This piece gives the details. This was the question I asked myself when I saw the item on the news. It is clear that they are pumping out a one-sided story to suit their agenda and this just proves it. Their problem is that this is lying by omission and if the public find out it undermines the case for climate alarm.
Friday 31 January 2020
Thursday 30 January 2020
NEW CLIMATE GROUP OPPOSES CLIMATE PROPAGANDA
This article highlights the Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) which is a rapidly growing international group, led by prominent scientists that oppose the ill-founded attempts to scare people into hasty climate policy actions. They also oppose the terrorising of children as part of the false climate alarm.
Wednesday 29 January 2020
BBC COLLUDES WITH GREENPEACE
This piece explains how the BBC is joining forces with Greenpeace to further the aim of getting investment out of fossil fuels. The arguments as to why this is desirable are taken as read with no discussion about it.
Tuesday 28 January 2020
WELL DONE THE GWPF!
This article and short video highlights the lies, exaggerations and distortions being put out by Sir David Attenborough in a desperate attempt to scare his audience, including many naïve young people, into believing that Arctic animals are in danger of starvation and extinction.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) are going to send copies of this video to all head teachers of UK schools together with a letter, telling them that they are responsible for the mental health of their pupils and that they have a responsibility to provide their pupils with accurate information about the state of wildlife in the Arctic.
I admire their courage in doing this, though I fear the vast majority of the videos will end up in the bin as most of the teachers are completely captured by the propaganda and will not countenance that Attenborough could be wrong.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) are going to send copies of this video to all head teachers of UK schools together with a letter, telling them that they are responsible for the mental health of their pupils and that they have a responsibility to provide their pupils with accurate information about the state of wildlife in the Arctic.
I admire their courage in doing this, though I fear the vast majority of the videos will end up in the bin as most of the teachers are completely captured by the propaganda and will not countenance that Attenborough could be wrong.
Monday 27 January 2020
UK CLIMATE ASSEMBLY IS SET UP BY THE GOVERNMENT
Letter to the press
I write to express my deep concern over the recently established “Climate Assembly”. [See this article] and this one.
If the past three years of struggle over Britain leaving the EU has taught us anything, it is that the bedrock of our society’s political life is parliamentary democracy as expressed through the ballot box – where all voters have their say. The ‘Climate Assembly” set-up is an open invitation for green activists to take control at the expense of the electorate in general.
This is particularly a concern as the sole remit of the assembly is stated to be: “how” to achieve so-called zero carbon. The small matter of whether such a policy is desirable, let alone necessary or affordable is to be ignored. This is a fundamental breach of trust with the wider electorate, a completely undemocratic charade. It is appalling that British democracy is being subverted in this way – and, astonishingly, under the auspices of a Conservative government.
How can it be justified that an unelected assembly should be used to influence government policy?
Sunday 26 January 2020
SO MUCH FOR THE BRIGHT RENEWABLE FUTURE
This article explains what is being produced in the recent cloudy, low wind days here in the UK. I wonder why our politicians are so confident hat we can manage on zero fossil fuels. Could it be that they hope and expect that all the flack will occur after they have left office?
Saturday 25 January 2020
NO ANGELA - THERE CAN BE NO MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE BETWEEN OPPOSITE VIEWS
Here is Angela Merkel's message on climate change in which she calls for dialogue between sceptics and believers (as she refers to alarmists). But how can there be a meeting of minds between two completely opposing views? It is simply naive to think that if the two sides talk they will come to any sort of agreement. For that to happen one side will have to give in and agree with the other.
Friday 24 January 2020
DONALD TRUMPIS RIGHT TO BE OPTIMISTIC
This address by Donald Trump hits the right note on energy and the case for optimism. I only wish our own leaders here in the UK could do the same. He ends his address with these words:
"We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty. America will always be the proud, strong and unyielding bastion of freedom.
In America, we understand what the pessimists refused to see. That a growing and vibrant market economy, focused on the future, lifts the human spirit and excites creativity: strong enough to overcome any challenge, any challenge by far."
I hope he is right.
