the work that I’m doing. And not to get too technical, but there are methods and means by which we can institutionalize the work.

It’s really connected back to your question about pulling people from within the agency. We’re not bringing in a bunch of new people, we’re not bringing in a bunch of consultants to do this work. We’re trying to learn from within EPA. We’re trying to use career staff that have a lot of experience at EPA and have a lot of influence at EPA in order to manage the office, in order to lead the office, but also to staff the office.

Because we want them to believe in the new system, we want them to carry this forward beyond our existence here.

Bluey: Henry, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to The Daily Signal.

Darwin: Thank you.

SOURCE

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

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

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24 May, 2018

Groundbreaking assessment of all life on Earth reveals humanity’s surprisingly tiny part in it as well as our disproportionate impact

This is a very silly article, replete with implicit but unargued assumptions -- such as the implicit claim that "we" are in some way responsible to make good -- or at least apologize for -- all the damage that all humans throughout history have ever done.

From Trilobites to the dinosaurs, extinctions are what nature does. Of all species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct. And, of all the extinctions that ever happened, most by far happened long before human beings were on the scene. Humans were NOT reponsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, for instance.

And even in the human era, modern sensitivities were virtually unknown. The megafauna of Australia were extinguished by Australian Aborigines, for instance. I feel no guilt over that. Primitive people are often hard on the environment (pace the fictional Chief Seattle) but how am I responsible for that? It's a basic principle of natural justice that I am not to blame for the deeds of others.

Nonetheless, I am enough of a modern man to feel some regret about some recent extinctions (passenger pigeons anyone?). But should I? That leads us into very rarefied areas of moral philosophy that are not all congenial. Peter Singer, for instance, is an eminence in that field and his cogitations lead him to some very objectionable conclusions, like the permissibility of infanticide.

So feeling that recent extinctions are bad is just that: feelings. A more intellectual justification for concern awaits. Excerpts only below:

Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet.

The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.

The transformation of the planet by human activity has led scientists to the brink of declaring a new geological era – the Anthropocene. One suggested marker for this change are the bones of the domestic chicken, now ubiquitous across the globe.

The new work reveals that farmed poultry today makes up 70% of all birds on the planet, with just 30% being wild. The picture is even more stark for mammals – 60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals.

The destruction of wild habitat for farming, logging and development has resulted in the start of what many scientists consider the sixth mass extinction of life to occur in the Earth’s four billion year history. About half the Earth’s animals are thought to have been lost in the last 50 years.

But comparison of the new estimates with those for the time before humans became farmers and the industrial revolution began reveal the full extent of the huge decline. Just one-sixth of wild mammals, from mice to elephants, remain, surprising even the scientists. In the oceans, three centuries of whaling has left just a fifth of marine mammals in the oceans.

The researchers calculated the biomass estimates using data from hundreds of studies, which often used modern techniques, such as satellite remote sensing that can scan great areas, and gene sequencing that can unravel the myriad organisms in the microscopic world.

The researchers acknowledge that substantial uncertainties remain in particular estimates, especially for bacteria deep underground, but say the work presents a useful overview.

SOURCE

Ordinary British motorists face being priced out of driving if the Government goes ahead with proposals demanding that by 2040 every car can cover 50 miles on electric power.

The warning came from Toyota to the business select committee as it heard from car chiefs about the future of electric vehicles.

A leaked government consultation called “Road to Zero” proposes the 50-mile zero emission requirement for cars in 22 years’ time.

However, Toyota Motor Europe managing director Tony Walker warned such a measure could put driving beyond the budgets of most people, saying that batteries capable of hitting the 50-mile requirement are too expensive.

“The point is that every car, from the biggest to smallest, whether it costs £10,000 or £250,000, for every car to be able to do 50 miles [on electricity] is not wise, it is reckless,” Mr Walker. “It will price the ordinary customer out of the market.”

Toyota introduced hybrid cars to the mass market with its Prius. However, Mr Walker said the company’s current hybrids are not capable of doing 50 miles on the batteries currently used, and could be wiped out by the proposal.

To meet the target he said a more expensive battery used in plug-in hybrid cars would be required - and the economics do not stack up.

“It would make the hybrid vehicles we make in the UK currently unsaleable in the UK,” he said, adding that it would be “very difficult” to keep building cars and engines in Britain if government policy had made them impossible to sell here.

Mr Walker also questioned the government arbitrarily picking dates for targets the industry must achieve.

“Are you are saying somehow you know battery costs will come down?” he asked the committee. “How come you know that and we don’t? It’s too academic and not so practical on battery cost.”

Professor David Bailey, a car industry expert at Aston University, warned that the 50-mile requirement could kill off hybrids. “Electric cars are still expensive and will remain so for at least the next 10 years, when they will start to compete with petrol and diesel,” he said. “If Government is serious about improving air quality it needs to get drivers into hybrid cars as an interim measure rather than kill them off early.”

MP on the committee were told a “technology neutral” approach should be implemented, where Government sets targets to improve air quality for the car industry to achieve and lets them find ways to achieve it, without proscribing how they should do it.

The approach was backed by BMW, with Ian Robertson, the company’s UK representative, warning consumers are “sitting in the sidelines”, with many of them afraid to buy an electric car because of uncertainty about it.

He pointed to research saying that 90pc of drivers do short trips which are easily manageable on current electric technology. Mr Robertson called the 50-mile zero emission target for 2040 “probably achievable” for a majority of drivers.

However, he added: “But it’s against a backdrop of some customers who need to do a 500-mile drive.

“Rather than take certain technology step that says we will have no combustion engines, let’s go for the target which we all agree on which is having a very low emission target and for majority of customer a zero emission target.”

Nissan, which builds the electric Leaf car at its giant Sunderland plant, said that the biggest challenge to battery vehicles was infrastructure. Gareth Dunsmore, the company’s electric vehicles director, said there was a “chicken and egg situation” with electric cars at the moment with people worried about whether they will be able to charge them.

However, with a comprehensive recharging infrastructure he said the 2040 target would be achievable. “If you get to wherever you park and there’s charging points the discussion about whether it is a challenge to move to electrification might be a moot point,” Mr Dunsmore said. “Customer demand could take over.”

The Government said it was “categorically untrue” it plans to ban vehicles incapable of meeting the 50-mile zero-emission target, saying the Road to Zero strategy was “yet to be finalised” and that it “would not comment on leaked draft documents”.

SOURCE

Yes, a Drop in Global Temperatures, But...

A recent editorial from a typically reputable conservative publication touted a sharp global temperature drop between February 2016 and February 2018. There's no disputing the fact that records indicate a temperature drop on a global scale during that time. However, the editorial — the purpose of which was to lambast the nefarious mainstream media for purposefully ignoring this inconvenient fact — did not explain fully what is actually happening. Here's why:

Global temperature drops are typical after El Niños, which naturally warm the globe. La Niñas do the opposite. Moreover, the last El Niño (2015-16) was exceptionally strong — a.k.a. a Super Niño. Therefore, it only makes sense that a significant global temperature drop would follow, as we've just registered back-to-back La Niña years. That being the case, the fact of the matter remains that global temperatures remain above normal two years after the last El Niño and above where they were two years after other El Niños. A higher threshold is seemingly being established following each Super Niño. Before 2015-16, the last one occurred in 1997-98. A pause ensued, but that baseline was higher than the average temperature over the previous 20 years. This doesn't prove ecofascists' rationale (not to mention justify their "solutions") for global warming, but it also doesn't do conservatives any favors to borrow from the Left's playbook by cherry-picking statistics simply for the benefit of aiding a narrative.

The cause may have to do with the immense amounts of water vapor that are released during Super Niños. These events result in a longer-lasting effect in Arctic regions years later, as tiny amounts of water vapor most affect temperatures where they are climatologically lowest and the air is driest. A glance at temperatures where most life occurs reveals that temperatures have returned to near normal, but the warmer polar regions are leading to the above-normal global temperatures, primarily during the coldest times of the year. It's still very cold, but even slight warming there can skew the entire global temperature a few tenths of a degree higher. Regardless, global temperatures are still higher than they were after previous El Niños.

To its credit, the editorial in question does note that the latest temperature drop could be entirely meaningless. However, a little basic research would have precluded the editorial altogether. As meteorologist Joe Bastardi said in an email to The Patriot Post, "This is like saying you scored a couple of touchdowns and instead of being down 56-0 you are now losing only 56-14." He added, "The point is that until temperatures return to or below normal, what is all the hoopla about? The other side can rightly point to a two-year post-El Niño record high." The mainstream media should be criticized for how it handles reporting global warming. Conservative media should avoid falling into the same trap.

SOURCE

Now's the Time to Restore Integrity to EPA Regulatory Science

For decades the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has gotten away with creating regulations that lack sound scientific basis, costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars without solid evidence that those costs were justified.

It’s done this in two ways.

Sometimes it’s simply thrown out scientific results and regulated to satisfy a political pressure group. That was largely the case when in 1972, contrary to its own scientific findings but under heavy pressure from environmentalists, it banned the use of DDT, the most effective, least expensive, safe pesticide by which to control or eradicate disease-carrying insects like mosquitos and lice.

The U.S. had already largely eliminated malaria by widespread spraying of DDT from the 1940s into the 1960s, so the ban didn’t have immediate, large-scale negative consequences here. But it has made it more difficult to combat the recent spread of other insect-borne diseases like West Nile Virus, Zika, Lyme, and spotted fever, and even malaria is making a comeback.

The greater impact of the DDT ban has been in developing countries. The EPA persuaded other federal agencies to withhold foreign aid from countries that used DDT. Most developing countries complied. The result has been hundreds of millions of cases of malaria every year and tens of millions of malaria-caused deaths over the last 45 years.

At other times the EPA has built new regulations on “secret science” — studies whose authors refuse to grant other scientists access to the data, computer code, and methodology behind them. Such studies are not subject to replication by other scientists. Yet replication is the acid test of scientific research.

“Secret science” has been especially common as the basis for pollution regulation dependent on dose/response relationships and for regulation related to anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Last month EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt requested public comment on a new rule, “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” (STRS), designed to solve that problem.

STRS provides that “When promulgating significant regulatory actions, the Agency shall ensure that dose response data and models underlying pivotal regulatory science are publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation.” It codifies what was intended in the Secret Science Reform Act of 2015 and the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017 (HONEST Act), both of which passed the House but never came up for a vote in the Senate.

The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation — a network of scientists, economists, and religious leaders dedicated to environmental stewardship and economic development for the poor — has issued and is gathering signatures to an open letter supporting the STRS that calls the proposed rule “badly needed to assure American taxpayers that the EPA is truly acting in their best interests.”

Opponents of STRS raise three common, and at first sight credible, objections.

The first is that peer review ensures the quality of studies published in refereed journals. But there is actually no empirical evidence that peer review works well. Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association and intellectual father of the international congresses of peer review held quadrennially starting in 1989, has said, “If peer review was a drug it would never be allowed on the market.” In fact, as John P.A. Ioannidis demonstrated in a celebrated article in PLOS/Medicine, “most scientific research findings are false.”

The second common objection is that the rule would prevent the EPA from using studies that involved confidential information, such as personal health data or corporate proprietary information. In an open letter to Pruitt, the leftist, political-activist Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) argued, “There are multiple valid reasons why requiring the release of all data does not improve scientific integrity and could actually compromise research, including intellectual property, proprietary, and privacy concerns.”

Yet Section 30.5 of the rule expressly states: “Where the Agency is making data or models publicly available, it shall do so in a fashion that is consistent with law, protects privacy, confidentiality, confidential business information, and is sensitive to national and homeland security.” Section 30.9 allows the administrator to make exceptions when compliance isn’t feasible.

A third common objection, also expressed in the UCS letter, is that “many public health studies cannot be replicated, as doing so would require intentionally and unethically exposing people and the environment to harmful contaminants or recreating one-time events (such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill).” But what need to be replicable in studies of such events are not the events themselves but the procedures used to collect and analyze data and make inferences from them.

Consider, for example, a study that used tree rings as proxy temperature measurements and purported to find that neither the Medieval Warm Period nor the Little Ice Age had occurred but that a rapid and historically unprecedented warming had begun in the late 19th century. The study became iconic for claims of dangerous AGW driven by human emissions of carbon dioxide.

No one needed to use a time machine to return to the 11th through 20th centuries and regrow trees to recognize that the authors had committed confirmation fallacy by excluding certain data and misused a statistical procedure, resulting in false results. All anyone needed was access to the raw data and the computer code used to analyze it.

Yet the lead author’s long refusal to allow access to raw data and computer code delayed discovery of these errors for years, during which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the public, and governments all over the world were led to believe its claims and formulate expensive policies based partly on them.

The UCS letter asserted that concerns about transparency and certainty raised by supporters of the rule “are phony issues that weaponize ‘transparency’ to facilitate political interference in science-based decision making, rather than genuinely address either.” But the irreproducibility crisis is real, not phony. Furthermore, enhanced transparency works against politicization, not for it. This objection is so patently invalid as to suggest that those who offer it are themselves weaponizing confidentiality to facilitate their own political interference in science-based decision making.

STRS will improve, not harm, the EPA’s mission to protect Americans from real environmental risks. It will also reduce the risks caused by unjustified but costly regulations. It should be adopted.

Via email from E. Calvin Beisner

Seventh Largest River Still Covered In Thick Ice. Blame Your SUV

News from Siberia

By this time of year, boats are usually plying the ice-free Ob, but in 2018, while the winter covering the river has begun to move like a giant monster – but it has not cleared.

Far from it. Here the thick ice is slowly drifting downstream in a northerly direction towards the Arctic yet with temperatures still of an unseasonal -5C, this could go on a while.

As our remarkable videos show, this is an awesome and eerie sight, magnetic to those lucky enough to be in the vicinity.

In Surgut, people come here before work just to glimpse the natural wonder and listen to the gentle creaking and cracking of the shifting ice. Then they come back again after work.

‘Sometimes it sounds like a rustle,’ said Anya, an enthusiastic Ob-watcher. ‘Then you hear a rumble as the ice breaks. Often it is a calm silence.’

At one moment this week, ice from the Ob literally broke out of the river from the sheer force of this natural annual pilgrimage to the direction of the end of the world (the Ob flows up the eastern coast of Yamal, a gas-rich peninsula the name of which literally means the ‘end of the world’).

It smashed the railings in Surgut with its phenomenal power. It was as if a column of ice was making an escape bid from the mighty Ob, intent on invading this famous oil city. Or as a local newspaper put it: ‘If you fail to go and watch the Ob River, the Ob will come to you!’

Not all cities on Siberia’s major rivers are so lucky with such sights. Upstream on the Ob, Novosibirsk – the largest metropolis in Russia between Moscow and the Pacific – does not get such spectacular scenes because of a dam which tempers the water so that, although it freezes, the ice is not as thick as elsewhere.

Similarly, in Krasnoyarsk, the impact of a hydro-electric plant and huge dam on the Yenisei River – the world’s fifth longest including its tributaries – acts to take the chill out of the water. So much so it doesn’t even freeze.

The ice is closely monitored by the authorities because if it gets trapped and clogs the rivers as the melt starts and floes move downstream, a frozen dam is formed. Then flooding hits riverside settlements.

Explosives are regularly used to avoid such circumstances, but as we have seen this week on the Lena River – the planet’s 11th longest – even 17 tons of TNT is not enough.

For now, though, the folks of Surgut astride the Ob are the lucky ones.

As Eldar Zagirov, a business coach, marveled: ‘We’re in the age of new technologies – super-fast internet, Instagram, and much more. ‘And yet the inhabitants of Surgut … every day after work are rushing to the embankment, families with kids, couples, just not to miss the great ice drift. ‘It’s like the first inhabitants of these places for many centuries ago.

‘And there is something here. Something primordial, real, strong and sincere …’

SOURCE

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

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

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23 May, 2018

Media laments Trump/North Korea summit ‘could have a negative effect on global warming’ – Would increase coal exports

Sounds like they fear global warming more than nuclear war. What monomaniacs!

The May 21, 2018 article in E&E News by Jean Chemnick, reports:

“The anticipated meeting between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un could put the former real estate tycoon eye to eye with a reviled autocrat who appears more in line with global thinking on one issue: climate change. North Korea is a party to the Paris Agreement, the 2015 pact that Trump plans to withdraw the United States from despite an uproar from allies around the world.

That’s because if sanctions against North Korea are lifted, the hermit nation’s coal could flow onto the world market, with the bulk of it ending up in South Korea, Japan and China.

The E&E article notes that North Korea is making very impressive commitments to reduce it’s CO2 emissions and featured Kim hurling insults at Trump for not staying in the UN Paris agreement:

E&E News: North Korea — whose carbon emissions rank in the bottom half of nations worldwide — put forward a hefty commitment to cut its greenhouse gases 37.4 percent compared with 1990 levels. And as Trump was pulling the United States out of the agreement last June, Kim described Trump’s decision as “the height of egotism.’

Of course, it is not surprising that Kim supports the UN Paris agreement which purports to control the climate of the earth. Kim believes he can control the weather:

According to North Korea’s state media, Kim Jong Un controlled the weather when he scaled a sacred mountain…The state media claimed that it was snowing because the mountain wanted to give a “warm welcome” to Kim Jong Un. According to the report, Mount Paektu wanted to “show joy at the appearance of the peerlessly illustrious commander who controls the nature.”

SOURCE

Tom Steyer Spends $2 Million To Force Expensive Green Energy On Mich. Power Customers

Michigan residents will likely be paying more for their electricity after a well-funded ballot initiative prompted the state’s largest utilities to adopt higher renewable energy usage.

On Friday, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy — Michigan’s two biggest utility companies — announced a compromise with a ballot committee to dramatically increase their renewable portfolio standards.

DTE and Consumers have agreed to establish a goal of at least 50 percent clean energy by 2030, which includes a pledge that 25 percent of their electricity sales originate from renewable sources by that same year.

In return, Clean Energy, Healthy Michigan will essentially drop its campaign to require at least 30 percent of a provider’s electricity sales come from renewable energy by 2030.

The agreement raises the bar for electricity providers in Michigan. Under the state’s current mandate, utilities were expected to reach 15 percent renewable energy by the end of 2021.

Environmentalists launched Clean Energy, Healthy Michigan in February to collect enough signatures to bring the ballot initiative to voters. The group was prepared to submit over 350,000 signatures it had collected over the past few months.

Assuming enough petitions were valid, the measure would have gone to Michigan Legislature then the November ballot if lawmakers did not act.

Under pressure, DTE and Consumers agreed to the slightly more flexible mandate of 25 percent.

The compromise comes as a major win for billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer. NextGen Climate Action, an organization he funds and operates, burned over $1.8 million in direct and in-kind contributions into the initiative.

“The agreement between Clean Energy, Healthy Michigan and DTE Energy and Consumers Energy is a win for the people of Michigan,” Steyer said in a statement Friday. “Every American deserves the right to clean air and water. With this agreement, Michigan has become a national example of how consumers, public interest advocates, and energy companies can work together to find real solutions to combat climate change.”

Clean Energy, Healthy Michigan is led by John Freeman, a former Democratic state legislator and union organizer who has led other progressive initiates in the past — such as leading a failed attempt in 2008 to put a universal health care proposal on the Michigan ballot. Freeman will continue to push renewables in the state, he said.

However, the sweeping agreement is being set without input from Michigan lawmakers, the Michigan Public Service Commission or even Michigan voters, critics argue.

“It’s disconcerting that Michigan’s monopoly utilities have become so confident in their ability to independently establish energy policy for the state that they don’t appear to have sought approval for this groundbreaking agreement from the Michigan Public Service Commission before going public with it,” Jason Hayes said in a statement to Detroit News.

Hayes serves as director of environmental policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, a free market group. “I am left wondering: who granted Steyer, [Consumers] and [DTE] the authority to single-handedly set Michigan’s energy policy in this fashion, especially when the people of Michigan are the ones who will have to foot the bill for all of this?”

Over 62 percent of voters in the state already rejected a 25 percent renewable standard ballot proposal back in 2012, Hayes also noted.

Beyond spending his fortune on climate change initiatives all across the country, Steyer is also leading a campaign to impeach President Donald Trump.

His Need to Impeach campaign aims to elect enough Democrats in 2018’s midterms in order to flip the House of Representatives and begin impeachment proceedings.

SOURCE

Someone in Asia (guess who!) is making a banned chemical that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect

Emissions of a banned, ozone-depleting chemical are on the rise, a group of scientists reported Wednesday, suggesting someone may be secretly manufacturing the pollutant in violation of an international accord.

Emissions of CFC-11 have climbed 25 per cent since 2012, despite the chemical being part of a group of ozone pollutants that were phased out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.

“I’ve been making these measurements for more than 30 years and this is the most surprising thing I’ve seen,” said Stephen Montzka, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who led the work. “I was astounded by it really.”

It’s a distressing result for what’s widely seen as a global environmental success story, in which nations – alarmed by a growing “ozone hole” – collectively took action to phase out chlorofluorocarbons.

The finding seems likely to prompt an international investigation into the mysterious source.

Officially, production of CFC-11 is supposed to be at or near zero – at least, that is what countries have been telling the United Nations body that monitors and enforces the Protocol. But with emissions on the rise, scientists suspect someone is making the chemical in defiance of the ban.

“Somebody’s cheating,” said Durwood Zaelke, founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and an expert on the Montreal Protocol, in a comment on the new research. “There’s some slight possibility there’s an unintentional release, but . . . they make it clear there’s strong evidence this is actually being produced.”

But for now, the scientists don’t know exactly who, or where, that person would be. A U.S. observatory in Hawaii found CFC-11 mixed in with other gases that were characteristic of a source coming from somewhere in east Asia, but scientists could not narrow the source down any further.

Zaelke said he was surprised by the findings, not just because the chemical has long been banned, but also because alternatives already exist, making it hard to imagine what the market for CFC-11 today would be.

The research was led by researchers with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with help from scientists in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Their results were published in the journal Nature.

There is a small chance that there is a more innocent explanation for the rise in CFC-11 emissions, the scientist say.

They considered a range of alternative explanations for the growth, such as a change in atmospheric patterns that gradually remove CFC gases in the stratosphere, an increase in the rate of demolition of buildings containing old residues of CFC-11, or accidental production.

But they concluded these sources could not explain the increase, which they calculated at about 13 billion grams per year in recent years. Rather, the evidence “strongly suggests” a new source of emissions, the scientists wrote.

“These considerations suggest that the increased CFC-11 emissions arise from new production not reported to UNEP’s Ozone Secretariat, which is inconsistent with the agreed phase-out of CFC production in the Montreal Protocol by 2010,” the researchers wrote.

CFC-11, used primarily for foams, can lasts up to 50 years in the atmosphere once it’s released. It is only destroyed in the stratosphere, some 9 to 18 miles above the planet’s surface, where the resulting chlorine molecules engage in a string of ozone-destroying chemical reactions. That loss of ozone, in turn, weakens our protection from UV radiation at the Earth’s surface.

The chemical is also a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

The paper’s findings are “environmentally and politically quite serious,” said Robert Watson, the former NASA scientist who organized bracing flights high into the Antarctic stratosphere to study ozone depletion in the 1980s, in an emailed statement.

“It is not clear why any country would want to start to produce, and inadvertently release, CFC-11, when cost effective substitutes have been available for a long while,” Watson continued.

“It is therefore imperative that this finding be discussed at the next Ministerial meeting of Governments given recovery of the ozone layer is dependent on all countries complying with the Montreal Protocol (and its adjustments and amendments) with emissions globally dropping to zero.”

Watson suggested that aircraft flights might be necessary to better identify the source of the emissions.

Keith Weller, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the Montreal Protocol, said the findings will have to be verified by the scientific panel to the Protocol, and then would be put before the treaty’s member countries.

“If these emissions continue unabated, they have the potential to slow down the recovery of the ozone layer,” Weller said in a statement. “It is therefore, critical that we take stock of this science, identify the causes of these emissions and take necessary action.”

Unreported production of CFC-11 outside of certain specific carve-out purposes in the treaty would be a “violation of international law,” Weller confirmed, though he said that the Protocol is “non-punitive” and the remedy would probably involve a negotiation with the offending party, or country.

But Zaelke thought the finding could promote tougher action.

“This treaty cannot afford not to follow its tradition and keep its compliance record,” he said.

“They’re going to find the culprits. This insults everybody who’s worked on this for the last 30 years. That’s a tough group of people.”

Overall, it is important to underscore that the ozone layer is slowly recovering and ozone-depleting substances are still declining. But the apparent increase in emissions of CFC-11 has slowed the rate of decrease by about 22 percent, the scientists found. This, in turn, will delay the ozone layer’s recovery, and in the meantime leave it more vulnerable to other threats.

“Knowing how much time and effort and resources have gone into healing the ozone layer, and to see this is a shocker, frankly,” said Montzka.

SOURCE

Owner seeks extra charge to keep Massachusetts power plant running

They can't compete with subsidized "renewables"

Think your electricity bill is high now? Another charge could be on the way, but it’s one that might be crucial to keeping the lights on.

That’s because the massive Mystic power plant in Everett is on track to be shut down. Its owner, Exelon, says it’s no longer economical to run. But ISO New England, which oversees the region’s electric grid, fears that supplies could be compromised on frigid days — think rolling blackouts — and it has asked Exelon to keep the fires burning beyond a projected closure date in mid-2022.

The Chicago-based company says it needs more money to do so. So this week it sought approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for an extra charge that could be baked into electric bills to cover its costs, if necessary — one that the company says probably won’t exceed $1 a month for a typical residential customer in New England. The goal: to keep its two main gas-fired Mystic turbines operating through mid-2024, with the hope that reforms to electricity market rules could keep Mystic operating beyond that date.

Exelon says it can’t calculate its revenue for that time period, so it’s impossible to know the size of any operating shortfall now.

The two Mystic units together can generate about 1,400 megawatts of power, or enough electricity for more than 1 million homes. Exelon plans in 2022 to retire a third turbine, with 575 megawatts of capacity, and a much smaller oil-fired unit used only at peak times.

A spokeswoman said Exelon is already in talks with developers to acquire most of the 69-acre property, land it won’t need when the plant is reduced to two turbines.

The Mystic plant is integral to the region’s grid. It’s the largest in Massachusetts and is in a strategic position, at Boston’s doorstep.

There’s something else that makes the two units at Mystic so unusual: Their fuel comes directly from imported liquefied natural gas that arrives by ship, not pipeline. This reliance is a liability because LNG is often much more expensive than domestic gas. Exelon recently decided to buy the nearby Distrigas terminal to avoid a protracted contract dispute. But the LNG fuel is also an asset: On chilly winter days, much of the region’s pipeline gas gets consumed for heating purposes, not electricity. LNG acts as a hedge, an insurance policy of sorts, during cold snaps.

SOURCE

Birds are dropping dead off Australia's coast, and it's all our fault (?)

There is no doubt of the problem but its real cause is getting the Nelson's telescope treatment. The marine plastic debris does NOT come from developed countries such as Australia. Such countries have efficient waste collection systems (garbage trucks) which take the waste to a place where it can be dissposed of responsibly. So the debris is not from Western countries. It comes from AFRICA and ASIA -- where people dispose of their rubbish by tossing it into their local river -- whence it flows to sea.

But reforming Africans and Asians is "too hard" so the do-gooders pretend that the problem is where it is not. To admit its real source would be politically incorrect.

If they could bear for any length of time to admit reality, they MIGHT be able to do something useful for the problem -- putting garbage collection barriers across the mouths of the major African and Asian rivers. But that would be too practical, of course. Much more attractive to go around finger-pointing and criticizing your own society.

Deep in their burrows, hungry shearwater chicks on Lord Howe Island await a meal. Their parents have been scouring the sea in search of fish and squid. Instead, they return to feed their babies clothes pegs, bottle tops and Lego pieces.

The flesh-footed sheerwater population at Lord Howe Island is dwindling due to a tidal wave of marine plastic being mistaken for food.

After 90 days the fledglings emerge from their burrows, stomachs bulging with plastic. They prepare for their first flight. Many are so malnourished they die outside the nest. Others make it to the beach, but their undeveloped wings flap in vain and waves engulf them.

Ian Hutton, a naturalist and museum curator on Lord Howe Island, pulls the bodies off the beach. Researchers slice open their stomachs to confirm the cause of death. Once, they found 274 plastic fragments.

“It’s so upsetting to think this bird has been reared by its parents, it’s been fed and it should have a chance to go to sea but it’s died,” he said.

‘When you cut the stomach open and pull out the plastic, some people actually cry when they see it.”

The flesh-footed shearwaters embody what the United Nations has called a “planetary crisis” posed by an unremitting tide of marine plastic.

In the few decades since mass production began in the 1950s, plastic waste is overwhelming rivers and oceans – tossed into waterways, carried by stormwater and winds, and lost overboard from boats.

In Australia 1.5 million tonnes of plastic were used in the year to June 2013 - about 65 kilograms for each person. Only 20 per cent was recycled [The rest went to a proper tip]

Brisbane City Council this week committed to banning plastic straws, single-use plastic bottles and helium balloons from all council events. Environmentalists say other federal, state and local governments can do much more.

University of Tasmania marine eco-toxicologist Jennifer Lavers said the birds “are not picky eaters” and easily tricked by ocean plastic. She said the birds’ numbers are declining due to a range of pressures.

NSW Greens MP Justin Field, who travelled to Lord Howe Island this month, said single-use plastic items such as straws or utensils were often unnecessary and could be limited through stronger regulation.

“It is going to require much more than a recycling mentality. It might even include banning single-use plastics,” he said. “It wasn’t that long ago that food courts had ceramic plates and stainless steel knives and forks. We need to return to that type of thinking.”

A Senate report in 2016 presented 23 recommendations, including developing alternatives to plastic packaging and urgently putting marine plastic pollution on the Council of Australian Government agenda.

The federal government has not responded to the report. It is developing a threat abatement plan to reduce the impact of debris on marine life – a draft version of which Mr Angel described as “unbelievably weak”.

A NSW Environment Protection Authority spokeswoman said the government’s Return and Earn scheme will help meet the state goal of reducing litter volumes by 40 percent by 2020, and 320 million drink containers had so far been returned.

Most major supermarkets will voluntarily phase out lightweight plastic shopping bags this year and NSW was taking part in a national microbead phase-out. The mass release of gas filled balloons is against the law in NSW.

The federal Department of the Environment and Energy said a recent meeting of environment ministers agreed all Australian packaging should be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025 or earlier, that Australia’s recycling capabilities be increased and waste reduction be encouraged through consumer awareness, education and industry leadership. A national waste policy will be updated this year and government agencies will prioritise projects that convert waste to energy.

SOURCE

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

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

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22 May, 2018

Activists try to disrupt Chevron Play

Dear Friends,

So we have had the opening weekend of the The $18-Billion Prize and what a weekend it has been.

At Friday night's preview two activists sat in the crowd heckling the actors trying to disrupt the performance. Thankfully they were far enough away as not to be able to throw the actors off their performance.

Afterwards they created disruption in the lobby. A member of the audience managed to catch this video of the end of the confrontation.

However the weekend has turned out to be a huge success. The $18-Billion Prize was chosen as one of the must-see plays of the weekend by the chief drama critic of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Don't forget during rehearsals one of the actors walked out because he couldn't bear to be in a play that told the truth about the environmental movement.

There are so many things to tell you. The cast were in top form and the audience loved the show. We had a great opening night party afterwards. The best part of the party was the realization that we had a special guest in the audience. Randy Mastro, Chevron's lawyer is the joint lead in the show and it turns out that sitting in the audience watching himself being play on stage was the real Randy Mastro.

Ilo Orleans, the actor playing Randy Mastro meeting the real Randy Mastro was a laugh. I've enclosed a photo below. The Real Randy said he liked his portrayal and thoroughly enjoyed the play. He also had some wonderful behind the scenes stories about the trial that the play is based on. The $18-Billion Prize is mostly verbatim - taken directly from the trial and deposition transcripts - so I told Mr Mastro that he and Donziger deserved writing credits. He politely declined the offer.

I should point out we have sent invitations to the play to Steven Donziger, Mastro's opponent in the case, and the lawyer who led the lawsuit. Donziger and his spokeswoman did respond initially but have not responded to my invitation. The invitation still stands. We'd love to hear their thoughts on The $18-Billion Prize.

So it's been busy. One of my favorite parts of the day is meeting audience members at the "Playwrights Table" in Johnny Foley's Irish pub just yards from the theater. I've attached a photo of the audience members who have gathered for some pre-show Guinness and eats and conversation.

Hope to see you there and don't forget to please send the link to anyone in San Francisco you think might like to see The $18-Billion Prize and also send it to anyone who might like to contribute to ensure the play is able to keep going. This is the link: www.ChevronPlay.com

Thank You
Phelim McAleer

Via email

Australian University Professor Sacked for Telling-the-Truth about coral

Jennifer Marohasy

BACK in 2016, when I asked Peter Ridd if he would write a chapter for the book I was editing I could not possibly have envisaged it could contribute to the end of his thirty-year career as a university professor.

Considering that Peter enrolled at James Cook University as an undergraduate back in 1978, he has been associated with that one university for forty years.

Since Peter was fired on 2 May 2018, the university has attempted to remove all trace of this association: scrubbing him completely from their website.

But facts don’t cease to exist because they are removed from a website. The university has never challenged the veracity of Peter’s legitimate claims about the quality of much of the reef science: science on which billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research is being squandered. These issues are not going away.

Just yesterday (Friday 18 May), Peter lodged papers in the Federal Court. He is going to fight for his job back!

If you care about the truth, science and academic freedom, please donate to help bring this important case to court.

It doesn’t matter how little or how much you donate. Just make sure you are a part of this important effort by donating to Peter’s GoFundMe campaign.

Peter deliberately choose to frame the book chapter about the replication crisis that is sweeping through science.

In this chapter – The Extraordinary Resilience of Great Barrier Reef Coral and Problems with Policy Science – Peter details the major problems with quality assurance when it comes to claims of the imminent demise of the reef.

Policy science concerning the Great Barrier Reef is almost never checked. Over the next few years, Australian governments will spend more than a billion dollars on the Great Barrier Reef; the costs to industry could far exceed this. Yet the keystone research papers have not been subject to proper scrutiny. Instead, there is a total reliance on the demonstrably inadequate peer-review process.

Ex-professor Peter Ridd has also published extensively in the scientific literature on the Great Barrier Reef, including issues with the methodology used to measure calcification rates. In the book he explains:

Like trees, which produce rings as they grow, corals set down a clearly identifiable layer of calcium carbonate skeleton each year, as they grow. The thicknesses and density of the layers can be used to infer calcification rates and are, effectively, a measure of the growth rate. Dr Glenn De’ath and colleagues from the Australian Institute of Marine Science used cores from more than 300 corals, some of which were hundreds of years old, to measure the changes in calcification during the last few hundred years. They claimed there was a precipitous decline in calcification since 1990

The LHS chart suggests a problem with coral growth rates – but the real problem is with the methodology. When corals of equivalent age are sampled, there has been no decline in growth rates at the Great Barrier Reef

However, I have two issues with their analysis. I published my concerns, and an alternative analysis, in the journal Marine Geology (Ridd et al. 2013). First, there were instrumental errors with the measurements of the coral layers. This was especially the case for the last layer at the surface of the coral, which was often measured as being much smaller than the reality. This forced an apparent drop in the average calcification for the corals that were collected in the early 2000s – falsely implying a recent calcification drop. Second, an ‘age effect’ was not acknowledged. When these two errors are accounted for, the drop in calcification rates disappear, as shown in Figure 1.2.

The problem with the ‘age effect’, mentioned above, arose because in the study De’ath and colleagues included data from corals sampled during two distinct periods and with a different focus; I will refer to these as two campaigns. The first campaign occurred mostly in the 1980s and focused on very large coral specimens, sometimes many metres across. The second campaign occurred in the early 2000s due to the increased interest in the effects of CO2. However, presumably due to cost cutting measures, instead of focusing on the original huge coral colonies, the second campaign measured smaller colonies, many just a few tens of centimetres in diameter.

In summary, the first campaign focused on large old corals, while, in contrast, the second campaign focused on small young corals. The two datasets were then spliced together, and wholly unjustifiable assumptions were implicitly made, but not stated – in particular that there is no age effect on coral growth…

Dr Juan D’Olivo Cordero from the University of Western Australia collected an entirely different dataset of coral cores from the Great Barrier Reef to determine calcification rates. This study determined that there has been a 10% increase in calcification rates since the 1940s for offshore and mid-shelf reefs, which is the location of about 99% of all the coral on the Great Barrier Reef. However, these researchers also measured a 5% decline in calcification rates of inshore corals – the approximately 1% of corals that live very close to the coast. Overall, there was an increase for most of the Great Barrier Reef, and a decrease for a small fraction of the Great Barrier Reef.

While it would seem reasonable to conclude that the results of the study by D’Olivo et al. would be reported as good news for the Great Barrier Reef, their article in the journal Coral Reefs concluded:

Our new findings nevertheless continue to raise concerns, with the inner-shelf reefs continuing to show long-term declines in calcification consistent with increased disturbance from land-based effects. In contrast, the more ‘pristine’ mid- and outer-shelf reefs appear to be undergoing a transition from increasing to decreasing rates of calcification, possibly reflecting the effects of CO2-driven climate change.

Imaginatively, this shift from ‘increasing’ to ‘decreasing’ seems to be based on an insignificant fall in the calcification rate in some of the mid-shelf reefs in the last two years of the 65-year dataset.

Why did the authors concentrate on this when their data shows that the reef is growing about 10% faster than it did in the 1940s?

James Cook university could have used the chapter as an opportunity to start a much-needed discussion about policy, funding and the critical importance of the scientific method. Instead, Peter was first censored by the University – and now he has been fired.

When I first blogged on this back in February, Peter needed to raise A$95,000 to fight the censure.

This was achieved through an extraordinary effort, backed by Anthony Watts, Joanne Nova, John Roskam and so many others.

To be clear, the university is not questioning the veracity of what ex-professor Ridd has written, but rather his right to say this publicly. In particular, the university is claiming that he has not been collegial and continues to speak-out even after he was told to desist.

New allegations have been built on the original misconduct charges that I detailed back in February. The core issue continues to be Peter’s right to keep talking – including so that he can defend himself.

In particular, the university objects to the original GoFundMe campaign (that Peter has just reopened) because it breaches claimed confidentiality provisions in Peter’s employment agreement. The university claims that Peter Ridd was not allowed to talk about their action against him. Peter disputes this.

Of course, if Peter had gone along with all of this, he would have been unable to raise funds to get legal advice – to defend himself! All of the documentation is now being made public – all of this information, and more can be found at Peter’s new website.

Together, let’s fight this! Go fund ex-professor Ridd at:

https://au.gofundme.com/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund.

The Institute of Public Affairs published Climate Change, The Facts 2017, and continues to support Peter’s right to speak the truth. For media and comment contact Evan Mulholland on 0405 140 780, or at emulholland@ipa.org.au.

Buy the book if you haven’t already: this is another way of showing your support.

Peter Ridd and Jennifer Marohasy speaking at the Sydney Institute last year.

The most important thing is to not be silenced, shout about this! I received an email last week: “Bought Climate Change, The Facts 2017, as requested, to support Peter Ridd. I’m not making any friends at dinner parties at the moment. Stuff ’em.”

SOURCE

Tell the Energy Department What You Think about Your Dishwasher

Thirty-five years ago, dishwashers cleaned dishes in about an hour. Sadly today, due to federal government regulations, there are no dishwashers that do so. This isn’t progress—it’s the failure of government to allow consumer choice.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute asked the Department of Energy (DOE) to change these regulations, and they are currently considering doing so! Thanks to CEI’s petition, the DOE opened a public comment period to decide if the regulations should be changed.

Federal regulators have been so focused on forcing people to decrease energy usage that they have lost sight of the other features that Americans value. Even the DOE now recognizes that because of their regulations, manufacturers “typically increase the cycle time.” The DOE is required by law to make sure that such features continue to be options for consumers, but has failed to do so.

Due to the increase in cycle times many consumers have complained. Here are just a few examples:

“The cycles run FOREVER - Plan on letting it run all afternoon before your dishes are ready so you can use them for dinner!!”
“It doesn't clean well, but has a very long cycle, well over two hours.”

One consumer described a cycle time of one and a half hours as “extremely long,” but sadly this is the shortest cycle time on the market.

“The cycle time is way too long, running for 4 hours and still not cleaning the dishes. I am currently in the process of hand washing a number of dishes that did not clean in last night’s 4-hour cycle.”

“It spontaneously starts beeping, non-stop, the cycle takes FOREVER. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.”

When one consumer called a technician to complain of a 4.5 hour cycle time, she was told that the new machines just take longer than the old ones.

Dishwashers are just one of many consumer appliances harmed by federal regulations. Traditional incandescent light bulbs are banned by federal regulations in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs that contain mercury, have worse color rendering, and cost three to 10 times as much.

Traditional top-loading clothes washers with a central agitator are banned in favor of front-loading washers that cost twice as much and some of which, according to Consumer Reports, leave clothes “nearly as dirty as they were before washing.”

It is time to stop these irresponsible actions and restore the quality of dishwashers that have been reduced by federal regulations. There is no reason DOE cannot add a new category that would take no more than an hour to complete cleaning and drying dishes. This would restore Americans’ choice to buy the product they want, while those who like their dishwasher as it is, would be able to still purchase them.

It is time to start reversing the damage that federal regulations have done. If you wish to have faster dishwashers, unconstrained by unneeded burdensome regulations, please submit a comment to the DOE.

>> Submit your comments about the need for faster dishwashers by June 25 here: dishwasherchoice.com. Just a sentence or two about the need for faster dishwashers can help persuade the agency.

SOURCE

Russian collusion the Dems and MSM ignore

Putin pals fund radical groups that interfere with US elections, energy, agriculture and economy

Paul Driessen

Robert Mueller’s politicized investigation into allegations that President Trump or the Trump campaign or some Trump associate somehow colluded with Russians continues unproven but unabated. Many think partisan politics ensure it will not be concluded or terminated before the fall 2018 elections.

Federal District Court Judge T. S. Ellis may have rebuked Mueller for attempting to wield “unfettered power” and actually being motivated primarily by a desire to hurt the President. But Mr. Mueller seems determined to find collusion somewhere – except where it seems blatantly obvious: in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s dealings with Putin oligarchs and the Clinton Family Foundation, her presidential campaign’s ties to Russia in funding and utilizing the Steele-Fusion GPS dossier that launched the Mueller probe, a host of top Obama Administration and Democratic National Committee officials who connived to spy on and disrupt the Trump campaign and transition, and multiple other activities.

Moreover, Putin cronies and agents have long colluded with Obama- and Clinton-allied organizations in yet another area to impact election outcomes and drive important public policies. Congress, journalists and others have investigated this collusion and bankrolling – but their detailed reports have been ignored by Mueller, Democrats and the “mainstream” media. They need to open their eyes. The US Senate “Billionaires’ Club” and Environmental Policy Alliance “From Russia with Love” reports, articles by investigative journalists like Ron Arnold and Lachlan Markay (here and here), studies by the US National Intelligence Director and Iowa State University, and a March 2018 report by the US House Science Committee reveal money laundering by Putin cronies and ongoing propaganda efforts by Russian media groups to undermine American drilling, fracking, pipeline and agricultural programs. They found:

One of the most clandestine and devious arrangements involves firms owned or controlled by Nathaniel Simons and his wife. Tax records reveal that their Sea Change Foundation gives tens of millions a year to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Climate Action Network, League of Conservation Voters, Center for American Progress, Progressive Policy Institute, Sierra Club and others.

Extensive Sea Change funding comes through Bermuda-based Klein, Ltd., a shell company whose apparent sole purpose is to channel money covertly to Sea Change, which passes it on to environmental advocacy and “educational” groups. Klein’s only officers are employees of Bermuda law firm Wakefield Quin, its address is the same as WQ’s, and its registered business agents work for Wakefield.