"We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty. America will always be the proud, strong and unyielding bastion of freedom.
In America, we understand what the pessimists refused to see. That a growing and vibrant market economy, focused on the future, lifts the human spirit and excites creativity: strong enough to overcome any challenge, any challenge by far."
I hope he is right.
Thursday 23 January 2020
NEW STUDY CLAIMS THAT IRRIGATION IS KEEPING THE TROPICS FROM WARMING
This piece explains the findings. Large-scale irrigation can help alleviate and even reverse hot extremes driven by human activity and other drivers of global warming, a new international study has found. We know that water cools the surroundings as it evaporates and so this seems fairly obvious, in which case this is a simple mitigation strategy, if or when it is needed to combat extreme heat.
Wednesday 22 January 2020
WARMEST DECADE, BUT ONLY JUST
This article gives a good account of the fallacy of simply believing all the arguments found in the main media about this being the warmest decade. First of all when one says “hottest” it is a gross exaggeration of the planet’s mean temperature. For its somewhere close to 15C. That is roughly .3C warmer than it was 30 years ago. All that means is the amount of measured warmth outduels the cool by .3C hardly a rout. Much of the warming is in colder drier areas which is a function of increased Water Vapour (also a greenhouse gas), not CO2.
Tuesday 21 January 2020
A NEW COURSE FOR THE 'NEW POLITICS.
Below is part of an email sent to me. Clearly we can see that our future politicians are being brainwashed into accepting the king's new clothes as being the only way forward.
Innovative ‘One Planet' Governance post-graduate programme offered at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David |
|
20 January 2020
In collaboration with David Thorpe, author and founder of the One Planet Council, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) is offering a new Post-Graduate Certificate in ‘One Planet’ Governance.
The 'One Planet' Governance programme – the first of its kind in the world – is a post-graduate award that will provide a continual professional development opportunity for those interested in sustainable political, civic and public governance, administration and policymaking. As part of the programme, students study ethical and sustainable approaches to political leadership and administration, preparing them for the changing nature and role of politics and governance in the 21st century.
“With governments and many councils declaring climate and extinction emergencies, administrators and policymakers are wondering how to react,” says David Thorpe, director of the One Planet Centre, sustainability consultant and one of the course tutors.
And then I was sent this:
New commission chair to help drive Croydon’s green agenda
Croydon is taking major steps towards becoming London’s greenest borough by appointing the first chair of the Climate Crisis Commission to help deliver a sustainable Croydon.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the chief executive of the New Economics Foundation, a think-tank promoting social, economic and environmental justice, has been appointed to lead the commission, set up to tackle the climate and ecological emergency, when it meets in March.
The independent body will draw on the findings of a new citizens’ assembly, which meets for the first time this week, made up of 72 people from across Croydon who are of different ages, backgrounds, faiths and other protected characteristic and were chosen to reflect Croydon’s diversity.
The assembly will discuss the climate challenge facing Croydon and ways to lower the borough’s carbon footprint.
How much is all this costing?, I ask.
|
Monday 20 January 2020
GOOD PIECE IN MAIL ON SUNDAY ON CHILD ABUSE PROPAGANDA
This article explains how so many young children are being traumatised by the incessant propaganda about the impending calamity due to global warming. The author raises a very important point which many politicians have failed to grasp. Constant propaganda has negative consequences.
Sunday 19 January 2020
ALL HYPE AND NO SUBSTANCE AS GREEN ENERGY PLANT GOES BUST
And Finally: The Best-Laid Energy Plans
The Wall Street Journal, 17 January 2020
Government planning and subsidies will make America the world’s green-energy superpower, create millions of jobs, and supercharge the economy—or so we’re told. The reality is closer to Crescent Dunes, a Nevada solar-energy plant that has gone bust after receiving a $737 million federal loan guarantee.
Image: U.S. DOE/public domain
An inconvenient truth is that the sun sets each day, but the Obama Administration’s green planners had an app for that. They decided to invest in the Crescent Dunes facility that would use molten salt to store heat from the sun, produce steam, and generate electricity even at night. The utility NV Energy had already agreed to buy the electricity. Government support would carry the project to sunny success.