Hefty portions of Klein funds come from Russia: Rosneft, the Russian-government-owned oil and gas giant that is one of Wakefield’s largest clients; Spectrum Partners, a Moscow-based energy investment firm with major assets in Russian oil and gas; the IPOC Group, an international growth fund owned by Russian minister of telecommunications and Putin friend Leonid Reiman; and other Russian companies. (Other Sea Change donors include the Gates Foundation, eBay’s Omidyar Network Fund, David Rockefeller’s personal foundation, the Walmart Foundation and the extended Simons family.) The Science Committee Report explains how the Russian government funnel money through surrogates to US environmentalist organizations to fund attacks on the fossil fuels industry. It also reveals how Russian operatives create and spread propaganda on US social media platforms, to manipulate American opinions about pipelines, fossil fuels, fracking and climate change. Before and after the 2016 elections, Russian agents also promoted protests to block pipeline construction and prevent oil and gas production projects, using Twitter and Facebook accounts created by the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency, Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) noted.

Russian operatives use similar tactics to undermine hydraulic fracturing and pipelines in Europe, which depends on Russia for a third of its natural gas. In fact, several countries get 100% of their gas from Putin-controlled companies, creating serious risks of high prices, transmission interruptions and

blackmail. Even more troubling, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have revealed that Russian hackers were behind cyber intrusions into America’s electricity grid – and might have been setting the stage for hack attacks that could cause widespread blackouts in the USA and other nations. On the agriculture front, the Iowa State study found that Russian agents have orchestrated campaigns to disparage genetically engineered (GE) crops that American farmers utilize to produce more food, from less land, using less water and fewer pesticides, and with greater resistance to droughts, floods, insects and climate shifts, than is possible with conventional or organic farming. Precise modern GE technologies also created Golden Rice, which prevents malnutrition, blindness and death in Third World children; heat-resistant wheat; and the corn (maize) US ethanol producers use as their feed stock.

However, radical groups like Greenpeace are determined to eliminate every form of agricultural biotechnology. They are just as virulently opposed to pesticides and herbicides.

Financed by organic and natural food companies – and by the Russia-Sea Change Laundromat – they are adept at devising and conducting their own anti-GE/GMO, anti-glyphosate, anti-pesticide and other campaigns. All are eagerly and uncritically covered by print, electronic and social media. But US activist groups and news outlets also parrot or expand on Russia’s RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik propaganda stories that likewise falsely portray these technologies as risky for people and planet.

Why do they do all this? US fracking operations, oil and gas exports, miraculous agricultural output, and corn, wheat and other crop exports have hurt Russia’s income, economy, ruble and military. By supporting radical green groups, Russian agents impair US energy and agricultural exports, increase export opportunities for Russian companies, advance their nation’s economic and geopolitical ambitions, especially regarding Europe – and (they hope) make Russia stronger by making America weaker.

Foundations, government agencies, rich liberals like Michael Bloomberg, corporations and other donors agree with the green agenda, want to avoid activist attacks, or just can’t see past utopian assertions to recognize what Hard Green agendas really do, especially to working class and Third World families.

Radical greens gladly take Russian funds because they can never have too much money to advance their domestic and international ambitions. As Ron Arnold notes in our book Cracking Big Green: just the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace and ten other major US eco organizations raked in $2.1 billion in 2012. Total revenue for all US environmentalist groups exceeds $6.5 billion a year. Over a 12-year period, they received more than $21 billion from major foundations; countless millions in taxpayer money from US government agencies during the Obama era; and billions from other sources.

All this cash is fungible. Even if these shady, secretive Russian contributions aren’t used directly to fund anti-energy and anti-technology campaigns – or to air political ads, support candidates (some 99.9% of them Democrats) and influence elections – they free up other funds that do exactly that. And the donors and recipients are fundamentally in sync philosophically on totalitarian socialism, global governance, wealth redistribution, disguised but real disdain for the less fortunate, detesting America (especially under President Trump) and free enterprise capitalism, and vilifying skeptics of manmade climate chaos.

All of this is illuminating and disturbing, but hardly surprising. It’s yet another example of greens and other leftists demanding ethics, responsibility, transparency and accountability – except for themselves.

So if Mr. Mueller and Judge Ellis ultimately decide there actually are no limits to the scope of these “Russian collusion” investigations and interrogations, perhaps they can focus some of Mueller’s staff and seemingly bottomless budget on the HRC activities noted above; the suspicious funding and spending practices of the Clinton Foundation; and the ongoing transfer of countless millions of dollars from Russia through secretive laundering outfits to radical environmentalist groups that are deeply involved in US policy-making, pressure campaigns, shareholder actions, and political elections of every description.

That investigation into Russian collusion would be an eye-opening service to America and the world.

Via email

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

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

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21 May, 2018

Actor Storms Out of Chevron Play Over Politics

Dear Friends,

I'm just going to the airport to catch the plane for the opening weekend of "The $18-Billion Prize" but I wanted to let you now about the very depressing reports circulating about the production.

According to some reports the lead actor has walked out because he doesn't like the politics of the play. You can read the full report HERE.

I don't want to comment on the report but I want you to know that the show is going on as planned and we will have preview tonight and opening night tomorrow night.

We have replaced the leading actor and the truth will be told. It's just like the Ferguson play in LA when nine of the actors walked out because they didn't like the script. This is crazy because both scripts are overwhelmingly verbatim - using eyewitness testimony. What the actors are saying is that they don't like the truth - it seems they would rather promote a fairytale that supports their politics. This has not been the only problem we have faced in the production. It was almost impossible to get a venue in San Francisco and not one publicist or lighting designer in the whole city would work on the production.

It has been a tough few days as we struggle to get a show on the stage but it has been worth it. The $18-Billion Prize is a great story of how one of the world's biggest frauds was carried out by an environmentalist. And it was all aided and abetted by the mainstream media and Hollywood actors. They almost got away with $18 billion.

But we are exposing the fraud on the stage despite the attempts to disrupt the show. Thats why I need your help. It has not been cheap bringing people in from out of town and dealing with all the disruption. I'm crowdfunding the project because the theatrical establishment don't want the truth to be told.

So please give whatever you can - you can donate at www.ChevronPlay.com.

It would be great if you could come to a performance but if you are from out of town think about buying the script or a poster of the play.

It is a stunning tale of malfeasance but also exposes Hollywood celebs going wild in the jungle.

So please go to www.ChevronPlay.com and give what you can.

Thanks
Phelim McAleer Via email

A lady with delusions of grandeur

Wild assertions instead of facts and logical reasoning. And she no doubt wonders why men say women are too emotional.

What the world would be like without fossil fuels needs no imagining. There are many parts of the third world that already do without fossil fuels -- But you wouldn't want to be like them. Their lives are nasty, brutish and short. So her claim that women will rid the world of fossil fuels is particularly dumb. She offers a nightmare

At the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in New Orleans last December, Sarah Myhre, PhD, joined with other scientists on a panel presenting and fielding questions on the science, economics, and politics of climate solutions.

Myhre (pronounced my-ree) delivered a message that may have been startling to some in the audience – that climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with the misogyny and social injustice that have perpetuated the problem for decades. Myhre characteristically delivered her talk with a sense of urgency, confidence, and polish.

After the presentations, an audience member directed a comment to panelist Stefan Rahmstorf, PhD, of the Potsdam Institute. Rahmstorf had illustrated just how quickly the world will need to stop burning fossil fuels if warming is to be kept to no more than 2 degrees C, about 3.6 degrees F.

“You show that we’ll need to drop all the way to zero fossil fuel use within the next few decades,” the commenter said. “But I have a hard time even imagining a world without fossil fuels.”

As Rahmstorf prepared to answer, Myhre leaned over to the microphone. “Imagine a world where women are in charge,” she said wryly, “And then you’ll imagine a world without fossil fuels.”

Laughter echoed through the room – some of it no doubt nervous laughter. But Myhre’s comment was more than just a witty comeback. Myhre later mentioned that her intent was not to disrespect men, but to emphasize that only an entirely different leadership could bring about the radical change she says is needed to reverse reliance on fossil fuels.

Her retort appeared to resonate because it acknowledged the potential of women as creative leaders at a time when there’s little optimism for “politics-as-usual” to get a handle on climate change.

Fast forward a few months, and Myhre spoke more about her work over a video call. She recounted that moment at AGU and filled in the backstory.

“I remember that very clearly, it was a laugh line. I was not saying, let’s take every man out of power,” she said. She switched from a tone of conversation to one of oration in explaining the reasoning behind her comment.

What if women were in charge for a decade? Just 10 years – and we would hand it all back to you after 10 years. I’m going to guarantee that after 10 years, you would be in a better place. You, man, would be in a better place if all of us women were running the show. Cause you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to give you health care. We’re going to give you education. We’re going to empower your communities. We’re going to work on affordable housing, we’re going to work on diversity and inclusivity so that your queer son can go to an institution and not be, you know, bullied and harassed. Like … it’s gonna be good for you.

Myhre argues that addressing climate change requires a humanist perspective. In other words, one empathizing with people who are marginalized by the effects of climate change but lacking a powerful voice in brokering solutions. She points to “indigenous people, people from small island nations and polar communities, and the global population of the poor and vulnerable. And to people living in the future – our descendants.”

Women, Myhre posits, are leaders in extending empathy to different populations, in part because many women, particularly women of color, have experienced discrimination themselves.

But Myhre also described the darker side of that AGU moment. “Afterwards, I received two messages from men. Both of the messages were, ‘I was on board with your presentation until you made that joke.’ One was a threatening note: ‘You need to watch your back because people are paying attention to you, and they’re ready to take you down.'”

“It shows you that women making jokes are unpalatable,” Myhre said.

So, here’s what some might see as an inevitable dilemma: On one hand, Myhre fiercely wants the world to be a better, more equal, more caring place. And on the other hand, she finds herself embroiled in controversy for saying so.

SOURCE

In Attacking ‘Uncertainty,’ King County Climate Lawsuit Undermines Fellow Litigants

Last week King County, Washington, became the latest municipality to sue the oil and gas industry in an effort to extract monetary damages for climate change. Like San Francisco, Oakland, and New York City, King County hired the Seattle-based plaintiffs’ firm Hagens Berman to represent it.

Curiously, even after facing heavy skepticism and criticism of its past lawsuits, Hagens Berman doubled down on some of its weakest arguments, and in doing so, may have thrown its fellow plaintiffs under the bus.

King County’s lawsuit criticizes fossil fuel companies for acknowledging the uncertainty inherent in attempting to predict the future. Here is one example from the King County complaint:

“Until approximately early 2017, Exxon’s website continued to emphasize the ‘uncertainty’ of global warming science and impacts: ‘current scientific understanding provides limited guidance on the likelihood, magnitude, or time frame’ of events like temperature extremes and sea level rise. Exxon’s insistence on crystal-ball certainty was clear misdirection, since Exxon knew that the fundamentals of climate science were well settled and showed global warming to present a clear and present danger.” (emphasis added)

It’s an accusation opponents of the oil and gas industry have made before, but it now serves to cast doubt on the lawsuits brought by King County’s fellow climate plaintiffs in California, who recently released a report that praises their own efforts to emphasize the uncertainty of climate projections.

It could also create additional legal headaches for King County and other plaintiffs.

In January, one of the defendants of these climate lawsuits filed a petition in a Texas District Court suggesting that the California municipalities’ claims of climate damages were either exaggerated in their lawsuits or downplayed in their municipal bond disclosures. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was later asked by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Association of Manufacturers to investigate the municipalities’ bond disclosures for possible securities fraud.

Seeking to clear their name, five of the municipalities (all represented by Sher Edling LLP) hired a former SEC official to review their bond disclosures. That former SEC official’s conclusion emphasized that the effects of climate change were too far away to have any noteworthy impact on the municipalities, and praised them for emphasizing the uncertainty of climate change modeling. Discussing the bonds of one of the plaintiffs, the report states:

“Furthermore, the disclosure documents for the bonds San Mateo County issued in 2014 and 2016 included general disclosures regarding potential risks from sea level rise and included appropriate cautionary language about the uncertainty of whether or when flooding from sea level rise might occur and of the County’s inability to predict whether such future events would have a material adverse effect on the financial condition and business operations of the County or on the local economy.” (emphasis added)

As Energy In Depth noted at the time, the former SEC official’s report was almost certain to cause headaches for the plaintiffs’ lawsuits, whose very premise relies on the idea that these municipalities have already been harmed by climate change and that the energy industry was inappropriately acknowledging the same uncertainty noted by the municipalities.

So when ExxonMobil acknowledges the uncertainty of climate projections, it’s “clear misdirection.” But when San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Marin Counties and the Cities of Imperial Beach and Santa Cruz do the same, they were acting appropriately? That is a textbook example of hypocrisy.

Further ignoring the former SEC official’s report and throwing caution to the wind, King County’s lawsuit begins with:

“Global warming is here and it is harming King County now as King County is already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate: warming temperatures, acidifying marine waters, rising seas, increased flooding risk, decreasing mountain snowpack, and less water in the summer.”

In its first line, King County’s complaint contradicts the report paid for by the California municipalities, which stated: “in the case of sea-level rise and certain other climate impacts, municipal entities generally will not be greatly affected for decades…”

It is also clear that Hagens Berman has not updated the language in its lawsuits to reflect recent events. In fact, much of King County’s complaint is copied over from the San Francisco and Oakland complaints, with minimal alteration.

The copy of the complaint available on King County’s website is even titled “Template that creates a custom pleading,” providing some of the strongest evidence yet that Hagens Berman is shopping these lawsuits as an off-the-shelf deliverable. The firm stands to make tens of billions of dollars in contingency fees should any of the plaintiffs find success in the courtroom.

But the firm’s inattention to detail and its history of bringing “baseless” cases that give a “new meaning to ‘frivolous’” – as one judge put it – may ultimately prove a legal headache for the firm and the cities and counties it represents.

SOURCE

Here's why Congress and think tanks think a carbon tax would be disastrous

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., recently introduced a resolution that explains why a carbon tax would harm the economy and why it should not be enacted. A similar resolution, introduced by Scalise in 2016, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 237 to 163. Six Democrats joined the entire Republican caucus in supporting the resolution.

I applaud Scalise and McKinley’s unswerving effort to prevent a carbon tax in the U.S., and you should as well. The resolution is important and timely because a group of old-guard, “swamp” Republicans, including Reagan-era luminaries like James Baker and George Shultz, have joined with anti-fossil-fuel zealots such as Obama Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to push a new federal carbon tax.

In addition, a number of states have considered or are still considering carbon taxes in their most recent legislative sessions. In Washington State, for example, activists were unable to con voters into passing a carbon tax initiative in 2016, and, despite support from billionaire Tom Steyer, a carbon tax proposal died in the legislature in March. Despite repeated failure, anti-progress environmentalists are back again, gathering signatures to put another carbon tax initiative on Washington’s ballot.

Scalise and McKinley’s resolution would put Congress on record again opposing the carbon tax, which President Trump also opposes.

The resolution states any carbon tax would result in myriad harms, including an “increase [in] energy prices, including the price of gasoline, electricity, natural gas, and home heating oil.” It would also “mean that families and consumers will pay more for essentials like food, gasoline, and electricity,” causing the most harm for “the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes.” The resolution also claims a carbon tax would “lead to more jobs and businesses moving overseas.”

Scalise says his resolution is meant to combat those “special interests” working to stop Republicans’ plan to make America energy dominant again. McKinley has said that a carbon tax "will take money out of the pockets of middle-class families" and "lead to a decrease in the production of America’s abundant energy resources that would result in lost jobs" and higher energy costs.

A group of 29 research institutes, legal foundations, and grassroots-activist groups, including The Heartland Institute, submitted a letter to Congress expressing support for the anti-carbon-tax resolution.

The letter noted multiple independent analyses have concluded a carbon tax would cost jobs, reduce economic growth, and disproportionately harm the poorest Americans. For instance, the signatories write, “a 2014 Heritage Foundation report found that a $37 per ton carbon tax would lead to a loss of more than $2.5 trillion in aggregate gross domestic product by 2030 … [or] more than $21,000 in income loss per family. In addition, a carbon tax would cost over 500,000 jobs in manufacturing and more than one million jobs by 2030. According to a 2013 CBO report, a carbon tax is highly regressive.”

Neither a carbon tax nor domestic regulations will do anything to prevent global climate change, even if human carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to it. However, carbon taxes will, ironically, increase pollution overall. Facing higher energy costs, some or even many American companies will be forced to move operations overseas to remain profitable. Countries such as China and India, where many companies are likely to relocate to, have weaker environmental standards and less efficient methods of production than in the U.S. As companies fleeing the carbon tax shift production overseas, additional air pollution will spew into the atmosphere.

There is never a good time to enact bad policy, and a carbon tax is one of the worst policies we could adopt.

SOURCE

Climate Derangement Syndrome: Al Jazeera Abandons Science For Dogma And Fake News

THIS Al Jazeera article demonstrates beautifully how belief and dogma have infected much of the mainstream media and the global warming climate change orthodoxy, where groupthink doctrine insists that man-made climate change is responsible for all weather events, regardless of facts, data, empirical evidence or ‘science’.

THIS particular article also displays a troubling shift in climate change reporting where the narrative has progressed from ‘might climate change be affecting the weather?’, to ‘what impact is climate change having on X (cricket)’. There’s a big difference, with the latter presuming that man-made climate change is now a foregone conclusion…

“As recently as the summer of 2012, three of England’s 13 One Day International events were abandoned due to rain, while no result was possible in two of their seven Test matches with West Indies and South Africa.

That’s why the sport must take notice of a report published by Climate Coalition, the UK’s largest climate change action group, in February."

The document names cricket as the sport that will be hardest hit by climate change in England, stating that “wetter winters and more intense summer downpours are disrupting the game at every level”.”

LET’S check the latest Met Office data to see if “wetter winters and more intense summer downpours are disrupting the game at every level”…

ACROSS England, there is no trend, at all, for “wetter winters and more intense summer downpours.”

AL Jazeera is making up climate change falsehoods based on a strange ‘report’ that does not even exist…

CLASSIC fake news that will not be corrected and has already achieved its purpose of further brainwashing the masses into the belief that man-made ‘climate change’ is a foregone conclusion.

WHO are the real science “deniers”, propagandists and deceivers?

SOURCE

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

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

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20 May, 2018

Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming (?)

This is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. The 400 month figure is presented as an apparent proof of continued global warming. It is equally consistent with continued plateauing or anything in between. It is in fact consistent with global warming having stopped. Judging by the satellite data, some initial annual warming was followed by plateauing. So global warming has in fact stopped. The annual temperature average rose slightly from about 1975 to 2000 and is now back at about the 2000 level

Amusing that they rely heavily below on monthly temperature levels. Even in a year with an unchanged annual average temperature, monthly temperatures will vary greatly. There is this thing called the "seasons", for a start.

It must be embarrassing for them that they have to report "the Earth is seeing its 5th-warmest start to the year".   Only the 5th? The earth must be COOLING!

Also interesting that in North America the temperature COOLED. America has a dense network of temperature measuring stations so the temperature there is much harder to "fiddle". LOL. As in Orwell's "1984", Warmists revise history a lot, as that disrespectful climate archivist Tony Heller often documents

It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts.

It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.

Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.

The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.

"We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "Speeding by a '400' sign only underscores that, but it does not prove anything new."

Climate scientists use the 20th-century average as a benchmark for global temperature measurements. That's because it's fixed in time, allowing for consistent "goal posts" when reviewing climate data. It's also a sufficiently long period to include several cycles of climate variability.

"The thing that really matters is that, by whatever metric, we've spent every month for several decades on the warm side of any reasonable baseline," Arndt said.

NOAA's analysis found last month was the 3rd-warmest April on record globally. The unusual heat was most noteworthy in Europe, which had its warmest April on record, and Australia, which had its second-warmest.

Portions of Asia also experienced some extreme heat: In southern Pakistan, the town of Nawabshah soared to a scalding 122.4 degrees on April 30, which may have been the warmest April temperature on record for the globe, according to Meteo France.

Argentina also had its warmest April since national records began there in 1961.

North America was the one part of the world that didn't get in on the heat parade. Last month, the average U.S. temperature was 48.9 degrees, 2.2 degrees below average, "making it the 13th-coldest April on record and the coldest since 1997," NOAA said.

For the year-to-date, the Earth is seeing its 5th-warmest start to the year.

A separate analysis of global temperature data from NASA also found last month was the third-warmest April on record.

Another milestone was reached in April, also related to the number "400": Carbon dioxide — the gas scientists say is most responsible for global warming — reached its highest level in recorded history at 410 parts per million.

This amount is highest in at least the past 800,000 years, according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

SOURCE

“Evil” GE foods and “eco-friendly” organics

Misrepresentations by radical greens promote myths of GE dangers and organic benefits

Paul Driessen and Vijay Jayaraj

Across the globe, genetically engineered (GE) crops face opposition from environmental and organic food activists, who claim the crops harm the environment and endanger human health.

How factual are their claims? The evidence strongly supports GE over organic crops.

Not long ago, Vijay visited the Sprouts organic food store in San Jose, California. To his surprise, organic vegetables that had shorter shelf-life and higher risk of bacterial contamination and thus serious illness were priced two to ten times more than their GE and conventional food alternatives. The store is famous among millennial techies in the Silicon Valley and enjoys reasonable sales. One possible explanation would be the false notion that GE foods are risky or injurious to health; another is that buyers incorrectly believe organic produce have fewer pesticides, are more nutritious or better protect the environment.

But in science, neither a belief nor even a general “consensus” determines truth. A thousand people could claim the theory of gravity is wrong, but one simple scientific proof would prove their consensus false. Similarly, the safety of genetically modified foods cannot be determined by the increasingly vitriolic voices of anti-GE groups. It requires robust scientific testing by actual experts in various fields.

All the major GE foods currently on the market have been exhaustively tested and found to be safe for people, animals and the environment. Moreover, to date, Americans alone have consumed more than four trillion servings of foods with at least one GE ingredient – without a single documented example of harm to a person or the environment.

That is why more than 100 Nobel Laureates in chemistry, medicine and biotechnology have said GE foods are safe for human and animal consumption. That’s not an uninformed assertion or “consensus.” It is a professional, scientific conclusion based on thousands of risk assessment studies over several decades, as well as numerous real-world experiences.

Anti-GE activists typically use the term “genetically modified organisms” or GMOs, a pejorative coined simply to disparage the use of the most modern techniques. In fact, genetic engineering with molecular techniques is merely a more modern, rapid and precise way than traditional crop breeding methods to change or improve the genetic makeup of plants. It also enables scientists to enhance crops by introducing helpful properties like resistance to droughts, standing water or insects from one organism to another.

For example, corn varieties that integrate the Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) gene right into plant tissue greatly reduce or even eliminate the need for spraying or dusting the crops with pesticides. Golden Rice incorporates two beta-carotene biosynthesis genes (Vitamin A precursors), one from daffodils, one from a soil bacterium, so that even malnourished people get sufficient Vitamin A to prevent blindness and death.

Organic farming prohibits modern manmade pesticides. But some are used surreptitiously anyway – and many organic farmers employ “natural” but still toxic pesticides like copper sulfate and neem oil. Though they oppose Bt-engineered crops, many spray live Bt bacteria on crops, killing good and harmful insects.

Studies by Stanford University and other researchers have found that “organic” fruits and vegetables actually have lower yields and are no more nutritious than conventional or GE alternatives.

However, certain organic practices, such as fertilizing with manure, have led to contamination with dangerous fungal toxins or listeria, salmonella or E. Coli bacteria. These problems are far more common in organic produce and can lead to serious intestinal illness, kidney failure, brain damage or even death.

It can fairly be said that the anti-GE war has reached levels that are ignorant, deceptive, and even fraudulent and lethal. Activist claims about the dangers of GE foods are baseless and without bona fide evidence. They ignore the many benefits of GE crops. Moreover, many of the groups and campaigns are funded, directly or indirectly, by the organic and natural food industries and allied foundations.

GE crops are environment friendly and promote sustainable agriculture, while potentially meeting the daily food demand of seven billion people globally. They allow farmers to produce more food, from less land, using less water and fewer pesticides, and with greater resistance to droughts, floods and climate change, than would be the case with conventional crops – and certainly with organic crops. They enable farmers to grow Golden Rice and other crops that prevent malnutrition, blindness and death in children.

By contrast, organic crops require more land, more water, more labor and higher farming expenses to generate the same produce. Expanding organic farms will thus cause additional loss of wildlife habitats in a time when we are trying to nurture and protect what is left of Earth’s natural habitats.

Tuskegee University professor, dean and biotech expert C.S. Prakash points out that the percentage of land used to grow crops has increased dramatically during the past 200 years, as humanity worked to provide nutritious foods for rapidly growing populations. The ideal solution to avoid deforestation, he says, is to use GE crops, which produce much more food per acre than their non-GE counterparts.

An ardent proponent of GE in the fight against poverty and disease, Dr. Prakash worries that the anti-GE campaigns will impede our efforts to provide sufficient, affordable food in many developing countries. Moreover, non-GE crops are susceptible to many insects and diseases that GE crops are resistant to.

Much of the most important work to improve food crops genetically was done by Norman Borlaug, using pre-molecular techniques. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for developing crop variants that helped billions avoid certain death during the food crises of the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, much of the wheat, maize (corn) and rice now consumed globally are Borlaug’s crops, which are disease resistant and high yielding.

GE crops are also more climate adaptive. New variants of rice and wheat are being designed to withstand extreme climatic and geographical conditions. One important example is wheat variants that withstand a whopping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), which was practically unimaginable just a decade ago. This can make wheat cultivation far more productive in the 40% of world’s dryland surface where conditions are hostile to normal wheat varieties.

Health Canada and the United States Department of Agriculture recently approved Golden Rice and High Fibre Wheat, respectively, thereby continuing to embrace GE crops, as they have done for years. This pro-GE stance has been echoed by international governing institutions such as the United Nations and governments of major technologically innovative countries like Israel, China and India.

Although the number of organic farms is increasing in India, its food markets are largely dominated by crops that cannot be considered organic. Organic madness has nevertheless invaded parts of India. The Indian state of Sikkim recently branded itself “organic” by banning the entry and sale of more than 25 non-organic horticultural and agricultural products. That decision has caused widespread chaos, leaving families unable to afford cereals, fruits and vegetables that otherwise would be their staple foods.

It is time to progress from unfounded fears about GE foods – and begin educating government leaders and regulators, as well as domestic and global journalists, about the safety and benefits of GE crops.

Let us begin by asking: What actual, replicable, peer-reviewed evidence do environmentalists and organic food producers and advocates have that organic foods are safer, more nutritious or more eco-friendly than conventional or genetically modified varieties? What actual, replicable, peer-reviewed evidence do they have that GE crops have harmed people or the environment in any way?

Neither we nor Dr. Prakash nor any other agricultural experts we have spoken with can find any such evidence. If environmentalists and organic food proponents cannot provide solid evidence, they should end their deceitful pro-organic, anti-GE campaigns – or be compelled to do so by government agencies and courts of law that deal in facts and sound science, instead of allegations, innuendo and intimidation.

The billion dollars spent by radical environmentalists and the organic foods industry on campaigns against GE plants would have been far better spent on approving more GE crops, upgrading agricultural practices, providing more nutritious, affordable food, and improving lives all over the world.

The lies, demagoguery and destructive tactics of anti-GE groups are poisonous to the century-long effort to eradicate food poverty across the globe. These inhumane, lethal tactics can no longer be tolerated.

Via email

Fossil Fuel Funds Have Unlikely Investors: Environmental Icons

The latest dive into the Paradise Papers by U.S. reporters has discovered nonprofits making contradictory investments.

From a 34-foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton to a herd of taxidermy elephants forever poised to charge, the American Museum of Natural History is a celebration of nature. Through its exhibits, website and other public education efforts, the New York City institution regularly encourages conservation and protecting the planet from climate change.

But, at least since 2009, the museum’s endowment fund has quietly invested millions in the oil and gas industry through an undisclosed stake in a private equity fund, reveals a report by NBC News, which joined the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in a new Paradise Papers investigation examining the offshore investments of nonprofit organizations.

The museum invested $5 million in a fund run by Denham Capital, a private equity firm that invests in oil and gas, mining and power plants. That fund has pumped money into fracking for shale oil in Ohio and Pennsylvania and made an unsuccessful bid to invest in coal in Mongolia.

The museum is one of several prominent environmental nonprofits and foundations, including the World Wildlife Fund, whose investments in fossil fuels were uncovered by NBC and other partners in a collaboration with ICIJ in a new look at the Paradise Papers, a leaked trove of 13.4 million documents, obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with ICIJ. The files revealed how endowments, foundations and other nonprofits use offshore companies and undisclosed investments to obscure where their tax-exempt dollars are flowing.

The investigation showed nonprofits repeatedly making investments that contradict their missions and lobbying in state legislatures to increase the secrecy surrounding their investments.

NBC’s findings are part of a collaboration, dubbed Alma Mater, organized by ICIJ to examine the offshore investments of U.S. tax-exempt charitable organizations. Originally designed to investigate more than 100 universities whose endowments appeared in the Paradise Papers, the project expanded to include nonprofit museums, foundations and advocacy groups. It includes reporters in California, Montana, New York and Tennessee, working for outlets ranging from national television networks to city newspapers to an independent university publication.

Among the most striking findings were the investments by environmental groups in the fossil fuel industry. Not only the American Museum of Natural History, but also World Wildlife Fund, which states publicly that “we must urgently reduce carbon pollution,” invested in the Denham Capital fund, NBC News found.

The museum told NBC News that the investments represent “a small part of our overall program for managing the Museum’s endowment” and has noted in the past that it holds no direct stock in fossil fuel companies. It has been working since 2014 to reduce its fossil fuel investments. The World Wildlife Fund told NBC News that it is trying to unwind investments in oil and gas, and that, in the meantime, it has put money into a counter investment offered by a Deutsche Bank financial instrument which loses money when fossil fuel stocks rise and earns money when they fall.

While the museum and the World Wildlife Fund are working to cut back their investments in fossil fuels, other nonprofits have resisted.

A major foundation that supports environmental causes, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, has also turned to the energy sector. The Packard Foundation invested $50 million in a fund managed by U.S.-based private equity firm Energy Capital Partners that invests in oil and gas-related operations, NBC News found.

The Packard Foundation, which states on its website that it “invests in policies and projects to transform the use of fossil fuels around the world” with its grants, told NBC News that when it comes to its endowment it seeks to maximize gains on its investments and does not avoid fossil fuels.

Universities that have taken public stances in the fight against climate changes have also behaved differently when it came to investing their endowments. Earlier this year, the University of Washington was one of 13 universities that formed the University Climate Change Coalition, an initiative to reduce carbon emissions. Yet it invested $9 million in the Denham Capital fund, NBC News noted.

The University of Washington told NBC News that it had resolved in 2015 to divest from coal, but not from other fossil fuels.

The University of Montana, which has not made similar public pronouncements about climate change, also has invested in fossil fuels. The University of Montana Foundation sent $5 million in 2007 to a fund operated by private equity firm Coller Capital, which in turn invested in a joint venture including Royal Dutch Shell, reported the Montana Kaimin, the University of Montana’s independent student newspaper.

In a previous interview with the Montana Kaimin, University of Montana President Seth Bodnar declined to commit to divesting from fossil fuels but expressed openness to considering social responsibility in judging investments.

The University of Montana Foundation has invested more than $30 million in offshore funds, the Montana Kaimin reported.

Universities go offshore

Investments in private equity firms that finance the oil and gas industry are part of a broader shift in how universities manage their endowments. The search for higher returns has led universities to move away from traditional stocks and bonds and focus on “alternative investments,” which include hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital.

The University of Tennessee’s turn to offshore alternative strategies includes shares in at least 19 funds with a combined value of more than $200 million as of June 2017, reported ICIJ’s partners at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. These investments represent about 20 percent of the endowment, while its investments in U.S.-based stocks and bonds has dropped to about 5 percent, the Commercial Appeal found.

Overall, the percentage of university endowments in alternative investments jumped from 20 percent in 2002 to 51 percent by 2014, according a 2015 report by the Congressional Research Service.

The push for secrecy

As they have embraced alternative investments and tax havens, some universities have also pushed to keep the activities of their endowments secret. Public universities, which are subject to Freedom of Information laws, have taken some of the strongest steps.

Last year, the Board of Regents of the University of Montana System, comprised of sixteen universities and colleges across the state, signed a new contract between the system and the foundation that manages its endowment. The contract included language allowing the foundation 20 days to block public records requests to the university system in order to seek a protective order, the Montana Kaimin reported.

The University of Tennessee also acted last year to keep its endowment’s activities secret. The university successfully lobbied the state legislature to pass a law allowing the university not to disclose the fees that it pays to the funds that invest its money or the identity of the companies that these funds ultimately invest in, reported the Commercial Appeal.

University of Tennessee Chief Investment Officer Rip Mecherle told the Commercial Appeal that its offshore investments were above board and “plain vanilla.” He said that he had personally helped draft the secrecy provision at the request of the university’s money managers and that some of the best investors insist on such secrecy rules as a condition of accepting a client.

Even without new secrecy provisions like those in Montana and Tennessee, universities and other nonprofits face little scrutiny as they seek to maximize returns on holdings as large as tens of billions of dollars. Sometimes the investments conflict with goals the tax-protected institutions have publicly embraced, the Paradise Papers revealed. More often, the destination of these tax-exempt investments remains hidden from view.

SOURCE

Pruitt’s latest move is making the EPA more efficient in the permitting process with civil service reforms

By Natalia Castro

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been plagued with inefficiency for years. The Partnership for Public Service has ranked the EPA 22 out of 23 ineffective leadership for a mid-sized agency for the last two years in a row. The Resource for the Future, an environmental, energy, and natural resource research institution, found that the average EPA permit process takes 420 days to complete.

But now, under Administrator Scott Pruitt, the EPA is committed to fixing itself. Pruitt is taking the necessary steps to increase accountability and set clear guidelines for action. The EPA has already established over 400 metrics across all EPA programs and regional office that track monthly goals, created standardized methods of communicating monthly targets, integrated monthly business reviews for all senior leaders to review their office’s performance, and initiated new employee training.

Pruitt is also looking to hold the career employees at the agency accountable. The newly created Office of Continuous Improvement (OCI) will ensure the policies that work in some areas of the department are implemented across the agency, and hopefully, act as a model for other agencies.

In a May 14, 2018 press briefing, EPA Chief Operating Officer Henry Darwin explains, the purpose of the new office is to coordinate the agency-wide implementation of the new EPA Lean Management System (ELMS).

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers noted in March 2016 ELMS has its roots in the automotive industry, Toyota created the Lean Management system to eliminate waste from manufacturing operations. Today, engineers and manufacturing leaders use Lean Management to create clear standards of quality and expedite timelines.

The OCI will universalize these ELMS standards across the agency and oversee their success with the goal of instituting full ELMS in 80 percent of agency units by September 30, 2020 and will require programs within the EPA to submit timelines for action and engage in monthly reviews of both regional and national programs to ensure deadlines are being kept.

While this might seem like an ordinary accountability standard in the private sector, Pruitt explained in the press briefing that the EPA has failed to conduct these program reviews for years.

Pruitt further explained, until this year, the EPA did not track the time it took to complete permit requests, did not track legal deadlines set by Congress, did not measure correction and compliance rates following known violations of agency guidelines, and did not measure the number of drinking water systems out of compliance with EPA rules.

Essentially, EPA management has had little to no accountability for when projects must finish or how actions must be corrected when projects are completed inadequately. Pruitt notes, this caused vast inconsistencies between regional branches, created a disengaged workforce, and fueled mismanagement.

The Office of Continuous Improvement will give the EPA the opportunity to rebuild their reputation of waste and inefficiency, and if successful, can be used across the federal government to improve agency efficiency. Our civil service employees must be held accountable for their work the way employees in the private sector are, and what better way to do that than implement a system that has worked for private manufacturers?

SOURCE

Poor People Are Getting Air Conditioning — Some Say That’s Bad For Climate Change

The number of air conditioners across the world is expected to triple by 2050, stoking fears that increasing indoor climate control will spur global climate change.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a Tuesday report, “The Future of Cooling,” on increasing demand for in-home cooling in the coming decades. Currently, 10 percent of the world’s energy is used for keeping buildings cool, but that amount is expected to rise as hot, developing countries gain access to air conditioners.

“As incomes and standards of living increase, more people will naturally want to buy and use air conditioners to keep cool,” the report states. “Wider access to cooling is necessary, bringing benefits to human development, health, well-being and economic productivity.”

“But it will have a significant impact on countries’ overall energy demand, putting pressure on electricity grids and driving up local and global emissions,” the report states.

The IEA proposes instituting performance standards on air conditioning units to make them more energy efficient. The cooling revolution can continue simultaneously combating the worst of the increase in emissions.

Instituting standards compliant with the Paris Climate Accords — a non-binding international agreement to cut emissions and combat climate change — could double the efficiency of the world’s fleet of AC units.

The standards may adversely impact those who need air conditioning the most. Implementing energy efficiency standards may cut the cost of energy over time but increases the up-front cost of installing new appliances, according to an April 2017 Heritage Foundation report.

“The up-front costs of a more expensive light bulb or appliance may not acutely impact a wealthy or middle-income family’s budget, but the real-world implications of regulations that increase energy costs and take choices away are nothing to dismiss — especially for the poor, who could be disproportionately and severely affected through these higher up-front costs,” the report states.

SOURCE

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

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

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18 May, 2018

Where have all the babies gone?

Reducing the population is a big Greenie goal and they have convinced some foolish women to make the life-shattering decision to avoid having babies. Women that foolish and unnatural are probably not much of a loss from the gene pool however.

And it is not only conservatism that tends to stand athwart the trend to a baby drought. Many religious people and economists also deplore it. The Catholic church has an adamantine opposition to contraception -- so adamantine that even the heretical Pope Francis suports it. But, like many church teachings, that one has largely fallen by the wayside. There are now few Catholics who heed it. Thank goodness for the Mormons, I guess. And a shout-out to the remarkable Duggar family is surely appropriate here too.

As we see below, however, the baby bust has now hit the USA, mainly because minority women too have now caught on to the trend. Prosperity has now influenced them too. And it does seem clear that prosperity is the culprit -- enabled by the pill, of course. When you have a kindly welfare state to help you when you are sick or old, who needs kids?

Answer: Everybody and nobody. Nobody in the USA now needs kids for economic reasons. But life is not all economics. We do have other needs and other pleasures. And babies are big in both those arenas. Children are undoubtedly life's greatest pleasure. As ever, there is some pain with the gain but it is only the very unlucky where the pain is not well worthwhile. And for real women, a baby is a need. The many women who undergo IVF are one testimony to that.

Still there are many women who have one or two children only and I am not going to criticize that decision. The women who have more than two are the key, however. We need them to make up the many women who, for good reasons or bad, have no children.

Politicians of course love babies. They see them as future taxpayers. So many countries -- France was the first, I think, now have pro-natalist policies of various sorts. They do what they can to encourage and accelerate baby-making. Singapore has probably the most extreme of such policies but Russia has made great efforts too. Australia actually pays for babies.

So should the USA go down that road too? Does it all really matter? I'm doubtful.

As a kid, my hair was so fair that I remember being addressed as "Snowy". So I like to think that will continue. I would like to think that there will be many like me in the future. And, where I hang out most of the time, I do see quite a few mothers with little snowy-haired kids. And I love to see them.

Intermarriage does of course threaten that. Australia's big (about 5%) minority is Chinese and the young Chinese ladies go all out to snag a tall Caucasian man. So a tall Caucasian man with a small Asian lady on his arm is rather frequently seen in my neck of the woods. And I see the fruit of that too. I myself now have Chinese relatives -- in that a tall, blue-eyed cousin of mine married a Chinese lady who produced a brilliant and beautiful Eurasian daughter. Eurasians are commonly seen as good-looking and tend to be smart too. So more Eurasians would please me. But I do regret than none of them will ever be "snowys".

But nonetheless, most people marry others with backgrounds similar to themselves. Psychologists even have a term for it. They call it "assortative mating". So it seems to me that there will always be snowys somewhere, even if in diminished numbers.

But hair color is a side issue. Are there any other reasons why we should fear population shrinkage? I can't see it. The USA could end up like Brazil or Mexico, where people of European ancestry rule the roost, despite most of the population being of non-European origin. And that means that the entire population is ghettoized. Whites live in walled-off areas in habitations that are much like European habitations elsewhere in the world -- and non-whites live in often very rudimentary accommodation. In short, people will rise to whatever standard of living that they are capable of. There will be exceptions to that, of course, but it is averages I am concerned with here.

So if the baby shortage among American whites leads to a demographic overturn that leaves whites in a minority, I think the effect of that on white lifestyles will be small. The crime problem will increase and foolish government restrictions on business will limit prosperity but walled estates and security guards are just some of the measures that can keep crime at bay for the more affluent population segment, while foolish government regulations are regrettably common everywhere. Obama and the Greenies did their best to throttle American prosperity but even under that regime there was some economic growth.

Economic restrictions just lead to ways for circumventing them -- the famous "black markets" are a case in point and successful entrepreneurship just entails a degree of corruption. Italy today is a very prosperous place with many rich people (and over a thousand admirals!) but by most estimates about a third of the Italian economy is "black".

So I think that even under some fairly dire outcomes of a prolonged baby bust among American whites, a white population will continue to flourish for a long time.

If the baby bust goes on for a very long time, American whites would of course die out -- to cheers from whatever is left of the Greenies -- but that is not likely. Even in today's world there are many maternal women who just hunger for a baby so they will continue to reproduce themselves regardless of what others do. It may be that the white population will come to consist entirely of their progeny -- in which case we will see a white population INCREASE occurring, even if off a much smaller base than we have today -- JR.

The United States just hit a 40-year low in its fertility rate, according to numbers just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2017 provisional estimate of fertility for the entire U.S. indicates about 3.85 million births in 2017 and a total fertility rate of about 1.76 births per women.

These are low numbers: births were as high as 4.31 million in 2007, and the total fertility rate was 2.08 kids back then.

SOURCE

WA: Energy sprawl threatens Kittitas County tourism

Kittitas County has an award-winning tourism sector. Yet the county will struggle to reap the benefits of recent investments when the state’s energy siting council approves its fourth energy project in the Kittitas valley just north of downtown Ellensburg.

A French multinational corporation just asked the council to approve 31 giant turbines. At almost 500 feet, nearly as tall as Seattle’s Space Needle, these will be the tallest seen on U.S. soil. Spanning 4,400 acres along Highway 97, this energy project will threaten tourism efforts, stifling growth in local jobs and tax revenues.

The Chamber of Commerce and other local groups teamed up to create a tourism theme emphasizing the area’s rural roots such as the “Barn Quilt Trail Map”, “Hometown Holidays” and the Ellensburg Rodeo. The county carved a niche that complements more established promotions like Yakima’s wine country and Leavenworth. These strategies depend on the same asset to draw tourists, the scenic attractiveness of rural landscapes.

Gov. Jay Inslee recently recognized tourism as a major vehicle for building stronger rural communities by approving tourism bill SB 5251. Washington’s Tourism Office aims to promote natural wonders, hiking, and outdoor recreation opportunities throughout the state. However, tourism assets become liabilities when energy developments dominate the landscape.

Research from Europe, where wind turbines have operated for 25 years, offers insights for decision-makers here. Studies report wind turbines dramatically decrease the attractiveness of a destination for tourists. A 2015 study of 2200 German communities show taller turbines create the strongest negative impact on tourism. Research from Scotland is making similar headlines that 55 percent of tourists are “less likely to visit areas of the countryside industrialized by giant turbines.” Deploying turbines across Scotland’s scenic highlands also reduced tourism jobs by 7 to 14 percent in affected areas. Scotland’s policy outlines a standard for compensating communities, roughly $7,000 per megawatt from energy developers. Elected officials advocate for “a fair share in the revenues generated from their natural resources.”

Scotland and Germany are not alone in voicing concerns. England’s popular Lake District will dismantle wind turbines this summer. Local groups say dismantling turbines restores views. In the U.S., rural communities face the same dilemma.

Tourism will not flourish when over half of tourists avoid visiting areas with industrial-scale energy.

Tourism is the state’s fourth largest industry and weathers economic downturns better than most. State employment data report tourism delivered the largest increase in Kittitas County jobs from 2004-2016. Tourism jobs increased by 66 percent locally, with accommodations and food services accounting the majority of all new jobs added. By contrast, government jobs, including Central Washington University, decreased by 22 percent during the same period.