In September 2011, the Energy Department described how the 110-megawatt facility would “be the first of its kind in the United States and the tallest molten salt tower in the world,” powering more than 43,000 homes a year. The precedent was Solar Two, a small pilot plant decommissioned in 1999 that had shown it was technically feasible to use molten salt to store and generate power. But in a 2006 report the Energy Department said the 10-megawatt facility “was never expected to be a viable commercial-scale plant and, in fact, did not validate economic feasibility.”
No worries. It’s only taxpayer money, and the feds jumped into Crescent Dunes anyway. The Department of Energy finalized its loan guarantee on Sept. 23, 2011, a week before the federal loan program expired.
A month earlier Nevada had approved $119.3 million in tax abatements for Crescent Dunes over 20 years. The plant also received some $140 million in private investment.
Crescent Dunes began by missing the deadline established by its agreement with NV Energy, becoming operational months late. Commercial operations began in November 2015, but less than a year later the facility went offline because of a “massive leak in the hot salt tank,” according to SolarReserve, a partial owner of Crescent Dunes.
Through the first half of 2017 the plant generated no electricity and no sales, according to its disclosures to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Yet in April 2017 the Department of Energy proclaimed Crescent Dunes a “success story” taken from “mirage to reality,” “a milestone for the country’s energy future,” and a global “blueprint for solar projects.”
In a fact sheet advertised as “up-to-date as of June 2017,” the Energy Department claimed Crescent Dunes was “operational” and projected energy generation of up to 482,000 megawatt hours a year. The plant never generated that much power in the entirety of its operations. An Energy Department spokesman declined comment.
Full story
The Wall Street Journal, 17 January 2020
Government planning and subsidies will make America the world’s green-energy superpower, create millions of jobs, and supercharge the economy—or so we’re told. The reality is closer to Crescent Dunes, a Nevada solar-energy plant that has gone bust after receiving a $737 million federal loan guarantee.
Image: U.S. DOE/public domain
An inconvenient truth is that the sun sets each day, but the Obama Administration’s green planners had an app for that. They decided to invest in the Crescent Dunes facility that would use molten salt to store heat from the sun, produce steam, and generate electricity even at night. The utility NV Energy had already agreed to buy the electricity. Government support would carry the project to sunny success.
In September 2011, the Energy Department described how the 110-megawatt facility would “be the first of its kind in the United States and the tallest molten salt tower in the world,” powering more than 43,000 homes a year. The precedent was Solar Two, a small pilot plant decommissioned in 1999 that had shown it was technically feasible to use molten salt to store and generate power. But in a 2006 report the Energy Department said the 10-megawatt facility “was never expected to be a viable commercial-scale plant and, in fact, did not validate economic feasibility.”
No worries. It’s only taxpayer money, and the feds jumped into Crescent Dunes anyway. The Department of Energy finalized its loan guarantee on Sept. 23, 2011, a week before the federal loan program expired.
A month earlier Nevada had approved $119.3 million in tax abatements for Crescent Dunes over 20 years. The plant also received some $140 million in private investment.
Crescent Dunes began by missing the deadline established by its agreement with NV Energy, becoming operational months late. Commercial operations began in November 2015, but less than a year later the facility went offline because of a “massive leak in the hot salt tank,” according to SolarReserve, a partial owner of Crescent Dunes.
Through the first half of 2017 the plant generated no electricity and no sales, according to its disclosures to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Yet in April 2017 the Department of Energy proclaimed Crescent Dunes a “success story” taken from “mirage to reality,” “a milestone for the country’s energy future,” and a global “blueprint for solar projects.”
In a fact sheet advertised as “up-to-date as of June 2017,” the Energy Department claimed Crescent Dunes was “operational” and projected energy generation of up to 482,000 megawatt hours a year. The plant never generated that much power in the entirety of its operations. An Energy Department spokesman declined comment.