“Looking at these data, it is safe to say that tourism is extremely important to the Kittitas County labor market,” said Don Meseck, the state’s regional economist. No other non-farm industry makes as strong a contribution to the local economy.

For tourism to grow in our rural communities, Washington needs a moratorium on permitting new energy projects. Policymakers should consider land-use conflicts that threaten the scenic vistas vital to tourism’s success.

As a state, we could learn from Maine’s moratorium on permits for new wind turbines. Gauging effects on rural tourism is an important issue for our state. “We cannot afford to damage our natural assets in ways that would deter visitors from returning,” according to Gov. Paul LePage.

A moratorium on energy siting is critical here for tourism’s development. A statewide vision of tourism’s future and the long-term economic welfare of our communities is at stake.

SOURCE

Black Plague: Wind Turbine Construction Turning Ontario’s Water Supply to Toxic Sludge

It’s not just that the wind industry is destroying Ontario’s water supplies that peeves people, it’s that they continue to lie about it.

Over the last few months, STT has reported several times on how the wind industry has relentlessly destroyed underground water supplies in Chatham-Kent, lying about the cause all the way along.

Adding insult to injury, the public health authorities have sided with the wind industry; treating its victims with equal, if not greater, cynicism and contempt.

Polite they may be, but these people are not fools. Finally, the disaster is being taken seriously by a few of their elected representatives. And, about time, too.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath stopped in the Dresden area while in Chatham-Kent Wednesday to meet with affected well owners in the North Kent One wind project area to see first hand the sediment-laden water families are dealing with. From left is Lambton-Kent Middlesex NDP candidate Todd Case, Chatham-Kent Essex NDP candidate Jordan McGrail, water well owner Dave Lusk and Horwath.

Just days after information on how deep pile driving methods could impact adjacent water wells was discovered in a company blog, the Hydro One consulting firm pulled down the info from its website.

Brought to the public’s attention by Essex MPP Taras Natyshak, the blog on the EBS Geostructural website referenced the North Kent One wind turbine project in North Chatham and the recommendation to use a micro-piling method of construction for the turbine foundation instead of the deep piling method.

“The potential for driven pile installation to cause issues with nearby active water wells” was given as the first point as to why the company recommended to use the micro pile (drilled) method instead of the deep pile (hammer) method to anchor the foundation.

That sentence was removed from the company blog, causing members of Water Wells First and Natyshak to question why the only reference to potential impact to water wells was removed and who ordered it done.

“It has Erin Brokovich written all over it,” Natyshak said in a phone interview with The Chatham Voice. “It’s the old ‘cover up is worse than the crime’ adage. In this day and age, would they not realize we would screen capture the initial report? Of course we did; we have several copies.”

After reaching out to EBS officials via e-mail, the company marketing director responded quickly, saying the statement was removed from their site, as it wasn’t being used “correctly.”

“We’d like to clarify any confusion that our Chatham-Kent blog post has caused,” Stephanie Aires said in an e-mail. “Our blog posts are for promotional purposes only, and are not intended as reports. Some blog statements are job specific, while others are general statements about the services and technologies we offer.

“EBS Geostructural Inc. has chosen to remove specific statements from the Chatham-Kent blog as they were being used incorrectly. EBS chose to remove the statement on our own accord and were not asked by anyone to remove or alter it. We apologize for the misunderstanding that our promotional blog caused.”

Natyshak found the fact only the sentence referring to water wells was removed “interesting” and wants answers.

“It does raise a whole host of other questions. Who ordered that to EBS Geostructural? Who pressured them to remove that phrase from their website?” Natyshak said. “Ultimately, we know the issue here is liability, when we get down to brass tacks. The minute they assume liability and responsibility for contaminating these wells, the numbers start to escalate in regards to what the recourse is and what reparation looks like.”

The Essex MPP added that there are several options for recourse open to the wind farm company and the government.

“Does it look like bringing out municipal water to those homes – how much will that cost and who pays for it? There’s shutting down those lines until the aquifer returns to normal and those folks can have access to the water they had previous. Does it look like massive ongoing maintenance for home filtration systems for these residents and the costs associated with that? Or the fourth option is shutting them down completely in perpetuity,” he questioned.

One thing the member from Essex is sure of is that he will not be letting up on his questions to the premier.

“We are going to continue to push this issue in the legislature before we enter the election and after. I’m not giving up on these people until there is a solution found. There is no way in Ontario in 2018 that residents in our province shouldn’t have access to clean and safe drinking water – not a chance; not under my watch,” Natyshak said.

The MPP said he wishes he got involved earlier in the issue but didn’t want to step into a neighbouring riding.

“I just wish I could have gotten on it sooner because it’s just devastating. There’s no way this should be happening. This area means a lot to me. I’ve fished and duck hunted in that area my whole life and it’s quintessential southwestern Ontario and Lake St. Clair shoreline and farmland. To make it unlivable and uninhabitable; no way, no chance. Not on my watch,” he added.

While Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was in Chatham-Kent on Wednesday, Natyshak said she took time out to visit the farm of Dave Lusk, an affected well owner, and Theresa Pumphrey to see first hand what they are dealing with.

“What I saw yesterday was outrageous,” said Horwath in a release. “Dave and his family have lived on that farm for generations and never had an issue with water quality before the pile driving began nearby. These families deserve for their government to take this seriously – Kathleen Wynne needs to direct her ministry of health to complete a health hazard investigation at the contaminated wells immediately.”

Samsung and Pattern Energy had provided the affected families with a temporary water source, but the tanks are now slowly being removed from affected farms. Lusk told Horwath that he has purchased a new water tank at a cost of more than $1,200. In addition to the cost of the tank, he expects to pay another $400 to hook it up to the plumbing system in his home and $60 every two weeks to keep the tank full.

“What used to cost Dave $10 per month will now cost him $120 per month, just so he can have drinkable water at home,” said Horwath. “That’s no way for people to live. It’s ludicrous that Kathleen Wynne is allowing these families to go without safe drinking water.”

Residents have had the black water collected and analyzed by scientific experts who have found the water contains Black Shale sediment. Black Shale is a known environmental hazard because it contains heavy metals which can be released into a person’s body if the water is ingested. Some farmers have reported that they are so reluctant to use this contaminated water that they are feeding their livestock bottled water instead.

SOURCE

Illusion of knowledge warming the planet

In this the 30th anniversary year of the IPCC, we should look back and remember the original sin with which it was born and how that has condemned us to dishonesty in science, ignorance-based policies and social division on a global scale.

Nobel prize-winning theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, in an essay for the New York Times Magazine in 1930, concluded there were limits to science. When the number of factors to consider became too large, the scientific method failed us, he wrote. Like weather patterns, for example. ‘Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.’

Judging by policies such as the catastrophic renewable energy obsession, the uncertainty of many climate scientists has not alerted politicians. ‘Understanding uncertainty associated with the complex, nonlinear and chaotic climate system, let alone managing it, is a very challenging endeavour. Hence it is tempting for scientists and policy makers to simplify uncertainty to make it appear that the appropriate considerations have been undertaken,’ says acclaimed climate scientist Dr Judith Curry.

She argues that the IPCC ‘oversimplifies the characterisation of uncertainty by substituting “expert judgment” for a thorough understanding of uncertainty. They look at “evidence for” and “evidence against” (but somehow neglect a lot of the “evidence against”), and completely neglect to acknowledge ignorance. The bottom line is that the climate system is too complex with myriad uncertainties for simple reductionist approaches to understanding and managing uncertainty to be useful.’

The challenge, she says with unflinching optimism, is ‘to open the scientific debate to a broader range of issues and a plurality of viewpoints and for politicians to justify policy choices in a context of an inherently uncertain knowledge base.’ Inherently uncertain knowledge base…

The recently deceased and much acclaimed Stephen Hawking held the view that ‘The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.’

So the first challenge is to convince policy makers (and other stakeholders and observers) that it is an illusion of knowledge that has underpinned current energy policies. That illusion has been generated by those in the scientific community for whom certainty in this subject was the irresistible dark side.

There is a perfectly apt quote attributed to Mark Twain (in the movies The Big Short, as well as in An Inconvenient Truth, ironically enough): ‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.’

What is known – uncontestably – is that Earth’s climate changes. Warming and cooling periods over the millennia are well understood (even by scientists wishing to hide some of these events in pursuit of an agenda).

What is known for sure ‘but just ain’t so’ is that carbon dioxide is the key driver of global warming (never mind there hasn’t been any warming for two decades). That assertion, so far unquantified and uncertain, has underpinned all climate-related energy policies as if it were known.

The ‘original sin’ 30 years ago that has blighted the study of climate change was the narrow and unscientific framing of its objectives in terms of an anthropogenic cause: burning of fossil fuels, notably coal. Carbon dioxide was pre-selected as the forcing agent for global warming when the IPCC was established.

‘The IPCC produces reports that support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is the main international treaty on climate change. The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to “stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-induced] interference with the climate system’.

So it is evident that ‘greenhouse gas concentrations’ were pre-emptively assumed to be ‘dangerous’ to our climate. Warming and human activity were thus stapled together both in the scientific formulation and in the broader socio-political sense. This approach has doomed scientific study to be hobbled by a presumptive approach that defies genuine science, curtails robust research and leads to disastrous public policies.

Scientists who caution against such certainty about the factors that drive climate change are routinely disparaged, shouted down and insulted. This is so even when they present reasonable and reasoned arguments, such as Australia’s late Bob Carter, whose 2015 book Why scientists disagree about global warming, with co-authors Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer, dares to be balanced, informed and rational.

In the book’s concluding chapter, they write: …climate scientists, like all humans, can be biased. Origins of bias include careerism, grant-seeking, political views, and confirmation bias.

Probably the only ‘consensus’ among climate scientists is that human activities can have an effect on local climate and that the sum of such local effects could hypothetically rise to the level of an observable global signal. The key questions to be answered, however, are whether the human global signal is large enough to be measured and if it is, does it represent, or is it likely to become, a dangerous change outside the range of natural variability? On these questions, an energetic scientific debate is taking place on the pages of peer-reviewed science journals.

Rather than rely exclusively on IPCC for scientific advice, policymakers should seek out advice from independent, nongovernment organisations and scientists who are free of financial and political conflicts of interest.

As Dr Curry points out, the disagreement leads to uncertainty:

The disagreement (among scientists) is not so much about observational evidence, but rather about the epistemic status of climate models, the logics used to link the observational evidence into arguments, the overall framing of the problem and overconfident conclusions in the face of incomplete evidence and understanding.

SOURCE

Renewable energy investment surges as Australia on track to exceed RET

There's nothing like a juicy government subsidy to guarantee your profits. This is tax mining

Investor appetite for renewable energy projects, such as large-scale solar and wind projects, is set to help Australia exceed its 2020 Renewable Energy Target two years ahead of schedule.

While coal and gas-fired power are still the dominant fuel source in the National Electricity Market, investors are voting with their money and backing more than $20 billion in renewable projects as Australia moves to a less carbon-intensive economy.

But the surge in renewable investment is not expected to remain at record levels unless the Turnbull government becomes more ambitious with its emissions reduction targets under its proposed National Energy Guarantee, which is currently set at 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Although conservatives in the Turnbull government party room would like a new coal-fired power station to be built in Australia, the private sector has shown no interest in funding a $5 billion, new, high-efficiency, low-emissions power plant, a fact acknowledged by Treasurer Scott Morrison and federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg.

The Turnbull government is attempting to push through the NEG to replace the RET after 2020. The energy sector is keen to ensure a new mechanism will help keep renewable investment flowing out to 2030 and beyond, and to end 10 years of uncertainty over climate change and energy policy.

The latest update from the Clean Energy Regulator this month found there was 6553 megawatts of capacity from renewable energy projects under construction or already built – this is above the 6400 megawatts of capacity required to meet the RET.

The RET requires 23.5 per cent of Australia's energy – or 33,000 gigawatt hours – to come from clean energy sources by 2020, with key investments to keep flowing out until 2030.

The CER said there was also an additional 1454 megawatts of projects subject to power purchase agreements that are likely to be fully financed and under construction this calender year.

Almost half of the 6553 megawatts under construction has already been accredited and generating large-scale generation certificates (LGCs), with a further 1592 megawatts having applied for accreditation and expected to soon be generating them.

"We expect the 2020 Renewable Energy Target to be exceeded at current build levels," the Clean Energy Regulator said.

"The judgment that the RET will be exceeded takes into account the effect of updated AEMO marginal loss factors and expected curtailment as a result of network congestion. The Clean Energy Regulator is aware of other projects that are likely to be announced in the near term."

The rush to invest in renewable projects past 2020 is also likely to result in a big drop in the price of LGCs, which will embolden clean energy industry advocates to debunk claims that renewable projects can only get off the ground if they have heavily subsidised by taxpayers.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance said there was a record $12 billion in renewables investment in Australia in 2017, with $3.2 billion so far this year. But Green Energy Markets Renewable Energy Index estimated there was more than $20 billion projects under way, contracted or under tender that would add 9691 megawatts of new capacity to the NEM by the early 2020s.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance's Australia head Kobad Bhavnagri said there was likely to be a tapering of renewable investment in the lead-up to 2020 given the target had been met and even exceeded. The price of LGCs were likely to stay low now the RET has been met.

He said the investment was likely to be lower in future years unless the federal government increased the 26 per cent target under the NEG, either from a change of heart from the Coalition or an in-coming Labor administration.

"It's likely to taper in 2018 and then collapse after 2020 because the National Energy Guarantee requires very little investment to be met," Mr Bhavnagri told The Australian Financial Review.

"It's more likely to be stop-start in the future to replace the exit of coal-fired generation [like AGL Energy's Liddell in 2022 and Delta Energy's Vales Point in 2028]."

Surge in solar

Under Bloomberg's projections, Australia will reach 23 per cent below 2005 level emissions by 2020 – meaning Australia will only need to achieve 3 percentage points over a decade to achieve the NEG target, something which Mr Bhavgnari believes will be achieved through the on-going rollout of small-scale solar.

A Climate Council report released this week found there were now 40,000 commercial solar systems installed in Australia, an increase of 60 per cent between 2016 and 2017.

Pacific Hydro's 80 megawatt Crowlands wind farm near Ararat in Victoria, which secured $80 million in project financing this week, is an example of the money flowing into renewable energy projects.

The Crowlands wind farm, which will comprise 39 wind turbines and create enough energy to power the yearly needs of about 50,000 Victorian homes, was financed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the National Australia Bank. It is the first project to be supported by a long-term power purchase arrangement with a group of corporates through the Melbourne Renewable Energy Project.

Planum Partners managing director Shaun Newing, who helped pull together the finance for the Crowlands project, said there was strong interest from banks to invest in renewable projects.

"We are seeing a lot of activity in that space. These projects are never easy to do. It depends on the quality of the sponsor and the quality of the revenue streams. But all the banks are well set up to finance renewable projects. They are keen to get involved," Mr Newing said.

SOURCE

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

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

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17 May, 2018

Who Turned Off the Lights?

Is anyone paying attention to the crisis that is going on in our electric power markets?

Over the past six months, at least four major nuclear power plants have been slated for shutdown, including the last one in operation in California. Meanwhile, dozens of coal plants have been shuttered as well — despite low prices and cleaner coal. Some of our major coal companies may go into bankruptcy.

This is a dangerous game we are playing with our most valuable resource outside of clean air and water. Traditionally, we've received almost half our electric power nationwide from coal and nuclear power, and for good reason. They are cheap, highly resilient and reliable.

The disruption to coal and nuclear power wouldn't be disturbing if this were happening as a result of market forces. That's only partially the case.

The amazing shale oil and gas revolution is providing Americans with cheap gas for home heating and power generation. Hooray. The price of natural gas has fallen by nearly two-thirds over the last decade, and this has put enormous price pressure on other forms of power generation.

But this is not a free-market story of Schumpeterian creative destruction. If it were, then wind and solar power would have been shut down years ago. They can't possibly compete on a level playing field with $3 natural gas.

In most markets, solar and wind power survive purely because the states mandate that as much as 30 percent of residential and commercial power come from these sources. The utilities have to buy it regardless of price. The California state legislature just mandated solar panels for homes built after 2020 (an added construction cost of about $10,000 per home).

Over $100 billion in subsidies have been doled out to big wind and big solar over the last decade. Even with the avalanche of taxpayer subsidies and bailout funds, many of these companies, such as Solyndra (which received $500 million in handouts), failed.

These industries are not anywhere close to self-sufficiency. Without a continuation of a multibillion-dollar tax credit, the wind turbines would stop turning.

This combines with the left's war on coal through regulations that have destroyed coal plants in many areas. (Thank goodness for the exports of coal, or the industry would be in much bigger trouble.)

Bottom line: Our power market is a Soviet central planner's dream come true, and it is extinguishing our coal and nuclear industries.

Why should anyone care?

First, because government subsidies, regulations and mandates make electric power more expensive. Natural gas prices have fallen by two-thirds, but electric power costs have still risen in most areas.

More importantly, the electric power market isn't accurately pricing in the value of resilience and reliability. What is the value of making sure the lights don't go off? What is the cost to the economy and human health if we have rolling brownouts because the grid doesn't have enough juice?

Politicians and federal regulators are shortsightedly killing our coal and nuclear capacities without considering the risk of future energy shortages and power disruptions. Once a nuclear plant is shutdown, you can't just fire it back up again when you need it.

Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable. Most places where wind power is used, coal plants are needed to back up the system during peak energy use and when the wind isn't blowing.

The first choice to fix energy markets is to finally end the tangled web of layers of taxpayer subsidies and mandates and let the market choose. Alas, that's nearly impossible, given the political clout of big wind and solar.

The second-best solution is for the regulators and utilities to take into account the reliability and safety of our energy. Would people be willing to pay a little more for their power to ensure against brownouts? I sure would. The cost of having too little energy far exceeds the cost of having too much.

A glass of water costs pennies, but if you're in a desert dying of thirst, that water may be worth thousands of dollars.

I'll admit I'm not sure what the best solution is to the power plant closures. But if we have major towns and cities in the country without electric power for stretches of time because of green-energy fixation, Americans are going to be mighty angry, and our economy will take a major hit.

When our manufacturers, schools, hospitals and internet shut down, we're not going to think wind and solar power are so chic.

If the lights start to go out five or 10 years from now, we will look back at what is happening today and wonder how we could have been so darn stupid.

SOURCE

The Government Relies on Flawed Data to Determine Endangered Species

Americans who live in or near a community built around a lake should be careful about stepping outside to mow the lawn if the temperature isn’t just right and the grass isn’t a certain height.

They should keep pets indoors. They should forget about using weed killer. And they should be prepared to pony up a steep homeowners association fee.

That’s because there may be snakes in the area protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which imposes stiff penalties and fines for violating its rules and restrictions.

Rob Gordon, a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation, discovered the situation while researching the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 1999 decision to list the Lake Erie water snake as a “threatened” species.

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the population of that particular water snake to be somewhere between 1,530 and 2,030 at the time. But just a few years later, the agency revised it to 5,690.

The government either made a “substantial underestimation” with the initial listing or the water snake had “a truly miraculous population growth rate” in a short time, Gordon observes in a recently published research paper that finds the listing process under the Endangered Species Act to be riddled with “erroneous data.”

Gordon concludes that “essentially half of the species” identified by Fish and Wildlife Service officials as “recovered” never should have been listed in the first place.

The regulatory fallout for developers, homeowners, and business owners who run up against the endangered species law is the same regardless of whether federal officials used sound science or flawed methodology, Gordon told The Daily Signal in an interview.

“Once a species is listed, it is regulated and the way it’s regulated doesn’t vary dependent upon the quality of the data the agency used,” Gordon said. “If one listing is legitimate and another listing is illegitimate based on erroneous data, the practical consequences are the same to the property owner or the business owner. He or she still faces the same restrictions whether or not these restrictions are legitimately based on science.”

After reviewing the Fish and Wildlife Service’s documentation in the case of the Lake Erie water snake, Gordon found the agency worked to impose “surreal regulatory hurdles” against a developer who sought to build seven houses on 15 acres.

The Fish and Wildlife Service called for easements to be placed on over five acres of lakefront property that would be donated to a nonprofit organization. The agency also sought a $50,000 “contribution” from the developer to cover construction of a hibernation habitat for the snakes, and creation of a homeowners association that would impose additional restrictions.

‘Federally Funded Fiction’

The case of the Lake Erie water snake “is a small example of the heavy-handed regulatory process for just one of the nearly 1,700 listed species to which landowners and businesses are repeatedly subject across the nation,” Gordon writes in his paper.

Although the government delisted the snake in 2011, numerous restrictions popped up in the meantime.

Homeowners association restrictions stipulated that residents make sure no snake was within 20 feet when applying weed killer to poison ivy, that they not allow cats outside, and that they abide by seasonal height and temperature guidelines for mowing lawns. Collectively, residents also had to provide up to $18,750 for snake research, and allow researchers to have access to their properties.

“This seems really over the top, doesn’t it?” Gordon asked in the interview with The Daily Signal. “And keep in mind that the snake’s actual population numbers were probably undercounted in the first place.”

Gordon describes the recovery figures that Fish and Wildlife officials cite as “federally funded fiction” that dramatically inflate the number of species that genuinely were endangered and subsequently preserved.

“With all the ESA’s costs and burdens, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is fabricating success stories to cover up this unsustainable mess and substituting fluff for statutorily required reporting regarding the recovery program,” he writes of the law in his paper.

The errors that result in listing species that are not genuinely endangered stem in large part from the “low bar for scientific data” set by the agency, Gordon concluded.

The Endangered Species Act calls for the “best available scientific and commercial data” to be used in the listing process. But here’s the problem, from Gordon’s point of view: Fish and Wildlife officials interpreted this directive to mean the information underpinning a listing doesn’t need to be complete or accurate.

“The agency has not set a high enough bar and sometimes they are using scant or even nonexistent data to list species,” Gordon told The Daily Signal. “They are using speculation and surmise as opposed to verifiable data, and in some instances they won’t even share the data. It’s no wonder that consequently all sorts of species are erroneously listed. That’s what happens when you have weak data standards.”

How bad is the problem?

Of 1,662 plants and animals listed by the Fish and Wildlife Service as either “endangered” or “threatened” in the past 45 years, the government had removed 68 before Gordon published his paper in April.

Of those 68, 11 were removed from the list because they had gone extinct and 19 were removed because of errors in the original data. That leaves 38 species delisted because they were “recovered.”

Taxpayers on Hook for ‘Deceitful Practices’

Under the Endangered Species Act, the conservation process involves “the use of all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided … are no longer necessary.”

Endangered species are considered to be at the brink of extinction, while threatened species are considered likely to be so in the near future.

Gordon initially determined that “almost half” of the 38 species listed as “recovered” were actually “false recoveries” because they were based upon original data error.

However, since his paper was published three more species have been delisted and he has concluded that two—the lesser long-nosed bat and the black-capped vireo—were listed based on erroneous data.

For this reason, he now says “essentially half” of the species the Fish and Wildlife Service identified as recovered are not genuine recoveries.

Gordon says he also found other examples of “recovered” species that are really “mixed bags,” meaning the number of recoveries resting on erroneous data could be much higher.

The Daily Signal sought comment from the Interior Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service on Gordon’s findings and whether Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke might consider his recommended reforms. Officials had not responded as of publication.

Unfortunately, U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for “deceitful practices that portray mistakes as successes,” Gordon told The Daily Signal.

That’s because each listing sets in motion mandatory actions and government expenditures under federal law, he said.

For instance, according to Gordon’s paper, the Fish and Wildlife Service reported in 2014 that the “median cost for preparing and publishing a 90-day finding is $39,276; for a 12-month finding, $100,690; for a proposed rule with critical habitat, $345,000; and for a final listing rule with critical habitat, $305,000.”

“These are just the paperwork costs and the bureaucratic costs of listing species whether they were legitimately listed or if they were listed based on erroneous data,” he told The Daily Signal. “But they are a drop in the bucket compared to the costs borne by private parties such as companies, farmers, and ranchers who have to comply with all kinds of mandates and have to absorb the loss in the value of their land because of their inability to use it and other significant opportunity costs.”

Special Interest Groups Drive Litigation

Gordon points to restrictions the Fish and Wildlife officials sought to impose to protect the Lake Erie water snake as an example of excessively burdensome costs.

Gordon’s paper was the subject of a panel discussion April 25 at The Heritage Foundation where he was joined by Rob Roy Ramey, a wildlife biologist based in Denver, and Jonathan Wood, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation who specializes in environmental and constitutional law.

Ramey called for greater openness and transparency on the part of federal officials and suggested that all the data Fish and Wildlife officials use in their decisions to list species should be made public.

“That way we have a common currency of accountability available to the entire nation,” Ramey said at the Heritage event. Without access to the data, he said, “there’s no opportunity for reproducibility,” which means listing and delisting decisions may not be based on the best scientific information.

Ramey cited several examples of responses from government officials who resisted information requests. His personal favorite came from a “rogue recovery team member” who said:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data was deliberately provided in a format that would not facilitate detailed analysis by those unfamiliar with the manner in which the data was collected.

Other examples included “the data you requested are proprietary,” “we are still using this data,” and “those data may no longer exist.”

Ramey warned that Fish and Wildlife officials who have “cherry-picked” and “fabricated” data to list species as endangered or threatened drew resources away from creatures in genuine need of protection, such as blue whales, California condors, rhinoceroses, and gorillas.

Wood, the lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit headquartered in Sacramento, California, credited Gordon with research that shows how often examples of species recovery touted as successes for the Endangered Species Act “are little more than fake news.”

Special interest groups play a role in the listing process, Wood said at the Heritage event.

“What really drives the Endangered Species Act is litigation,” he said. “The reality is that the listing process is fundamentally broken, it is completely litigation driven, and it is a problem for administrations regardless of party.”

The Obama administration sought to develop a work plan to “seize some control back” over the listing process, Wood told the audience, so that key factors such as a species’ actual vulnerability would be considered and a listing would not be the result of “which special interest group is yelling the loudest.”

Potential Reforms for Interior Department

In his research, Gordon highlighted examples of listings where the initial count of a species population was dramatically off based on flawed methodology. He cited the Monito gecko during his talk at Heritage.

This lizard resides on Monito Island off the coast of Puerto Rico, which spans about 40 acres surrounded by 217-foot cliffs. The initial search Fish and Wildlife officials used as the basis to list the species in 1982 was organized during the day, when 18 lizards were found.

“The problem here is that the lizard is nocturnal,” Gordon told The Daily Signal. “So, if you are walking around during the middle of the day, you are not going to find it. The creature burrows down into rocks. In 2016, they finally did a proper survey during the evening and they came up with an estimate of about 5,000 to 10,000 geckos. That’s what you call a big difference.”

Gordon spelled out several potential reforms that the Trump administration’s Interior Department could embrace under Zinke’s leadership.

For starters, Zinke could issue an order directing the Fish and Wildlife Service “to accurately identify the data that forms the bases for removing or downlisting species,” Gordon writes in his report.

He also recommends that the agency correct the record and acknowledge instances where a species was wrongly declared to have “recovered.”

“Right now, the Fish and Wildlife Service asserts that the listings are driven by science, but in truth the listings are often driven by litigation and the scientific standards are so weak that they are often listing species as endangered when they should never have been listed,” Gordon said, adding:

The first step in correcting the problem is to admit that it exists. What needs to be done now is to go back and look at species that were claimed as recovered and to put your foot down and acknowledge that many of them were not really recoveries and they were based on erroneous data. Then, going forward, they need to make sure future listings are not based on speculation.

SOURCE

Second Study: Fracking Doesn't Contaminate Groundwater

Once again, the ecofascist dogmatic narrative against fracking isn't supported by the facts

A new study on the practice of hydraulic fracturing (otherwise known as fracking) recently published in the Springer corroborates an earlier study conducted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Both studies found that fracking to extract oil or natural gas resulted in no contamination of groundwater, a charge popularly leveled against the oil and gas industry by environmentalists.

Using a form of radiocarbon dating to detect traces of natural methane gas (CH4) in groundwater near fracking sites, the study concluded, “We found no relationship between CH4 concentration or source in groundwater and proximity to active gas well sites. No significant changes in CH4 concentration, CH4 isotopic composition, pH, or conductivity in water wells were observed during the study period. These data indicate that high levels of biogenic CH4 can be present in groundwater wells independent of hydraulic fracturing activity.” To sum it up, the study found no evidence of any groundwater contamination from fracking activity.

And while environmentalists and ecofascists are typically quick to dismiss any studies that don’t comport with their desired narrative, including attacking the source of the study’s funding (often claiming the bill was footed by profit-driven oil companies), that dodge of relevant science will not be possible with this study. The two organizations that funded the study were the David & Sara Weston Foundation, whose mission is to “enrich and strengthen underserved communities in … the arts, environmental conservation and social services,” and the Deer Creek Foundation, whose objective is to “enrich the cultural and artistic quality of life in St. Louis metropolitan area.” Will environmentalists listen or does their commitment to ecofascist dogma prevent objective analysis? We think we know the answer. But we suppose they can always try raw water instead…

SOURCE

Anti-Pruitt Leaker Identified As Trump’s Former WH Scheduler Caroline Wiles

Caroline Wiles, President Donald Trump’s original White House scheduler, has been identified as a leaker involved in the scheme to knock out Cabinet members Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke.

Big League Politics has learned that Wiles worked with anti-Scott Pruitt EPA leaker Kevin Chmielewski, who was fired from the Trump administration for driving around a fake police car in traffic. They worked together in Florida governor Rick Scott’s office.

Chmielewski was the advance man for Paul Manafort on sketchy Ukraine trips. His plot was exposed when one of his comrades, Alex Hinson in the Department of the Interior, lost his government cell phone and his personal cell phone became subject to federal government review.

Wiles was dismissed by the White House in February shortly after taking office, according to the Fox affiliate in Jacksonville, because she failed an FBI background check. She is the daughter of Trump campaign strategist Susie Wiles.

Sources confirm the impression within the White House that Caroline Wiles was having an affair with Rick Gates, the Trump campaign adviser who was forced to plead guilty in the Robert Mueller case. Gates agreed to “cooperate.”

Wiles is identified as an engineer of a misleading Atlantic piece by Elaina Plott claiming that Michael Abboud, an EPA official close to Pruitt, was responsible for negative leaks against Zinke. It was a head fake to distract attention from the real conspirators.

The real conspirators: Kevin Chmielewski, Caroline Wiles of the White House personnel office, and Alex Hinson at the Department of the Interior (who is now said to be living with his parents as Ryan Zinke tries to figure out what to do about the young man’s leaking).

SOURCE

Study finds Australian weather experts have been getting it wrong preparing for severe events

Yet they reckon that they can tell us what will happen in 100 year's time

From scientific research to the community response, a new study out today outlines just how at risk Australians have been — and will continue to be — because of the “bad job” experts have been doing predicting and preparing for extreme weather.

The research warns events can often come as a “double whammy” and stress now is the time to realise most major weather and climate catastrophes are caused not by one hazard at a time, but by a combination of processes.

In their paper published in Nature Climate Change, the scientists say we may be underestimating the risks and a better understanding of the combination of factors contributing to a weather event may improve projections.

The research comes as the country is hit with an autumnal big chill, with temperatures forecast to drop again this week.

Both Adelaide and Darwin recorded their coldest starts to the day this year on Monday morning, a shiver inducing 5.9C in the South Australian capital but an almost balmy 19.7C in the tropical Top End.

University of Adelaide lecturer in civil and environmental engineering, Dr Michael Leonard, said traditional planning and modelling had looked at one weather event occurring on its own rather than multiple factors.

Dr Leonard highlighted the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria and the Brisbane floods of 2011 as examples.

He said while the fires were brought about because of drought and a heatwave, they were driven by a high pressure system and resulted in hospitals being stretched, so there were multiple considerations.

“With the floods it was two storms in quick succession and there wasn’t enough appreciation for the quick succession of storms,” Dr Leonard said. “The problem is we need to look at multiple extreme things happening together.

“There’s something that catches us off guard and as a professional community, we could do it better and try come up with these possible combinations to avoid getting caught out like that.

“It’s very easy to invent a doomsday scenario and dismiss it because it’s not practical, saying: ‘I can’t plan for that, then what’s the point?’ so people are reluctant.”

Dr Leonard said in terms of being prepared for floods, planning could be better and systems updated because computing power to test the variability of storms had come a long way.

He also said the risks of hazards needed to be better understood. “There’s really a need to revise our critical infrastructure and use computing power to come up with events that are possible to get a better idea of what can possibly go wrong,” he said. “I think we do a bad job with that.

“People have not done as good a job of ‘what’s the chance of some of these things happening together?’”

The international paper was led by the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland with Australian researchers from the University of Adelaide and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes with the University of New South Wales.

They recommend ways climate scientists, engineers, social scientists, impact modellers and decision-makers can work closely together to understand complex weather events.

“Usually when we experience these catastrophic failures it’s not one thing that’s gone wrong, it’s a whole sequence of things that have gone wrong and we need to guard against that,” Dr Leonard said.

“But there's also lots of practical challenges if we have multiple extremes happening together. “When hazards impact communities we’ll hear, ‘the one that caught us by surprise’ and ‘we didn’t see it coming’ or ‘this wasn’t like the ones we’ve seen before’.

“We need to appreciate the variability in conditions we can experience and therefore avoid false complacency or false security — last time there was a fire it didn’t come near us, we got out with plenty of time — the next time there’s an alert it can diminish the implications of it.”

SOURCE

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

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16 May, 2018

Climate Heresy: Natural Factors Behind Observed Changes In Hurricanes

Here’s something you don’t witness very often…German national public radio telling listeners that natural factors are behind observed changes in something related to climate.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the German media claim storms are linked to our disdainful energy gluttony. So it comes as quite a shock when you hear something about climate that doesn’t conform to Potsdam Institute dogmatism.

At their Die kalte Sonne site here, Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt bring up an example of how German DLF national radio. I’ve translated the German text:

Hurricanes are developing more quickly today than 30 years ago due to the Atlantic ocean cycle

A team of researchers at the US Department of Energy and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently made an exciting discovery: Apparently, hurricanes are developing more quickly today than they did 30 years ago. Earlier it took longer, but now maximum strength is reached sooner.

The scientists have found the culprit – drum roll – no, it’s not the wanton activity of mankind, rather it’s the Atlantic AMO ocean cycle, which fluctuates with a period of 60 years. During the course of the AMO cycle, hurricanes change accordingly.

Here’s the press release from May 9, 2018:

Powerful hurricanes strengthen faster now than 30 years ago
The storms intensify more rapidly today due largely to a natural climate phenomenon

Hurricanes that intensify rapidly — a characteristic of almost all-powerful hurricanes — do so more strongly and quickly now than they did 30 years ago, according to a study published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

While many factors are at play, the chief driver is a natural phenomenon that affects the temperature of the waters in the Atlantic where hurricanes are powering up, according to scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They found that a climate cycle known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or AMO is central to the increasing intensification of hurricanes, broadly affecting conditions like sea temperature that are known to influence hurricanes.

Stronger hurricanes in a day’s time

Last year’s lineup of powerful storms — Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria — spurred the scientists to take a close look at the rapid intensification process. This occurs when the maximum wind speed in a hurricane goes up by at least 25 knots (28.8 miles per hour) within a 24-hour period. It’s a rite of passage for nearly all major hurricanes, including the big four of 2017.

The team, comprised of Karthik Balaguru and Ruby Leung of PNNL and Greg Foltz of NOAA, analyzed 30 years’ worth of satellite hurricane data encompassing 1986 through 2015. The information came from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center and the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

Consistent with other studies, the scientists did not find that rapid intensification is happening more often nowadays.

But the scientists also looked closely at just how much the storms are strengthening. They found a sizeable jump in the strength of fast-growing storms — the storms are getting more powerful more quickly within a 24-hour period than they were 30 years ago.

The team found that the average boost in wind speed during a 24-hour intensification event is about 13 mph more than it was 30 years ago — on average about 3.8 knots (4.3 mph) for each of the three decades studied.

Several factors play a role when a hurricane gains more power rapidly, including the temperature of the surface of the ocean, humidity, characteristics of the clouds, the heat content in the ocean, and the direction of the wind at the surface compared to miles above. Among the biggest factors affecting the increase in magnitude in the last 30 years, according to the team’s analysis:

• The amount of heat available in the uppermost layer of the ocean, known as the ocean heat content. The warmer the upper ocean, the more powerful a hurricane can become.

• Wind shear: The less the vertical wind shear — the difference in the direction and force of the winds at the surface compared to several miles into the air — the more powerful the hurricane can become.

The influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
The team found that the biggest factor explaining the increasingly rapid intensification is the AMO. The result comes in part from analyses using 16 separate climate models to isolate the impact of global warming.

“This was a surprise, that the AMO seems to be a bigger influence in rapid intensification than other factors, including overall warming,” said Balaguru, the first author of the paper.

The AMO governs how the temperature of the waters in the North Atlantic cycles between warmer and cooler, with each period typically lasting a decade or more.

The cycling occurs for reasons scientists don’t completely understand, but it has broad effects on the environment.

For example, it plays a big part in determining the heat content of the oceans, an important factor powering hurricanes. The AMO has generally been “positive” — causing warmer waters — since the late 1990s.

Balaguru noted that while rapid intensification historically has occurred more often in the western Atlantic, that’s not where the team found the increasing strength of the last 30 years.

Rather, the phenomenon is strengthening more in the central and eastern Atlantic, especially to the east of the islands of the Lesser Antilles, which includes the Virgin Islands and Saint Kitts.

That’s the same area where the AMO creates warmer waters and boosts ocean heat content, in the central and eastern Atlantic.

That’s exactly the alley where hurricanes Irma, Jose and Maria powered up rapidly last year. It’s a proving ground of sorts where many of the most powerful hurricanes strengthen dramatically.

Balaguru notes that teasing out the effects of the AMO from broader effects of global warming was beyond the scope of the current study but is a focus for scientists.”

Even the IPCC-trumpeting Deutschlandfunk (DLF) found this worth reporting. On May 9, 2018, listeners indeed heard on the daily program “Forschung Aktuell” (Current Research) the following points:

Despite climate change, hurricanes have not become more frequent (which totally contradicts the usual DLF claims on this subject).
The current faster strengthening of hurricanes has NOTHING to do with anthropogenic global warming (AGW), but rather it depends on the AMO phase.

The causes of the AMO cycles are unknown and have nothing to do with AGW.

Yet, it is a pity that these revolutionary climate-realist claims (by DLF standards) were presented in just a very short report and that the inconvenient facts were not reported on in greater detail…

Don’t hold your breath thinking this is a new media awakening happening in Germany.

Expect Stefan Rahmstorf of the alarmist Potsdam Vatican to order the science illiterate DLF editors to be led deep down somewhere in the catacombs, and be made to recant the heresy.

SOURCE

The ethanol gravy train rolls on

Opponents make compelling case but can’t derail or even slow this well-protected industry

Paul Driessen

Like most people I’ve spoken with, I have no innate, inflexible antipathy to ethanol in gasoline. What upsets me are the deceptive claims used to justify adding mostly corn-based ethanol to this indispensable fuel; the way seriously harmful unintended consequences are brushed aside; and the insidious crony corporatist system the ethanol program has spawned between producers and members of Congress.

What angers me are the legislative and regulatory mandates that force us to buy gasoline that is 10% ethanol – even though it gets lower mileage than 100% gasoline, brings none of the proclaimed benefits (environmental or otherwise), drives up food prices, and damages small engines. In fact, in most areas, it’s almost impossible to find E-zero gasoline, and that problem will get worse as mandates increase.

My past articles lambasting ethanol (here, here, here and here) addressed these issues, and said ethanol epitomizes federal programs that taxpayers and voters never seem able to terminate, no matter how wasteful or harmful they become. That’s primarily because its beneficiaries are well funded, motivated, politically connected and determined to keep their gravy train rolling down the tracks – while opponents and victims have far less funding, focus, motivation and ability to reach the decision-making powers.

Ethanol got started because of assertions that even now are still trotted out, despite having outlived their time in the real-world sun. First, we were told, ethanol would be a bulwark against oil imports from unfriendly nations, especially as the USA depleted its rapidly dwindling petroleum reserves. Of course, the fracking (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) revolution has given America and the world at least a century of new reserves, and the US now exports more oil and refined products than it imports.

Second, renewable fuels would help prevent dangerous manmade climate change. However, with the 2015-16 El Niño temperature spike now gone, average global temperatures are continuing the 20-year no-increase trend that completely contradicts alarmist predictions and models. Harvey was the first major hurricane in a record twelve years to make US landfall. And overall, the evidence-based scientific case for “dangerous manmade climate change” has become weaker with every passing year.

Moreover, the claim that ethanol and other biofuels don’t emit as much allegedly climate-impacting (but certainly plant-fertilizing) carbon dioxide as gasoline has also been put out to pasture. In reality, over their full life cycle (from planting and harvesting crops, to converting them to fuel, to transporting them by truck, to blending and burning them), biofuels emit at least as much CO2 as their petroleum counterparts.

Ironically, the state that grows the most corn and produces the most ethanol – the state whose Republican senators had a fit when EPA proposed to reduce its 2018 non-ethanol biodiesel requirement by a measly 315 million gallons, out of 19.3 billion gallons in total renewable fuels – buys less ethanol-laced gasoline than do average consumers in the rest of the USA. That state is Iowa.

In fact, Iowans bought more ethanol-free gasoline in 2016 than what EPA projects the entire United States will be able to buy in just a few more years, as the E10 mandates ratchet higher and higher.

And so this past week, after months of battles, debates and negotiations, President Trump hosted a White House meeting with legislators The purpose was to address and compromise on at least some of the thorny issues that had put Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst and other politicians at loggerheads, as they sought to reform some aspects of the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) system while protecting their constituents.

In an effort to expand the reform agenda, by making legislators and citizens better informed in advance of the meeting, 18 diverse organizations wrote a joint letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, underscoring why they believe broad and significant RFS reform is essential. Signatories included major national meat and poultry producers and processors, restaurants, marine manufacturers, small engine owners, consumer and taxpayer organizations, and conservation and environmental groups. They were especially worried about the prospect that the Congress and Administration might allow year-round sales of 15% (E15) ethanol blends in gasoline, but they raised other pressing concerns as well.

* As large shares of domestic corn and soy crops are now diverted from food use to fuel production, poultry, beef, pork and fish producers (and consumers) face volatile and increasing prices for animal feed.

* Ethanol wreaks havoc on the engines and fuel systems of boats, motorcycles and lawn equipment, as well as many automobiles, which are not capable or allowed to run on E15. Repair and replacement costs are a major issue for marine and small engine owners (as I personally discovered when I owned a boat).

* Consumers and taxpayers must pay increasing costs as biofuel mandates increase under the RFS.

* Millions of acres of native prairie and other ecosystems have been turned into large-scale agricultural developments, because the RFS encourages farmers to plow land, instead of preserving habitats. This endangers ecosystems and species, exacerbates agricultural run-off and degrades water quality.

* Biofuel demand promotes conversion of natural habitats to palm oil and other plantations overseas, as well as domestically. Their life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions rival or exceed those of oil and gas.

* Expanding markets for corn ethanol by increasing E15 sales ignores and exacerbates these problems – while benefiting a small subset of the US economy but negatively impacting far more sectors, including the general public and the industries and interests represented by signatories to the Pruitt letter.

Following the meeting, several signatories expanded on these concerns – and noted that the compromise did increase E15 sales, while reducing the RFS impact on small refineries that were being forced to buy paper biofuel certificates because they weren’t making enough gasoline to need mandated real biofuel.

Requiring every American to buy ethanol gasoline “isn’t good enough” for biofuel companies anymore, the National Council of Chain Restaurants remarked. “Now they want a waiver from federal clean air laws so they can sell high blends of ethanol, which pollutes the air in warm weather months, year round.”

“Arbitrarily waiving the E15 [ozone emissions] restriction and permitting year-round E15 sales, without comprehensive reform of the RFS,” merely boosts ethanol sales and justifies future government-imposed increases to the ethanol mandate, the National Taxpayers Union noted. These “hidden taxes,” damage to small engines, and lower gas mileage are “a direct hit” on family budgets, especially for poor families.

The new year-round E15 policy will “cause serious chaos for recreational boaters,” the National Marine Manufacturers Association stated. Over 60% of consumers falsely assume any gasoline sold at retail gas stations must be safe for their equipment. It is essential that EPA launch “a public awareness campaign, improved labeling standards, and new safeguards at the pump that protect American consumers.”

“Granting a Clean Air Act waiver for the corn ethanol industry … would mean doubling down on a policy that has already been a disaster for the environment,” the National Wildlife Federation said. Congress needs to … reform the ethanol mandate before it does more damage.”

“US farmers are in a severe crisis and millions of people around the world are forced to go without food,” ActionAid USA pointed out. “We need policies that guarantee everyone enough food to eat, fair prices for farmers, and protect our environment. Biofuels don’t do that.” In fact, they make the situation far worse.

Unfortunately, a deal was struck. The noisiest and best-connected warring factions got what they wanted. These other pressing concerns were ignored, as the can once again got kicked down the road.

Refiners will now save hundreds of millions of dollars a year, by not having to buy ethanol that they don’t need to blend into the smaller quantities of gasoline they are refining. Corn farmers and ethanol producers will rake in hundreds of millions more a year. All that is good for those industries, their workers and investors, and the politicians who get their campaign contributions.

But what about the rest of America? The Congress, White House and EPA need to address our environmental and pocketbook concerns, too. When will the next negotiating session be held?

Via email

Scotland: Madness In Court As Politicians Are Caught Out In Fantasy Over Fracking

As last week’s astonishing hearing at the Court of Session made plain, any ambitious business that wants to invest, innovate, and create jobs, would be mad to hang their shingle in Scotland.

In case you missed it, the Scottish government was up before the beak over its decision to ban fracking last year in a case was brought by Ineos owner Jim Ratcliffe and Reach CSG.

We know fracking is banned because first minister Nicola Sturgeon told us so last year. She shouted: “Fracking is being banned in Scotland, end of story.” Meanwhile, the SNP’s website states: “The Scottish Government has put in place a ban on fracking in Scotland — meaning fracking cannot and will not take place in Scotland.” That pretty much passes the duck test.

Yet James Mure QC, the expensive silk representing the Scottish government, insisted the suggestion that fracking had been banned in Scotland was, er . . . wrong. He told the Court: “The concept of an effective ban is a gloss. It is the language of a press statement.”

Ineos director Tom Pickering rightly described it as an “Alice in Wonderland” situation. But why is anyone surprised?

We live in a political environment where the nation’s insipid economic growth is continually greeted as “good news” by the Scottish government, despite the fact that it is abysmal compared with that of the wider UK.

Then there’s the £500m business fund that has still failed to offer any significant cash to the nation’s entrepreneurs. There’s the vague plans for a National Investment Bank and the global business hubs across Europe’s capitals that exist mostly in the SNP’s imagination.

The crass duplicity on display in court last week is what passes for government in Scotland. A devolved parliament where the truth has no constituency and accountability is avoided at all costs. A place where, as Mr Pickering succinctly put it, businesses have to go to court to determine if ministerial announcements can be taken at face value.

But this government isn’t just failing employers. Look at the debacle of our National Health Service in Scotland, the mess the Scottish government has created in our education system where standards are falling like a stone and teachers are paying for school supplies.

Ratcliffe’s company has invested £1.5bn at Grangemouth, the biggest industrial investment Scotland has seen for decades. His firm accounts for about 4% of Scotland’s economy. Along with the 1,300 workers at Grangemouth, Falkirk council estimates about 9,000 jobs in the area depend on the plant. He invested £200m buying the Forties pipeline, and has also spent, in good faith, £50m acquiring what are, to all intents and purposes, useless fracking licences in Scotland.

Despite this, and despite Ratcliffe’s clear commitment to Scotland, the Scottish government has consistently opposed his ambition and insulted his investment.

SOURCE

Conservative Groups Take a Stand, Go Against Carbon Tax

A coalition of conservative and free market think tanks are heaping praise on an anti-carbon tax resolution that was recently introduced in the lower chamber of Congress.

Americans for Tax Reform, along with more than 20 like-minded organizations, issued a joint statement Thursday in support of a House resolution that explicitly condemns a tax on carbon dioxide pollution. Majority Whip Steve Scalise and West Virginia Rep. David McKinley introduced the nonbinding resolution.

The one page resolution states that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses, and is not in the best interest of the United States.”

The idea of a carbon tax — a charge levied on companies according to the amount of CO2 they emit into the atmosphere — has been recommended as a possible alternative to strict regulations. Liberal lawmakers and a handful of environmentally-minded Republicans have pushed such proposals.

The purpose of Thursday’s resolution is to get lawmakers on record as opposed to a carbon tax, according to Scalise. The Louisiana Republican argues that a carbon tax would largely undo progress the U.S. has made toward energy supremacy.

“Working with President Trump, this Congress is leading America toward energy dominance and strong economic growth, yet some liberal Washington special interests continue to pursue a radical agenda that includes imposing a job-killing carbon tax, which would raise costs on everything we buy from electricity and gasoline to food and everyday household products,” Scalise said Thursday as he introduced the resolution.

Others agree. A total of 26 like-minded organizations signed and published a letter in support of the majority whip’s resolution, adding that such a tax would all but erase the economic benefits made after the passage of GOP tax reform in 2017.

“The undersigned organizations urge you to support the concurrent resolution, introduced by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Congressman David McKinley (R- W.Va), which expresses the sense of the Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to the U.S. economy,” wrote the coalition of conservative groups, and published the same day the resolution was introduced. “We oppose any carbon tax. We oppose a carbon tax because it would lead to less income and fewer jobs for American families.”

In addition to Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, Competitive Enterprise Institute, FreedomWorks, Tea Party Nation, and several others signed the letter. The memorandum also listed the groups’ findings of what would likely happen if a carbon tax was enacted and warned of massive job losses and a heavy drop in GDP.

“For example, a 2014 Heritage Foundation report found that a $37 per ton carbon tax would lead to a loss of more than $2.5 trillion in aggregate gross domestic product by 2030. That is more than $21,000 in income loss per family,” the letter claimed. “In addition, a carbon tax would cost over 500,000 jobs in manufacturing and more than 1 million jobs by 2030. According to a 2013 CBO report, a carbon tax is highly regressive.”

However, carbon tax opponents should have little cause for worry. Energy dominance has been a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s agenda. President Donald Trump, who has worked prolifically on rolling back environmental regulations, is not inclined to levy a new tax on fossil fuel companies.

Despite the president’s energy agenda, and most congressional Republicans standing firmly against the idea of a carbon tax, there are still some that argue a carbon tax is a conservative solution to fighting climate change. Alex Flint, the executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions, is among them.

“Those who oppose a carbon tax are rallying their defenses for a reason: they see supporters gaining momentum,” Flint stated to the Washington Examiner in a report published Friday. “A revenue neutral carbon tax that replaces burdensome regulations is a good, conservative idea. It is much more efficient than regulations, and the revenue can be used to reduce other taxes and grow the economy. We recognize the politics today are difficult, but they are going to change.”

Alliance for Market Solutions isn’t the only conservative organization aimed at wooing Republicans into reducing carbon pollution. Other GOP-affiliated groups, such as ConservAmerica and republicEn, have pressured the White House and congressional Republicans to embrace carbon taxes as a free market strategy to address climate change.

If Scalise’s resolution passes, it would not come without precedent. The House of Representatives passed a similar version in June 2016, earning six Democratic votes and no Republicans opposition. Scalise was the sponsor of that resolution as well.

SOURCE

The rapidly disappearing subsidies for wind and solar in Australia

This sounds like very good news

One of the loudest, most controversial and misinformed debates around Australian energy policy has been the level of subsidies for wind and solar farms.

It is mostly based around the renewable energy target and the market price of its principal pricing signal – the certificates known as LGCs, which have been trading at or above $80/MWh for some time.

This has led to some outrageous claims about the amount of money that is supposedly being pocketed by renewable energy developers, such as the Saudi company that owns the Moree solar farm.

Conservatives, and the Murdoch media in particular, continue to parade and parrot the false story and fake news that the renewable energy target will pocket some $45 billion of subsidies out to 2030.

It’s nonsense. Such claims are based on the assumption that all LGCs attract the market price – currently around $80/MWh. But in reality only a small percentage of “merchant” generators do that.

And those claims also assume that the price will remain at those inflated levels until 2030. Clearly, they are not.

The price of LGCs is already showing signs of significant decline as it becomes clear that the RET – which seeks 33,000GWh of new renewables by 2030 – will not just be met, but could be significantly exceeded.

That has pushed the future price of LGCs down sharply

Many analysts expect that the price will fall to zero once the new build is completed and the excess of certificates flood the market. It is not a matter of if there is a price crash, says Tristan Edis of Green Energy Markets, but when.

What is often forgotten in the tirades against wind and solar is that many project developers have already forgone any subsidies, because they have signed long-term contracts, known as PPAs (power purchase agreements), for between 12 and 15 years.

Most of these contracts, particularly those signed in the last 12 months, provide effectively zero value to the LGCs. These include projects such as the 530MW Stockyard Hill wind farm, the 200MW Silverton wind farm, and the 470MW Cooper’s Gap wind farm.

Those contracts – like most others for wind and solar farms – were signed with the realisation that the LGC market price was heading to zero, or negligible, value in the 2020s.

But the key is that the prices for both the electricity and the LGCs have been struck below the prevailing cost of electricity, sometimes as low as $55/MWh.

This has also been the case for the ACT’s goal of sourcing the equivalent of 100 per cent renewables for its electricity by 2020. That program requires the LGCs to be surrendered at no cost to ensure the ACT’s efforts are additional to any national target.

So far, the ACT has done well out of its contracts because the first two wind farms have actually been returning money to ACT consumers, rather than requiring a top up over the market price.

It is important to note that the price of LGCs actually have little to do with the actual cost of the solar farms or wind farms, but are merely a financial instrument that provides an incentive for retailers to meet their obligations.

So, why are the LGC’s at such a high price of $80/MWh when that level of subsidy is not needed, and renewable energy projects can be developed and operate at an all up price of $55-$70/MWh?

Simply, it’s yet another example of where the incumbent utilities, in this case the retailers, are playing the market. Not illegally, but simply because the rules allow them to do so.

The price is high because not enough renewable energy generation has been built to meet the progressively higher annual targets, creating a shortage of LGCs.

This occurred because of the three-year investment strike that was caused by the Abbott government’s attempts – supported by many energy incumbents – to try to scrap, and then reduce the RET, from 41,000GWh to 33,000GWh.

That investment delay meant there was a shortfall in LGCs, so prices hit the market cap – it had nothing to do with the cost of building wind and solar farms.

Because of this, some retailers are still taking advantage of the rules. ERM power, for instance, in 2016 chose to pay the “shortfall charge” for not meeting its required number of LGCs.

It was a quite deliberate move. ERM has a three-year grace period to make up that shortfall, so while it paid a $150 million fee, that fee is fully refundable, and ERM will make a handsome profit – already estimated at $45 million – by buying the LGCs when the price falls.

Indeed, ERM CEO Jon Stretch discusses this very strategy in our latest Energy Insiders podcast, which you can listen to here.

According to the Clean Energy Regulator, around $238 million of shortfall charges have already been paid, and will likely be redeemed. Mark Williamson says retailers are likely to take a similar approach if the spot price for LGCs remains high this year and next.

“We’re pointing out the reality that the longer the spot price stays in the mid-$80 range, well above the $65 penalty price, there will be some temptation for some to pay shortfall, or to use the flexibility to carry forward less than 10 per cent of their liability,” Williamson says.

“And there is the prospect of more shortfall to come the longer it’s up there.”

Tristan Edis, from Green Energy Markets, predicts there could be a surplus of 80 million LGC once the RET is met.

“Across the life of the RET scheme to 2030 we are looking at a massive oversupply,” he says. “The question isn’t if we’ll see prices collapse but when.”

Edis agrees that because projects are still to be completed, a shortfall could continue until 2019, ensuring that the price stays high, and retailers paying the shortfall charge.

Even as late as 2020, retailers could still elect to pay the penalty price, or shortfall charge,   judging that the oversupply in 2023 will be so big that they can pick-up lots of them very cheaply.

They can then use these cheap LGCs to make good on the shortfalls they incurred in 2020 to claim back penalty refunds from the regulator, as ERM is doing.

The other complication is the structure of the proposed National Energy Guarantee, or any other scheme, and whether that allows generators to “double dip” into creating both an LGC and a NEG emissions obligation.

(That much may be academic if the Coalition retains its meagre emissions targets for 2030, as it has promised to do. Most analysts say the 26 per cent emissions target will be largely met by 2020 by the build out of the RET)

“If the NEG were to allow double dipping where a generator can create both an LGC and a NEG emissions obligation entitlement from the same megawatt-hour of generation then LGCs become worthless pieces of electronic paper that don’t mean anything for abatement purposes,” Edis says.

“If instead, they follow the prior recommendation from the AEMC for a baseline & credit scheme, where a renewable generator would have to choose between either an LGC or a NEG entitlement but couldn’t create both from the same MWh, then LGCs retain an ongoing value equal to a NEG entitlement.

“The second option that disallows double dipping will provide a far smoother transition that avoids pulling the rug from underneath participants in the secondary market for LGCs.”

So, if renewables don’t need subsidies going forward, then what’s the problem?

The problem is that without further incentives, or reasonable emissions reduction targets, the main energy retailers will have little or no reason to build new wind or solar, and will be happy to keep spinning maximum profits out of their fossil fuel generators.

That leaves only the household and corporate market as potential parties to contracting new wind and solar farms, and additional demand created when coal generators are due to retire.

There could be plenty of activity in the corporate market – with Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance contracting one solar farm already for its Victorian steel works and planning to build 1GW of new solar and storage for its South Australian assets.

Numerous other corporates are turning to wind and/or solar, with companies like Carlton & United Breweries committed to 100% renewables, and others to follow.

And they can be sure that the costs of wind and solar will continue to fall, even below the mid $50/MWh pricing that has been reported for projects like Snowtown and Murra Warra in Victoria.

As the CER’s Williamson told RenewEconomy on the sidelines of Australia Energy Week: “I’m also hearing that even the ultra-low prices we’ve heard disclosed in PPAs (power purchase agreements), that we may see lower prices further to come.

“I guess that’s going to be interesting to watch, in the context that wholesale prices are decreasing, but are currently still above those prices of new-build variable renewables.”

SOURCE

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

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

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15 May, 2018

AND PIGS MIGHT FLY

I follow the report below by the underlying journal article. It is under the lead-authorship of none other than that dedicated Warmist Kevin Trenberth. The article is actually a retreat. The latest schtick from Trenberth and other Warmists is to admit that hurricanes have NOT become more frequent but have become stronger. Global warming sure is selective in its effects!

Some comments from meteorologist Joe Bastardi offering another interpretation of what happened:

The counter to this was written last year, because it was just a matter of time before this came out.

Harvey could not have dumped that much rain without the major cold trough that trapped it. Also it was not as bad as Flora over eastern Cuba that got blocked in 1963 -- prompting Castro to blame the US.

The point is I wrote this last year, because it was just a matter of time before this started.

They are weaponizing weather, and this is a classic example

AS COASTAL cities brace for the coming hurricane season, the destruction of the last one is still having a big impact, particularly on the hobbled island of Puerto Rico. And scientists are already able to draw some big warnings from last year’s carnage. “Several aspects of the 2017 season were not ‘natural,’ ” a team of researchers wrote in a paper published this week in Earth’s Future, a peer-reviewed journal run by the American Geophysical Union. “The first was the role of human-induced climate change.”

About humanity’s role in worsening the catastrophe, the scientists left little doubt: “While hurricanes occur naturally, human-caused climate change is supercharging them and exacerbating the risk of major damage.”

Noting that 2017 saw three enormous hurricanes, Harvey, Irma and Maria, they focused on Harvey and the intense flooding it caused in Houston. Before Harvey came through, the oceans were the hottest on record. This heat kept the hurricane going — and more. The scientists found that, when Harvey traversed the Gulf of Mexico, it soaked up ocean heat via evaporation, packing more moisture into the atmosphere. Harvey then dumped record amounts of rain on Houston, flooding large swaths of the city. “Record high ocean heat values not only increased the fuel available to sustain and intensify Harvey, but also increased its flooding rains on land,” the researchers found. “Harvey could not have produced so much rain without human-induced climate change.”

Harvey was only a single event. But it was a spectacular one, and a useful case because the researchers could study its before-and-after effects reasonably isolated from other environmental influences.

It is still a matter of debate whether climate change will increase the number of hurricanes, but it is more and more clear that human-caused heating of the planet will boost their severity. “There will be a warmer and wetter world over oceans, and more energy available for evaporation,” the researchers wrote. Nearly all of the extra heat trapped by the greenhouse gases that humans have produced goes into the oceans. More heat in the oceans means more water vapor and, therefore, heavier rain and more flooding.

SOURCE

Hurricane Harvey links to Ocean Heat Content and Climate Change Adaptation

Kevin E. Trenberth et al.

Abstract

    While hurricanes occur naturally, human?caused climate change is supercharging them and exacerbating the risk of major damage. Here, using ocean and atmosphere observations, we demonstrate links between increased upper ocean heat content due to global warming with the extreme rainfalls from recent hurricanes. Hurricane Harvey provides an excellent case study as it was isolated in space and time. We show that prior to the beginning of northern summer of 2017, ocean heat content was the highest on record both globally and in the Gulf of Mexico, but the latter sharply decreased with hurricane Harvey via ocean evaporative cooling. The lost ocean heat was realized in the atmosphere as moisture, and then as latent heat in record?breaking heavy rainfalls. Accordingly, record high ocean heat values not only increased the fuel available to sustain and intensify Harvey, but also increased its flooding rains on land. Harvey could not have produced so much rain without human?induced climate change. Results have implications for the role of hurricanes in climate. Proactive planning for the consequences of human?caused climate change is not happening in many vulnerable areas, making the disasters much worse.

SOURCE

Trial Lawyers Suing Big Oil Over Climate Change Could Make Billions, Plus Fees

The latest climate lawsuit filed against major oil companies by a local government is, once again, being handled by the plaintiff’s firm behind similar lawsuits in California and New York City.

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP will be handling King County, Washington’s lawsuit against five major oil companies over alleged damages wrought by man-made global warming. Hagens Berman is also behind climate lawsuits brought by San Francisco, Oakland and New York City.

Hagens Berman is working for King County, which includes Seattle, on a contingency fee basis, meaning they shoulder the upfront costs of litigation for a percentage of any winnings. King County spokesman Alex Fryer said Hagens Berman’s fee was 17 percent.

King County is suing five oil companies for an abatement fund to mitigate future global warming. The county’s press release on the lawsuit, filed Wednesday, claims “this abatement fund could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

That’s a nice payday for Hagens Berman should they prevail in court. The plaintiff’s firm stands to earn billions of dollars from its climate lawsuits with San Francisco, Oakland and New York City.

Hagens Berman’s fee is 23.5 percent of any winnings from its cases with San Francisco and Oakland. As of March, New York City had yet to negotiate its fee with Hagens Berman, but the city’s suit claims the “cost of needed resiliency projects runs to many billions of dollars.”

However, Hagens Berman is only one of about three plaintiffs firms suing fossil fuel companies over global warming, hoping to resurrect their success in litigating against the tobacco industry in the 1990s.

The firm Seeger Weiss LLP is also handling New York City’s lawsuit, and the firm Sher Edling LLP is handling climates lawsuits for six California cities and counties. These firms are also working for a percentage of any winnings.

Local governments suing fossil fuel interests argue state nuisance and trespassing laws, which have sometimes been applied to pollution, also apply to global warming. They also accuse energy companies of trying to downplay the harms their products allegedly cause.

King County’s claims build on reporting from the liberal InsideClimate News and Columbia University purporting to show Exxon had been studying climate science for decades, internally worried about it but publicly funding groups opposed to climate regulations.

“Big Oil spent many decades disregarding and dismissing what is our most pressing generational challenge,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine said in a statement.

“We must hold these companies accountable as we marshal our resources to protect and preserve what makes this region great,” Constantine said.

The reports led to the “Exxon Knew” campaign. Environmentalists targeted the company for investigation by state prosecutors, the first of whom to take up the mantle is now disgraced former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

At a hearing, Alsup said plaintiffs’ presentation on a global warming cover-up “shows nothing of the sort,” according to journalists present.

SOURCE

Trump's 'Energy Dominance' Gets Slow Start On Federal Land

President Trump's goal of achieving "energy dominance" for the United States includes producing more oil and gas on federal land, but new government statistics show a mixed record on this front during his first year in office.

Trump has cast himself as an ally of fossil fuel industries. At a 2017 event he told energy industry leaders, "You've gone through eight years of hell," referring to the time former President Obama was in office.

But by two measures there was more oil industry activity on federal lands during the Obama years than Trump's first year. In 2017 the number of oil and gas leases fell to a 10-year low of 38,556. The number of acres leased also declined to a decade-low of 25,742,991.

Some of the tables do show more activity. The number of leases issued in 2017 increased by about 42 percent and the number of wells that started drilling increased about 40 percent.

These statistics come from the Bureau of Land Management's annual report on the agency's website. The numbers were available last week when NPR obtained them, but a day later they were gone. Acting BLM National Spokesperson Amber Cargile says "major technical issues" across the agency's website were to blame.

One of the tables compares the number of acres BLM offered for lease to the number that received bids. It shows the Trump administration offered 11,859,396 acres for lease — more than at any time in the last nine years. But bids were received on only 6.7 percent of them — the lowest share by far over that period.

"This administration is throwing as many acres they can at the oil and gas industry and the oil and gas industry, to a large extent, has said, 'No thanks—not right now,' " says Nada Culver, senior counsel and director of the Wilderness Society's BLM Action Center.

Environmental groups have long criticized the federal government's oil and gas leasing program in the West, arguing public lands should be managed differently to address climate change and pollution concerns.

One reason for the relatively low interest among drillers is where the leases are located. "There are a lot of leases offered in Alaska and Nevada that there hasn't been a lot of interest in," says Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Denver-based oil and gas industry group Western Energy Alliance.

Last December the BLM offered all the land available for leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska — 10.3 million acres. But drillers bid on less than 1 percent of the leases offered.

Sgamma says the response was stronger in drilling hot spots like New Mexico and Wyoming, where most of the parcels offered were leased.

She says a more important metric for measuring the Trump administration's progress toward increasing oil and gas production on federal land is revenue from lease sales. In January the BLM announced that the agency "generated nearly $360 million from oil and gas lease sales, an 86 percent increase over the previous year's results of $192.5 million."

"That indicates that companies have some confidence that some of these policies that the administration is trying to put into effect will actually bear fruit," Sgamma says.

During the Obama years Sgamma says the BLM put up roadblocks for companies that wanted to drill on federal land. She says lengthy environmental reviews and slow agency response times were a big problem for drillers.

"The BLM is reviewing and streamlining its business processes to serve its customers and the public better and faster," says BLM spokesperson Cargile.

"I think there has been progress. BLM has put in place a new processing system for applications for permit to drill and we're seeing those timelines coming down," says Sgamma. But she says it takes time to change policies and move the bureaucracy in the direction President Trump wants it to go.

Beyond administration policies another factor that can boost interest in drilling is oil prices. They are rising and that makes drilling more profitable. So while the Trump administration's effort to boost oil and gas drilling on public land has had mixed results so far, it appears the industry is feeling optimistic about the future.

SOURCE

Climate Hawk’s Stunning Fall From Grace Emboldens Climate Skeptics

Eric Schneiderman’s political foes are gleeful about — and feeling emboldened by — his demise.

Ex-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) was at the vanguard of the climate movement, heading legal and political fights against Trump administration attempts to weaken environmental regulations.

Schneiderman is also a pugnacious and media-savvy figure whose abrupt and stunning political fall this week after cringe-worthy sexual abuse allegations is an undeniable blow to climate hawks across the country. It may force them to reshuffle their tactics and, to a lesser extent, their priorities.

But as shocked, saddened and disgusted as climate activists are about Schneiderman, they are convinced that reinforcements are readily available and that the movement to defend environmental laws from legal and legislative attacks remains strong, even in the absence of a fallen leader.

“It should not have a significant impact,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D), another top environmentalist. “He was a leader, he was very energetic, and the New York attorney general’s office was fully engaged and I expect that that will continue. … Other [Democratic] AGs are also working these issues. If there’s any slack at all, one of us will pick it up — or all of us will collectively.”

Despite those fighting words, Schneiderman’s political foes are gleeful about — and feeling emboldened by — his demise.

In a statement yesterday, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who is chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, called Schneiderman “a disturbed monster” and a “sick man,” and suggested he ought to be prosecuted, or at least “held accountable,” for his alleged acts of violence against former girlfriends.

“A lot of climate skeptics are smiling at his downfall because he was an out-of-control, really wacky guy who held a lot of power,” said Marc Morano, who runs the blog Climate Depot.

Morano and his allies have been especially disdainful of the legal attempts Schneiderman led to hold Exxon Mobil Corp. and other oil companies accountable for global warming, calling him “the ultimate shakedown artist.”

“Let’s take a moment to pause and take a look at the strategy of blaming energy companies for bad weather,” Morano said. He added that Schneiderman’s resignation and quick disappearance from the public scene will force climate activists to reconsider their approach.

“He was the lightning rod,” he said. “He was the instigator. It definitely limits the movement when you take out the lead guy.”

SOURCE

Yes, anti-pipeline Vancouver really is North America’s largest exporter of coal

A city dead set against expanding petroleum exports is decidedly less irked about another type of fossil fuel

Lately, it’s one of the few things that oil boosters and environmental activists can agree upon: Calling Vancouver a hypocrite for opposing carbon emissions while also being the continent’s largest coal port.

And both camps are correct. According to the data, Canada’s mecca of anti-pipeline sentiment does indeed rank as the largest single exporter of coal in North America.

This places the B.C. city well above Norfolk, Virginia, the busiest coal port in the United States. Despite a massive spike in U.S. coal exports for 2017, only 31.5 million tonnes of coal moved out of Norfolk last year.

Vancouver’s coal exports also dwarf the total coal production for the entire country of Mexico. According to data gathered by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, Mexican mines have produced no more than 16 million tonnes of coal per year since 2006.

Much of Vancouver’s coal is handled by a single facility that ranks as the largest of its kind on the continent. Westshore Terminals loaded 29 million tonnes of coal in 2017, nearly triple the combined coal exports of the entire U.S. West Coast.

It’s also right next to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal, making it a familiar sight to any passenger aboard a ferry arriving from Vancouver Island. Currently, Westshore Terminals is in the midst of a $275 million upgrade to “replace aging equipment and modernize our office and shop complex,” according to the company.

B.C. mines provide much of the coal flowing through Metro Vancouver. Even as coal production enters a prolonged decline around much of the world, it has been positively thriving west of the Rocky Mountains.

“Coal production is a mainstay of the province’s economy, generating billions of dollars in annual revenue and supporting thousands of well-paid jobs,” reads the website for B.C.’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

Coal is the province’s number one export commodity, with $3.32 billion of coal mined in 2016. Much of this is metallurgical coal, which is exported to Asia for the making of steel.

In recent years, however, Vancouver’s coal ports have also accommodated a massive increase in exports of thermal coal, which is used for the production of electricity.

In 2008, only 4.4 million tonnes of Vancouver’s coal exports could be called non-metallurgical. By 2017, this had more than doubled to 11.3 million tonnes.

Controversially, almost all of this thermal coal is coming from the United States. As lawmakers in Washington and Oregon have begun shutting down their own coal ports due to environmental concerns, thermal coal producers in Wyoming and Montana have simply diverted their product through Canada.

In August, then-premier Christy Clark called for a ban on Vancouver exports of U.S. thermal coal in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber.

“They are no longer good trading partners with Canada. So that means we’re free to ban filthy thermal coal from B.C. ports, and I hope the federal government will support us in doing that,” she said at the time.

In the main, however, Metro Vancouver has benefited handsomely from the presence of the coal industry, according to numbers compiled by the B.C.-based Coal Alliance. Between 2012 to 2017, coal-related companies spent $2.29 billion in Metro Vancouver, including $470 million in the City of Vancouver proper.

SOURCE

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

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

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

14 May, 2018

Boycott hits Play about crooked Greenies trying to rip off Chevron

An email from Phelim McAleer

I wanted to let you know about the trouble I'm experiencing with trying to put on my new play in San Francisco.

It's called the The $18-Billion Prize and basically it has been a nightmare because it seems the theatrical establishment do not want the truth to be told. This is a play about a fraud - a massive 18 billion dollars fraud - carried out by "environmentalists".

You can see more details about the play and the plot HERE but remember it was a Clinton appointed judge who found that this was a criminal enterprise perpetrated by "environmentalists". And the most damning evidence came from Donziger own emails and records.

But that doesn't matter to the establishment - they just want to be able to keep pushing their lies and exaggerations and they are trying to shut the show down. So when I wanted to rent a theater I was told there was none available - yes, seriously - they tried to tell me that in the whole of San Francisco there was no room for the short run.

Eventually I found one place that was open to having the truth be shown but then the real trouble started. No publicist would work with the production and no lighting designer either - and they were quite open it was because of politics. Eventually we had to hire a Los Angeles based publicist and light design company. This has made the production more expensive but at least the show is going to go ahead. That is why I'm writing to you. I need your help.

The establishment don't want the truth told but you can stop this coverup. Please go to www.ChevronPlay.com and donate. It has been very tough and so many people want us to fail. There are lots of other problems behind the scenes which I hope to be able to talk about soon.

Via email

Trump administration quietly cancels $10m NASA program that tracks key greenhouse gases as part of its 'attack on climate science'

A $10million per year NASA program to track key global warming contributors carbon and methane has been canceled.

The program called the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) was cut due to 'budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget, a spokesperson for the space agency said Thursday.

A report from the journal Science called the shut down the latest move in a 'broad attack on climate science' by the White House.

'NASA's CMS has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon,' the journal wrote.

'Now, President Donald Trump's administration has quietly killed the CMS.'

The journal science reported that the key problem with cutting CMS is that the move limits the America's ability to measure greenhouse gas emissions, and 'you can't manage what you don't measure'.

However, looking at the situation from Trump's point of view, the move makes more sense. Throughout his campaign and his presidency Trump has remained firm in his belief that global warming does not exist.

Last June he announced the US would be pulling out of the Paris climate accord, a deal signed by more than 190 nations to slash polluting emissions from fossil fuels.

Also last year Trump had proposed cutting the CMS project along with four Earth science missions.

In the March 2018 budget Congress ultimately voted to keep those space missions, but left out the CMS.

NASA spokesperson Steve Cole told Science the move to cut CMS from the budget was a joint effort by lawmakers and the Trump Administration.

The CMS was designed in 2010 to track sources and sinks for carbon and make high resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon.

Cole said that existing grants would be allowed to finish, but no new research would be supported.

He added: 'Winding down of this specific research program does not curb NASA's ability or commitment to monitoring carbon and its effects on our changing planet.'

Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy Kelly Sims Gallagher disagrees, calling the shutdown of the program 'a grave mistake'.

Gallagher is the director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts.

She said eliminating the CMS interferes with efforts to verify the emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate deal. 'If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,' she told Science.

SOURCE

Scientists Identify 405,000-year Climate Cycle on Earth

Ancient rocks prove theory of overriding orbital behavior that exacerbates shorter-term effects, like those Milankovitch cycles that cause ice ages

Astrophysicists had been saying so for decades, and now geologists have proved it: Earth’s orbit goes through 405,000-year cycles and has done so for hundreds of millions of years. Now, physical proof of the cycle has been found by analyzing ancient rocks in Arizona, New York and New Jersey, explain Dennis Kent and Paul Olsen of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Every 405,000 years, Earth’s orbit around the sun goes from nearly circular to about 5 percent elliptical, and back again.

Within ancient rocks in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, scientists have identified signs of a regular variation in Earth’s orbit that influences climate. Kevin Krajick/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

This mega-cycle doesn’t affect Earth’s climate directly, Olsen explains. It does, however, exacerbate shorter-term cycles that do act directly.

The mega-cycle is chiefly caused by the gravitational pull of other planets in the solar system.

Despite the graphics in kids’ books, the planets’ orbits around the sun are not precise concentric circles. Mars, for instance, has a slightly eccentric orbit of 0.0934. Earth’s is eccentric too, but at 0.0167 is much less so than Mars’.

Right now, according to that eccentricity calculation, Earth’s orbit is practically circular.

The planets don’t move at the same rate through space around the sun, either. The upshot of differences in their positions and eccentricities is that the planets’ influence on each other’s orbits changes.

The Columbia U. scientists believe the mega-cycle is caused chiefly by Venus and Jupiter.

Venus isn’t big but is nearest to us, and Jupiter is a monster – 2.5 times all the other planets combined, with immense gravitational pull, they explain.

When dinosaurs were young

The evidence was found in 450-meter-long (1,476 feet) rock cores that Kent and his co-authors drilled from a hill in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, from suburban New York and from New Jersey (the site of “exquisitely preserved” massive volcanic spasms). The drills were done in previous years.

The Arizona rock dated to the time of the earliest dinosaurs, the Triassic phase: around 210 million years ago. Meanwhile, cores from New York and New Jersey showed “exquisitely preserved” signs alternating wet and dry cycles. Dating these was a problem, but the scientists observed evidence of reversals in magnetic polarity at all three sites. They showed that all three sites developed at the same time, and that the 405,000-year interval indeed exerts a kind of master control over climate swings.

The shorter-term cycles affecting our weather include 10,000-year Milankovitch cycles, which describe changing eccentricity in Earth’s orbit and are believed to be linked to ice ages. There is a 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to its orbit around the sun. And there is a 21,000-year cycle caused by a wobble of the planet’s axis.

Above them all rides this newly noticed 405,000-year cycle.

“There are other, shorter, orbital cycles. But when you look into the past, it’s very difficult to know which one you’re dealing with at any one time, because they change over time,” says Kent, an expert in paleomagnetism at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University. “The beauty of this one is that it stands alone. It doesn’t change. All the other ones move over it.”

The scientists proved that this long cycle has been governing Earth’s behavior for hundreds of millions of years, from before the first dinosaur hatched from its egg.

If you live long enough

Ultimately, it’s really hard to tease out the cycles: They have almost certainly changed over time, but we don’t know how and they’re all constantly proceeding against each other.

Sometimes some are out of phase with others and will cancel each other out; at other times, they may line up and trigger sudden, drastic changes.

That said, Kent and Olsen estimate that every 405,000 years, when orbital eccentricity is at its stretched peak, seasonal differences – that are caused by shorter cycles, not the big one – will become more intense. Summers will be hotter, winters colder, dry times will become hyper-arid, and so on.

Exactly the opposite will be true 202,500 years later, when the orbit is at its most circular.

Admittedly, it is true that the longer off something happened, the wider margins of error are likely to be.

“We are using basically the same kinds of math to send spaceships to Mars – and sure, that works,” Olsen says. “But once you start extending interplanetary motions back in time and tie that to cause and effect in climate, we can’t claim that we understand how it all works.”

So, where are we now in this mega-cycle? We’re in the nearly circular part. Which means we can expect what? Nothing we'd notice.

“Probably not anything very perceptible,” says Kent. “It’s pretty far down on the list of so many other things that can affect climate on timescales that matter to us.” Such as the carbon dioxide we’re putting into our atmosphere. That, says Kent, is “the obvious big enchilada. That’s having an effect we can measure right now. The planetary cycle is a little more subtle.”

SOURCE

UN Climate Talks Fail To Reach Agreement On Paris Agreement

UN negotiations in Bonn are set to end in a stalemate today as delegates have become bogged down in technical arguments about the Paris climate pact. Poorer nations say they are fed up with foot-dragging by richer countries on finance and carbon-cutting commitments. Some countries, led by China are now seeking to renegotiate key aspects of the Paris agreement. An extra week of talks in September has been scheduled to try and get the process back on track. –Matt McGrath, BBC News, 10 May 2018

A proposal for bringing international environmental law under one legally binding treaty at the United Nations will be up for a preliminary vote later this week at the U.N. General Assembly. The United States U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley tells Fox News in a statement that the U.S. won’t support the measure. —Fox News, 9 May 2018

The EU has committed to a 20% cut in its energy use by 2020 to be achieved by two directives, covering energy efficiency and buildings. But leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Britain is pushing for its 2014-2020 timeline to be stretched backward four years to count “early actions” taken that comply with the efficiency directive. —The Guardian, 9 May 2018

Ex-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) was at the vanguard of the climate movement, heading legal and political fights against Trump administration attempts to weaken environmental regulations. Schneiderman is also a pugnacious and media-savvy figure whose abrupt and stunning political fall this week after cringe-worthy sexual abuse allegations is an undeniable blow to climate hawks across the country. It may force them to reshuffle their tactics and, to a lesser extent, their priorities. —E&E News, 9 May 2018

The grim irony of the pursuit of “green” energy is that it may be placing millions of people in poor countries at risk of living much shorter, unhealthier lives due to air pollution, according to a new report from The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). —Tim Pearce, Long Island News, 5 May 2018

As President Donald Trump’s decision to reinstate sanctions on Iran sends oil prices higher, consumers and the administration might hope that US producers could come to the rescue with increased production. —Financial Times, 10 May 2018

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran marks the end of the current output agreement between OPEC and its allies. OPEC is likely to insist the current agreement remains in effect, at least for now, but the prospective removal of several hundred thousand barrels per day of Iranian exports from the market will require a major adjustment.– Reuters,

SOURCE

At last an eco craze that might actually do some good

If you haven't yet heard of plogging, it won't take you long to wrap your head around it.

The fitness craze involves picking up litter while jogging. Yes, that's the extent of it.

If that sounds like a sped-up Clean Up Australia Day, well it kind of is, except plogging is a worldwide phenomenon.

It began in Sweden, where the name originated. "Plogging" is a mix of the Swedish words for "to jog" and "to pick up" — "plocka upp".

A quick search online delivers posts from plogging groups from just about everywhere; in the UK, Italy, Finland, the US, Canada, Venezuela, Malaysia and India. And of course, the Icelandic President was recently spotted plogging at his palace.

Now, the craze has reached Australian shores. Well, it's reached Byron Bay.

"We saw it on social media and we thought, 'We can do this!'" said Geoff Bensley a member of the Byron Bay Runners and founder of the fledging Plogging Australia group. "We thought Australia should be up there also and we've picked it up, and yeah, we've been loving it."

"Loving it" is not the first impression you get from the Byron Bay Runners as they head out on what is only their second plog. It's been raining relentlessly through the night and at 7:00am enthusiasm for the task ahead is muted at best.

However, the group soon gets into the swing of things as they pound the 7-kilometre track along the coastline to Lennox Head.

SOURCE

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

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

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13 May, 2018

When the rich are GOOD for wildlife: The "luxury" effect

The ecological dynamics of cities are influenced not only by geophysical and biological factors, but also by aspects of human society. In cities around the world, a pattern of higher biodiversity in affluent neighbourhoods has been termed ‘the luxury effect'. The luxury effect has been found globally regarding plant diversity and canopy or vegetative cover.

Fewer studies have considered the luxury effect on animals, yet it has been recognized in the distributions of birds, bats, lizards and indoor arthropods. Higher socioeconomic status correlates with higher biodiversity resulting from many interacting factors—the creation and maintenance of green space on private and public lands, the tendency of both humans and other species to favour environmentally desirable areas, while avoiding environmental burdens, as well as enduring legacy effects.

The luxury effect is amplified in arid cities and as neighbourhoods age, and reduced in tropical areas. Where the luxury effect exists, benefits of urban biodiversity are unequally distributed, particularly in low-income neighbourhoods with higher minority populations. The equal distribution of biodiversity in cities, and thus the elimination of the luxury effect, is a worthy societal goal.

SOURCE

UN’s ‘Billions For Bad Weather’ Is Latest Money-Making Ruse To Fleece Richer Nations Like US

The contentious (and absurd) concept of “loss and damage” compensation for climate change took several steps forward last week at the Bonn UN climate summit. In addition to a packed two-day conference, we now have an established cost estimate.

Loss and damage is diplomatic code for the idea that the developed countries, especially America, should pay the developing countries for the bad things that they attribute to climate change.

This includes pretty much all bad weather, plus the supposed effects of sea level rise, and who knows what else.

Here is a clear policy proposal that came up during the conference:

“Resources to offset climate-related losses and damages need to be scaled up and the perpetrators, not the victims, must pay. Serious consideration must be given to solutions like a climate damages tax on fossil fuel extraction or consumption, a climate levy on those sectors that contribute the most to climate change and more impactful carbon pricing schemes. These mechanisms could raise the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that are necessary, could help to reduce the production of greenhouse gases and could be designed to respond faster to immediate or slowly unfurling climate disasters.”

So, for example, a gasoline tax throughout America and the rest of the developed world might be part of the proposed loss and damage compensation picture. I am not making this up.

That this scheme is under serious discussion at UN climate conferences is simply not being reported in the American mainstream media. It is, however, being widely reported in the developing world, with great enthusiasm. Of course, they are all for it.

The initial cost of this absurd compensation scheme is now generally pegged at a nice round $300 billion a year. This is from a report by the Berlin-based Heinrich Böll Foundation, which was released at last year’s summit.

This is on top of the mythical $100 billion a year that the developed countries are supposed to pay the developing ones for cutting their CO2 emissions and adapting to climate change.

But there is in principle no limit because the list of speculative bad stuff supposedly due to human-caused climate change is endless.

Here is a revealing part of a joint statement issued a few months ago by government ministers from Dominica and Vanuatu, in favor of the UN’s loss and damage compensation scheme:

“A few months ago, Hurricane Maria caused economic losses and damages of 226% of Dominica’s GDP. Only two years before, Tropical storm Erika cost Dominica 90% of GDP, and Tropical Cyclone Pam battered Vanuatu, costing 64% of Vanuatu’s GDP.”

In other words, these tiny countries stand to collect relatively huge amounts every time a hurricane or tropical storm hits, in severe cases multiples of their entire GDP.

No wonder they want this so much. Imagine a big storm tripling your national economy (at someone else’s expense).

The big two-day conference on this vast money-making UN scheme was called the Suva Expert Dialogue. A search on Google news for this term finds no major US news outlet even mentioning it, or the issue of loss and damage.

Do they think that we are not interested in the prospect of being in effect fined trillions of dollars for all of the bad weather in most of the world?

Or maybe they think that if we knew about this absurd scheme we might not support the UN’s climate change crusade? My guess is the latter.

SOURCE

Scientists discover the origin of the amphibian 'apocalypse' that's killing hundreds of species - and they say the Korean war could be to blame. Scientists have traced the origin of the chytrid fungus to the Korean peninsula

So global warming is not to blame after all

Scientists have traced a deadly fungus responsible for killing frogs, toads and newts worldwide to the Korean peninsula, sparking new calls for a halt to the international amphibian pet trade.

A dangerous infectious disease with the potential to drive species to extinction, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is also known as chytrid fungus.

It has already decimated more than 200 amphibian species and rewired echo systems all over the world.

Chytrid is passed from animal to animal and spreads rapidly in the wild, causing catastrophic mortality and declines in some species, while others are less affected.

The fungus causes a disease called chytridiomycosis, which attacks the animal's skin, affecting their ability to regulate water and electrolyte levels and leading to heart failure.

'Biologists have known since the 1990s that Bd was behind the decline of many amphibian species, but until now we haven't been able to identify exactly where it came from,' said Simon O'Hanlon, of the department of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, co-author of the report in the journal Science.

'In our paper, we solve this problem and show that the lineage which has caused such devastation can be traced back to East Asia.'

The scientists believe it originated in the Korean peninsula sometime in the 1950s, and they theorized that human activities accidentally spread it across the globe —leading to amphibian fatalities across the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Australia.

'[The pathogen's spread] could have happened from any one event, from the cumulative number of events, or maybe some big anthropogenic events like the Korean War,' said O'Hanlon.

The fungus can infect at least 695 species, and has devastated populations around the world.