Full story
Saturday 18 January 2020
AUSSIE BUSH FIRES IN CONTEXT
This article looks at the facts about the climate in Australia. Much is being said about the more than 17 lives lost already and that smoke has blown as far as New Zealand. Unprecedented, has been the claim. Yet just 10 years ago, on 9 February 2009, 173 lives were lost in the Black Saturday inferno.
Friday 17 January 2020
BORIS AND THE DILEMMA OF NET ZERO VERSUS GETTING RE-ELECTED
Benny Peiser: Boris Johnson & Climate Change
Totnes Times, 10 January 2020
‘Net Zero and the problem of rising energy costs’
Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, is giving a public lecture in Totnes.
In 2009, Dr Peiser launched the foundation with Lord Lawson and a group a like-minded peers and MPs.
On its website, the foundation describes itself as being “open-minded on the contested science of global warming”, but also “deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated”.
The foundation insists that it is in no sense ‘anti-environmental’, adding: “There is a wide range of important environmental issues, which call for an equally wide range of policy responses.
Our concern is solely with the possible effects of any future global warming and the policy responses that may evoke”.
Dr Peiser is travelling to Tones from London on Tuesday, January 21, to give an illustrated talk at the Royal Seven Stars at 7:30pm titled: ‘Boris Johnson and Climate Change: Net Zero and the problem of rising energy costs’.
Dr Peiser said: “We have a new Conservative Government and Britain’s departure from the EU is imminent.
“Boris Johnson has now the opportunity to reform climate and energy policy in such a way that it won’t hurt families and businesses and doesn’t undermine Britain’s international competitiveness.
“How will he deal with costly climate and energy policies? Since his mandate derives also from voters in Wales, the Midlands and the North of England, how can he help lower-income families in these regions who are struggling with ever-rising energy costs?”
The following day, January 22, Dr Peiser Will hold a more informal Q&A/discussion session in the hotel’s Assembly Room at 10:30am. Admission is free to both events.
Local organiser Ian Phillips said: The Tuesday evening lecture will allow plenty of time for questions from the floor. A more detailed question can be submitted in writing to my email address – by January 16 – that I can forward to Benny for his consideration.
Mr Phillips said the GWPF’s main function is to “analyse global warming policies and their implications, while remaining open-minded in climate science”.
He added: “It seeks to inform the media, politicians and the public on the subject in general, and on the misinformation to which they are all too frequently being subjected at the present time”.
Questions can be emailed to Mr Phillips at thelmiandev@yahoo.co.uk
Totnes Times, 10 January 2020
‘Net Zero and the problem of rising energy costs’
Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, is giving a public lecture in Totnes.
In 2009, Dr Peiser launched the foundation with Lord Lawson and a group a like-minded peers and MPs.
On its website, the foundation describes itself as being “open-minded on the contested science of global warming”, but also “deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated”.
The foundation insists that it is in no sense ‘anti-environmental’, adding: “There is a wide range of important environmental issues, which call for an equally wide range of policy responses.
Our concern is solely with the possible effects of any future global warming and the policy responses that may evoke”.
Dr Peiser is travelling to Tones from London on Tuesday, January 21, to give an illustrated talk at the Royal Seven Stars at 7:30pm titled: ‘Boris Johnson and Climate Change: Net Zero and the problem of rising energy costs’.
Dr Peiser said: “We have a new Conservative Government and Britain’s departure from the EU is imminent.
“Boris Johnson has now the opportunity to reform climate and energy policy in such a way that it won’t hurt families and businesses and doesn’t undermine Britain’s international competitiveness.
“How will he deal with costly climate and energy policies? Since his mandate derives also from voters in Wales, the Midlands and the North of England, how can he help lower-income families in these regions who are struggling with ever-rising energy costs?”
The following day, January 22, Dr Peiser Will hold a more informal Q&A/discussion session in the hotel’s Assembly Room at 10:30am. Admission is free to both events.
Local organiser Ian Phillips said: The Tuesday evening lecture will allow plenty of time for questions from the floor. A more detailed question can be submitted in writing to my email address – by January 16 – that I can forward to Benny for his consideration.