From 2009 to 2012, the fungus destroyed Dutch fire salamander populations by more than 99 percent.

An international team of scientists gathered samples of the pathogen from around the world, and sequenced the genomes.

Chytrid fungus disease, or chytridiomycosis, is caused by the pathogenic fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). It kills amphibians by destroying their skin, damaging their immune systems and even causing heart failure.

The effects of the disease were first seen in the 1990s when a number of frog species were declared extinct in Australia and South America.

Bd has been blamed for wiping out hundreds of species of amphibians in total and is said to threaten one third of the world's frogs and salamanders.

A recent study said Bd has been evolving with amphibians for around 40,000 years, meaning some are able to live while being infected.

They found four main genetic lineages of the fungus - three of which are found around the world, and a fourth found only in native frogs in Korea.

The genetic analysis showed that 'the range of the disease expanded greatly between 50 and 120 years ago, coinciding with the rapid global expansion of intercontinental trade,' said the report.

The findings offer 'strong evidence for a ban on trade in amphibians from Asia, due to the high risk associated with exporting previously unknown strains of chytrid out of this region,' it added.

SOURCE

Global warming 500m years ago 'led to the start of the human race'

So it can't be THAT bad for us, can it?

Sea temperatures of 25C helped fuel an explosion of life on Earth about 500 million years ago on Earth, according to scientists.

Global warming during a "greenhouse interval" ultimately led to the start of the human race, scientists believe.

New research suggests that sea temperatures of around 25C (77F) and a lack of permanent polar ice sheets fuelled an explosion of species diversity that eventually led to the human race.

Scientists made the discovery while looking for clues in tiny fossil shells in blocks of Shropshire limestone thought to be around 510 million years old.

The timeframe is referred to as the Cambrian explosion, when representatives of all the major animal groups first appeared.

The surge in diversity allowed life to evolve into a multitude of complex forms, including fish, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Scientists previously thought the Cambrian explosion must have been fuelled by warm temperatures, but the evidence has been lacking so far.

This new findings suggest it was a "greenhouse interval" when high levels of carbon dioxide filled the atmosphere and temperatures soared.

Thomas Hearing, from the University of Leicester's School of Geography, Geology and Environment, said: "Because scientists cannot directly measure sea temperatures from half a billion years ago, they have to use proxy data - these are measurable quantities that respond in a predictable way to changing climate variables like temperature. In this study, we used oxygen isotope ratios, which is a commonly used palaeothermometer.

"We then used acid to extract fossils about 1mm long from blocks of limestone from Shropshire, UK, dated to between 515 to 510 million years old. Careful examination of these tiny fossils revealed that some of them have exceptionally well-preserved shell chemistry which has not changed since they grew on the Cambrian sea floor."

The isotopes revealed warm sea temperatures of between 20C and 25C.

SOURCE

Now they’re waging war on plastics!

Earth Day Network’s misguided anti-plastic campaign is a sign of more nonsense to come

Tom Harris

Earth Day Network (EDN) chose “End Plastic Pollution” as their theme for this year’s April 22 Earth Day. It is just the tip of the anti-plastic activism that now consumes environmental extremists. A Google search on “Plastic Pollution Coalition” (a group claiming to represent “more than 500 member organizations” dedicated to “working toward a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts”) yields almost 90,000 hits, including a video actor Jeff Bridges made for the campaign.

Even the United Nations has joined in, making “Beat Plastic Pollution” the theme of its June 5 World Environment Day, “a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated in over 100 countries.”

But demanding heavy-handed action on the comparatively minor problems that plastics present makes no sense. To help the public assess these attacks against this miracle material, let’s consider what leading environmental thinkers have to say about issues EDN raised on Earth Day, beginning with its use of the term “Plastic Pollution.”

Canadian ecologist and Greenpeace cofounder Dr. Patrick Moore stresses that plastic is not toxic. “It’s litter, not pollution. Many people find it unsightly, and the solution is to educate people not to discard it into the environment and to organize, as is done on highways, to have it removed.”

EDN also says plastics are “poisoning and injuring marine life.” As Moore notes, “Plastic does not ‘poison’ anything. It’s non-toxic. Do they think our credit cards, made with PVC plastic, are ‘toxic’?” Of course, plastics can release toxins when burned, but not when they are simply littered into the general environment. So burning should be done under careful emission control standards.

“The main reason birds and fish eat bits of plastic is to get the food that is growing on them,” Moore adds. “But they’re both quite capable of passing bones and other fairly large objects through their digestive systems.” Plastics are no exception.

Paul Driessen, senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy, points out that “some animals do ingest plastics or get caught in plastic loops and nets. But the notion that marine life (and people) are being poisoned by chemicals in plastics has no scientific basis.”

EDN next complained about “the ubiquitous presence of plastics in our food.” Moore responded, “This is complete nonsense. If a bit of plastic gets in our food it is passed right through the digestive system.”

“Plastic wraps and containers help preserve food and keep bacteria out,” Driessen emphasized. “Which is worse? Barely detectable trace amounts of chemicals in our bodies, or serious bacterial outbreaks?”

EDN also worried about plastic “disrupting human hormones.” Physician and lawyer John Dale Dunn, a lecturer in Emergency Medicine at the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood, Texas, dismisses this concern. “Hormone disrupter scares … are based on junk science. Many extensive studies have shown no toxic or lethal effects from BPA, which is a beneficial chemical that has promoted progress and provided new products that are well received and very helpful.

“The debunking of hormone disruptor researchers and their claims has been definitive and devastating,” Dunn notes. “JunkScience.com director Steve Milloy also has been prolific in his criticisms of hormone disruptor junk science,” as this excellent article explains.

Bizarrely and unbelievably, EDN proclaimed plastic as “threatening our planet’s survival.” Reminiscent of how Comedian George Carlin poked fun at the plastics scare, Driessen dismisses this hyperbole. “Earth has survived huge meteor strikes, massive ice ages, Devonian and other mass extinctions, and other planetary calamities. Now plastics have usurped dangerous manmade climate change’s role as the threat to planetary survival!?”

EDN promotes “a global effort to eliminate primarily single-use plastics.” Steve Goreham, executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of “Outside the Green Box – Rethinking Sustainable Development,” responds: “Single use plastics are a boon for humanity. Packaging food in plastics instead of animal skins, wood, metal, glass and paper brings major sanitation, convenience and health benefits, as well as lower cost. The solution is biodegradable plastics for single-use products, not elimination of plastic.”

In keeping with their climate alarmism, EDN said they want “alternatives to fossil fuel-based materials.” Driessen replies: “It is absurd to suggest that non-oil and gas sources would make plastics better – or that it could be done without turning nearly the entire planet into a massive biofuel farm to provide energy and plastics. The impacts on water supplies, croplands and wildlife habitat lands would be devastating.”

As retired NASA-JSC engineer Alex Pope explains, “fossil fuels and fossil fuel products have made life better for billions of people on this Earth…. This better life is due to energy from fossil fuels and to fossil fuel products, especially plastic products.… The war against fossil fuels and fossil fuel products is all the same war. I think they know they are losing many parts of the war against using fossil fuels for energy,” so now they are cranking up the war against vital fossil fuel products that enhance and safeguard lives.

EDN wants “100% recycling of plastics.” Goreham brushed this idea aside. “100% recycling of plastics is not an economically sound policy. Either landfilling, incinerating, composting or recycling plastics is best, based on cost and applicability. Today’s landfills are environmentally friendly in modern nations.”

EDN wants people to “reduce, refuse, reuse, recycle and remove plastics.” Driessen says “this will work in some places and cultures. But where people have no food, sanitation, clean water, jobs, electricity or real hope for the future, do you really think they will worry incessantly about plastics?”

The first Earth Day was held on 22 April 1970 in response to the legitimate concerns of millions of people that reducing air, land and water pollution needed to happen more quickly. The movement grew, until today Earth Day Network president Kathleen Rogers estimates that “more than 1 billion people in 192 countries now take part in what is the largest civic-focused day of action in the world.”

This should surprise no one. All sensible people are environmentalists. We want to enjoy clean air, land and water, and we like to think future generations will live in an even better environment. These were the original Earth Day objectives, and I am happy to have presented at Earth Day events in the early 1990s.

However, as Henry Miller and Jeff Stier observe in a Fox News article, “In recent years, Earth Day has devolved into an occasion for professional environmental activists and alarmists to warn of apocalypse, dish up anti-technology dirt, and proselytize. Passion and zeal now trump science, and provability takes a back seat to plausibility.” That is sending science and rational thinking backward hundreds of years.

All this demonstrates the wisdom of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s proposed rule to require that data underlying scientific studies used to justify federal environment and energy policies be open to public inspection and criticism. This means actual evidence, full independent peer review, and data, methodologies, computer codes and algorithms will no longer be kept secret.

Sterling Burnett, senior fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute, calls Pruitt’s proposal “one small step for regulatory reform, one giant leap for scientific integrity and political transparency.” EDN and its allied groups should have to prove plastics are dangerous pollutants, before governments take any actions against them.

Meanwhile, Goreham reminds us how important plastics are to health and safety in modern societies. “They are a miracle material. We fabricate food containers, boat paddles, shoes, heart valves, pipes, toys, protective helmets and smart phones from plastic.”

Even EDN and some other anti-plastics groups seem to recognize that plastics are indispensable for numerous applications, since they also call for manufacturing these products. They just want them made from manmade hydrocarbons (biofuels, et cetera), instead of from the oil and natural gas that Mother Nature created and left beneath Earth’s surface for humanity to use to improve our lives in countless ways.

Hopefully, applying Pruitt’s new rule, and ignoring the groundless claims of extreme eco-activists, will ensure that plastics are with us for a long time to come.

Via email

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

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

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11 May, 2018

Australia on dark road to Fascism: Greens

Talk about projection (seeing your own faults in others)! Projection is characteristic of the Green/Left. The Duke of Edinburgh once called the Greens "The stop everything brigade" and that is apt. They want to control and change almost everything that people do. If that's not fascism, what would be? The founder of Fascism was Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. And he WAS a Greenie:

Mussolini the environmentalist:

As well as being an "anti-globalizer", there were several other ways in which Mussolini would have appealed to modern-day greenies. He made Capri a bird sanctuary and in 1926 he issued a decree reducing the size of newspapers to save wood pulp. And, believe it or not, he even mandated gasohol -- i.e. mixing industrial alcohol with petroleum products to make fuel for cars Mussolini also disliked the population drift from rural areas into the big cities and in 1930 passed a law to put a stop to it unless official permission was granted. What Green/Left advocate could ask for more?

And to address the Fascist below directly:

It is the consolidation of several control agencies under one head that arouses him. But that is not Fascist. Authority in Hitler's Germany, for instance, was in fact polycentric. There was the Schutz Staffeln, the Sturm Abteilung, the Heer, the Geheimestaatspolizei and the Polizei. And the various government departments all had various degrees of authority and mechanisms for control

Australia has taken the first steps on a dark road to fascism with the creation of the new home affairs super-department, a Greens senator has warned.

Nick McKim says the minor party has serious concerns about the powers handed to minister Peter Dutton in the new department, which includes national security and immigration portfolios.

"This country is walking ever more rapidly down the road to authoritarianism and totalitarianism," Senator McKim told parliament on Wednesday.

"Time after time this government demonstrates its disregard and contempt for the rule of law. That is one of the early warning signs of fascism."

The government had failed to give reasons for the new department which was created in December.

Legislation to finalise the establishment of Home Affairs and boost oversight powers of the attorney-general cleared parliament on Wednesday.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has been brought into the new department, which also looks after federal law enforcement, national security, immigration, emergency management and criminal justice.

Despite raising concerns with the increased powers, Labor voted for the bill.

"Our primary concern is that the government has struggled to explain why the sweeping changes to be brought about by this bill are required at all," opposition senator Jenny McAllister said

Cabinet minister Mitch Fifield said the new department would ensure Australians had confidence in the scrutiny and oversight of intelligence agencies. "Security and integrity go hand in hand," he said.

Senator McKim took aim at Mr Dutton's record on the treatment of refugees in offshore processing, saying he didn't trust him with more power.

It's not the first time Senator McKim has targeted Mr Dutton, having previously labelled him a racist and a fascist.

For his part, Mr Dutton is a strident critic of what he's called the "hotbed of crazies" within the Greens.

SOURCE

Paris conference be damned. Europeans talk the talk but don’t walk the walk

Spain has spent billions on renewable energy to no avail

Watchdog Group Launches Site On How State AGs And Activists Colluded On Climate Suits

A Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group is launching an online archive giving the public a sneak-peek at how state attorneys general and activists conspired to engage in climate litigation against energy companies.

ClimateLitigationWatch.org will publish documents involving court cases against the energy industry. The group’s website also offers the first searchable database of records showing activists and politicians working hand-in-glove on litigation aimed at throttling oil producers.

The project, which the Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) kick-started, will also release profiles of the people involved in the litigation, along with trading cards detailing their role in current cases.

AGs Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Eric Schneiderman of New York will almost certainly be included in the profiles — both of whom are at the center of the lawsuits.

Schneiderman’s decision to resign Monday following reports he physically abused four women could diminish New York’s involvement in the cases. His successor could potentially continue where Schneiderman left off or lead the probes into a different direction.

“We’re not going to get into the science debate and other arguments. We’ll just show the public the documents, so you can decide,” Christopher Horner, one of the key figures spearheading the ClimateLitigationWatch project, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. He has filed several public records requests for information relating to Schneiderman and Healey since the Exxon probe began in 2016.

“Let people see what this campaign looks like. There is a constantly shifting narrative. This site lays out the progression — the players and their roles to put all of that into perspective,” Horner said, referring to the constantly changing nature of the investigations.

Schneiderman’s case against Exxon was initially based on claims that Exxon downplayed the severity of global warming to the public and investors, but it has since shifted to arguing the oil company duped investors about the proxy costs of oil production.

One of the most recent changes prompted The Washington Post to report June 5 that the “New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has gotten very far away from where he started in his office’s investigation into ExxonMobil.”

Schneiderman’s initial claims, which suggest Exxon had been hiding information about global warming for decades, were unlikely to bear much fruit in a court of law, legal analysts suggested in 2017.

Merritt Fox, a professor of law at Columbia Law School, for instance, noted in 2016 it’s inappropriate to use laws such as the Martin Act to target the company for potential fraud.

The law requires the likelihood a reasonable investor would consider the omitted important information and decided “not to vote or buy, sell, or hold, and that it has to significantly alter a total mix of information available to this reasonable man or reasonable investor,” Fox told a Columbia Law School panel in 2016.

The launch of the site comes as cities have taken up similar climate crusades. San Francisco and Oakland opened a lawsuit asserting five oil companies, including Exxon and Chevron, should pay huge sums of money for contributing to man-made global warming.

A ruling against oil companies could not only have tremendous consequences for the U.S. legal system but could also mean a sizable payday for the class action firms representing cities suing over global warming.

The city faces “imminent risk of catastrophic storm surge flooding” — yet a 2017 general-obligation bond offering claimed officials are “unable to predict whether sea-level or rise or other impacts of climate change … will occur,” San Francisco’s lawsuit suggested.

Attorneys representing the cities stand to earn a huge payday if their litigation is successful. Class action firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is handling lawsuits for San Francisco, Oakland and New York City, on a contingency fee basis. Cities pay law firms no upfront cost in exchange for a percentage of any winnings or settlement.

SOURCE

California mandates solar for new homes

Builders in California will be required to fit solar panels on most new homes from 2020 under new building standards, a move that is the first in the United States.

The decision, adopted unanimously by the five-member California Energy Commission, is part of the state's effort to fight global climate change. It came despite estimates it would raise the up-front cost of a new home by nearly $US10,000 in one of the most expensive parts of the country.

The Commission estimated the standards will add about $US40 to monthly mortgage payments but will compensate for that by saving residents $US80 a month on energy bills.

The new building codes include updates to building ventilation and lighting standards. They are collectively expected to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 700,000 metric tons over three years, a level equal to taking 115,000 cars off the road, according to state officials.

The vote was a major win for the solar installation industry, which already counts California as its biggest market.

Demand for solar equipment in California could rise by 10 per cent to 15 per cent because of the new standards.

California has one of the most ambitious renewable energy mandates in the US, with a goal of sourcing half of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030. At the end of 2017, it had reached about 30 per cent, according to the CEC.

Because of such policies, the most populous US state has frequently been at odds with President Donald Trump's aggressive rollback of policies to combat climate change.

SOURCE

Groups urge Trump to fully repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard

In the midst of all the political chaos in Washington, normal business has to keep grinding on. One item on the President’s schedule today is a meeting to discuss ethanol mandates and the Renewable Fuel Standard. Thus far the White House has proven reluctant to act on the need to curb government mandated ethanol blending requirements for gasoline, despite the damage the program does to consumers and the broader U.S. energy industry. (Not to mention to equipment such as small engines and marine motors which are damaged by higher ethanol blend fuels.

In anticipation of this meeting, several groups are pushing new awareness campaigns in an effort to get this critical message across. The American Energy Alliance features one of these stories this week. They’re not just looking to reduce the mandates, but eliminate the RFS entirely.

Today, the American Energy Alliance launched a multi-state digital ad initiative urging Washington to repeal the failed Renewable Fuel Standard as special interests seek more handouts within this broken and outdated big government policy.

“For more than a decade – as our nation’s energy outlook has positively transformed thanks to free market competition and private sector ingenuity, not government’s heavy hand – American consumers, family farmers, and refiners have suffered under this economically destructive policy,” said AEA president Thomas Pyle.

As the White House holds yet another meeting this week with lawmakers over so-called RFS “fixes,” AEA urges the Trump administration and Congress to swiftly and fully repeal this harmful mandate.

Another coalition, composed of 18 organizations including the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, National Taxpayers Union, American Motorcyclist Association and North American Meat Institute, have similarly petitioned the EPA (read their letter to Scott Pruitt here) to do away with the RFS completely. As part of their pitch, they point out the hypocrisy of corn producing states, particularly Iowa, in demanding higher fuel blending standards when they use the least ethanol themselves.

Iowa—the number one ethanol producer and corn grower in the United States—reaps arguably the greatest benefits from the Renewable Fuel Standard program, but on average, there is less ethanol in the motor fuels that Iowans buy [at their local retailers] than what consumers buy in the rest of the country as a whole.

In 2016, fuel ethanol accounted for just 9.2 percent of the volume of total gasoline and fuel ethanol sales in Iowa.

While urging for more aggressive biofuel mandate volumes and year-round sales of higher ethanol-blend fuels, Iowa isn’t carrying its own weight in terms of RFS consumption. If state level demand in Iowa is yielding lower sales than in the rest of the country—and data from the Iowa Department of Revenue assessing 90 percent of actual retail fuel sales suggests that it is—it would be wrong to increase the RFS burden in other states simply so that Iowa and the biofuel lobby can continue benefiting.

This is a politically tricky spot for President Trump no matter how you look at it. He made a promise on the campaign trail to support the RFS, largely to please the GOP in Iowa during the primary. But his conservative base has been calling for changes to this destructive policy for some time now and consumers feel the pinch at both the gas station and their mechanic’s shop. A reasoned explanation for shifting position on this policy wouldn’t do significant damage politically and could prove to be a great benefit to the nation as a whole. Here’s hoping that today’s meeting brings about some positive results.

SOURCE

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

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

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10 May, 2018

Stanford science reformer Ioannidis exposes himself as incompetent or insincere — take your pick

Steve Milloy

I’ve always suspected that Stanford University professor John Ioannidis was only posing as a science reformer. His commentary in PLoS against the EPA science transparency rulemaking validates that.

Ioannidis pretends care about the quality of science. He has even published his claim that:

"Currently, many published research findings are false or exaggerated, and an estimated 85% of research resources are wasted"

Yet in his new article attacking the Trump EPA’s science transparency proposal,

Ionnidis praises the very secret science and science fraud that brought the EPA proposal about:

As readers of this page and my Amazon.com best seller “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA” know, there is nothing remotely scientific or honest about the Harvard Six Cities and Pope ACS studies, or the alleged HEI review. The only thing that was “rigorous” was the fraud.

At the very least, Ioannidis has made no effort to learn the facts. At worst, he has been co-opted by Doug Dockery, Arden Pope and the EPA-funded air pollution mafia into aiding and abetting their fraud. Either way, Ioannidis has exposed himself.

SOURCE

I am certainly amazed that Ioannidis praises those rubbishy air pollution studies. I have over time reviewed a lot of them (e.g. here and here and here) and found that they were all naive about controls to the point of making their findings at best moot. A very simple demolition of the garbage mentioned above is here. Note that the alleged 2005 confirmation of the original results was simply a re-analysis of the original data that did nothing to address the lack of basic controls -- JR

How Green Is My Planet?

The revelation this week that CO2 had just reached 410 ppm is just the most recent negative climate “tipping point” being reached.

This news was accompanied by the usual links to future apocalyptic warming events and predictions of the Earth spiraling into planetary doom.

According to the self-proclaimed guardians of the Earth, we need to enact strict regulations and taxes to reduce our use of fossil fuels to forestall these predicted harmful events that are occurring due to our “sins of emission.”

Yet, the proposed solutions to this theoretical man-made warming, such as the Paris Climate Accord, are necessarily economically harmful to the developed nations, while increasing energy costs for all. Full enactment represents a great transfer of wealth from the “haves” to the “have-nots.”

According to Bjorn Lomborg, an economist from the University of Copenhagen, the Paris Accord would strip $1.5 trillion per year from the economies of the world, yet only forestall less than one-third of a degree Fahrenheit in warming by the year 2100.

The facts belie the “heated” rhetoric and apocalyptic visions forecast by supporters of human-driven catastrophic warming. We find that the predictions of doom are just that, predictions and speculation based on climate models that don’t model climate very well at all.

According to Congressional testimony by Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy in 2016, his comparison of 100 climate model runs used to support the Paris Accord overpredicted warming in the tropics by 2.5 times to 3 times too much.

So, rather than relying on speculation of what may occur 30 or 50 years in the future based on these failed models, we should review what is actually happening today in the real world.

After hundreds of years of rising temperatures and 100+ years of steadily increasing CO2, should we not be able to recognize some of these predicted climate calamities by now?

What we find is an Earth that is prospering, it is “greening,” and it is thriving precisely due to rising temperatures and increasing CO2.

A review of what is actually happening with droughts, intense heat waves, and forest fires, to name a few, show that they are in long-term decline and the experts point to increasing worldwide soil moisture content to be the primary reason.

Rising temperatures lead to higher water vapor in the atmosphere and thence to increased precipitation. An increase in the CO2 fertilization effect serves to decrease the size of the plants’ pores and reduce transpiration needed, leading to lessened water usage, leaving moisture in the ground.

These two factors, working in tandem, have largely been responsible for what is likely the biggest untold story about our Earth and its changing climate: an amazing greening of the Earth is taking place.

According to NASA scientists, 25 to 50% of the Earth is “greening,” reflecting increasing vegetation and only 4% is “browning,” or showing a decline in plant life. Probably the best example is the southern Sahara (Sahel) where 300,000 square kilometers of the former desert are turning into a lush grassland and the NASA experts tell us it is due to climate change.

We are also told that the human consequences of global warming will be severe and lead to famine and increases in mortality owing to rising temperature and extreme weather-related, however, as you might have guessed, just the opposite is occurring.

Food production, fueled by technological advances and human innovation, but also turbocharged by CO2 fertilization, increased soil moisture, and longer growing seasons continues to set records year after year, with no end in sight.

Temperature-related mortality studies show that 15 to 20 times as many people around the world die early deaths due to cold than from heat, so any additional warming would prevent millions of premature deaths due to temperature.

Finally, according to a study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, deaths in the U.S. due to extreme weather have plummeted 98% over the last century.

The Earth is not spiraling into a man-made climate catastrophe, but rather it, and humanity, are thriving and prospering greatly due to our changing climate and increasing carbon dioxide. Sleep well, you aren’t destroying the planet.

SOURCE

Haley: No to UN global pact for the environment

A proposal for bringing international environmental law under one legally binding treaty at the United Nations will be up for a preliminary vote later this week at the U.N. General Assembly. The United States U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley tells Fox News in a statement that the U.S. won’t support the measure.

The Global Pact for the environment has the backing of French President Emmanuel Macron and the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, and is being sponsored by France at the world body. It seeks to consolidate what it calls the “fragmented nature of environmental law,” and “codify” it, and make it accessible to all citizens.

In a statement to Fox News, Haley said that, “When international bodies attempt to force America into vague environmental commitments, it’s a sure sign that American citizens and businesses will get stuck paying a large bill without getting large benefits. The proposed global compact is not in our interests, and we oppose it,”

First launched in Paris just weeks after President Trump took the U.S. out of the Paris agreement on climate change, the pact was drawn up by a group of 80 legal experts from 40 countries. At the opening event Macron was joined by the former Republican Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, who offered his support to it, telling Agence France-Presse that the issue was not a political one.

In September, Macron set out the goals of Global Pact at the United Nations. He said the framework would “establish rights, but also duties for mankind.”

Macron urged quick adoption in his speech, “I very strongly believe that the world is ready for this and that it’s our responsibility.” Guterres also gave his support to the pact at the meeting.

Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, and author of the new book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” charged that, “This new global environmental pact will have more teeth and cover more aspects of human civilization than the U.N.-Paris climate pact. This new environmental pact is looking to be the U.N. Paris agreement on steroids because they are making it binding, and it appears even wider in scope.”

One United Nations diplomat told Fox News that, “the unknowing and uncertainty is what makes us so nervous, because you just never know where this can go and it could open up a Pandora’s Box.”

That Pandora’s Box, critics fear, includes fears over national sovereignty and new regulations and costs on businesses.

Catherine Tinker, visiting associate professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, and an expert in international environmental law, pointed to the hundreds of multilateral agreements that are already in place.

Tinker told Fox News, “While the global pact for the environment is well-intentioned, and may well serve as a guideline for some states, I am unconvinced of the need for a general treaty of this sort. There are in the neighborhood of 1,500 multilateral environmental agreements negotiated and ratified by various states in the last 40 years — these are binding. There are numerous voluntary commitments such as the Paris Agreement and the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We don’t need new laws, what we need is implementation.”

A vote on the French draft resolution is likely to take place this coming Thursday.

SOURCE

Russia’s ‘keep it in the ground’ ploy to stifle American oil

Just 1 percent — that’s the share of all-electric vehicles to total new U.S. car sales today.

You don’t have to be an auto retailer to know that electric vehicles are not pushing gasoline-powered cars and light trucks off the showroom floor. Virtually all of the 17 million vehicles sold in the U.S. last year were gas burners.

Even with tax credits and other incentives, such as taxpayer-financed charging stations, few Americans are rushing out to buy EVs. And if the tax incentives are stripped away, EVs would be much less competitive.

Those numbers have major implications for the U.S. oil industry. Oil is one of America’s critical fuels for good reasons: its abundance and relatively low cost.

We produce nearly 10 million barrels a day — and we use more oil now than at any time in our nation’s history. The demand for oil is expected to continue to rise through 2030, and then plateau, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Today, the U.S. ranks among the world’s leading oil producers, undercutting the ability of OPEC and Russia to influence global oil prices. Thanks to innovations such as sophisticated data analytics and automation, the oil price at which deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is economical has fallen sharply, to just $40 to 50 per barrel.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch recently predicted that U.S. oil demand will stay strong through 2020, expanding at an annual rate of 1.3 million barrels per day. Our country’s vast oil reserves and ongoing research into low-carbon gasoline will keep oil at the top of the list of energy sources even if EV sales suddenly were to take off here at home and abroad.

If every passenger vehicle in the world were converted to an electric-powered one, the global demand for oil would decline by just 20 percent. And don’t forget that EVs are only as green as the grid from which they draw power.

Although coal-fired generating plants are going the way of the dodo, natural gas will continue to be utilities’ fuel of choice for years to come.

More to the point, even allowing for a hypothetical spike in EV sales, the global gasoline demand for light vehicles is expected to roughly triple by the mid-2030s. Meanwhile, levying special taxes on electic vehicles — or switching from motor fuel taxes to a tax per mile driven — will be required so that EV owners help pay for building and maintaining roads and bridges.

But a threat is hanging over oil. What is most ominous is the spread of the destructive idea that, because of climate change, all fossil fuels, including oil, must be kept in the ground. Russia bears some of the blame for that underhanded campaign, using social media to twist American public opinion against oil production to achieve its own devious goal: push up world oil prices.

With Russia’s help, the keep-it-in-the-ground movement threatens to impede the production of oil offshore and stifle hydraulic fracturing in shale formations. At the same time, Russia is spearheading opposition to the construction of new oil and natural gas pipelines. Because of the Depression-era Jones Act, which requires shipments between U.S. ports to be carried on American-flagged and -crewed vessels, additional pipeline capacity is essential for delivering heating oil to markets in the Northeast where it’s needed the most.

If the keep-it-in-the-ground crowd is successful, domestic oil supplies will drop and prices will rise, harming oil-using industries and consumers. Every $10 per barrel hike in crude prices is like a $70 billion tax increase on Americans. The recent spurt in gasoline prices was a taste of what will happen if the keep-it-in-the-ground movement takes hold..

Given that Russia’s involvement in U.S. domestic affairs is likely to be a major political issue over the next few years, groups engaged in the keep-it-in-the-ground movement ought to rethink the economic and geopolitical consequences of their actions.

The coming transformation of the American passenger car fleet to electric vehicles is, for the most part, good news for the world. But the global demand for oil isn’t going away, no matter what the critics claim.

SOURCE

Foot-Dragging By State Regulators Imperils Energy Infrastructure Projects

Keeping America’s rapidly expanding economy humming along will require, among other things, a state-of-the-art energy infrastructure commensurate with the demands of technology-driven global competition.

When we stand in our own way, we fall behind, to the delight of global rivals eager to take advantage of our self-inflicted wounds.

A development in Virginia, one with national implications, illustrates the clash between rising to the challenge and drowning in bureaucratic inertia.

There, the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), which would transport natural gas from the energy-rich Marcellus Shale in West Virginia through central Virginia before turning south into North Carolina, is set to begin construction.

The project, a joint venture involving Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Southern Company, and Piedmont Natural Gas, is targeted to be in service during the second half of 2019.

But the $5.1 billion, 600-mile project, after clearing a formidable gauntlet of federal and state regulatory hurdles, has run headlong into obstruction by an obscure body known as the Virginia State Water Control Board.

Multi-Layered Approval Process

As part of the federal and three-state approval process, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spent a year reviewing all river and stream crossings under a regulatory framework approved by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The Corps issued federal water quality permits for the ACP in January, but its action came a few weeks after Virginia’s State Water Control Board had thrown a monkey wrench into the process.

In December, the board, by a 4-3 vote, approved a permit for the ACP but, in an unprecedented move, delayed certification of the permit until studies of the project’s effect on sediments, karst, and erosion had been completed.

This came after the project had already been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Outdoors Foundation, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Even though the Army Corps of Engineers had reviewed and approved the waterways crossings in question, the State Water Control Board’s demand for additional and redundant studies delayed the start of construction until this spring.

What’s more, the board on April 12 further undermined the established regulatory approval process by allowing a 30-day comment period on whether the approvals the Corps granted for individual stream crossings by the pipeline adequately protect Virginia’s waters.

After the board has received and reviewed the public comments, there is nothing to keep it from coming up with new ways to subvert the established regulatory approval process.

Bait and Switch

Trust between regulators and developers is essential if infrastructure projects are to proceed in a timely and affordable manner. Creating regulatory uncertainty for all developers, not just for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, will make it harder and costlier to build public infrastructure.

This could establish a dangerous precedent in Virginia — and elsewhere — of approving a permit based on a clear regulatory framework and set of permitting requirements, and then threaten that permit months later by potentially revoking it and establishing a different regulatory framework and permit requirements.

Pipelines, like most energy projects, are inherently controversial and subject to vigorous public debate. But the approval process should proceed under the rule of law and not be undermined by regulators who willy-nilly replace an established regulatory framework with one more to their liking.

The shenanigans in Virginia will be closely watched elsewhere in the country, where opponents of pipelines or other energy projects will be tempted to copy-cat the arbitrary moves of the Virginia State Water Board.

SOURCE

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

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

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9 May, 2018

New paper finds Antarctica has been gaining surface ice mass over past 150 years

A paper published today in The Cryosphere finds Antarctica has been gaining surface ice and snow accumulation over the past 150+ years, and finds acceleration in some areas noting, "a clear increase in accumulation of more than 10% has occurred in high Surface Mass Balance coastal regions and over the highest part of the East Antarctic ice divide since the 1960s. Even the allegedly "vulnerable" West Antarctic Ice Sheet [WAIS] surface mass balance has not changed in 150+ years

A synthesis of the Antarctic surface mass balance during the last 800 yr

M. Frezzotti1 et al.

Abstract.

Global climate models suggest that Antarctic snowfall should increase in a warming climate and mitigate rises in the sea level. Several processes affect surface mass balance (SMB), introducing large uncertainties in past, present and future ice sheet mass balance. To provide an extended perspective on the past SMB of Antarctica, we used 67 firn/ice core records to reconstruct the temporal variability in the SMB over the past 800 yr and, in greater detail, over the last 200 yr.

Our SMB reconstructions indicate that the SMB changes over most of Antarctica are statistically negligible and that the current SMB is not exceptionally high compared to the last 800 yr. High-accumulation periods have occurred in the past, specifically during the 1370s and 1610s. However, a clear increase in accumulation of more than 10% has occurred in high SMB coastal regions and over the highest part of the East Antarctic ice divide since the 1960s. To explain the differences in behaviour between the coastal/ice divide sites and the rest of Antarctica, we suggest that a higher frequency of blocking anticyclones increases the precipitation at coastal sites, leading to the advection of moist air in the highest areas, whereas blowing snow and/or erosion have significant negative impacts on the SMB at windy sites. Eight hundred years of stacked records of the SMB mimic the total solar irradiance during the 13th and 18th centuries. The link between those two variables is probably indirect and linked to a teleconnection in atmospheric circulation that forces complex feedback between the tropical Pacific and Antarctica via the generation and propagation of a large-scale atmospheric wave train.

SOURCE

Thailand Temperatures Not Behaving According to Climate Alarmists' Wishes

Paper Reviewed: Payomrat, P., Liu, Y., Pumijumnong, N., Li, Q. and Song, H. 2018. "Tree-ring stable carbon isotope-based June-September maximum temperature reconstruction since AD 1788, north-west Thailand". Tellus Series B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology 70: 1443655

One of the most oft repeated claims of climate alarmists is that temperatures of the past few decades are the warmest they have been over the past one or two millennia, which warmth they additionally claim is caused by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Although much can be said and done to debate and refute these two assertions, we never cease to be amazed at the constant flow of scientific studies unveiling newly published historical proxy temperature records that challenge such hypotheses.

The latest case-in-point is the work of Payomrat et al. (2018), who developed a ?13C tree-ring proxy for June-September maximum temperatures for northwest Thailand. The new chronology was derived from Merkus pine (Pinus merkusii) trees cored in the Mae Hong Son province in the northwestern region of the country, spanning a period of 226 years (1788-2013 AD).

A graphical presentation of the proxy temperature record is presented in the figure below. Perhaps the most significant observation to note from this graph is the decline in temperatures since the mid-1980s, with current values approaching the lowest recorded in the 226-year record. What is more, temperatures are not rising in response to the supposedly large CO2 forcing that has occurred in the atmosphere since World War II. Indeed, Payomrat et al. report that a majority of the ten warmest years of the record occurred prior to second half of the 20th century, including the six warmest years of 1950, 1949, 1948, 1947, 1945 and 1946.

Clearly, there is nothing unusual, unnatural, or unprecedented about the northwest Thailand temperature record. And that fact adds to the growing mountain of evidence that regularly refutes climate alarmist claims of current temperatures being the warmest of the past millennium and driven by the modern rise in atmospheric CO2.

SOURCE

Study: Those most concerned about climate change least likely to take individual action

A year-long study of 600 Americans placed them into three distinct categories—”believers,” “cautiously worried,” and “skeptics”—based on their self-stated level of concern over climate change. Not surprisingly, believers were most likely to support federal policies to address the problem while skeptics were least likely to support such policies. But the researchers also found a result which seemed counter-intuitive. From Pacific Standard:

While policy preferences of group members tracked with their beliefs, their behaviors largely did not: Skeptics reported using public transportation, buying eco-friendly products, and using reusable bags more often than those in the other two categories.

This pattern was found consistently through the year, leading the researchers to conclude that “belief in climate change does not appear to be a necessary or sufficient condition for pro-environmental behavior.”

Hall and his colleagues can only speculate about the reasons for their results. But regarding the concerned but inactive, the psychological phenomenon known as moral licensing is a likely culprit.

Previous research has found doing something altruistic—even buying organic foods—gives us license to engage in selfish activity. We’ve “earned” points in our own mind. So if you’ve pledged some money to Greenpeace, you feel entitled to enjoying the convenience of a plastic bag.

This idea of “moral licensing” is very interesting. That link in the quote above goes to a 2010 story at the Washington Post which has a bit more on the phenomenon:

“We have these internal negotiations going in our heads all day, even if we don’t know it,” said Benoît Monin, a social psychologist who studies moral licensing at Stanford University. “People’s past behavior literally gives them license to do that next thing, which might not be good.”…

From a theoretical perspective, the research has shown that “it’s like we can withdraw from our moral bank accounts,” Monin said. “It’s a lens through which you see the rest of your behavior. But it may not even be conscious.”…

University of Toronto behavioral marketing professor Nina Mazar showed in a recent study that people who bought green products were more likely to cheat and steal than those who bought conventional products. One of Mazar’s experiments invited participants to shop either at online stores that carry mainly green products or mainly conventional products. Then they played a game that allowed them to cheat to make more money. The shoppers from the green store were more dishonest than those at the conventional store, which brought them higher earnings in the game.

The thing that immediately came to mind when I read this story wasn’t Al Gore or Sting or any of the other people preaching about climate change while flying around the world in private jets, the first thing that came to mind was Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein has been accused of sexual assault and rape by dozens of women around the world. And yet, his profile in Hollywood was as an outspoken progressive who had a lot to say about women’s rights. If you had asked him, I’m sure he’d have said he was a male feminist. Meanwhile, he was a monster who made abusing women the center of his lifestyle.

Remember when the first story about Weinstein’s behavior broke, he put out a statement which made a pretty clear connection between his “demons” and his progressive campaigning. Here’s a bit of that:

I so respect all women, and regret what happened. I hope that my actions will speak louder than words and that one day we will all be able to earn their trust and sit down together with Lisa to learn more. Jay Z wrote in 4:44 “I’m not the man I thought I was, and I better be that man for my children.” The same is true for me. I want a second chance in the community, but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it. I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years, and this is a wake-up call. I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt, and I plan to do right by all of them.

I am going to need a place to channel that anger, so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party. One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC.

At the time, this seemed like a pretty strange juxtaposition of bad behavior and politics, but when viewed in light of “moral licensing” it makes a lot of sense. Weinstein was basically saying ‘look, I took a lot out of the progressive bank account but I’m going to put a lot back in if you let me.‘ A few weeks later, there was a report from Page Six saying Weinstein had concluded he was destined to be a martyr for needed public change. He had realized he wasn’t coming back from this. His career was dead. But even then he was thinking about his situation as a passion play in which he would die to bring change to the world. It was still about moral licensing, just on a much grander scale.

Anyway, that’s just one example but it seems to me this probably applies to a lot of similar cases of hypocrisy in politics, not just with regard to climate change. The study itself is here. You have to pay to read it but the abstract is available and matches the description above.

SOURCE

David Suzuki Wants You In Jail For Thinking The Wrong Global Warming Thoughts

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought…Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion…

Canadian broadcaster David Suzuki, 82, doesn’t believe in freedom of thought. He thinks people should go to jail if they think the wrong way about climate change.

Ten years ago, he urged a Montreal audience to find “a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act.”

In Suzuki’s universe, climate change is a compelling problem (although not compelling enough for him to reduce his own air travel). Politicians who fail to take certain measures should, therefore, lose their liberty.

The difficulty, of course, is that there are diverse perspectives regarding the source, magnitude, and significance of recent climate change.

The climate on this planet is always changing, and many smart people consider its recent fluctuations to be trivial.

Those who hold such views – whether they be scientists or democratically elected leaders – have a right to behave according to their conscience.

When the media pointed out Suzuki’s totalitarian thinking a decade ago, a newspaper article told us:

Though a spokesman said yesterday the call for imprisonment was not meant to be taken literally, Dr. Suzuki reportedly made similar remarks in an address at the University of Toronto last month.

When Suzuki was interviewed by the Australian edition of Rolling Stone magazine two years ago, he was once again asked about giving “jail sentences to former Prime Ministers.” His response:

"I really believe that people like the former Prime Minister of Canada should be thrown in jail for wilful blindness. If you’re the CEO of a company and you deliberately avoid or ignore information relevant to the functioning of that company, you can be thrown in jail…to have a Prime Minister who for nine years wouldn’t even let the term ‘climate change’ pass his lips! If that isn’t wilful blindness, then I don’t know what is."

Listen to this man’s own words. He really does think people should be sent to prison if their analysis of a complicated topic doesn’t align with his own.

Suzuki has enjoyed an illustrious, multi-decades-long career with the publicly-funded CBC. He has not toiled in obscurity and penury, struggling to communicate his message to an indifferent world.

Rather, he is famous, affluent, and influential. He has been fêted and honored on many occasions and from many directions.

Twelve years ago, he received the Order of Canada. Twenty-seven universities from three countries have already given him honorary degrees.

TOP TAKEAWAY: On June 7th, the University of Alberta will lionize a man who thinks prison is an appropriate response to contrary opinions.

SOURCE

Australia: 'My confidence level in weather forecasters is very low. It's burnt us': Drought-stricken farmer's despair after the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts a wet summer - but it was one of his driest EVER - as the big dry ravages the region

The BoM bomb again. They integrate global warming into their forecasting models so it is no wonder they get it wrong

An award-winner farmer has lost confidence in the Bureau of Meteorology's predictions after a 'wet' long-term forecast was followed by a devastatingly dry summer.

Huge swathes of New South Wales' north-west have been gripped by drought in recent years, with suffering farmers running out of water and selling off their livestock.

Cotton, canola and wheat farmer John Hamparsum told Daily Mail Australia the drought hit his farm particularly hard last year, after a hopeful weather forecast failed to pan out.

'It's like somebody tells you you've got a really good tip on a horse - but that tip was totally wrong and the horse ran dead last,' he said.

The winner of the 2015 Brownhill Award - a prestigious farming accolade for innovation, sustainability and profit - Mr Hamparsum said he tried to run his farm on the best science available.

So after a hot and dry summer, he decided to plant more cotton last year. The Bureau's long-range forecast had predicted an above-50 per cent chance of a wetter summer and prices were good.

'Cotton was by far the most profitable crop and the best return on our water,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'We were going "oh gee, it was a terrible summer last year, maybe this will be the one that's going to break it'.

But it wasn't to be. The weather was hot and dry and the river that runs through his farm was desolate. On top of that, the farm's water allocation was recently cut. Statewide, it was the third hottest summer on record.

At the farm, the rain was pitiful: just 11mm in January, and about 30mm in February, most of which 'basically evaporated'.

'The rain doesn't even settle the dust,' Mr Hamparsum said. A couple of storms came tantalisingly close - but just missed the farm.

The terrible conditions have had a 'massive' impact on the farm. 'We might break even this year, if we're lucky'.

Meantime, the veteran farmer's confidence in weather forecasts has hit an all-time low. 'I base my decisions ... as a good farm manager on the science that's available,' he said.

'I've increasingly lost confidence in that process in the last 3 to 5 years. 'My confidence level in weather forecasters is very low. It's burnt us'.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the agency recognised the impact of the recent dry climate on farmers, and was committed to providing the best science.

The spokesman said the recent climate outlook came at a time in the cycle where predictability was low. 'Climate outlooks are probabilistic, not categorical forecasts,' he said. 'That means a 60 per cent chance of above average rainfall, also means a 40 per cent of below average rainfall.'

'You're not guaranteed a win because there is always that element of chance, but know that in the long run, having the odds in your favour will mean you come out ahead,' a BOM video about its climate outlook maps said.