Mr Phillips said the GWPF’s main function is to “analyse global warming policies and their implications, while remaining open-minded in climate science”.
He added: “It seeks to inform the media, politicians and the public on the subject in general, and on the misinformation to which they are all too frequently being subjected at the present time”.
Questions can be emailed to Mr Phillips at thelmiandev@yahoo.co.uk
Thursday 16 January 2020
IS THIS THE SLOW DEATH OF RECYCLING?
Recycling -- Another Green Pipe Dream?
The Boston Globe 11 January 2020
WESTFIELD — On a recent afternoon here, with urgency in the air, local officials huddled to consider what until recently was unthinkable. Should they abandon their popular curbside recycling program? Or spend millions to build a plant to process plastic and paper on their own?
With the recycling market across the country mired in crisis, a growing number of cities and towns are facing a painful reckoning: whether they can still afford to collect bottles, cans, plastics, and paper, which have so plummeted in value that in some cases they have become effectively worthless.
“We’re looking at going from paying nothing to paying $500,000 a year,” said Dave Billips, the director of public works in Westfield, referring to the city’s recycling costs. “That’s going to have a major impact.”
It’s a reckoning hitting home across Massachusetts. Boston, for example, is now paying nearly $5 million to have recycling collections carted away, up from just $200,000 in 2017. City officials said they do not plan to end the program.
The crisis began two years ago when China announced it would no longer accept large amounts of paper and plastic from the United States, which for years had exported huge collections of material there and elsewhere in Asia, because much was contaminated and unusable.
That decision has sent tremors through the recycling industry, leading to steep declines in the value of paper, plastic, and other recyclables. Waste Management, the nation’s largest recycling company, used to earn as much as $80 a ton for paper it collected; today, it gets nothing, officials said. The value of cardboard has plunged 70 percent, and it now costs more to recycle glass than the company can make selling it.
“There are once-in-100-year floods; this has been the equivalent to a once-in-500-year flood,” said Steve Changaris, northeast region vice president of the National Waste and Recycling Association, a trade group for waste companies. “We saw a loss of 40 percent of the market that consumed these materials.”
That collapse has reverberated widely. Until this year, Westfield and most other communities in Western Massachusetts paid nothing for recycling. Some even earned revenue from the region’s largest recycling plant, which turned their discarded paper and bottles into profits.
But the equation has changed, and by the end of January 74 communities across Western Massachusetts must decide whether to sign a new and much more expensive contract with a state-owned recycling facility in Springfield, whose contractor has said it was forced to raise its prices drastically.
“With current commodity prices at historic lows, the sale of those commodities does not cover the cost of processing,” said Garrett Trierweiler, a spokesman for Waste Management, which operates the Springfield plant for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. “As a result, new contracts for processing recyclables are typically written to cover the cost.”
As China has retreated from the international recycling business, other markets had taken some of America’s refuse. But now some of those countries have introduced policies similar to China’s to limit contaminated materials, drastically reducing US exports. Recyclables are often considered contaminated when they aren’t properly cleaned.
For example, Indonesia announced last year it would accept only minimal contamination in mixed paper — everything from newspaper to corrugated cardboard — sparking a drop in US waste exports to that nation by 95 percent, according to the National Waste and Recycling Association.
Just this month, India announced a similarly strict policy, halting all imports of mixed paper. After China changed its policy, India had become the dominant importer of mixed paper, taking in 40 percent of North American exports.
In Massachusetts, Michael Camara, chief executive of ABC Disposal Service, said the crisis shows no signs of relenting. The company’s recycling plant in Rochester, facing a 41 percent drop in prices, now has hundreds of bales of material waiting to be shipped to a processor, and the amount grows by the day.
“It’s a horrific situation, with high costs and limited demand,” he said. “At this point, it’s unclear whether we’ll be able to stay in business. Something needs to change.”
State environmental officials, who last year spent $7 million to help municipalities maintain and promote recycling programs, said they have sought to offset the financial impact on communities in Western Massachusetts by shortening the length of their contracts and opening up the plant in Springfield to 27 other towns in the region.
But little else can be done, they said.
Municipalities with programs that do not separate their recyclables, so-called single-stream collection, will have to pay on average about $150 a ton over a three-year contract to have their waste accepted at the plant; those where residents separate paper and plastic into different bins will have to pay nearly $100 a ton over a five-year contract.
“The new contract will be more expensive for communities due to a changed international market,” said Joe Ferson, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection. “These costs are in line with what many communities across the state, region, and country are paying.”
Ferson said the department hasn’t been informed that any communities are pulling out of the agreement, which would likely require Waste Management to raise costs even more for those that sign their contracts. But some communities — including the largest in the region — now say that they are indeed likely to pull out.
Full story
The Boston Globe 11 January 2020
WESTFIELD — On a recent afternoon here, with urgency in the air, local officials huddled to consider what until recently was unthinkable. Should they abandon their popular curbside recycling program? Or spend millions to build a plant to process plastic and paper on their own?
With the recycling market across the country mired in crisis, a growing number of cities and towns are facing a painful reckoning: whether they can still afford to collect bottles, cans, plastics, and paper, which have so plummeted in value that in some cases they have become effectively worthless.
“We’re looking at going from paying nothing to paying $500,000 a year,” said Dave Billips, the director of public works in Westfield, referring to the city’s recycling costs. “That’s going to have a major impact.”
It’s a reckoning hitting home across Massachusetts. Boston, for example, is now paying nearly $5 million to have recycling collections carted away, up from just $200,000 in 2017. City officials said they do not plan to end the program.
The crisis began two years ago when China announced it would no longer accept large amounts of paper and plastic from the United States, which for years had exported huge collections of material there and elsewhere in Asia, because much was contaminated and unusable.
That decision has sent tremors through the recycling industry, leading to steep declines in the value of paper, plastic, and other recyclables. Waste Management, the nation’s largest recycling company, used to earn as much as $80 a ton for paper it collected; today, it gets nothing, officials said. The value of cardboard has plunged 70 percent, and it now costs more to recycle glass than the company can make selling it.
“There are once-in-100-year floods; this has been the equivalent to a once-in-500-year flood,” said Steve Changaris, northeast region vice president of the National Waste and Recycling Association, a trade group for waste companies. “We saw a loss of 40 percent of the market that consumed these materials.”
That collapse has reverberated widely. Until this year, Westfield and most other communities in Western Massachusetts paid nothing for recycling. Some even earned revenue from the region’s largest recycling plant, which turned their discarded paper and bottles into profits.
But the equation has changed, and by the end of January 74 communities across Western Massachusetts must decide whether to sign a new and much more expensive contract with a state-owned recycling facility in Springfield, whose contractor has said it was forced to raise its prices drastically.
“With current commodity prices at historic lows, the sale of those commodities does not cover the cost of processing,” said Garrett Trierweiler, a spokesman for Waste Management, which operates the Springfield plant for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. “As a result, new contracts for processing recyclables are typically written to cover the cost.”
As China has retreated from the international recycling business, other markets had taken some of America’s refuse. But now some of those countries have introduced policies similar to China’s to limit contaminated materials, drastically reducing US exports. Recyclables are often considered contaminated when they aren’t properly cleaned.
For example, Indonesia announced last year it would accept only minimal contamination in mixed paper — everything from newspaper to corrugated cardboard — sparking a drop in US waste exports to that nation by 95 percent, according to the National Waste and Recycling Association.
Just this month, India announced a similarly strict policy, halting all imports of mixed paper. After China changed its policy, India had become the dominant importer of mixed paper, taking in 40 percent of North American exports.
In Massachusetts, Michael Camara, chief executive of ABC Disposal Service, said the crisis shows no signs of relenting. The company’s recycling plant in Rochester, facing a 41 percent drop in prices, now has hundreds of bales of material waiting to be shipped to a processor, and the amount grows by the day.
“It’s a horrific situation, with high costs and limited demand,” he said. “At this point, it’s unclear whether we’ll be able to stay in business. Something needs to change.”