Meantime, the drought continues. Things are busy at the local saleyards as farmers in the north-west realise they can't feed or water their cattle through the winter to come. Prayers are said for rain but there is no end in sight.

Regardless, Mr Hamparsum said he is still optimistic about the future. 'As the old guys say, every day without rain is another day closer (to it),' he said.

SOURCE

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

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

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8 May, 2018

Climate Scientists Versus Science

Climate scientists have been telling us for decades that skiing is doomed due to global warming. The organization “Save Our Snow” is dedicated to shutting down fossil fuels in order to save the ski industry.

It isn’t clear how people would get to ski resorts without fossil fuels, how the lifts would operate or how they would keep people warm and fed – but the bigger issue is that reality is not cooperating with junk climate scientists. More snow is falling, it is falling over a wider area, it is lasting longer, and ski areas are seeing record snow.

Janette Janssen, general manager at Cairngorm Mountain, said:”It has been a fantastic and amazing season…. We started at the beginning of November and it has been a long and great season.”

Most climate science is based around a superstition that CO2 controls the climate. It is one of the stupidest group think episodes in science history.

More HERE

Energy Department Petitioned To Stop Making Dishwashers Even Crappier

A conservative think tank is petitioning the Department of Energy (DOE) to adopt a new energy efficiency standard for dishwashers that can cycle in an hour or less.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent a petition to the DOE Wednesday, pointing out an unintended consequence of increasingly strict standards on energy and water standards: dishwasher cycle time.

“It used to take you only an hour to get a full load of dishes washed and dried in your dishwasher. Today, thanks to federal energy efficiency standards, the average time is nearly 2.5 hours,” CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman said in a statement. “That’s not progress; it’s bureaucracy. And for many consumers, it’s a royal pain. We hope the Department of Energy will change course.”

Dishwasher cycle times have not averaged an hour or less since 1983, before the DOE began regulating dishwashers. A lengthy wash cycle time is one of four major sources of dissatisfaction Americans have with dishwashers.

In 1987, Congress passed the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act (NAECA), establishing minimum efficiency standards for many appliances, including dishwashers. Subsequent regulations increased standards and mandated the DOE keep to a schedule to review efficiency standards and update them as necessary.

Congress did not intend to sacrifice other features for an ever-increasing energy efficiency standard when passing NAECA and other regulations, and it passed a provision to “preclude DOE from promulgating a standard that manufacturers are only able to meet by adopting engineering changes that eliminate performance characteristics,” the provision states, according to CEI.

The National Energy Conservation Act of 1978 gave the Secretary of Energy authority to create an entirely new class of appliance and set of standards within a type of product. Under this power, Energy Secretary Rick Perry could create a class of dishwasher that is able to complete a cycle in an hour without discarding the rules adopted so far.

The move would give manufacturers more flexibility in dishwasher design and as lines of one hour cycle dishwashers come to market, give consumers a choice of product no longer in existence due to government regulation, CEI argued.

“Dishwasher speed is an important factor for huge numbers of consumers,” the CEI petition states. “Manufacturers clearly have the ability to satisfy these consumers, and the DOE has the discretion under the law to accommodate them. It should do so.”

SOURCE

Astrophysicist – Mini Ice Age accelerating – New Maunder Minimum has started

“We are plunging now into a deep mini ice age,” says astrophysicist Piers Corbyn. “And there is no way out.”

For the next 20 years it’s going to get colder and colder on average, says Corbyn.

The jet stream will be wilder. There will be more wild temperature changes, more hail events, more earthquakes, more extreme volcano events, more snow in winters, lousy summers, late springs, short autumns, and more and more crop failures.

“Carbon dioxide levels do not have any impact – I repeat, any impact – on climate,” says Piers. “The CO2 theory is wrong from the start.”

“The fact is the sun rules the sea temperature, and the sea temperature rules the climate.”

“The basic message is that the sun is controlling the climate, primarily via the sea.”

“What we have happening – NOW! – is the start of the mini ice age…it began around 2013. It’s a slow start, and now the rate of moving into the mini ice age is accelerating.”

“The best thing to do now is to tell your politicians to stop believing nonsense, and to stop doing silly measures like the bird-killing machines of wind farms in order to save the planet (they say), but get rid of all those things, which cost money, and reduce electricity prices now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDBbfDbaiA4

Thanks to Argiris Diamantis and Eric9027 for this link

SOURCE


A New Zealand environmentalist who has a point

New Zealand dairy farmers have a higher number of cows than the environment can sustain, according to a government minister.

Environment minister David Parker warned of beefing up regulation in order to make New Zealand's waterways swimmable again when he appeared on TVNZ's Q+A program on Sunday.

Because of the country's increasing dairy cattle density, a growing amount of animal faeces has ended up into waterways.

The pollution has resulted in a rise in potentially fatal pathogen and E Coli. New Zealand has by far the highest documented rate in the world of the infection.

Mr Parker told Q+A host Corin Dann on Sunday that dairy farmers will have change their practices or consider destocking.

'Cow numbers have already peaked and are going down, but yes, in some areas, the number of cows per hectare is higher than the environment can sustain,' Mr Parker said.

'That won't be done through a raw cap on cow numbers; it will be done on nutrient limits, the amount of nutrient that can be lost from a farm to a waterway, because it's not just a dairy cow issue.'

There were 10.08 million cattle (3.61 million beef and 6.47 million dairy) in the New Zealand in 2017, according to Stats New Zealand.

'The total number of dairy cattle increased 68.6 percent, from 3.84 million in 1994 to 6.47 million in 2017,' the website states.

'However, from 2012 this increase slowed to 0.45 percent (up 28,826 in 2017 from 6.45 million in 2012).'

Mr Parker ruled out compensation for farmers who could be forced to reduce destock. 'No you don't compensate people for stopping pollution. Just because you could pollute last year doesn't mean you should be allowed to do it all, or paid to stop doing it.'

The minister admitted no analysis on the economic impact it will have on farmers has been done, particularly in regional areas.

'But it's very, very difficult to model, because second-best from the farmer perspective may still be very close to the same outcome profit-wise,' Mr Parker said.

'Can I go back to what I was saying that I think one of the answers to this in south Canterbury, for example, lies in land use change towards more cropping, more horticulture, which are high-value land uses.'

Mr Parker said reversing some of the environmental damage 'does require changes in behaviour over time.'

'I don’t think it’s unreasonable for New Zealanders that their rivers in summer are clean enough to swim in, put their head under without getting crook,' he said.

The minister wouldn't say when regulation would be implemented.

Mr Parker said it was part of his government's 2017 election commitment to cleaning up New Zealand's waterways.

'I've spent a lot of my life trying to fight for environmental causes. This is my last time through cabinet, and I'll have failed as a politician if I don't use my position now to stop this [happening],' he said.

It could be a hot topic at the DairyNZ Farmers' Forum in Hamilton this week (May 8-9), where business and political leaders will discuss New Zealand's dairy sector and its future.

SOURCE

Big Greenie Rally against plan to build cable car up Tasmanian mountain

There's never any end to their protesting. Building dams, cutting down trees, there's always something they are against. They talk as if the cable car will make the mountain shrivel up and disappear. In reality the cable car will simply allow more people to enjoy the mountain.

But Greenies always do want to restrict access to natural features by non-Greenies. It's stark elitism. They think they are the only ones who deserve the privilege of entering natural areas. Only they have the "sensitivity" required

It's just another local mountain

Thousands of people descended on Cascade Gardens in South Hobart to protest against a plan to run a cable car up to the summit of Mount Wellington-kunanyi.

So many people were packed into the park for the Mountain Mayday rally — held near the proposed base station for the project — that some had to stand outside the fence on the road in order to see.

The speakers included Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan, former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown and independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

They said the process for the cable car development had been corrupt and lacking transparency and community consultation.

Mr Flanagan talked down the likelihood the cable car project would ever get up, likening its chances to MP Rene Hidding getting the Speaker's role that was snatched away from him by fellow Liberal Sue Hickey earlier this week.

"The Hobart cable car company says the Hobart public support the cable car," he said.

"Rene Hidding's more likely to become Speaker than you can believe a word the cable car company says.

"The cable car company says they'll take the kids free up to the top of the mountain. "Well, I've got some news — the mountain's always been free. Kids have been enjoying it forever and I was one of them.

"I've loved the mountain since I was little. To have this wonderland, this thumb of the southwest sitting itself into the pie of our city always seemed to be a miracle.

"I've walked all over it, camped in snow caves as a kid, I climb the zig-zag most weeks, I've watched the snow swirl round the columns of the organ pipes and I've walked on into the wonder."

Referring to the state's housing crisis, Mr Flanagan asked: "Why is this government more interested in building a cable car than houses for the homeless?"

Bob Brown said "kunanyi is in our safekeeping and kunanyi will be saved from this cable car".

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie told the crowd the strong support the Hodgman Government had provided the sole proponent of the project, the Mount Wellington Cable Car company (MWCC) led by Adrian Bold, had put many people offside.

"This is a monumental achievement to get so many of us so cross," he told the crowd.

"Even those people that support the idea of a cable car, or are at least open minded to the idea of a cable car, even they're getting cross now because what they see is unacceptable.

    "In the last week, I had one person who supports the cable car say 'but it really should be publicly owned'.

"I heard someone else say I support the cable car and I think it should be privately owned but I'm worried it's going to be bailed out by the taxpayer."

Government Minister Michael Ferguson said the process was transparent and had been proven so.

"You couldn't be more transparent than the Minister for State Growth [Peter Gutwein] cancelling a permit to ensure best practices are being followed," he said.

    "There is a Green constituency in Tasmania that will never accept any development on Mount Wellington and that is what you are seeing.

"We understand there's different points of view on the cable car, but overwhelmingly people of Tasmania do support that [the cable car], voted for that and expect us to get on with it."

Luke Martin from the Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania said the public needed to consider the alternatives.

"Within a few years there is likely to be more than a million people heading to the summit each year," he said.

"It is simply unsustainable to continue to have more and more vehicles and tour buses driving up a century-old road and a seemingly ever-expanding car park.

"What do they propose we do? Shuttle buses that mean expanding the summit road? Limiting visitor numbers through some kind of fee or quota system?

    "Ironically, across the globe it is conservationists who are pushing for the development of cable way technologies."

On Monday Mr Bold said the MWCC was not deterred by the protest and the large turnout.

[It] doesn't necessarily change our view of what the social licence should be," he said.

"We're quite aware that there are hundreds of thousands of people who didn't go to Cascade Gardens. "We've been listening to the people for a good six, seven-and-a-half years now and meeting with residents one-on-one, collecting and responding to thousands of emails. "We just have to stick it out, essentially."

The proposal from the MWCC has faced stiff opposition from conservationists and sectors of the Hobart community since it was announced that preliminary drilling works had been approved days before the state election.

SOURCE

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

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

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7 May, 2018

Perverse, conflicted ethical systems

Radical environmentalists put people last, and destroy habitats and wildlife to end fossil fuels

Paul Driessen

Third Reich Forest Minister Hermann Goering was an avid hiker and ecologist who once sent a man to a concentration camp for cutting up a frog for fish bait. In 1933 he and other Nazi Party leaders enacted anti-vivisection laws to stop what he called “unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments.”

Intensely hostile to capitalism, the Nazis controlled all industries and envisioned large-scale wind turbine projects that would generate “huge amounts of cheap energy” and create millions of German jobs.

But as Luftwaffe commander, Goering planned and directed the 1939 terror bombing of Warsaw and the final obliteration of the city’s Jewish ghetto. Thousands were slaughtered, and survivors were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp, under “the final solution” that he helped mastermind – to send millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, “mentally deficient burdens” and other “sub-humans” to ovens and mass graves.

About the most charitable thing one can say about Nazi ethics is that they were perversely conflicted and schizophrenic. People clearly occupied a lower niche than animals on their “moral and ethical” hierarchy.

Sadly, the same observations apply to the more rabid elements of modern environmentalism. Ironically, in the name of “keeping fossil fuels in the ground” to “save the planet” from “dangerous manmade climate change” and other imagined calamities, radical greens also demand actions that would ultimately destroy the very habitats and wildlife they claim to love. Their own words underscore their attitudes.

“If we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of saving the world ecologically.” (Earth First! activist Judy Bari) “Loggers losing their jobs because of spotted owl legislation is no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.” (Friends of the Earth founder David Brower)

People have become “a cancer … a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” (National Park Service scientist David Graber) “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.” (Prince Philip of England)

“Even if animal research produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.” (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals president Ingrid Newkirk) “Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.” (Newkirk again)

Banning DDT in Sri Lanka might well unleash a malaria epidemic, but “so what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this is as good a way as any.” Besides, in the United States, DDT substitutes “only kill farm workers, and most of them are Mexicans and Negroes.” (Environmental Defense Fund scientist Charles Wurster)

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” (Paul Ehrlich, who in 1968 predicted mass starvation and a collapse of civilization by the 1980s)

“It’s much cheaper for everybody in Africa to have electricity where they need it,” from little solar panels “on their huts.” (Actor Ed Begley, Jr.) People in developing countries “simply cannot expect to have the material lifestyle of the average American.” (Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder)

These attitudes, policies and demands prevail today. Radical greens still advance the same irrational, intolerant views about pesticides to control insect-borne diseases; genetically modified crops to feed more people from less acreage with less water; and access to abundant, reliable, affordable energy required to power modern industrialized societies in Africa, Asia and other less developed regions.

The world’s poorest families still live unnecessarily squalid, miserable, diseased, malnourished, short lives. Billions still don’t even have electricity, clean water, light bulbs or a tiny refrigerator.

It’s awful enough that they were born into these places and conditions, and must endure corrupt, kleptocratic dictators. It is intolerable that their hopes and dreams are also stymied by unelected, unaccountable eco-imperialist activists and bureaucrats, who prance, preen and profess their commitment to “marginalized” people – but care about them only if they are “threatened” by capitalism or climate change. Not surprisingly, they brazenly ignore their own callous roles in this injustice.

The world’s dark-skinned people remain at the bottom of the environmentalist ethical hierarchy – with millions dying every year from preventable diseases of poverty, perpetuated by callous environmentalists. Developed country loggers, miners, factory workers, ranchers, pensioners and poor minorities are not much higher up; farmers also get short shrift, unless they grow corn, soybeans or canola for biofuels.

The battle over fossil fuels has recently entered other dangerous territory, as “protesters” launch campaigns reminiscent of radicals putting spikes in trees so that sawmill blades would explode and injure workers – while comrades bombed GMO and animal testing labs, meat packing plants and even houses.

Their targets now are oil and natural gas transport systems – as a prelude to more rampant destruction – as Putin aides and cronies assist and finance other groups that are trying to block US energy production.

A new cadre of Earth Liberation Front anarchists has taken to closing the valves on pipelines – sabotage that could result in pipeline ruptures, oil spills, explosions, injuries and deaths. In one case, the “valve turners” called the Keystone pipeline operations center just minutes before closing the valve, causing the valve wheel and ground below the saboteurs’ feet to shake. They could have caused a disaster.

If caught, arrested and prosecuted, these extremists invoke the “necessity defense” – asserting that they were compelled to break the law, in order to prevent a greater harm: manmade climate cataclysms.

The eco-terror groups have issued a “Decisive Ecological Warfare” manifesto, urging like-minded criminal elements to commit sabotage against pipelines, transmission lines, oil tankers and refineries. As in the past, the militants want “more moderate” environmental groups to support the “necessity” defense, acts of sabotage, and the use of eco-terrorism to “disrupt and dismantle industrial civilization” and “remove the ability of the powerful to exploit the marginalized and destroy the planet.”

They want more “mainstream” pressure groups to promote the notion that sabotage is acceptable and normal where Earth’s future is at stake. Environmentalists have already persuaded Western institutions not to support pesticide use, fossil fuel power plant construction and other modern technologies in poor, disease-ridden, energy-deprived countries – so maybe this lunacy no longer so farfetched.

Several states have passed “critical infrastructure protection” bills, assessing criminal penalties on terrorists and organizations that conspire to trespass on or damage essential infrastructure sites. The bills also hold parties responsible for any resultant damages to property or persons; they should also penalize foundations and other financiers of eco-terror. All 50 states and Congress should enact similar bills.

The asserted justifications that drive perverse, conflicted environmentalist ethics are based on ideologies, assertions and computer models that label humans, capitalism and modern technologies as existential threats to our planet. They have given rise to a $1.5-trillion-per-year Climate Industrial Complex that is determined to expand its revenues and control people’s lives, livelihoods and living standards – while redistributing wealth mostly to those who would be in power and those who would keep them in power, while sending just enough to the world’s poorest families to improve their lives slightly at the margins.

Ironically, in the process, eco-activists will inflict far more damage on environmental values than do the technologies they despise. Their “solutions” to alleged ecological “problems” will turn billions of acres into wind and solar farms, biofuel plantations, hydroelectric projects, and mines for materials needed for wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and other “clean, green, renewable” energy alternatives.

The twentieth century revealed how thin the veneer of humanity, civilization and ethics can be, when propaganda, fear-mongering, hatred and emotions take over. We need to muster enough science, intellectual rigor and freedom of speech to prevent more deaths in the name of “environmental justice.”

Via email

Is Ethanol Cronyism on the Ropes?

While then-candidate Donald Trump did participate in the usual campaign ritual of bending knee to Iowa farmers with a promise to protect the renewable fuel standard, there was reason to hope his pledge to drain the swamp would extend to ending or reforming the beleaguered mandate that requires most gasoline to be blended with ethanol. After all, the once seemingly unstoppable political clout of Iowa’s agricultural interests was notably weakened when Ted Cruz defied convention by openly opposing the renewable fuel standard and won the Republican Iowa caucuses anyway.

Perhaps Hawkeye State voters are no longer as into cronyism as the cronies and their representatives, which fuels hope that Trump may yet push for RFS reform.

Congress created the requirement to blend plant-based ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply supposedly out of concern for greenhouse gas emissions, as well as out of a fear that consumers would become increasingly reliant on foreign fuels just as global oil prices seemed to be skyrocketing.

It was wrong on both counts. The Government Accountability Office consistently projects that the RFS won’t meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In stark contrast, a 2016 University of Minnesota study finds that an unintended consequence of the biofuel mandate is that it actually increases net greenhouse gas emissions.

As the authors explain, the RFS creates a “market rebound effect” whereby the mandated expansion of biofuel production increases the overall fuel supply. This in turn lowers fuel prices, which encourages greater consumption. The lower emissions from biofuel use, based on Environmental Protection Agency figures, aren’t enough to offset the overall increase in fuel consumption. And this analysis doesn’t even get into the debate over the full life-cycle impact of ethanol production.

Likewise, seeing as politicians hold no special insight into future market developments, it should come as little surprise that their worries about dependence on foreign oil were negated by the U.S. shale oil and fracking boom and the subsequent drop in global oil prices.

But mere failure to accomplish legislative goals isn’t why the RFS is under scrutiny today. Most government programs share that inglorious distinction. What has the RFS under the microscope is its destructive impact on independent oil refineries.

Many refineries can’t economically meet the increasingly burdensome RFS mandate. As the requirements continue to expand well beyond both the capabilities of existing vehicles and the consumption habits of drivers, the strains on the sector will only get worse.

The program does allow refineries that can’t produce their own biofuel to purchase credits, known as renewable identification numbers, from those who can meet the targets. This escape valve worked modestly well for a time, but the price of RINs has exploded, and many refineries can no longer afford them, either. When the largest East Coast refinery, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, it cited the “soaring costs” of the renewable fuel credits as a primary reason.

President Trump, for his part, appears to be wobbling on the issue. He indicated a willingness to confront RFS cronyism and was presented a slate of options by EPA chief Scott Pruitt but is reportedly backing off after facing pressure from the corn lobby.

One proposed solution involves capping the price of RINs. That could provide immediate relief to refineries currently being squeezed. However, it wouldn’t address the fundamental faults in the program and would need to be followed up with serious legislative reforms.

In a similar vein, the EPA under Pruitt is increasing its granting of waivers from the mandate to refineries for “disproportionate economic hardship.” Though beneficial for the refineries that receive them, waivers are a short-term Band-Aid at best and risk empowering the government to pick winners and losers.

The RFS program has failed to achieve its stated policy objectives of improving the environment and promoting energy independence. Rather, it primarily exists today as a handout for corn farmers. This is made clear by the fact that reform proposals are evaluated primarily by their impact on farmers and that the most strident defenders of the status quo in Congress come from agricultural states. A president who is serious about draining the swamp wouldn’t succumb to their demands but would instead push for the permanent reforms needed to reverse an ill-conceived market intervention.

SOURCE

New Report: Green Policies Threaten Poor Nations

A new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation finds that climate and green energy policies promoted by development organizations will cause millions of preventable deaths in the developing world.

The report, by eminent epidemiologist Mikko Paunio, says that international bodies and NGOs are trying to prevent poor countries from expanding their use of conventional fuels and have abandoned the so-called “energy ladder” — the gradual shift to cleaner types of fuel that underpinned the clean up of air quality in industrialized nations.

As Dr. Paunio explains, this will have devastating consequences:

“Indoor air pollution from domestic fires kills millions every year. But instead of helping poor people to climb the energy ladder and clean the air in their communities, the poorest people are being given gimmicks like cookstoves, which make little difference to air quality, and solar panels, which are little more than a joke.”

What is worse, the greens inside and outside the development community are blaming air pollution on power stations, industry and cars, as a way to prevent any shift to industrial power production. As Dr. Paunio makes clear, most air pollution in poor countries is in fact caused by burning low-quality biofuels and coal in domestic stoves:

“Trying to blame power stations for indoor air pollution might make greens feel they are saving the planet, but the reality is that they are allowing millions of deaths from air pollution to continue. The body count is going to rival that of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century.”

200 Million At Risk

Domestic combustion of solid (bio)fuels is by far the number one global pollution problem. 4.3 million deaths annually are directly attributable to indoor air pollution (IAP) according to the World Health Organization.

Domestic combustion of solid biofuels kills almost six million people per year when its effects on ambient air quality are also taken into consideration.

The so-called ‘energy ladder’ was introduced as a way of understanding how deaths from IAP might be prevented. The energy ladder seeks to reproduce the experience of rich countries, where households moved away from biofuels and were increasingly connected to electric grids or district heating systems, solving the IAP problem for good.

However, ever-growing resistance from the environmental movement has removed this beneficial approach from the development agenda.

Environmentalists fear that by taking steps upwards on the energy ladder, from dirty solid fuels such as cow dung or crop residues, and towards the use of electricity, poor countries would become wealthier and so increase their energy use and their carbon intensity.

They have managed to persuade all important multilateral development bodies and the WHO to drop the energy ladder entirely. Instead, they are now coercing the poorest countries to adopt utopian energy policies based on renewables. The result is that combatting IAP in, say, sub-Saharan Africa is becoming impossible.

Aggressive decarbonization is now high on the political agenda. Contrary to the widely disseminated claims of important global actors, this will not solve the problem of IAP.

Moreover, it will hamper the expansion of electric grids, which is a critical prerequisite for delivering adequate water supplies, without which it will be impossible to reproduce the public health miracle experienced in the rich countries.

These ‘ambitious’ global climate mitigation policies leave environmental health problems amongst the poor unaddressed and will result in the loss of over 200 million lives by 2050.

They are also unlikely – even in theory – to prevent the 250,000 annual deaths that the WHO speculates will be attributable to climate change between 2030 and 2050: high-quality IPCC-linked research has recently shown that solid biomass combustion actually increases CO2 emissions, at least over the next 100 years, compared to fossil fuels.

SOURCE

Rising Levels Of ‘Frustration’ At UN Climate Stalemate

Old divisions between rich and poor over money and ambition are again threatening to limit progress in UN climate negotiations.

Discussions between negotiators from nearly 200 countries have resumed in Germany, aiming to flesh out the rules on the Paris climate pact.

But developing countries say they are “frustrated” with the lack of leadership from the developed world.

Commitments to cut carbon are still “woefully inadequate”, they said.

2018 marks a critical stage in the global climate negotiations process. By the end of this year, governments will meet in Poland to finalise the so-called “rulebook” of the Paris deal, agreed in the French capital in December 2015.

This is seen as a key test.

The rules will define the ways in which every country reports on their emissions and on their carbon-cutting actions and, importantly, how they will increase these actions in the years ahead.

But while rich and poor countries united in Paris to push through the deal, significant ruptures have re-appeared in wrangles over key technical details.

The developed nations want almost all countries to share the same set of rules on how carbon emissions are measured, reported, and verified. This issue, called “transparency” in the negotiations, has run into difficulties with many emerging economies arguing for more “flexibility”.

According to some observers, the richer countries believe that some in the talks are trying to turn the clock back to the time when only wealthier countries had any commitments to cut carbon, while developing countries including India and China had no obligations.

“The EU, US, and other developed countries are worried about the slow pace of negotiations on transparency and other elements of the Paris rulebook,” said Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“And what they see as the efforts of some developing countries to reintroduce bifurcation into the climate regime – an argument they thought had been settled in Paris.”

The developing nations are, in turn, incensed that enthusiasm for the $100bn per year in climate finance support from the rich, due to start in 2020, has started to wane.

“It has been frustrating to hear some developed countries celebrate their climate leadership even as they fall well short of the modest commitments they have made over the years,” said Thoriq Ibrahim, environment minister for the Maldives and chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, one of the key groups of poorer nations in the talks.

“If we spent as much time working on this problem as we do congratulating ourselves for caring so deeply about it, we would be closer to an outcome worthy of a celebration.

“As it stands, we haven’t mobilised nearly enough resources to tackle this problem and until developed countries match their rhetoric with action our survival will continue to hang in the balance.”

Poor Matt McGrath is still under the delusion that the Paris Agreement was anything other than virtue signaling. Perhaps I can help to make things a bit clearer for him:

1) Most developing countries are not interested in developed ones cutting emissions. If they were, they would be calling for the likes of China and India to do the same.

2) The UCS is worried about developing countries trying to reintroduce bifurcation.

Yet this was specifically written into the Paris Agreement, and countries like China and India would not have signed it otherwise.

3) As far as the developing countries were concerned, Paris was really just about money. But the chances of $100bn a year materializing any time soon is remote.

Even the first tranche of $100bn by 2020 is a long way off. In the UK for instance, most climate aid, small though it is, is not even new money, but simply recycled from within the existing aid budget.

The reality is that western governments never had the slightest intention of handing over such huge sums, which is why the Paris Agreement was so vague on the whole idea, with nothing binding.

4) The only really concrete thing to come out of Paris was the issue of regular stocktaking, ie monitoring of emissions. Yet China was adamant that it would not accept independent verification. Nobody should be surprised now about “a lack of transparency”.

Nothing it seems has changed since.

The simple reality is that Paris moved things on very little from Copenhagen. The same fault lines still apply:

1) The developing world, led by China and India, but incongruously including the massively wealthy Arab states, still refuse point-blank to even consider reducing emissions.

2) Western governments, in the thrall of global warming madness, still cannot understand why the rest of the world is not prepared to take them seriously.

3) The same Western governments, who thought that a bit of financial aid might do the trick, are now realizing that they are being blackmailed, and simply do not have the money to pay.

Of course, if Matt McGrath had bothered to actually read the Paris Agreement, instead of believing the BBC groupthink, he would not have needed me to tell him.

SOURCE

Renewable Energy Is Pushing California Towards New Energy Crisis, Regulators Warn

A growing number of Californians ditching utility companies for alternative power sources is pushing the state onto the brink of a second energy crisis, regulators warn.

California prides itself as a national leader when it comes to alternative energy production and distribution. The state implements a broad array of “environmentally friendly” programs for electricity consumers. Net metering, community choice aggregation (CCA), and Direct Access are among the top choices. These programs have proven attractive with a populace wishing to buck the state’s investor-owned utilities. They are expected to account for about 25 percent of California’s entire retail electric load this year and, based on projections, reach 85 percent by the mid-2020s.

However, such rapid changes don’t come without consequences.

Electric utilities, uncertain of how many customers they will have in the future, are becoming more hesitant to sign long-term contracts with power generators. Even natural gas producers — which have proliferated in the U.S. in recent years — are struggling to churn a profit in the volatile California market.

California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Picker is now warning that the state may be at risk of an energy crises. Customers may soon be subjected to skyrocketing electricity prices, rolling blackouts and other problems — unless the state plans accordingly. Picker’s office released a report Thursday detailing how state leaders can reform the electricity market and avoid an energy shortage.

“We have a hodgepodge of different providers,” Picker stated in an Thursday interview with Bloomberg. “If we aren’t careful, we could slide back to the kind of crisis we faced in 2000 and 2001.”

Picker referenced the unprecedented energy crises California faced nearly two decades ago. Following market deregulations, price caps and continual delays with new power plant approvals, the state experienced widespread blackouts. Hundreds of thousands of homes were plunged into darkness between 2000 and 2001. The political fallout tattered then Gov. Gray Davis’ standing, becoming the second governor in U.S. history to be successfully recalled.

SOURCE

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

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

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6 May, 2018

Someone Send the Coal People the Memo

I am relucant to blame the Russians for anything, considering how much has been misattributed to them lately, but it is true that the Soviets did have an active "disinformation" campaign to undermine the West so the story below from David Archibald is probably factual. Nothing that the Russians can do however goes anywhere near the unaided destructiveness of the American Left

To put this story into context, let's go back to 1899 and the publication of Johann von Bloch's book Die Zukunft des Krieges (The Future of War). Bloch was a 19th-century railway magnate who had built the Warsaw to Moscow railway. In those days, the best and the brightest worked on optimizing the productivity of railroads through operational analysis. Bloch applied insights from managing railroads to theorizing about the conduct of war. His big insight, original at the time, was that wars would be won by the country with the biggest industrial output. This is the same as the Soviet military concept of "the correlation of forces."

When Lenin was exiled in Switzerland from 1914 to 1917, he spent a lot of time in the Zurich and Bern public libraries, reading books on military strategy and electrification. Library records show that he borrowed The Future of War many times. But the Soviets didn't start using Bloch's insight in a big way until the 1980s. The Chernobyl nuclear plant blew up in April 1986. It was a big disaster for a country with a low standard of living. The nuclear contamination was equivalent to a nine-megaton ground burst. Three months later, at a meeting of Warsaw Pact leaders, the Bulgarian prime minister posed the question: how can the Communist Bloc profit from the Chernobyl disaster? The records of this meeting were accessed in Berlin after the fall of the Wall.

The Soviets had financed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for decades, but that Warsaw Pact meeting triggered a new campaign against nuclear power in the West. Nuclear power was demonized, and the public was primed to accept closures after a nuclear mishap. Thus, Angela Merkel, herself the fruit of a long-term campaign by East German intelligence, was about to close the German nuclear industry without discussion, with the Fukushima mishap as the excuse.

The biggest and most successful communist disinformation campaign, with the intent of reducing Western industrial capacity, has been global warming. On June 24, 1988, self-confessed global warming scientist James Hansen addressed a congressional committee and told them that "global warming has begun." The air-conditioning in the hearing room had been turned off for effect. Significantly, Hansen's verbiage was transmitted live to a reception at the offices of the European Environment Bureau, funded by the E.U., in Brussels. Those attending in Brussels were told that this was the start of something big, and so it was.

But why were the Europeans in on Hansen's testimony? Because they wanted to hobble U.S. industry. When communism fell apart in 1990, the benchmark for carbon dioxide emissions was set as those of 1990. Thus, it was easy for the Europeans to comply with the regulations they wanted to impose because power generation in formerly communist Europe had collapsed.

The global warming campaign gained momentum, but last decade, it hit a roadblock in the U.S. Senate, with Republican senators asking why U.S. industry should be hobbled with restrictions when Chinese carbon dioxide emissions were going through the roof. So President Obama, who had grown up among communists and who was the fruit of another long-term campaign, put a lot of effort into getting China to sign on to a climate agreement. The Chinese were quite happy to, because U.S. industry was hobbled, and they didn't have to change anything.

Now China has adopted Bloch's insight and is doing what it can to hobble industry in countries gullible enough to believe in global warming. Thus, there is Greenpeace East Asia, which is headquartered in Beijing. Any NGO allowed to operate in China does so only at the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. So Greenpeace East Asia was active in a campaign in Malaysia in trying to stop the building of a rare earths-processing plant, which would have competed with Chinese production.

So the U.S. dodged a bullet when President Trump declined to sign on to the Paris climate treaty, despite the urgings of globalists Mattis, Tillerson, and Kelly. French president Macron's urging the signing of that treaty last week in Washington was just the slimy French version of the same. But the globalist global warming threat remains, and that is why Scott Pruitt has been attracting so much attention from the left-wing press recently.

It's not because of anything that he has done, but because of what he has so far failed to do, and that is to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding on carbon dioxide. Doing so would produce the first government-sanctioned report from anywhere in the world that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not a problem. The era of "settled science" would be over. Conflicting scientific reports would rip the whole effort apart, and it wouldn't be possible to resuscitate it. A billion people -- the populations of the United States, Europe, Japan, and beyond – would be set free. And Chinese connivance in the European plan to hobble the U.S. would be thwarted.

The left want Pruitt replaced because he might end the endangerment finding, if he bothers to get around to it. Conservatives have no idea what is at stake.

So how do the coal people fit in? Well, the next Pittsburgh Coal Conference is not being held in Pittsburgh. It is being held in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. This is just a little fragment of China's attempt to gather unto itself all the world's useful intellectual property. Instead of having to steal it, license it, or otherwise pay for it, in this case, the foreign experts will pay to travel to China and tell all they know and all that is possible. Someone tell the coal people that we are in a pre-war state with China, and it is time to stop having anything to do with the country. Just as the experiment in imposing democracy on the Middle East ended in blood and tears, the 20-year-long experiment in drawing China into the community of civilized nations has ended with the Chinese reverting to type -- attempting to subjugate the rest of the world.

The memo to the coal people could be illustrated with satellite photos of Anderson AFB on Guam, where a lot of hardened shelters are being installed, at last, in preparation for that war with China. In imagery dated January 3, 2018, there are no fighter aircraft evident but a number of new fighter-sized shelters at the southeast end of the runways. The B-52s are parked far enough apart, but the B-1s on the apron could be taken out two at a time by an incoming DF-26 ballistic missile. There are some larger hardened shelters being built that could take the B-1s. They would have to fold their wings back to fit instead of leaving them open as at the moment.

SOURCE

UK in last ditch new nuclear crunch talks as ageing power plants falter

Prime Minister Theresa May faces crunch talks over the future of a new nuclear power station on Thursday, as fresh faults reduce the amount of energy Britain's ageing fleet of reactors can generate.

The Japanese conglomerate behind plans to build a new reactor at the Wylfa nuclear site in Wales is expected to call on the Government to take a direct stake in the new plant, or risk the £27bn project falling through.

The last-ditch talks between Hitachi chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi and the prime minister were scheduled for the same day that fresh cracks in one of the UK’s oldest nuclear plants underlined the need for new investment in low-carbon power.

A string of power plants, including the faltering Hunterston nuclear plant, are set to close by 2025.

Hitachi’s 2.9 gigawatt nuclear project could help to fill the gap created by the closures, but the group is not willing to take on the full risk burden without the backing of other private investors and government involvement.

The conglomerate is planning to back away from the project entirely unless the UK agrees to help finance it or take a stake in the plant alongside investments from the Japanese government, according to local media reports.

The nuclear exit would be a major blow to the UK’s struggling ambitions to build a fleet of low-carbon, nuclear power plants to replace the ageing coal and nuclear plants.

EDF Energy said the new cracks in its 42-year old Hunterston reactor mean that the plant will be closed for much of 2018, meaning more expensive gas-fired power may be required to fill the gap in the UK’s power supplies this summer. Hunterston is scheduled to shut entirely by 2023.

Number 10 has remained tight-lipped over its negotiations with Hitachi, and a spokesman declined to comment on the latest talks.

Hannah Martin, of Greenpeace, said the “information blackout” is “unjustifiable” because of the high costs to be paid by energy users to support the projects.

"The public have a right to know what the government is planning to do with their money and why,” she said.

“Major Western economies are reducing their exposure to nuclear, so why is Britain doing the exact opposite? It would make no sense to waste yet more on expensive and outdated nuclear when technologies such as offshore wind can do the same job faster and cheaper,” Ms Martin added.

SOURCE

Bucking global trends, Japan again embraces coal power

Most of the world is turning its back on burning coal to produce electricity, but not Japan. The nation has fired up at least eight new coal power plants in the past 2 years and has plans for an additional 36 over the next decade—the biggest planned coal power expansion in any developed nation (not including China and India). And last month, the government took a key step toward locking in a national energy plan that would have coal provide 26% of Japan's electricity in 2030 and abandons a previous goal of slashing coal's share to 10%.

The reversal is partly a result of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which punctured public support for atomic energy. Critics say it also reflects the government's failure to encourage investment in renewable energy. The coal revival, they say, has alarming implications for air pollution and Japan's ability to meet its pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which account for 4% of the world's total. If all the planned coal plants are built, it will "be difficult for us to meet our emissions reduction goals," Minister of the Environment Masaharu Nakagawa noted earlier this year.

Not long ago, coal was on its way out in Japan. In 2010, coal plants accounted for 25% of Japan's electricity, but the powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) planned to reduce that share by more than half over 20 years. The ministry counted on nuclear power to pick up the slack, with its share of the nation's electricity set to increase from 29% in 2010 to 50% by 2030.

But the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident forced a reassessment. All 54 of Japan's reactors were shut down pending compliance with new safety standards. Just seven have restarted. Utilities have turned to liquefied natural gas and coal, which surged to provide 31% of the country's electricity in 2014.

In many other nations, natural gas has replaced coal as a fuel source because gas costs less. But in Japan, "coal is cheap," says Takeo Kikkawa, an energy economist at Tokyo University of Science and a member of an METI advisory council on energy. That's because the nation must import natural gas in its relatively expensive liquefied form.

The new energy plan would cement coal's central role. Endorsed on 26 March by an METI advisory council, and likely to be adopted by the Cabinet later this year, it calls for nuclear plants to be restarted, boosting their share of electricity generation to between 20% and 22% by 2030. Renewable energy's share would rise slightly, to between 22% and 24%, with solar energy alone accounting for 7%. But fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—would provide 56%.

That reliance on coal will make it difficult for Japan to fulfill its pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26% below 2013 levels by 2030, and by 80% by 2050. Those cuts will be even harder to achieve if now-shuttered nuclear power plants aren't restarted.

Power industry officials, however, claim they can limit emissions by building so-called clean coal plants and systems for capturing carbon. As an example, they point to Unit 2 at the Isogo Thermal Power Station in Yokohama. Completed in 2009, it uses a so-called ultrasupercritical cycle, which generates steam at very high heat and pressure, boosting the plant's efficiency to 45%, compared with 30% to 35% for conventional plants. The result is the world's lowest emissions per unit of power, according to the International Energy Agency's Clean Coal Center in Paris.

But such plants are costly. And critics note that more than half of the proposed coal stations will use more conventional—and polluting—technologies. The environment ministry projects that if all the planned plants are built, by 2030 coal's carbon emissions would more than offset the cuts Japan wants to make elsewhere. A yet-to-be-published Greenpeace study concludes that if the plants operate for 40 years, they would also emit pollutants that would cause more than 60,000 premature deaths.

Public opposition and projections of declining electricity demand have some utilities rethinking plans for new plants. The Electric Power Development Company of Tokyo announced last week that it is abandoning plans for two new 600-megawatt coal plants near Kobe. In all, companies have now canceled six planned coal plants announced since 2012, according to the environmental group Kiko Network in Kyoto.

Japan's turn to coal represents a missed opportunity for renewable energy, says Tomas Kåberger, an energy specialist at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, and chair of the Tokyo-based Renewable Energy Institute. After the Fukushima accident, he notes, the government adopted incentives for renewable power and started to tweak energy markets to make renewables more competitive. The moves led to a surge of investment in solar power.

But Kåberger says under current rules, Japan's 10 regional utilities can still give their own generating plants priority access to transmission lines, which they also control. This creates uncertainty for those trying to sell renewable power into the grid. Such issues, together with subsidy cuts and other policy changes, last year led to a 32% decline in investment in solar power, says Hisayo Takada, Japan energy project leader for Greenpeace Japan in Tokyo. As a result, Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono said at a symposium last month in Tokyo, "The situation in our solar energy sector today can only be described as lamentable."

SOURCE

Campus Craziness: Cornell Course Examines ‘Derangement’ Of ‘Climate Denialism’

A new seminar at Cornell University is determined to shut down “climate denialism,” claiming that there is “mounting evidence” that “global warming is real.”

Deranged Authority: The Force of Culture in Climate Change, worth four academic credits, is set to be taught in the Fall 2018 semester by cultural anthropologist Jennifer Carlson.

The course description asserts that “climate denialism is on the rise,” suggesting the increase is related to the rise of “reactionary, rightwing [sic] politics in the United States, UK, and Germany.”

The proposed solution to combat such denialism and assumed ignorance is “climate justice,” even though over 30,000 scientists reject global warming alarmism.

Richard Lindzen, MIT emeritus professor of meteorology and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, found the course “an insult to the intelligence of the students.”

He clarified to Campus Reform that many scientists do not argue against slight warming of the Earth after the Little Ice Age (the unusually cool period of the Earth around the 1700s A.D.), nor do those critical of anthropogenic climate change argue that humans have made no impact on the planet, merely that the effect has been small and largely beneficial.

“The point of such courses as are proposed for Cornell, is to replace science with belief,” Lindzen argued, adding that students are “encouraged to replace understanding with virtue signaling.”

Course readings will focus on the question of “authority” in the field of climate science, exploring “climate research, popular environmentalist texts, and industry campaigns aimed at obfuscating evidence of ecological collapse.”

The class is also influenced by Amitav Ghosh’s 2016 book Great Derangement, which, according to the course description, “suggests that the world’s collective failure to meet the challenges of climate change stems from an ongoing crisis of culture and, more fundamentally, of the imagination.”

“More fundamentally, the course moves the question of how our own senses of environmental authority are grounded in ordinary life, shaped by our respective social positions as well as our everyday practices,” the description adds.

While the course aims to push for scientific discourse, it will also teach students to recognize indigenous “ecoauthority” so that they can “become familiar with models for ecological resiliency that do not conform to scientific or ‘expert’ discourses of climate remediation.”

The course is part of the Society for the Humanities’ general theme for the 2018-2019 school year, Authority. Courses under this theme will focus on the consequences of authority in science, law, the arts, and politics.

“In the age of a superabundance of information, what differentiates ‘real’ (authoritative) information from ‘fake news,’ and how one can be interchanged with the other as an ‘equal’ source of authority?” the description of the theme reads.

Stacey Langwick, the director of Undergraduate Studies in the Anthropology department, told Campus Reform that the class is a “one-time opportunity,” and “will never be taught again” because Carlson is a visiting fellow.

SOURCE

UN Says Climate Change Is ‘Single Biggest Threat to Life, Security and Prosperity on Earth’

The United Nations Climate Change Secretariat released its first-ever annual report this week, in which it held up its “Gender Action Plan” as a key to increasing the participation of women in responding to global warming.

“Climate Change is the single biggest threat to life, security, and prosperity on Earth,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa at the roll-out of the report.

“This annual report shows how UN Climate Change is doing everything it can to support, encourage and build on the global response to climate change,” Espinosa said, adding that “UN Climate Change’s mandate is to lead and support the global community in this international response, with the Paris Agreement and the Convention being the long-term vehicles for united global climate action.”

In his foreword to the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed a similar conviction that global warming poses a singular threat to the world in the third millennium.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time,” Guterres warned, “yet it is still accelerating faster than our efforts to address it. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are higher than they have been for 800,000 years, and they are increasing. So, too, are the catastrophic effects of our warming planet – extreme storms, droughts, fires, floods, melting ice and rising sea levels.”

The report focuses on the work of COP23 and the resulting Paris Climate Accord as being uniquely effective tools for combatting climate change and its effects.

Yet while there has never been a single documented case of a person being killed by CO2-related “global warming,” real pollution of air, water and land is killing an average of 25,000 people across the globe every single day, according to a major 2017 study by the prestigious Lancet journal.

In a strange disconnect, the Paris Accord never once mentions the word “pollution” in the entire 27-page document, focusing exclusively on the bogeyman of climate change.

In its study, the Lancet revealed that pollution-related diseases were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015, or some 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence combined.

Although environmental activists like to talk of “carbon pollution,” in point of fact carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a “pollutant” at all. CO2 is colorless, odorless and completely non-toxic. Plants depend on it to live and grow, and human beings draw some into their lungs with every breath they take to no ill effect.

Some experts, in fact, such as UN climate scientist Dr. Indur Goklany, have defended rising CO2 levels as a positive thing for humanity. Goklany has argued that the rising level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere “is currently net beneficial for both humanity and the biosphere generally.”

“The benefits are real, whereas the costs of warming are uncertain,” he said.

So as environmental activists jet around the world complaining of “carbon footprints” and preaching “renewable energy” while insisting that countries be taxed for their CO2 emissions, they are silent regarding the real and present menace that is currently wiping out millions of human beings around the world.

In the most severely affected countries, the Lancet report declared, “pollution-related disease is responsible for more than one death in four.”

Pollution “disproportionately kills the poor and the vulnerable,” the Lancet study found. “Nearly 92% of pollution-related deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries and, in countries at every income level, disease caused by pollution is most prevalent among minorities and the marginalized.”

Nations have a duty to clean up their air, water, and land. A significant concentration of fine particulate matter in the air is especially dangerous and has been shown to increases the risk of acute lower respiratory infection, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, stroke and lung cancer.

Nonetheless, this real health damage from pollution “has particularly been overlooked in both the international development and the global health agendas,” the Lancet report stated.

“Although more than 70% of the diseases caused by pollution are non-communicable diseases, interventions against pollution are barely mentioned in the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases,” it said.

If the United Nations were truly interested in improving people’s health around the globe, they might spare a thought for killer pollution rather than devoting all their time and resources to promoting ideologically driven agendas.

SOURCE

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

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

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4 May, 2018

In Climate Lawsuit, Boulder’s Hoping Exxon’s Deep Pockets Will Pay For Its Left-Wing Agenda

Boulder’s lead attorney David Bookbinder, no stranger to climate lawsuits.

It remains to be seen if Exxon will fight the latest climate change lawsuit against it in the same way it is attacking the first round, by scrubbing municipal documents for evidence of hypocrisy by the public officials filing them.

According to a conservative group following the case, mounting such a defense might be overkill. The lawsuit filed by Boulder, Colo., and two Colorado counties is so frivolous, Exxon could end up seeking reimbursement for the costs of defending itself, according to Mountain States Legal Foundation.

William Perry Pendley, president of MSLF, says he isn’t surprised that politicians in Boulder are going through Exxon’s deep pockets “to pay for their costly, radical, left-wing boondoggles.”

“But taxpayers who think at least they will not have to pay for this pricey misadventure and might even get some tax relief if it is successful should think again,” Pendley said.

“This lawsuit could not be more frivolous and if the judges do what other judges have done, legal sanctions and hefty fines will be imposed.”

To defend itself from the California lawsuit, Exxon is seeking to depose government officials and a private lawyer in Texas court over whether their allegations of impending climate change-caused doom are contradicted by bond offerings that make no mention of it.

Asked if Boulder ever disclosed climate change-related threats to its property in any bond offerings, the City declined to comment.

It’s unclear whether the bond argument is a possible defense for Exxon in Colorado, and the company did not return a request for comment.

As for Boulder, which filed its lawsuit with Boulder and San Miguel counties, its most recent official statement does not include references to climate change.

The official statement on acquisitions of land does not contain the terms “climate change,” “weather” or “global warming.”

Pendley said there is no science to support the lawsuit. Judges in the California lawsuits have yet to rule on motions to dismiss filed by the energy industry.

“Causation between the alleged inactions of the companies and the imagined harms is missing in its entirety and the demand that whimsical injuries be redressed (‘Help us pay to paint our streets white,’ one imagines) is laughable,” Pendley said.

Addressing the bond topic last week was David Bookbinder of the Niskanen Center, which is one of two nonprofits representing Boulder on a pro bono basis. A third firm is taking as much as a 20% contingency fee, according to Boulder County’s website.

Bookbinder was a speaker at an American Enterprise Institute discussion of California climate litigation the same day his lawsuit was being filed in a Colorado state court. He used an expletive to describe Exxon’s strategy and said that he was “ashamed” of the law firm representing the company.

“If we needed more evidence that no one thinks this was improper or fraudulent or disingenuous, my former adversaries in the plaintiffs’ securities bar – those people are extremely aggressive. The time lapse between bad news coming out and lawsuits filed by what was called the ‘strike bar’ could be measured in, you know, one day, 48 hours, 72 hours, maybe four days – 96 hours,” Bookbinder said.

“There have been no lawsuits filed against any of these cities for their bond disclosures. That should tell you something as well.”

In 2017, the counties of Marin, Santa Cruz and San Mateo and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Imperial Beach filed suit against dozens of energy companies, including Exxon and 17 other Texas-based businesses, over climate change. The company has previously been targeted by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York.

“It is reasonable to infer that the municipalities brought these lawsuits, not because of a bona fide belief in any tortious conduct by the defendants or actual damage to their jurisdictions, but instead to coerce ExxonMobil and others operating in the Texas energy sector to adopt policies aligned with those favored by local politicians in California,” attorneys for the company wrote.

In doing so, they must have lied to potential investors in their respective bond offerings, the company claims.

Statements made to potential investors contradict allegations made by the municipalities when they sued the energy industry, the filing says.

For example, San Mateo County’s complaint says it is “particularly vulnerable to sea level rise” and that there is a 93% chance the county experiences a “devastating” flood before 2050. However, bond offerings in 2014 and 2016 noted that the county “is unable to predict whether a sea-level rise or other impacts of climate change or flooding from a major storm will occur.”

Bookbinder noted that the offerings came with a statement regarding a final paper from the California Climate Change Center that said property in San Francisco Bay is vulnerable to impacts associated with sea-level rise.

But the cities did not present an opinion on the accuracy of those claims, which was noted by Devin Watkins, an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who attended the event.

The CEI has called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the matter.

SOURCE

The Great Population Hoax Turns 50

This month marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most destructive books of the last century, The Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrlich.

The 1968 doomsday bestseller generated hysteria over the future of the world and the Earth’s waning ability to sustain human life, as Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich offered a series of alarming predictions that turned out to be spectacularly wrong, creating the enduring myth of unsustainable population growth.

Ehrlich prophesied that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s (and that 65 million of them would be Americans), that already-overpopulated India was doomed, and that most probably “England will not exist in the year 2000.”

In conclusion, Ehrlich warned that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come,” meaning “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”

If these musings had been received for what they actually were—the wacky theories of a crackpot academic—all would have been well. But The Population Bomb sold some 3 million copies and influenced an entire generation.

Ideas have practical consequences, and Dr. Ehrlich did not leave his followers guessing as to what they ought to be.

In the course of his illustrious career, Ehrlich has defended mass sterilization, sex-selective abortion, and infanticide. In his call for radical population control, Ehrlich has said he would prefer “voluntary methods” but if people were unwilling to cooperate, he was ready to endorse “various forms of coercion.”

To allow women to have as many children as they want, Ehrlich said, is like letting people “throw as much of their garbage into their neighbor’s backyard as they want.”

Those who had the coercive power to put Ehrlich’s theories into practice bear witness to just how horrifying they were.

To reduce its population, China instituting a draconian one-child policy, which has now left the country (through sex-selective abortions) with a horrific gender imbalance, with yearly births of some 120 boys born for every 100 girls. As a result, “30 million more men than women will reach adulthood and enter China’s mating market by 2020.”

Many nations—including the United States—began attaching population control measures to aid packages to third-world countries, meaning that the amount of aid received became conditioned by the state’s ability to coercively reduce its own population.

The tragic fact is that as a credentialed scientist—a biologist lecturing at Stanford University—Ehrlich’s proclamation of the end times as well as the means to confront them struck many as the plausible theory of an “expert.”

As Bill McGurn argues in the Wall Street Journal Monday, in his day, Dr. Ehrlich’s “assertion about the limited ‘carrying capacity’ of the Earth was settled science. Never mind that it is rooted in an absurdity: that when a calf is born a country’s wealth rises, but when a baby is born it goes down.”

A few brave souls resisted the urge to jump on the population explosion bandwagon, urging calm and rationality. One was economist Julian L. Simon, who later noted that “whatever the rate of population growth is, historically it has been that the food supply increases at least as fast, if not faster.”

In 1981, Simon published The Ultimate Resource, underscoring man’s ability to adapt to new circumstances and overcome obstacles through ingenuity and creativity. It is the human mind, rather than coal, trees, or iron, that is the ultimate resource—one that suffers no risk of depletion.

Another population expert, Fred Pearce, has more recently noted that birthrates are now below long-term replacement levels nearly everywhere, a trend he examined in his 2010 book, The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet’s Surprising Future.

The baffling mystery is how Ehrlich—despite his utterly failed forecasts—can continue to be hailed today as a serious scientist with something important to say to the world.

In early 2017, the Vatican invited Dr. Ehrlich to speak at an academic conference titled ‘Biological Extinction,” sponsored jointly by the Pontifical Academy of Science and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

The conference addressed issues of biodiversity, “great extinctions” of history, population and demographics, and Ehrlich was invited to speak on “Causes and Pathways of Biodiversity Losses: Consumption Preferences, Population Numbers, Technology, Ecosystem Productivity.”

The enduring power of alarmist theories such as Ehrlich’s, which somehow survive being exposed as utterly false, should give people pause before embracing similar theories and their practical corollaries, even when based on “settled science.”

In a 2015 article, The New York Times observed that “worrying about an overcrowded planet has fallen off the international agenda” and has now been replaced “by climate change and related concerns.”

While perhaps failing to observe the irony of its own reporting, the Times juxtaposed the thoroughly discredited population explosion theories of the 1970s with the (equally alarmist) global warming predictions of our day.

As scientists themselves are beginning to recognize, doomsday theories—including those surrounding global warming—must learn to factor in the astounding resilience of human intelligence and the ability of human beings to rebound

SOURCE

California Leads Coalition of States Suing EPA over Vehicle-Emissions Standards

A coalition of 18 states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s proposed rollback of Obama-era vehicle-emissions standards.

The states, which are led by California and together comprise roughly 40 percent of America’s auto market, claim that Pruitt acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when he pledged in April to modify Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards in light of new information.

“This phalanx of states will defend the nation’s clean car standards to boost gas mileage and curb toxic air pollution,” California governor Jerry Brown said in a statement announcing the suit.

California and the other states party to the suit allege that Pruitt decided to toss the existing regulations, which were implemented in 2011, absent any new information and despite the fact that automakers are on track to hit existing emissions targets. In defending the proposed revisions to the Obama-era standards, the EPA has cited falling fuel prices, which increase demand for larger cars and SUVs and make it more difficult for automakers to hit average fuel-economy targets.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, also challenges the Trump administration’s attempts to curb states’ autonomy in setting their own emissions standards — a significant issue considering California’s outsize share of the auto market in particular. California, which represents roughly 12 percent of all U.S. auto sales, had received a series of federal waivers that allow it and twelve other states involved in the suit to implement emissions standards that are stricter than the EPA’s. The administration has moved to revoke those waivers.

Automakers and industry groups, some of which have argued that existing fuel-emission targets are unrealistic and lead to higher prices, are now concerned that the nascent legal battle could lead to a divided market as certain states require more stringent emissions standards than others.

SOURCE

Review paper finds clouds act as a negative feedback to cool the climate

A new review from SPPI and CO2 Science surveys the scientific literature on clouds and determines clouds act as a negative feedback to cool the climate, opposite of the erroneous assumptions in climate models that clouds act as a positive feedback to cause warming.

Understanding how clouds respond to anthropogenic-induced perturbations of our planet's atmosphere is of paramount importance in determining the impact of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content on global climate; for as Charlson et al. (2001) have noted, "man-made aerosols have a strong influence on cloud albedo, with a global mean forcing estimated to be of the same order (but opposite in sign) as that of greenhouse gases."

Thus, this summary presents a brief review of a number of scientific papers that address this crucial issue.

There are a number of ways in which the activities of humanity are believed to influence earth's climate; and many of these phenomena tend to cool the globe, primarily by enhancing its albedo or reflectance of incoming solar radiation.

Results of several empirical studies led Charlson et al. to conclude that the anthropogenic impetus for cooling "may be even larger than anticipated."

It would appear the surface temperature record on which the world's climate alarmists so long relied, i.e., the infamous hockey stick" reconstruction, was either bogus or that the warming, if real, was due to something quite different from anthropogenic forcing.

In light of these many observations, therefore, it would appear that there is a plethora of natural and anthropogenic-induced negative feedbacks to purported global warming that are more than capable of maintaining the climate of the globe within a temperature range conducive to the continued well-being of all forms of life currently found upon the face of the earth ... and in the sea, and in the soil, and in the air.

SOURCE

Australia: Warmists joining Liberal Party branches in an attempt to unseat climate realist Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott’s political future could be under threat from a group of activists who have been organising environmentally conscious voters to join Liberal party branches on Sydney’s north shore – a move that could unseat the former prime minister.

Billing themselves as “the counterweight” to the pro-coal power Monash Forum, the North Shore Environmental Stewards have held at least two recruitment functions at which attendees were urged to tap into their networks of environmentally conscious people to join the Liberal party branches in Abbott’s seat of Warringah and on the lower north shore.

The NSES has a Facebook page that says the group “supports clean energy and a healthy environment, and believes in traditional Liberal party values of environmental stewardship”.

But some participants believe its objectives appeared to be aimed at candidate change.

“I was asked to participate in an initiative to have a representative in Canberra who acknowledges climate change,” said one person who attended the meeting in Seaforth on 25 March.

Exactly who is involved in the group remains a matter of conjecture.

Certainly, Liberals have attended. Several high-profile figures in the moderate faction of the Liberal party, including the powerbroker Michael Photios and his wife, Kristina, attended the lunchtime gathering of the NSES at Seaforth in March.

Also attending were the New South Wales MP for North Shore, Felicity Wilson, and David Begg, a longtime Liberal party member who ran against Abbott for preselection in the 1990s.

Photios addressed the meeting and, according to one attendee, put the case that the Liberals were the party that would tackle climate change – and that they should join. He highlighted his own record of defending the environment when in state parliament. .

“At the meeting I soon realised that the NSES was ... seeking to recruit people concerned about the lack of action on climate change to join the Liberal party in order to block the preselection of Tony Abbott to stand in Warringah at the next federal election,” the attendee claimed.

One invitation for the Mosman meeting said: “We have a real opportunity be a force for good in the party, a voice for the environment right here in the electorate of the Monash Forum’s figurehead – Tony Abbott. Come and learn about how we can shift the politics here in Warringah at our info session this Sunday!”

Photios told Guardian Australia he had attended the Seaforth meeting because his wife, a passionate environmentalist, had been asked to speak. She ultimately didn’t speak but Photios did and was the main speaker at the event. He said there was “zero involvement” of the Liberal party or the moderate faction in the formation of the NSES.

A year ago, the Photios couple formed a spinoff from Photios’s lobbying firm, Premier State, to represent clean energy companies. The firm, Clean Energy Strategies, describes itself as “a boutique corporate advisory firm specialising in energy”.

Until a few years ago Photios held several senior positions in the state executive of the NSW Liberal party and was head of the moderate faction, known as the Group, which has been locked in a long-running power struggle with the right. Abbott is one of the leading members of the right faction.

As prime minister, Abbott pushed through rule changes in the Liberal party to ban registered lobbyists from holding party positions.

Several members of NSES are also members of the activist group GetUp. A GetUp spokeswoman said the NSES “was definitely not a GetUp project but the environmental justice team knows of it ... and think they’re great”.

The official organiser of NSES, Rob Grant, told Guardian Australia the group was no more than “a group of like-minded people on the north shore who want to see action on climate change, and who believe in driving change from inside the tent”.

Senior figures in the moderates scoffed at the idea that Abbott was in any danger of losing his northern beaches seat in a preselection. They said he had a firm grip on the numbers and that to take part in a preselection members must have joined at least six months earlier.

There is no firm date for federal preselections but they are likely to take place by the end of the year or earlier, if an early election is called.

But figures closer to the machinations in Warringah warned the seat could be vulnerable to an attack by Young Liberals, whom they described as marauding across NSW.

This is because the geographic rules that require members to join their local federal branch do not apply for members under the age of 30. Young Liberals can therefore vote in preselections outside where they live.

SOURCE

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

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

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3 May, 2018

‘Madam Secretary:’ Climate Change Is ‘Existential Threat of Our Time’

Climate change has not been a new topic for CBS’s Madam Secretary, but it has provided some unintentionally hilarious results.

The latest take sadly is not as amusing as it buries natural gas in the State Department’s crusade to save the planet from the “existential threat” of global warming.

The April 29 episode “Thin Ice” revolves around a potential international disagreement over territory in the Arctic.

In the meantime, however, the department must also prepare for an upcoming World Expo where they plan to promote American ideas for renewable energy.

Unfortunately for the staff, Congress has cut their budget so their funding for the expo is being provided by “Big Oil and Gas,” represented by the quintessential greedy and ignorant oil tycoon (is there any other kind?) Chip Harding (Kevin O’Rourke.)

He is, of course, pushing for natural gas and wants to get a piece of the action in the Arctic.

Harding: But your pitch has a fundamental problem.

Kat: The nuclear power section?

Harding: It’s taking up a lot of real estate here, and you’ve neglected good old natural gas.

Blake: Well, nuclear power produces carbon-free electricity, while natural gas does not.

Kat: And most climate scientists see nuclear as the key transition technology until renewables become more efficient.

Harding: The bridge to renewables is not nuclear, my dear. It’s gas. It’s cheap, has half the emissions of coal, and most importantly, it won’t melt down and make the neighborhood children glow in the dark.

Blake: Uh, due respect, Mr. Harding, no child or anyone has ever glowed in the dark from any…

Harding: Ma’am.

Elizabeth: Mr. Harding. So good to see you again. I’m on my way to Montreal, but I couldn’t leave without stopping in to say hi.

Harding: I’m happy to hear that the Arctic is a top priority of the Dalton administration. It’s a brave new world. Everybody wants a piece, myself included.

Elizabeth: Well, I am eager to negotiate a contract that will be fair to all of us. And I wanted to thank you again for your generous pledge to our World Expo pavilion. Wow. Yeah.

Harding: It is being held in my home state of Texas.

Elizabeth: Wouldn’t want to fumble the ball on the home field, right?

Harding: Not at all, which is why I’m so concerned there’s no section on natural gas. If we’re talking future energy, we need to tell folks that gas is cheap, has half the emissions of coal, and most importantly, folks won’t glow in the dark.

To the show’s credit, they acknowledge that alternative energy sources are not quite up to standards as Elizabeth’s assistant Blake (Erich Bergen) remarks, “You need, like 12 billion solar roofs just to match the projected growth in energy consumption by 2050.”

Still, the show relies on the usual talking points such as “16 of the 17 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 2000,” despite actual evidence being recorded only since 1880 and clear cherry-picking.

And they refuse to consider natural gas, despite the things Harding says being true even to hardcore climate change alarmists.

After the State Department helps an environmentalist group get out of jail and the leader publicly denounces companies that “suppress the truth” about global warming and wish to “poison the planet,” Harding calls up Madam Secretary Elizabeth (Téa Leoni) and demands the administration publicly support drilling in the Arctic Circle, threatening to pull back his funding.

SOURCE

Has The Lawyer Behind Boulder Climate Lawsuit Misled The Public?

A shifty character

Last month, three Colorado municipalities – the City and County of Boulder and the County of San Miguel – filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil and Suncor, blaming them for the impacts of climate change.

David Bookbinder, chief counsel for the Niskanen Center, a Washington D.C.-based libertarian think-tank, is representing the plaintiffs.

But an investigation by Energy In Depth suggests Bookbinder may have misled the public on the nature of his involvement.

When Did Bookbinder Join?

While Boulder is the first lawsuit Bookbinder is transparently involved in, he has been an active voice on the climate litigation issue ever since the first cases were filed in three California municipalities last July, publishing blog posts and appearing in articles on the cases with some frequency.

What is curious, however, is that in an interview with Denver-based Western Wire last month, he spoke as though he had no affiliation with, nor significant knowledge of, any of the other climate lawsuits.

A quick Google search reveals that Bookbinder has been a consultant to the climate lawsuits for some time.

In an article published by Western Wire earlier this month, Bookbinder is quoted as saying he couldn’t recall exactly when the Niskanen Center got involved with the Boulder lawsuit and that he didn’t “really know much more about the other cases.”

But he had written a detailed blog for the Niskanen Center after San Francisco and Oakland filed their own lawsuits against fossil-fuel producers back in September 2017.

In that blog, he thoroughly discussed not only those two lawsuits but also the other three that were filed by San Mateo and Marin Counties and the city of Imperial Beach back in July 2017.

Indeed, his familiarity with the other cases is likely why he was asked to join the lawsuits.

Even more puzzling, though, is an op-ed Bookbinder published on Vox.com last December in which he discloses he has “been consulting with lawyers working on the nuisance cases,” which he identifies elsewhere in the piece as the lawsuits filed by the California municipalities.

It is hard to believe Sher Edling or Hagens Berman – the two law firms representing the municipalities in the other cases – would employ a consultant who doesn’t “really know much more about” their cases.

But wait, there’s more.

Bookbinder was also spotted at the March 21 “climate tutorial” hearing in the San Francisco and Oakland cases. His presence was confirmed by the Keeling Curve Prize, which tweeted that their “advisory council member David Bookbinder was in the courtroom” for the hearing.

Presumably, his clients were hoping that he might know a little more about the “other cases” after he flew across the country to spend five hours in a courtroom.

Beyond misrepresenting the timing and degree of his involvement in the climate litigation, Bookbinder also misled Western Wire about the nature of his involvement. He told the outlet that the Boulder lawsuit is an issue of property rights and “not climate work.”

But the website set up by the Colorado municipalities makes no mention of property rights (the page is titled “climate lawsuit” and the URL includes the word “climate” three times).

The FAQ document provided by the municipalities never once mentions “property rights” and the only mention of “property rights” in the press release is in a quote provided by Bookbinder, while “climate” is mentioned 26 times. Weird!

Nevertheless, Bookbinder and the Niskanen Center have repeatedly emphasized that the climate lawsuit is actually about property rights.

This begs the question of why the municipalities and EarthRights International would bring him in as outside counsel, considering his legal expertise is largely in climate policy.

For example, Bookbinder earned a name for himself as the Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel. In fact, Bookbinder is one of the only people in the country to have ever held the title of “Chief Climate Counsel” for any organization.

He also taught courses on “Environmental Litigation” and “Environmental Law and Science” at multiple institutions. Further, his bio for the Niskanen Center is chock-full of climate-related experience but makes no mention of his work on property rights.

Even the blog he wrote that labels the Boulder suit as a property rights issue is housed under the “Climate & Energy Policy” section of Niskanen’s website.

To Bookbinder’s credit, he didn’t always focus exclusively on environmental issues.

Before joining the Sierra Club, he was an attorney for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison where he worked on “securities, mergers and acquisitions, product liability, white-collar criminal, intellectual property and other matters,” but property rights issues do not appear to have been a major part of his portfolio.

Niskanen’s Anti-Oil and Gas Funding

There is also evidence to suggest that Bookbinder and the Niskanen Center have been misleading when it comes to who is funding their involvement in the Boulder lawsuit.

Bookbinder disclosed that he was serving as co-counsel in the Boulder lawsuit at a panel discussion on the California climate lawsuits at the American Enterprise Institute on the day the Boulder lawsuit was announced.

While he said he was working for the plaintiffs pro-bono, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has admitted to funding efforts to investigate and bring charges against the oil and gas industry, had very recently given a $200,000 grant to the Niskanen Center in February 2018 “for its climate program.”

Similarly, the center also received three grants from the anti-fossil fuel Hewlett Foundation in 2017 totaling $750,000, $300,000 of which was earmarked in a November 7, 2017 grant for Niskanen’s “climate policy and litigation program.”

Yet, when Western Wire asked Bookbinder about this funding, he responded, “that’s not for this… there may be litigation attached to climate work but we don’t think of [the Boulder case] as climate litigation.”

That’s an odd stance to take because the first claim in the Boulder lawsuit states that the “Defendants’ actions have altered the climate in Colorado.”

“Screw with the Fossil Fuel Companies”

Bookbinder’s Vox.com op-ed, referenced above, opens with a sub-headline that reads: “The worst way to do policy is through the courts.”

But as noted before, Bookbinder later admits that he’s already consulting on efforts to enact policy in “the worst way.”

He concludes his op-ed with this thought: “…with the government unwilling to deal with climate issues, lots of clever lawyers are busy thinking up new and exciting ways to screw with the fossil fuel companies.” (emphasis added)

That’s what these lawsuits are really about. The purpose of these climate liability lawsuits is not, as the plaintiffs claim, to mitigate the costs of climate change and make fossil fuel companies pay “their share.”

Their purpose is to “bring down the fossil fuel companies,” according to one climate activist. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says his climate lawsuit is designed to “help bring the death knell to this industry.”

And now David Bookbinder, a co-counsel to the Boulder suit, has made clear that the lawsuits are a fun new way “to screw with the fossil fuel companies.”

Bookbinder’s comments flew under the radar at the time, but some folks active in the climate policy discussion seem to have taken notice.

In addition to working for the Niskanen Center, Bookbinder also served as a senior policy advisor at the prestigious Climate Leadership Council (CLC), an international policy organization that brings together corporations, thought leaders, and environmentalists to promote a carbon tax and dividends plan as the most effective solution to combat climate change.

The group’s proposal, which has attracted the support of everyone from Michael Bloomberg and the Nature Conservancy to James Baker and George Shultz, two former secretaries of state under Republican presidents, was seen as one of the best options for controlling greenhouse gas emissions on a national level.

But a key provision in the CLC’s plan protected companies “from lawsuits over their contribution to climate change.”

That could explain why Bookbinder was removed from the CLC’s website shortly after announcing his role as co-counsel in the lawsuit.

A cached version of the organization’s website shows him as having been publicly affiliated with the group as recently as April 4, 2018 – just two weeks before the Colorado municipalities’ lawsuit was filed.

There has been no official announcement on Bookbinder’s departure, but the timing is suspicious.

Conclusion

David Bookbinder’s history with climate litigation stretches back at least 15 years.

In 2003, during Bookbinder’s time as Chief Climate Counsel, the Sierra Club backed ten states that brought a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Bush administration’s decision that it does not have the authority to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change (Massachusetts v. EPA).

Commenting on the suit, Bookbinder said, “If the United States is ever going to regulate greenhouse gases, it will start with a victory in this lawsuit.”

It would seem that Bookbinder has tried to have it both ways on climate litigation for years. He has called it the “worst way to do policy” and in the same article admitted to consulting on climate lawsuits.

He has endorsed and possibly co-written a carbon tax plan that would protect companies from climate lawsuits and then joined a set of climate lawsuits roughly a year later, though he has insisted his involvement is limited to a focus on property rights.

Only one thing can be said for sure – David Bookbinder has some explaining to do.

SOURCE

Is climate alarmist consensus about to shatter?

Is this the Beginning of the End – or at least the End of the Beginning?

E. Calvin Beisner

On November 10, 1942, after British and Commonwealth forces defeated the Germans and Italians at the Second Battle of El Alamein, Winston Churchill told the British Parliament, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

In The Hinge of Fate, volume 3 of his marvelous 6-volume history of World War II, he reflected, “It may almost be said, ‘Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat’.”

The publication of Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry’s newest paper in The Journal of Climate reminds me of that. The two authors for years have focused much of their work on figuring out how much warming should come from adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. In this paper they conclude that it’s at least 30% and probably 50% less than climate alarmists have claimed for the last forty years.

In fact, there are reasons to think the alarmists’ error is even greater than 50 percent. And if that is true, then all the reasons for drastic policies to cut carbon dioxide emissions – by replacing coal, oil and natural gas with wind and solar as dominant energy sources – simply disappear. Here’s another important point.

For the last 15 years or more, at least until a year or two ago, it would have been inconceivable that The Journal of Climate would publish their article. That this staunch defender of climate alarmist “consensus science” does so now could mean the alarmist dam has cracked, the water’s pouring through, and the crack will spread until the whole dam collapses.

Is this the beginning of the end of climate alarmists’ hold on climate science and policy, or the end of the beginning? Is it the Second Battle of El Alamein, or is it D-Day? I don’t know, but it is certainly significant. It may well be that henceforth the voices of reason and moderation will never suffer a defeat.

Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming was edited 13 years ago by climatologist Patrick J. Michaels, then Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and the State Climatologist of Virginia; now Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute. Its title was at best premature.

The greatly exaggerated “consensus” – that unchecked human emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases would cause potentially catastrophic global warming – wasn’t shattered then, and it hasn’t shattered since then. At least, that’s the case if the word “shattered” means what happens when you drop a piece of fine crystal on a granite counter top: instantaneous disintegration into tiny shards.

However, although premature and perhaps a bit hyperbolic, the title might have been prophetic.

From 1979 (when the National Academy of Sciences published “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment”) until 2013 (when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its “5th Assessment Report” or AR5), “establishment” climate-change scientists claimed that – if the concentration of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent in other “greenhouse” gases) doubled – global average surface temperature would rise by 1.5–4.5 degrees C, with a “best estimate” of about 3 degrees. (That’s 2.7–8.1 degrees F, with a “best” of 5.4 degrees F.)

But late in the first decade of this century, spurred partly by the atmosphere’s failure to warm as rapidly as the “consensus” predicted, various studies began challenging that conclusion, saying “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS) was lower than claimed. As the Cornwall Alliance reported four years ago:

“The IPCC estimates climate sensitivity at 1.5?C to 4.5?C, but that estimate is based on computer climate models that failed to predict the absence of warming since 1995 and predicted, on average, four times as much warming as actually occurred from 1979 to the present. It is therefore not credible. Newer, observationally based estimates have ranges like 0.3?C to 1.0?C (NIPCC 2013a, p. 7) or 1.25?C to 3.0?C – with a best estimate of 1.75?C (Lewis and Crok 2013, p. 9). Further, “No empirical evidence exists to support the assertion that a planetary warming of 2°C would be net ecologically or economically damaging” (NIPCC 2013a, p. 10).” [Abbreviated references are identified here.]

However, most of the lower estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity were published in places that are not controlled by “consensus” scientists and thus were written off or ignored.

Now, though, a journal dead center in the “consensus” – the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate – has accepted a new paper, “The impact of recent forcing and ocean heat uptake data on estimates of climate sensitivity,” by Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry. It concludes that ECS is very likely just 50–70% as high as the “consensus” range. (Lewis is an independent climate science researcher in the UK. Curry was Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and now is President of the Climate Forecast Applications Network.)

Here’s how Lewis and Curry summarize their findings in their abstract, with the takeaways emphasized:

“Energy budget estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR) [increase in global average surface temperature at time of doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, i.e., 70 years assuming 1% per annum increase in concentration] are derived based on the best estimates and uncertainty ranges for forcing provided in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Scientific Report (AR5).

“Recent revisions to greenhouse gas forcing and post-1990 ozone and aerosol forcing estimates are incorporated and the forcing data extended from 2011 to 2016. Reflecting recent evidence against strong aerosol forcing, its AR5 uncertainty lower bound is increased slightly. Using a 1869–1882 base period and a 2007?2016 final period, which are well-matched for volcanic activity and influence from internal variability, medians are derived for ECS of 1.50 K (5?95%: 1.05?2.45 K) and for TCR of 1.20 K (5?95%: 0.9?1.7 K). These estimates both have much lower upper bounds than those from a predecessor study using AR5 data ending in 2011.

“Using infilled, globally-complete temperature data gives slightly higher estimates; a median of 1.66 K for ECS (5?95%: 1.15?2.7 K) and 1.33 K for TCR (5?95%:1.0?1.90 K). These ECS estimates reflect climate feedbacks over the historical period, assumed time-invariant.

“Allowing for possible time-varying climate feedbacks increases the median ECS estimate to 1.76 K (5?95%: 1.2?3.1 K), using infilled temperature data. Possible biases from non-unit forcing efficacy, temperature estimation issues and variability in sea-surface temperature change patterns are examined and found to be minor when using globally-complete temperature data. These results imply that high ECS and TCR values derived from a majority of CMIP5 climate models are inconsistent with observed warming during the historical period.

A press release from the Global Warming Policy Forum quoted Lewis as saying, “Our results imply that, for any future emissions scenario, future warming is likely to be substantially lower than the central computer model-simulated level projected by the IPCC, and highly unlikely to exceed that level.”

Veteran environmental science writer Ronald Bailey commented on the new paper in Reason, saying: “How much lower? Their median ECS estimate of 1.66°C (5–95% uncertainty range: 1.15–2.7°C) is derived using globally complete temperature data. The comparable estimate for 31 current generation computer climate simulation models cited by the IPCC is 3.1°C. In other words, the models are running almost two times hotter than the analysis of historical data suggests that future temperatures will be.

“In addition, the high-end estimate of Lewis and Curry’s uncertainty range is 1.8°C below the IPCC’s high-end estimate.” [emphasis added]

Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow Dr. Roy W. Spencer (Principal Research Scientist in Climatology at the University of Alabama-Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for NASA’s satellite global temperature monitoring program) commented on the paper. Even Lewis and Curry’s figures make several assumptions that are at best unknown and quite likely false. He noted:

“I’d like to additionally emphasize overlooked (and possibly unquantifiable) uncertainties: (1) the assumption in studies like this that the climate system was in energy balance in the late 1800s in terms of deep ocean temperatures; and (2) that we know the change in radiative forcing that has occurred since the late 1800s, which would mean we would have to know the extent to which the system was in energy balance back then.

“We have no good reason to assume the climate system is ever in energy balance, although it is constantly readjusting to seek that balance. For example, the historical temperature (and proxy) record suggests the climate system was still emerging from the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s. The oceans are a nonlinear dynamical system, capable of their own unforced chaotic changes on century to millennial time scales, that can in turn alter atmospheric circulation patterns, thus clouds, thus the global energy balance. For some reason, modelers sweep this possibility under the rug (partly because they don’t know how to model unknowns).

“But just because we don’t know the extent to which this has occurred in the past doesn’t mean we can go ahead and assume it never occurs.

“Or at least if modelers assume it doesn’t occur, they should state that up front.

“If indeed some of the warming since the late 1800s was natural, the ECS would be even lower.”

With regard to that last sentence, Spencer’s University of Alabama research colleague Dr. John Christy and co-authors Dr. Joseph D’Aleo and Dr. James Wallace published a paper in the fall of 2016 (revised in the spring of 2017). It argued that solar, volcanic and ocean current variations are sufficient to explain all the global warming over the period of allegedly anthropogenic warming, leaving no global warming to blame on carbon dioxide.

At the very least, this suggests that indeed “some of the warming since the late 1800s was natural” – which means the ECS would be even lower than Lewis and Curry’s estimate.

All of this has important policy implications.

Wisely or not, the global community agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accords to try to limit global warming to at most 2 C degrees – preferably 1.5 degrees – above pre-Industrial (pre-1850) levels.

If Lewis and Curry are right, and the warming effect of CO2 is only 50–70% of what the “consensus” has said, cuts in CO2 emissions need not be as drastic as previously thought. That’s good news for the billions of people living in poverty and without affordable, reliable electricity. Their hope for electricity is seriously compromised by efforts to impose a rapid transition from abundant, affordable, reliable fossil fuels to diffuse, expensive, unreliable wind and solar (and other renewable) as chief electricity sources.

Moreover, if Spencer (like many others who agree with him) is right that the assumptions behind ECS calculations are themselves mistaken … and Christy (like many others who agree with him) is right that some or all of the modern warming has been naturally driven – then ECS is even lower than Lewis and Curry thought. That would mean there is even less justification for the punitive, job-killing, poverty-prolonging energy policies sought by the “climate consensus” community.

Regardless, we’re coming closer and closer to fulfilling the prophecy in Michaels’ 2005 book. The alarmist “consensus” on anthropogenic global warming is about to be shattered – or at least eroded and driven into a clear minority status.

Via email

The Future of Nuclear Power

Nuclear power may be the safest method for powering industrial civilization, but the disaster at Chernobyl—its thirty-second anniversary was last Thursday—is a fitting reminder that not all power plants are designed with safety in mind. It also reminds us of the cognitive necessity of keeping safety risks in proper perspective, explain Independent Institute Senior Fellow William F. Shughart II and Policy Fellow Brian Isom.

Aside from the meltdown at the Chernobyl-4 reactor in 1986, “no instances of death related to radiation exposure from nuclear power plants have been recorded, even though more than 600 nuclear reactors have been built around the world since 1954,” Shughart and Isom write in The Beacon. “Remarkably, deaths associated with wind turbines over the past decade are three times as high as deaths from Chernobyl, although this statistic gets little if any media coverage.”

The ghosts of Chernobyl still haunt the nuclear power industry, but the technology is moving forward. New reactors are being developed that “are physically incapable of melting down,” Shughart and Isom report. “The world is still a long way from a future of zero carbon emissions, but that goal can be achieved sooner if nuclear energy plays a much larger role in generating electricity,” they continue. “Even today, nuclear provides an opportunity for clean, reliable baseload power that not even wind or solar can match. Throw in the added benefit of producing electricity at a level of safety no other technology can promise and it should be easy to see why it is time to consign Chernobyl to the dustbin of history.”

SOURCE

The EPA’s Cone of Silence

When I was a kid, I would often come home in the afternoons after school to old reruns of episodes from the 1960s comedy Get Smart airing on a local TV station, which featured the misadventures of Maxwell Smart, a secret agent who fielded an array of high-tech spy gadgets that, aside from a shoe phone, never seemed to work as intended.

One of those gadgets was a device known as the “Cone of Silence”, which was meant to allow the show’s spies to have conversations that couldn’t be monitored by outsiders, but which didn’t work at all, which became a recurring joke on the show. The following clip of the show features the Cone of Silence in action:

That vintage show has become relevant again today because the top secret spy agency known as the Environmental Protection Agency decided to unlawfully spend $43,000 to install its own version of the Cone of Silence to facilitate its adminstrators’ ability to have secure conversations. Michael Biesecker of the Los Angeles Times reports on the findings of the General Accountability Office (GAO):

An internal government watchdog says the Environmental Protection Agency violated federal spending laws when purchasing a $43,000 soundproof privacy booth for Administrator Scott Pruitt to make private phone calls in his office.

The Government Accountability Office issued its findings Monday in a letter to Senate Democrats who had requested a review of Pruitt’s spending.

GAO General Counsel Thomas Armstrong determined that EPA’s purchase of the booth violated federal law prohibiting agencies from spending more than $5,000 for redecorating, furnishings or other improvements to the offices of presidential appointees without informing Congress. Because EPA used federal money in a manner specifically prohibited by law, Armstrong said the agency also violated the Antideficiency Act, and is legally obligated to report that violation to Congress.

As wasteful spending in the federal government goes, the EPA’s installation of its own Cone of Silence technology is a small offense against fiscal discipline, costing the equivalent of one-year’s pay for a low level bureaucrat (not counting their very generous benefits package)!

In theory, bureaucrats found guilty of violating the Antideficiency Act can be prosecuted and jailed for as much as one year. In practice, Timothy Cama of The Hill confirms that no bureaucrat ever has.

Adding to the spy drama, Cama also reports on EPA chief administrator Scott Pruitt’s congressional testimony, in which he revealed that the agency’s new $43,000 soundproof booth was installed without ever having been approved by Pruitt.

Pruitt later in the hearing went a step further, saying he didn’t even approve the privacy booth expenditure.

“Career individuals at the agency took that process through and signed off on it all the way through,” Pruitt told Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.). “I was not involved in the approval of the $43,000, and if I’d known about it, congressman, I would have refused it.”

He explained the genesis of the booth as well.

“I did have a phone call that came in, of a sensitive nature, and I did not have access to secure communications. I gave direction to my staff to address that,” Pruitt said.

“And out of that came a $43,000 expenditure that I did not approve,” he continued.

Only in Washington D.C. would a recurring gag from a late-1960s television show ever become part of the U.S. government’s ongoing wasteful spending comedy over fifty years later.

SOURCE

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

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

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2 May, 2018

Environmentalists Are Protesting A Clean Power Project

Environmentalists in New England are voicing concern over a proposal that would provide an abundance of clean hydropower, hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue every year.

Charlie Baker, the moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts, has worked relentlessly to reduce his state’s carbon footprint and is now looking to Canada for renewable energy sourced from a series of dams.

The environmentally-friendly governor is in negotiations to obtain a large swath of electricity from Hydro-Québec, a province-owned energy company that generates all of its electricity from its colossal system of 63 hydroelectric power stations.

If completed, the arrangement would power 1.2 million homes with 1,200 megawatts of low emission hydropower and reduce overall energy costs. Additionally, it would generate an estimated $18 million in annual property tax revenue and create 1,700 new jobs during its construction phase.

Central Maine Power — a company that provides power to central and southern Maine — has offered to build the transmission line needed to transport the power.

In addition to the jobs and tax revenue the transmission line will provide, the company is doubling down on its commitment to the local community by vowing to spend $50 million over 40 years on programs to assist low-income communities. Central Maine Power will also reroute the Appalachian Trail in order to be less intrusive to wildlife.

Environmentalists, however, are still questioning the project.

To get Hydro-Quebec’s electricity to Massachusetts, Central Maine Power will need to construct a 150-foot-wide path through New England and need 1,000 support structures. Some conservationists are opposing any sort of development in the region’s forests and surmising that the project will not even reduce carbon emissions.

A local resident opposed to the project compared the lure of added tax revenue to a bribe. “It’s hard to blame them,” Kevin Ross said to the Boston Globe in a report published April 23.

Ross was speaking of his neighbors who wish to see more economic development in their small Maine town of The Forks. “It’s like a school bully coming up to you and saying, ‘I’ll give you $10 if I can punch you in the face.’”

The director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Dylan Voorhees, is openly wondering if the hydroelectric power directed to Massachusetts would mean other areas would then need to rely on fossil fuel sources. “If they do that, we would see no benefit to the climate,” Voorhees said in the same report. “It would be a shell game.”

The Conservation Law Foundation — an environmental organization that works to promote renewable energy usage in New England — is among those questioning whether the project would mean an uptick in fossil fuels elsewhere, claiming Hydro-Quebec has been a “black box” with their business activities.

However, a spokeswoman for Hydro-Québec, Lynn St-Laurent, assured the public that there would, in fact, be a reduction in carbon emissions, adding that the Canadian power company has been planning to export more power to New England for years.

“We can commit to delivering more to Massachusetts — during every month of the year — all the while doing the same in all our other neighboring regions,” St-Laurent stated.

The project is slated to be completed by 2022 — if approved.

SOURCE

Europe’s Green Madness: Ireland Faces Annual EU Green Energy Fines Of €600 Million

An IREXIT coming?

Ireland faces fines of €600m a year from the EU for failing to meet renewable energy targets and cutting carbon emissions by 2020.

New, more ambitious targets for 2030 do not let Ireland off the hook for the 2020 measures, it has emerged.

A report for the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, which calculated the potential fines within two years, said they will be a matter for the European Court of Justice to impose.

Irish EU Commissioner Phil Hogan said there was confusion in some quarters that the 2020 targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive would be merged into the more ambitious targets for 2030. This would give the Government some breathing space and lessen the risk of punitive fines.

“But that is not the case. The 2020 target must be adhered to,” Mr Hogan said.

The commissioner urged the Government to be more proactive in developing wind and wave energy and reduce dependence on fossil fuels in line with EU agreed targets.

SOURCE

Ending secret science at EPA

Administrator Pruitt initiates overdue changes to bring transparency, integrity to rulemaking

Paul Driessen

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has proposed to end the longstanding EPA practice of using secretive, often questionable, even deceptive science to support agency policy and regulatory initiatives. His proposed rules will ensure that any science underlying agency actions is transparent and publicly available for independent experts to examine and validate – or point out its flaws.

It also responds to growing concerns that extensive scientific research in environmental, medical and other arenas cannot be replicated by other scientists, or is compromised by cherry-picked data, poor research design, sloppy analysis or biased researchers. The situation has led to calls for increased sharing of data and methodologies, more independent peer review and other actions to weed out problems. There is no excuse for hiding data when studies are funded by taxpayers or used to justify regulations.

The situation has been especially acute at EPA. As Mr. Pruitt observed, “The ability to test, authenticate and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of the rule making process. Americans deserve to assess the legitimacy of the science underpinning EPA decisions that may impact their lives.”

That is particularly true for regulations that exact millions or billions in compliance costs, affect thousands of jobs, target industries and coal-fired electricity generators that regulators want to close down, or seek to replace all fossil fuel use with “renewable” energy. With the cumulative economic impact of federal regulations reaching nearly $2 trillion per year, research reform is absolutely essential.

We need regulation and pollution control – but it must be based on solid, replicable, honest science.

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has held hearings and championed multiple bills to address the problem. Several have been passed by the House of Representatives, only to languish in the Senate. With courts offering little or no help, Executive Branch action may be the only remaining solution.

Deceptive, faulty science on fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) was the bedrock of the Obama EPA’s war on coal. Particulates don’t just make you sick; they are directly related “to dying sooner than you should,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson falsely told Congress. There is no level “at which premature mortality effects do not occur,” Mr. Obama’s next Administrator Gina McCarthy dishonestly testified.

At the same time they made these claims, they were presiding over illegal experiments on humans – including people with asthma, diabetes and heart disease – who were subjected to eight, 30 or even 60 times more particulates per volume, for up to two hours, than what EPA claimed are dangerous or lethal. None of them got sick, proving that EPA’s claims were false. The agency refused to correct its claims.

EPA took a similar stance on mercury – asserting that power plant emissions were causing dangerously high mercury levels in American children and pregnant women. In reality, US power plants account for just 0.5% of all the mercury in the air Americans breathe, and blood mercury counts for US women and children are well below even EPA’s excessively safe levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

How did EPA’s junk science, illegal experiments and heavy-handed regulations pass muster? For one thing, politics too often dictated the science. In addition, the agency paid more than $180 million over a 16-year period to institutions represented by members of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), which often rubberstamped studies and conclusions that failed integrity and transparency tests.

On global warming, EPA issued an Endangerment Finding, which claimed emissions of (plant-fertilizing) carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels threatened the health and welfare of American citizens.

It reached this conclusion by looking only at studies and computer models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, while ignoring volumes of studies by independent scientists who found no such threat. EPA officials even told one of the agency’s own senior experts that his studies would not be shared with agency staff and he was to cease any further work on climate change, because his analyses “do not help the legal or policy case for this decision” that fossil fuel CO2 emissions endanger Americans.

EPA was also a principal force behind the “social cost of carbon” scheme that supposedly calculated how much CO2-driven climate change would cost the United States and how those costs would be reduced by slashing fossil fuel use. The alleged cost of damages began at an arbitrary $22 per ton of carbon dioxide released in 2010, then climbed to an equally random $30 per ton in 2013 and $40 per ton in 2016.

Incredibly, EPA modelers also claimed they can accurately forecast global temperatures, climate and weather, technological advances, economic development, living standards – and damages to global civilizations and ecosystems from US carbon dioxide emissions – for the next 300 years! Moreover, in the real world, the benefits of using carbon-based fuels and improving crop, forest and grassland growth via higher atmospheric CO2 levels outweigh hypothesized costs by at least 50-to-1 to as much as 500-to-1.

Deceptive, politicized, policy-driven “science” like this pervaded EPA regulatory actions for too many years. Reaction to Mr. Pruitt’s corrective actions show how poorly informed his critics can be.

* The changes will force researchers to reveal personal or confidential information about participants in health studies. No they won’t. Such information is not needed and can easily be redacted.

* EPA can keep us safe from harmful chemicals only if it takes full advantage of all available scientific research. Public health and safety depend on ensuring that research and data purportedly supporting it are made public and carefully reviewed by multiple experts, to ensure accuracy and integrity. EPA will take full advantage of all available research that passes these tests. Tax-funded studies should all be public!

* The rules will exclude studies that rely on outside funding sources which limit access to underlying data. Those studies should be excluded. The funders need to revise their policies to ensure integrity.

* The rules will exclude so much research that they will endanger public health. Not so. The only studies EPA will likely not see is what researchers know will not pass muster, and thus do not submit. The real danger comes from research that is based on shoddy data, algorithms, models and analyses that past researchers have been able to keep secret. That is precisely what the rules will ferret out and correct.

* Pruitt has removed scientists who receive EPA funding from participating in advisory committees. As noted above, those scientists had received millions of dollars in exchange for supporting EPA analyses, initiatives and regulations. Pruitt wants input from experts whose views can be trusted.

* Pruitt has criticized the peer review process. Too many peer reviews have been conducted by closed circles of associated scientists who rely on government grants and support regulatory decisions to maintain funding. Some refused to share data with experts who might critique their work – or worked to keep contrarian research out of scientific journals. The fact that some journals rarely require access to or review of underlying data further demonstrates why the peer review process also needs to be reformed.

Too many past EPA policies, policy-driven research and regulations have been employed to force the nation to abandon fossil fuels that still supply 80% of US and global energy – and switch to expensive, intermittent, unreliable wind and solar energy installations that will require unsustainable amounts of land and raw materials, while destroying wildlife habitats and slaughtering birds and bats by the millions.

Those actions also killed numerous jobs and left many communities impoverished. Simply put, the danger to Americans’ health and welfare, livelihoods and living standards is regulations imposed in response to secretive, sloppy, substandard science that has ill-served EPA and the nation.

Ethics charges against Mr. Pruitt should be evaluated with all this in mind – and while acknowledging that members of Congress who are railing against him never complained about Lisa Jackson or Gina McCarthy’s CASAC payment abuses, illegal experiments on human test subjects, false testimony about particulates, EPA-orchestrated sue-and-settle lawsuits that imposed billions in regulations while enriching environmentalist groups … and junk-science regulations that cost the United States incalculable billions of dollars, brought no environmental benefits, and impaired the welfare of millions of people.

Pruitt’s reforms are long overdue. Honest politicians, journalists and voters will applaud him and them. Other government agencies should initiate similar science and rulemaking reforms.

Via email

Warm February: Proof of Global Warming. Coldest April Ever: Just Random Weather

Using cold snaps to mock the global warming cause is foolish. But using warm streaks to tout it is just good science.

I’m trying; I really am. I am trying to remember exactly how I am to respond appropriately to this kind of news:

April 2018 is expected to be the coldest month of April in the U.S. since reliable record keeping began in 1895.

The historically low spring temperatures have created problems for farmers in the northern plains and Midwest as the unseasonably cold soil prevents them from planting their crops on time.

On the one hand, I know it is completely anti-intellectual, un-cultured, and scientifically unsophisticated to point at this and say, “Hey, gotta love that global warming!” That’s just what silly conservatives and science-deniers do. They don’t grasp the difference between weather and climate.

When it’s really hot outside, we shouldn’t be surprised because that is a sign of our warming earth. When it’s unseasonably cold outside, we should just chalk it up to a random weather event and understand that it is insignificant in comparison to the much larger warming trend that we are a part of – a trend that goes back only to the start of the industrial revolution and man’s raping of the planet.

Bloviating pop scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained it for us:

“Weather is what the atmosphere does in the short-term, hour-to-hour, day-to-day. Weather is chaotic, which means that even a microscopic disturbance can lead to large scale changes…Climate is the long-term average of the weather over a number of years. It’s shaped by global forces that alter the energy balance in the atmosphere.”

But on the other hand, I know that all of the oppressively hot summers that can linger late into the fall is exactly what I should expect as a result of global warming. In that sense, I should be paying close attention to the hour-to-hour, day-to-day weather as a clear indication of what we are doing to our planet by pouring greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. If I continue driving my SUV or keeping my thermostat set at 70 degrees, I am largely to blame for the sweat stains on humanity’s clothing.

Expert “climate scientists” and “climate journalists” like Sabrina Shankman all seem to agree on that point:

There are records—like Wednesday being the earliest 80-degree day in Washington, D.C., history—and then there are the eye-popping effects of those records, like seeing people wearing T-shirts on the streets of Portland, Maine, in February.

However you measure it, Feb. 20-21, 2018, were days for the books—days when the records fell as quickly as the thermometer rose, days that gave a glimpse into the wacky weather that the new era of climate change brings.

Let me just say I could very well be a slow-learner, but I’m making the effort. I just want to make sure I’m reading all this right, so let me see if I’ve got it:

If I use weather data from a record-cold April to suggest the planet isn’t warming, I’m a fool for confusing weather and climate. But if I use weather data from a record-warm February to suggest the planet is warming, I’m a genius who understands the correlation between weather and climate.

Is that what we’re all supposed to pretend is consistent?

SOURCE

Satellite Data: 75% Of The World’s Beaches Are Stable Or Growing

Analysis of satellite derived shoreline data indicates that 24% of the world’s sandy beaches are eroding at rates exceeding 0.5?m/yr, while 28% are accreting and 48% are stable.

The State of the World’s Beaches

Abstract

Coastal zones constitute one of the most heavily populated and developed land zones in the world. Despite the utility and economic benefits that coasts provide, there is no reliable global-scale assessment of historical shoreline change trends. Here, via the use of freely available optical satellite images captured since 1984, in conjunction with sophisticated image interrogation and analysis methods, we present a global-scale assessment of the occurrence of sandy beaches and rates of shoreline change therein. Applying pixel-based supervised classification, we found that 31% of the world’s ice-free shoreline are sandy. The application of an automated shoreline detection method to the sandy shorelines thus identified resulted in a global dataset of shoreline change rates for the 33 year period 1984–2016. Analysis of the satellite derived shoreline data indicates that 24% of the world’s sandy beaches are eroding at rates exceeding 0.5?m/yr, while 28% are accreting and 48% are stable. The majority of the sandy shorelines in marine protected areas are eroding, raising cause for serious concern.

SOURCE

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

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

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1 May, 2018

Delingpole: Earth in ‘Greatest Two-Year Cooling Event in a Century’ Shock

Our planet has just experienced the most extreme two-year cooling event in a century. But where have you seen this reported anywhere in the mainstream media?

You haven’t, even though the figures are pretty spectacular. As Aaron Brown reports here at Real Clear Markets:

"From February 2016 to February 2018 (the latest month available) global average temperatures dropped 0.56°C. You have to go back to 1982-84 for the next biggest two-year drop, 0.47°C—also during the global warming era. All the data in this essay come from GISTEMP Team, 2018: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (dataset accessed 2018-04-11 at https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/). This is the standard source used in most journalistic reporting of global average temperatures.

The 2016-18 Big Chill was composed of two Little Chills, the biggest five month drop ever (February to June 2016) and the fourth biggest (February to June 2017). A similar event from February to June 2018 would bring global average temperatures below the 1980s average. February 2018 was colder than February 1998."

To put this temperature drop in context, consider that this is enough to offset by more than half the entirety of the global warming the planet has experienced since the end of the 19th century.

Since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1880s, the planet has warmed by about 0.8 degrees C. You might think that was not a particularly drastic rate of warming to worry about. You might also note that such a rate of warming is well precedented in periods throughout history, such as during the Minoan, Roman and Medieval warming periods. Nonetheless this 0.8 degrees C rise – 0.9 degrees C, at a push – is the terrible climatic event the alarmist establishment has been assuring these last few decades is the worst thing ever and something that should worry us awfully.

So is this sudden cooling an even-worse thing? Not necessarily. As Brown goes on to explain in his piece, you can’t extrapolate trends from such a short time scale. Well, not unless you’re a climate alarmist… As we know from long experience, if it had been the other way round – if the planet had warmed by 0.56 degrees C rather than cooled, the media would have been all over it.

My point is that statistical cooling outliers garner no media attention. The global average temperature numbers come out monthly. If they show a new hottest year on record, that’s a big story. If they show a big increase over the previous month, or the same month in the previous year, that’s a story. If they represent a sequence of warming months or years, that’s a story. When they show cooling of any sort—and there have been more cooling months than warming months since anthropogenic warming began—there’s no story.

Meanwhile a study by Judith Curry and Nic Lewis – also largely unreported by the mainstream media – confirms what skeptics have been saying for years: that the computer models used by the alarmist establishment to predict global warming are running too hot. According to Investors Business Daily:

"In the study, authors Nic Lewis and Judith Curry looked at actual temperature records and compared them with climate change computer models. What they found is that the planet has shown itself to be far less sensitive to increases in CO2 than the climate models say. As a result, they say, the planet will warm less than the models predict, even if we continue pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

As Lewis explains: “Our results imply that, for any future emissions scenario, future warming is likely to be substantially lower than the central computer model-simulated level projected by the (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and highly unlikely to exceed that level."

This brings projected “global warming” from being potentially dangerous to being easily manageable. Which is why, of course, it is unlikely to get much attention from a scientific establishment and a complicit media that much prefers to ramp up the global warming scare – even when the evidence doesn’t support it.

SOURCE

The great German energy muddle

German ‘eco-friendly’ gas power plant set to be idled for third successive year

Billed as ‘the world’s most eco-friendly fossil fuelled power plant’ when it opened in 2011, the owners say Irsching is not commercially viable due to the built-in advantages handed to part-time subsidised renewables. Meanwhile Germany continues building cheaper-to-run coal-fired power stations to help replace its nuclear fleet. A strange situation to be in.

German utility Uniper announced on Thursday that it had applied to extend the closure of its loss-making Irsching 4 and 5 gas-fired power generation plants with a capacity of 1400 MW for a third year beyond April 2019, reports PEI.

Uniper and the other owners of unit 5, N-Ergie, Mainova MNVG.DE and HSE, see no way to ensure the Bavarian plant’s commercial viability, it said in a statement.

Likewise, Uniper as sole owner of Irsching 4 also wants to apply for temporary closure in the same period for the same reason, it said.

Due to competition from subsidised solar and wind energy, many German fossil fuels plants are running at a fraction of the time needed to be profitable.

The wish to idle plants against a fee needs signalling to the energy regulator with a notice period of 12 months in advance, in order to establish whether this poses a risk to the stability of power transport grids.

A world-record efficiency of 60.4 per cent and low nitrogen oxide emissions were to make the plant the world’s most eco-friendly fossil fuelled power plant, according to Siemens at the time.

The manufacturer describes the plant as characterized by high operating flexibility, and short startup and fast load-cycling capability – features increasingly important with the rise in wind-based generation.

SOURCE

Solar & Wind To Replace All Fossil Fuels Within Two Decades (?)

How often have we heard nonsense like this:

"In recent years there have been dramatic falls in the cost of solar PV and the industry has expanded immensely. Panel prices are now below $1000 per kilowatt and system prices are $2000-3000 per kilowatt. Solar PV electricity is now less expensive than both domestic and commercial retail electricity from the grid. It is approaching cost-competitiveness with wholesale conventional electricity in many places"

So, how do they come to this crackpot conclusion? More importantly, how do they attempt to convince their readers?

They start with this grossly deceptive graph, which pretends that PV and wind is now dominating the electricity market:

In fact, all it shows is that PV and wind are accounting for 60% of new generation capacity.

Capacity, of course, has little to do with actual generation, which will be far less in the case of PV and wind. But more significantly, there is little need for new fossil fuel capacity, as it is already in place.

The figure quoted for PV and wind of 200 GW (which is in any event pure guesswork) would be capable of producing about 260 TWh pa (assuming a load factor of 15%). Given that global electricity production in 2016 was 24816 TWh, this would only meet 1% of global demand.

Moreover, electricity generation has increased at a rate of 542 TWh every year since 2010. In other words, the projected increase in PV and wind capacity would only be able to supply about half of the increase in demand each year.

Worse still for promoters of renewable energy, electricity only accounts for about 40% of total energy, meaning that the contribution from PV and wind will be even tinier. In 2016, for instance, the two sectors only supplied 2% of global primary energy consumption.

These real figures hardly bear out the myth of renewable energy dominance, which the authors would like readers to believe.

The second trick is to pretend that PV and wind output will continue to grow each year at recent rates:

"Together, PV and wind currently produce about 7% of the world’s electricity. Worldwide over the past five years, PV capacity has grown by 28% per year, and wind by 13% per year. Remarkably, because of the slow or nonexistent growth rates of coal and gas, current trends put the world on track to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2032"

This is quite idiotic. I noted some similar claim in a post a few weeks ago, and pointed out that, using the same logic, a car which did 0-60mph in 10 seconds would be travelling at the speed of light after a short while if the rate of acceleration continued.

In absolute terms, wind and solar generation has risen from 501 to 1293 TWh in the last five years, and now accounts for 5% of global electricity supply. Even assuming demand stays flat, at the current rate of increase, 158 TWh pa, wind and solar will still only account for 14% of global demand by 2030. (The increase between 2015 and 2016 was 179 TWh).

The article bases much of its case on the supposed cheapness of renewables, which are now claimed to be competitive with conventional power. Leaving aside the fact that the intrinsic value of intermittent power is much less than that of dispatchable power, and that the real cost of renewables must include the cost of intermittency, the authors make one huge, stonking blunder.

There is already enough conventional capacity in existence to supply most of the world’s needs. Why therefore would anybody want to spend money building more?

Would you buy a second car because its running costs were lower?

The whole question of intermittency is glossed over in the article:

"PV and wind are often described as “intermittent” energy sources. But stabilising the grid is relatively straightforward, with the help of storage and high-voltage interconnectors to smooth out local weather effects. By far the leading storage technologies are pumped hydro and batteries, with a combined market share of 97%."

The claim that pumped hydro and batteries will do the job, because they account for 97% of current storage, is yet another meaningless statistic from the authors.

In reality, that is about all the storage we have at the moment. Pumped hydro is extremely limited by the availability of suitable resources. Energy from pumped storage in the UK for instance has not changed in the last 20 years.

You might also note that the authors are reluctant to compare the actual figures for pumped hydro with batteries. But this is what their link shows:

In simple terms, we can forget about the various forms of non hydro storage. If you’ve got plenty of lakes and mountains, then fine. Otherwise, forget it.

But perhaps the most extraordinarily ludicrous claim made is that solar power, a long with a bit of wind, can meet mankind’s needs for energy:

"Solar PV meets all of these criteria, while wind energy also meets many of them, although wind is not as globally ubiquitous as sunshine. We will have sunshine and wind for billions of years to come. It is very hard to imagine humanity going to war over sunlight. Most of the world’s population lives at low latitudes (less than 35°), where sunlight is abundant and varies little between seasons. Wind energy is also widely available, particularly at higher latitudes"

It may be possible for solar power to fulfil a portion of energy needs in those low latitude countries. And, of course, that is for them to decide themselves.

But in many northerly latitude countries, such policy would be suicide, both economically and literally.

In the UK, for instance, solar power ran at just 4.8% of capacity in Q4 last year, and in the mid winter months this figure will be lower still:

Wind power may be widely available, as the article suggests, but it is also disastrously unreliable. Any grid that relied largely on wind power would very quickly implode.

One would assume that the authors, given their accreditations, would know all of this. (Blakers is a Professor of Engineering, whilst Stocks is a Research Fellow). So one is entitled to question why they wrote this pile of rubbish in the first place.

But then when you read their full accreditations, you understand why:

In other words, Blakers and Stocks have been paid by the renewable lobby to write this rubbish.

Shame on The Conversation for printing such palpable nonsense, and shame on the Australian National University for funding it.

More HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)

The Biggest Challenge In Electric Car Markets

Volkswagen is spending $2 billion in America to correct its “Dieselgate” cheating scandal — and to move beyond the typical upscale electric car shopper that tends to be much more interested in driving a Tesla Model S or Model X.

Electrify America, Volkswagen’s subsidiary carrying out the Dieselgate settlement by supporting electric vehicle purchases and charging infrastructure, has been making deals to bring fast chargers to shopping malls. After making an agreement this month to bring 100 charging locations in 34 states to Walmart, more retail outlets were just added. That includes Target, Sheetz, Casey’s General Stores, and Alltown convenience stores.

Walmart and Target shoppers tend to be quite different than Tesla owners, and those driving other electric vehicles from BMW, Chevrolet, Nissan, and other makers. Driving around upscale neighborhoods is usually the best place to find a Model S or Model X parked in the driveway of a high market-value home.

The average consumer car shopper — along with fleet managers overseeing acquisitions of a large part of new vehicles sales — have been tough to reach. Buying and driving their first EVs can raise concerns over driving range, safety, and how reliable the new technology will be over their typical lifecycle ownership.

Building a charging infrastructure under Electrify America, Tesla Superchargers, and other charging networks, is considered critical for reaching mass adoption of EVs. Bringing down the purchase price is another wall to climb — as demonstrated by Tesla investing heavily in its Model 3 with a $35,000 starting price, and General Motors focusing on the Chevrolet Bolt that starts at $37,500. Federal and state incentives bring those costs down even more.

The average pre-incentive price of 10 electric cars with the longest per-charge driving ranges was nearly $42,000 last year. That compares with about $34,000 for an average new car and $20,000 for an average new compact car.

Purchase incentives such as rebates and tax credits have been critical for electric vehicle sales to increase in the U.S., China, and Europe. But who’s tapping into these incentives?

A new study by Pacific Research Institute analyzed where tax credits in the U.S. have gone to. Reviewing the latest figures on tax credits for EV purchases, 79 percent were taken by consumers with annual household incomes greater than $100,000 per year. Extending that out a bit showed that households with $50,000 per year or more made up 99 percent of EV tax credits.

California has taken the lead in EV incentives, and has accounted for about half the electric car sales in the U.S. Another $140 million was set aside for electric car subsidies in the 2017-2018 state budget. Much of the rationale behind EV incentives in the state has been to clean up air quality in low-income communities living near traffic-congested freeways and heavy-truck intensive harbors.

The state’s generous incentives are being used by wealthier residents, which the state has taken criticism over in recent years.

Tesla faces a similar challenge selling its vehicles in the U.S., Europe, and China. The Model 3 is seeing strong sales, but the company is struggling to bring in the needed capital to ramp up production and meet promises made last year by CEO Elon Musk. The automaker is working with Chinese government officials to set up a free trade zone, where Tesla can avoid the hefty tariffs it pays to bring its electric cars to its showrooms in China. So far, Tesla’s customers in China have been wealthy consumers willing to pay more for the Model S and Model X.

German automakers have worked hard at becoming more Tesla-competitive and to meet stringent anti-diesel rules coming from the European Union. VW, BMW, and Daimler have made serious commitments to electrifying their vehicle offerings through 2025. Like Tesla, that so far has been seeing most of its gains coming from luxury and performance EV sales.

BMW shows a clear example of it with its pricier i-Series models and offering several of its luxury sedans with plug-in hybrid variations.

Some analysts have praised increases in global EV sales as a sign that EV adoption is increasing significantly. Last year, with 1,223,600 EVs sold globally, a 58 percent sales increase was reached over 2016. China led the way for battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales with a 73 percent growth surge last year.

However, that still only represented 1.3 percent of total global new passenger vehicle sales last year. The total has been estimated at 93.5 million light-duty vehicles sold in 2017.

Automakers, government officials, and technology suppliers will have to invest heavily in affordable EVs of all types, fast charging, and a much larger charging infrastructure. For now, gasoline stations and affordable, fuel-efficient passenger vehicles are beating EVs by a wide margin.

SOURCE

‘Tsunami’ Of Renewable Energy Projects Threatens Europe’s Last Wild Rivers, Campaigners Warn

Plans to build about 3,000 hydropower plants in the Balkans in the next few years endanger Europe’s last wild rivers and some of the most important biodiversity hotspots on the continent, campaigers said on Saturday.

Stretching from Slovenia to Albania, critics say the hydropower boom threatens animal life, including endemic species of fish, and people’s access to water used for drinking, fishing and farming.

“There is a tsunami of hydropower dam constructions happening here and nobody really knows about it,” said Britton Caillouette, director of “Blue Heart”, a documentary that focuses on efforts to halt the hydropower plans.

“Blue Heart”, which had its world premiere on Saturday in a screening at the Idbar dam near Konjik, focuses on local people’s and campaigners’ efforts to halt the plans.

Investment in renewable energy projects is growing around the world as countries rush to meet clean energy goals under the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The EU aims to source at least 27 percent of the bloc’s energy from renewables by 2030.

Western Balkan countries, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, plan to invest billions of euros in building new coal-fired plants to meet rising demand for electricity as old plants are being phased out.

Hydropower is already widely used across the region but environmentalists fear the investment in coal could backfire as governments may be forced to invest hundreds of millions of euros more to upgrade plants to meet European Union environmental standards as the countries progress toward membership of the bloc.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is funding some hydropower projects in the Balkans and has agreed to foster a transition towards sustainable, low-carbon economies int the region.

Ulrich Eichelmann, head of campaign group RiverWatch, said clean energy such as hydropower, could have negative effects on the environment.

“Just because it doesn’t emit CO2 it doesn’t mean it’s good,” Eichelmann told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

SOURCE

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This site is in favour of things that ARE good for the environment. That the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however disputed. Greenie policies can in fact be actively bad for the environment -- as with biofuels, for instance

This Blog by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.

I am the most complete atheist you can imagine. I don't believe in Karl Marx, Jesus Christ or global warming. And I also don't believe in the unhealthiness of salt, sugar and fat. How skeptical can you get? If sugar is bad we are all dead

And when it comes to "climate change", I know where the skeletons are buried

There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be challenged, no sacred truths.

Context for the minute average temperature change recorded in the graph above: At any given time surface air temperatures around the world range over about 100°C. Even in the same place they can vary by nearly that much seasonally and as much as 30°C or more in a day. A minute rise in average temperature in that context is trivial if it is not meaningless altogether. Scientists are Warmists for the money it brings in, not because of the facts

"Thinking" molecules?? Terrestrial temperatures have gone up by less than one degree over the last 150 years and CO2 has gone up long term too. But that proves nothing. It is not a proven causal relationship. One of the first things you learn in statistics is that correlation is not causation. And there is none of the smooth relationship that you would expect of a causal relationship. Both temperatures and CO2 went up in fits and starts but they were not the same fits and starts. The precise effects on temperature that CO2 levels are supposed to produce were not produced. CO2 molecules don't have a little brain in them that says "I will stop reflecting heat down for a few years and then start up again". Their action (if any) is entirely passive. Theoretically, the effect of added CO2 in the atmosphere should be instant. It allegedly works by bouncing electromagnetic radiation around and electromagnetic radiation moves at the speed of light. But there has been no instant effect. Temperature can stay plateaued for many years (e.g. 1945 to 1975) while CO2 levels climb. So there is clearly no causal link between the two. One could argue that there are one or two things -- mainly volcanoes and the Ninos -- that upset the relationship but there are not exceptions ALL the time. Most of the time a precise 1 to 1 connection should be visible. It isn't, far from it. You should be able to read one from the other. You can't.

Antarctica is GAINING mass

Warmists depend heavily on ice cores for their figures about the atmosphere of the past. But measuring the deep past through ice cores is a very shaky enterprise, which almost certainly takes insufficient account of compression effects. The apparently stable CO2 level of 280ppm during the Holocene could in fact be entirely an artifact of compression at the deeper levels of the ice cores. . Perhaps the gas content of an ice layer approaches a low asymptote under pressure. Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski's criticisms of the assumed reliability of ice core measurements are of course well known. And he studied them for over 30 years.

The world's first "Green" party was the Nazi party -- and Greenies are just as Fascist today in their endeavours to dictate to us all and in their attempts to suppress dissent from their claims.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Warmism is a powerful religion that aims to control most of our lives. It is nearly as powerful as the Catholic Church once was

Believing in global warming has become a sign of virtue. Strange in a skeptical era. There is clearly a need for faith

Climate change is the religion of people who think they're too smart for religion

Some advice from the Buddha that the Green/Left would do well to think about: "Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, The Moon and The Truth"

Leftists have faith that warming will come back some day. And they mock Christians for believing in the second coming of Christ! They obviously need religion

Global warming has in fact been a religious doctrine for over a century. Even Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, believed in it

A rosary for the church of global warming (Formerly the Catholic church): "Hail warming, full of grace, blessed art thou among climates and blessed is the fruit of thy womb panic"

Pope Francis is to the Catholic church what Obama is to America -- a mistake, a fool and a wrecker

Global warming is the predominant Leftist lie of the 21st century. No other lie is so influential. The runner up lie is: "Islam is a religion of peace". Both are rankly absurd.

"When it comes to alarmism, we’re all deniers; when it comes to climate change, none of us are" -- Dick Lindzen

The Obama EPA did everything it could get away with to shaft America and Americans

Cromwell's famous plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken" was ignored by those to whom it was addressed -- to their great woe. Warmists too will not consider that they may be wrong ..... "Bowels" was a metaphor for compassion in those days

The plight of the bumblebee -- an egregious example of crooked "science"

Inorganic Origin of Petroleum: "The theory of Inorganic Origin of Petroleum (synonyms: abiogenic, abiotic, abyssal, endogenous, juvenile, mineral, primordial) states that petroleum and natural gas was formed by non-biological processes deep in the Earth, crust and mantle. This contradicts the traditional view that the oil would be a "fossil fuel" produced by remnants of ancient organisms. Oil is a hydrocarbon mixture in which a major constituent is methane CH4 (a molecule composed of one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). Occurrence of methane is common in Earth's interior and in space. The inorganic theory contrasts with the ideas that posit exhaustion of oil (Peak Oil), which assumes that the oil would be formed from biological processes and thus would occur only in small quantities and sets, tending to exhaust. Some oil drilling now goes 7 miles down, miles below any fossil layers

As the Italian chemist Primo Levi reflected in Auschwitz, carbon is ‘the only element that can bind itself in long stable chains without a great expense of energy, and for life on Earth (the only one we know so far) precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the key element of living substance.’ The chemistry of carbon (2) gives it a unique versatility, not just in the artificial world, but also, and above all, in the animal, vegetable and – speak it loud! – human kingdoms.

David Archibald: "The more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere, the better life on Earth will be for human beings and all other living things."

Fossil fuels are 100% organic, are made with solar energy, and when burned produce mostly CO2 and H2O, the 2 most important foods for life.

Warmists claim that the "hiatus" in global warming that began around 1998 was caused by the oceans suddenly gobbling up all the heat coming from above. Changes in the heat content of the oceans are barely measurable but the ARGO bathythermographs seem to show the oceans warming not from above but from below

WISDOM:

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered, than answers that can’t be questioned.” — Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, Physicist

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” — Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

UNRELIABLE SCIENCE:

(1). “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness… “The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a place in a select few journals. Our love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale…Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent…” (Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, “Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?”)

(2). “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” (Dr. Marcia Angell, NY Review of Books, January 15, 2009, “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption)

Consensus: As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough - Michael Crichton

Bertrand Russell knew about consensus: "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

"The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement" -- Karl Popper

"I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem -- Christopher Hitchens

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken

'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire

Lord Salisbury: "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe."

Calvin Coolidge said, "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." He could have been talking about Warmists.

Some advice from long ago for Warmists: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans,there'd be no room for tinkers". It's a nursery rhyme harking back to Middle English times when "an" could mean "if". Tinkers were semi-skilled itinerant workers who fixed holes and handles in pots and pans -- which were valuable household items for most of our history. Warmists are very big on "ifs", mays", "might" etc. But all sorts of things "may" happen, including global cooling

There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" -- William of Occam

Was Paracelsus a 16th century libertarian? His motto was: "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself." He was certainly a rebel in his rejection of authority and his reliance on observable facts and is as such one of the founders of modern medicine

"In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy". (Bob Parks, Physics, U of Maryland). No prizes for guessing how global warming skepticism is normally responded to.

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley

Time was, people warning the world "Repent - the end is nigh!" were snickered at as fruitcakes. Now they own the media and run the schools.

"One of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world" -- George Orwell, 1943 in Can Socialists Be Happy?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts -- Bertrand Russell

“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” -- John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001

The closer science looks at the real world processes involved in climate regulation the more absurd the IPCC's computer driven fairy tale appears. Instead of blithely modeling climate based on hunches and suppositions, climate scientists would be better off abandoning their ivory towers and actually measuring what happens in the real world.' -- Doug L Hoffman

Something no Warmist could take on board: "Knuth once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Prof. Donald Knuth, whom some regard as the world's smartest man

"To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective. They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against" -- Rich Kozlovich

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“ – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Leftists generally and Warmists in particular very commonly ascribe disagreement with their ideas to their opponent being "in the pay" of someone else, usually "Big Oil", without troubling themselves to provide any proof of that assertion. They are so certain that they are right that that seems to be the only reasonable explanation for opposition to them. They thus reveal themselves as the ultimate bigots -- people with fixed and rigid ideas.

ABOUT:

This is one of TWO skeptical blogs that I update daily. During my research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I have shifted my attention to health related science and climate related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic. Hence this blog and my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers published in both fields during my social science research career

Update: After 8 years of confronting the frankly childish standard of reasoning that pervades the medical journals, I have given up. I have put the blog into hibernation. In extreme cases I may put up here some of the more egregious examples of medical "wisdom" that I encounter. Greenies and food freaks seem to be largely coterminous. My regular bacon & egg breakfasts would certainly offend both -- if only because of the resultant methane output

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future. Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world. Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions. Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

A "geriatric" revolt: The scientists who reject Warmism tend to be OLD! Your present blogger is one of those. There are tremendous pressures to conformity in academe and the generally Leftist orientation of academe tends to pressure everyone within it to agree to ideas that suit the Left. And Warmism is certainly one of those ideas. So old guys are the only ones who can AFFORD to declare the Warmists to be unclothed. They either have their careers well-established (with tenure) or have reached financial independence (retirement) and so can afford to call it like they see it. In general, seniors in society today are not remotely as helpful to younger people as they once were. But their opposition to the Warmist hysteria will one day show that seniors are not completely irrelevant after all. Experience does count (we have seen many such hysterias in the past and we have a broader base of knowledge to call on) and our independence is certainly an enormous strength. Some of us are already dead. (Reid Bryson and John Daly are particularly mourned) and some of us are very senior indeed (e.g. Bill Gray and Vince Gray) but the revolt we have fostered is ever growing so we have not labored in vain.

A Warmist backs down: "No one knows exactly how far rising carbon concentrations affect temperatures" -- Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Jimmy Carter Classic Quote from 1977: "Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.

SOME POINTS TO PONDER:

Today’s environmental movement is the current manifestation of the totalitarian impulse. It is ironic that the same people who condemn the black or brown shirts of the pre WW2 period are blind to the current manifestation simply because the shirts are green.

Climate is just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate 50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

The frequency of hurricanes has markedly DECLINED in recent years

Here's how that "97% consensus" figure was arrived at

97% of scientists want to get another research grant

Another 97%: Following the death of an older brother in a car crash in 1994, Bashar Al Assad became heir apparent; and after his father died in June 2000, he took office as President of Syria with a startling 97 per cent of the vote.

Hearing a Government Funded Scientist say let me tell you the truth, is like hearing a Used Car Salesman saying let me tell you the truth.

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think (e.g. here) that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they agree with

David Brower, founder Sierra Club: “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license"

To Greenies, Genghis Khan was a good guy, believe it or not. They love that he killed so many people.

Greenie antisemitism

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down when clouds appear overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2 and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years show that plantlife is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2 will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to increases in atmospheric CO2

Every green plant around us is made out of carbon dioxide that the plant has grabbed out of the atmosphere. That the plant can get its carbon from such a trace gas is one of the miracles of life. It admittedly uses the huge power of the sun to accomplish such a vast filtrative task but the fact that a dumb plant can harness the power of the sun so effectively is also a wonder. We live on a rather improbable planet. If a science fiction writer elsewhere in the universe described a world like ours he might well be ridiculed for making up such an implausible tale.

Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilization -- and they intend to be.

The Greenie message is entirely emotional and devoid of all logic. They say that polar ice will melt and cause a big sea-level rise. Yet 91% of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica, where the average temperature is around minus 40 degrees Celsius. The melting point of ice is zero degrees. So for the ice to melt on any scale the Antarctic temperature would need to rise by around 40 degrees, which NOBODY is predicting. The median Greenie prediction is about 4 degrees. So where is the huge sea level rise going to come from? Mars? And the North polar area is mostly sea ice and melting sea ice does not raise the sea level at all. Yet Warmists constantly hail any sign of Arctic melting. That the melting of floating ice does not raise the water level is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes demonstrated it around 2,500 years ago. That Warmists have not yet caught up with that must be just about the most inspissated ignorance imaginable. The whole Warmist scare defies the most basic physics. Yet at the opening of 2011 we find the following unashamed lying by James Hansen: "We will lose all the ice in the polar ice cap in a couple of decades". Sadly, what the Vulgate says in John 1:5 is still only very partially true: "Lux in tenebris lucet". There is still much darkness in the minds of men.

The repeated refusal of Warmist "scientists" to make their raw data available to critics is such a breach of scientific protocol that it amounts to a confession in itself. Note, for instance Phil Jones' Feb 21, 2005 response to Warwick Hughes' request for his raw climate data: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" Looking for things that might be wrong with a given conclusion is of course central to science. But Warmism cannot survive such scrutiny. So even after "Climategate", the secrecy goes on.

Most Greenie causes are at best distractions from real environmental concerns (such as land degradation) and are more motivated by a hatred of people than by any care for the environment

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices. -- Prof. P. Stott

Comparing climate alarmist Hansen to Cassandra is WRONG. Cassandra's (Greek mythology) dire prophecies were never believed but were always right. Hansen's dire prophecies are usually believed but are always wrong (Prof. Laurence Gould, U of Hartford, CT)

The modern environmental movement arose out of the wreckage of the New Left. They call themselves Green because they're too yellow to admit they're really Reds. So Lenin's birthday was chosen to be the date of Earth Day. Even a moderate politician like Al Gore has been clear as to what is needed. In "Earth in the Balance", he wrote that saving the planet would require a "wrenching transformation of society".

For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that fire was explained by the release of an invisible element called phlogiston. That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming is the new phlogiston. Though, now that we know how deliberate the hoax has been, it might be more accurate to call global warming the New Piltdown Man. The Piltdown hoax took 40 years to unwind. I wonder....

Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Policies: The only underlying theme that makes sense of all Greenie policies is hatred of people. Hatred of other people has been a Greenie theme from way back. In a report titled "The First Global Revolution" (1991, p. 104) published by the "Club of Rome", a Greenie panic outfit, we find the following statement: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.... All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." See here for many more examples of prominent Greenies saying how much and how furiously they hate you.

After fighting a 70 year war to destroy red communism we face another life-or-death struggle in the 21st century against green communism.

The conventional wisdom of the day is often spectacularly wrong. The most popular and successful opera of all time is undoubtedly "Carmen" by Georges Bizet. Yet it was much criticized when first performed and the unfortunate Bizet died believing that it was a flop. Similarly, when the most iconic piece of 20th century music was first performed in 1913-- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- half the audience walked out. Those of us who defy the conventional wisdom about climate are actually better off than that. Unlike Bizet and Stravinsky in 1913, we KNOW that we will eventually be vindicated -- because all that supports Warmism is a crumbling edifice of guesswork ("models").

Al Gore won a political prize for an alleged work of science. That rather speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Jim Hansen and his twin

Getting rich and famous through alarmism: Al Gore is well-known but note also James Hansen. He has for decades been a senior, presumably well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize. He pulled in a total of $1.2 million in 2010. Not bad for a government bureaucrat.

See the original global Warmist in action here: "The icecaps are melting and all world is drowning to wash away the sin"

I am not a global warming skeptic nor am I a global warming denier. I am a global warming atheist. I don't believe one bit of it. That the earth's climate changes is undeniable. Only ignoramuses believe that climate stability is normal. But I see NO evidence to say that mankind has had anything to do with any of the changes observed -- and much evidence against that claim.

Seeing that we are all made of carbon, the time will come when people will look back on the carbon phobia of the early 21st century as too incredible to be believed

Meanwhile, however, let me venture a tentative prophecy. Prophecies are almost always wrong but here goes: Given the common hatred of carbon (Warmists) and salt (Food freaks) and given the fact that we are all made of carbon, salt, water and calcium (with a few additives), I am going to prophecy that at some time in the future a hatred of nitrogen will emerge. Why? Because most of the air that we breathe is nitrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea. Logical to hate nitrogen? NO. But probable: Maybe. The Green/Left is mad enough. After all, nitrogen is a CHEMICAL -- and we can't have that!

UPDATE to the above: It seems that I am a true prophet

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some belief in global warming?

For many people, global warming seems to have taken the place of "The Jews" -- a convenient but false explanation for any disliked event. Prof. Brignell has some examples.

Global warming skeptics are real party-poopers. It's so wonderful to believe that you have a mission to save the world.

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

The claim that oil is a fossil fuel is another great myth and folly of the age. They are now finding oil at around seven MILES beneath the sea bed -- which is incomparably further down than any known fossil. The abiotic oil theory is not as yet well enough developed to generate useful predictions but that is also true of fossil fuel theory

Help keep the planet Green! Maximize your CO2 and CH4 output!

Global Warming=More Life; Global Cooling=More Death.

The inconvenient truth about biological effects of "Ocean Acidification"

Medieval Warm Period: Recent climatological data assembled from around the world using different proxies attest to the presence of both the MWP and the LIA in the following locations: the Sargasso Sea, West Africa, Kenya, Peru, Japan, Tasmania, South Africa, Idaho, Argentina, and California. These events were clearly world-wide and in most locations the peak temperatures during the MWP were higher than current temperatures.

Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is maximum 4%.

Cook the crook who cooks the books

The great and fraudulent scare about lead

How 'GREEN' is the FOOTPRINT of a WIND TURBINE? 45 tons of rebar and 630 cubic yards of concrete

Green/Left denial of the facts explained: "Rejection lies in this, that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light; preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that his doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes to the light" John 3:19-21 (Knox)

Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a time of exceptional temperature stability.

Recent NASA figures tell us that there was NO warming trend in the USA during the 20th century. If global warming is occurring, how come it forgot the USA?

Warmists say that the revised NASA figures do not matter because they cover only the USA -- and the rest of the world is warming nicely. But it is not. There has NEVER been any evidence that the Southern hemisphere is warming. See here. So the warming pattern sure is looking moth-eaten.

The latest scare is the possible effect of extra CO2 on the world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates. No comprehensive, reliable measurement of worldwide oceanic acid/base balance has ever been carried out: therefore, there is no observational basis for the computer models' guess that acidification of 0.1 pH units has occurred in recent decades.

The chaos theory people have told us for years that the air movement from a single butterfly's wing in Brazil can cause an unforeseen change in our weather here. Now we are told that climate experts can "model" the input of zillions of such incalculable variables over periods of decades to accurately forecast global warming 50 years hence. Give us all a break!

If you doubt the arrogance [of the global warming crowd, you haven't seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate over. Consider: If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming -- infinitely more untested, complex and speculative -- is a closed issue

Scientists have politics too -- sometimes extreme politics. Read this: "This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child." -- Albert Einstein

The "precautionary principle" is a favourite Greenie idea -- but isn't that what George Bush was doing when he invaded Iraq? Wasn't that a precaution against Saddam getting or having any WMDs? So Greenies all agree with the Iraq intervention? If not, why not?

A classic example of how the sensationalist media distort science to create climate panic is here.

There is a very readable summary of the "Hockey Stick" fraud here

The Lockwood & Froehlich paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film. It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even have been the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and very detailed critiques here and here and here for more on the Lockwood paper and its weaknesses.

As the Greenies are now learning, even strong statistical correlations may disappear if a longer time series is used. A remarkable example from Sociology: "The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added." So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. In the Greenie case, the correlation between CO2 rise and global temperature rise stopped in 1998 -- but that could have been foreseen if measurements taken in the first half of the 20th century had been considered.

Relying on the popular wisdom can even hurt you personally: "The scientific consensus of a quarter-century ago turned into the arthritic nightmare of today."

Greenie-approved sources of electricity (windmills and solar cells) require heavy government subsidies to be competitive with normal electricity generators so a Dutch word for Greenie power seems graphic to me: "subsidieslurpers" (subsidy gobblers)

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