State environmental officials, who last year spent $7 million to help municipalities maintain and promote recycling programs, said they have sought to offset the financial impact on communities in Western Massachusetts by shortening the length of their contracts and opening up the plant in Springfield to 27 other towns in the region.
But little else can be done, they said.
Municipalities with programs that do not separate their recyclables, so-called single-stream collection, will have to pay on average about $150 a ton over a three-year contract to have their waste accepted at the plant; those where residents separate paper and plastic into different bins will have to pay nearly $100 a ton over a five-year contract.
“The new contract will be more expensive for communities due to a changed international market,” said Joe Ferson, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection. “These costs are in line with what many communities across the state, region, and country are paying.”
Ferson said the department hasn’t been informed that any communities are pulling out of the agreement, which would likely require Waste Management to raise costs even more for those that sign their contracts. But some communities — including the largest in the region — now say that they are indeed likely to pull out.
Full story
Wednesday 15 January 2020
OCEANS ARE 0.075C HIGHER - MARINE LIFE HAS BEEN DECIMATED, SAYS NEW REPORT
The following article appeared in the print edition of the Mail on Tuesday 14 January, I could not find it online:
Word's oceans at record temperatures
Ocean temperatures are at their highest level since records began, as study has warned.
Last year oceans were 0.075C higher than the average temperature recorded over three decades from 1981 to 2010. It would take the energy of 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom bomb explosions to recreate the temperature rise, researchers said. And they found the rate of heating is accelerating - saying the findings are a clear measure of how global warming is speeding up because more than 90% of heat ends up in the oceans.
The scientists, who examined heat trends dating back to the 1950's, believe the rise has decimated marine life and killed 100 million cod.
Writing in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, study author Professor John Abraham of St Thomas University in the USA said: 'Global warming is real, and it's getting worse. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come.'
What a fear-mongering article! How could the Mail publish this without seeking any comment from an independent scientist who might challenge it. For example, it is clear that the oceans temperature varies across the world, and by a good deal more than 0.075C, so why wouldn't marine life, such as cod, simply move to cooler water?
The comparison between the heat in the oceans and the energy from billions of Hiroshima bombs is simply scare-mongering, as the oceans are spread across millions of square miles so it is quite meaningless.
Word's oceans at record temperatures
Ocean temperatures are at their highest level since records began, as study has warned.
Last year oceans were 0.075C higher than the average temperature recorded over three decades from 1981 to 2010. It would take the energy of 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom bomb explosions to recreate the temperature rise, researchers said. And they found the rate of heating is accelerating - saying the findings are a clear measure of how global warming is speeding up because more than 90% of heat ends up in the oceans.
The scientists, who examined heat trends dating back to the 1950's, believe the rise has decimated marine life and killed 100 million cod.
Writing in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, study author Professor John Abraham of St Thomas University in the USA said: 'Global warming is real, and it's getting worse. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come.'
What a fear-mongering article! How could the Mail publish this without seeking any comment from an independent scientist who might challenge it. For example, it is clear that the oceans temperature varies across the world, and by a good deal more than 0.075C, so why wouldn't marine life, such as cod, simply move to cooler water?
The comparison between the heat in the oceans and the energy from billions of Hiroshima bombs is simply scare-mongering, as the oceans are spread across millions of square miles so it is quite meaningless.
Tuesday 14 January 2020
LESSONS OF THE PAST ON FIRE CONTROL NEED TO BE RE-LEARNT
Geoff Walker: I Cheered When the Bushfire Came
Quadrant, 12 January 2020
With the eastern seaboard currently ravaged by bushfires, what sort of an idiot would actually cheer when one worked its way down the peninsular where he lived? I did, and there were a lot of others who did the same.
To understand why, we must go back over more than a year when a winter bushfire got going to the west of the town. It did for us what the volunteer firies couldn’t: it got rid of the ground fuel with minimal canopy scorch. No lives or property were lost. Had this ‘good’ bushfire not happened, the peninsular would have been obliterated this summer when a firestorm with winds gusting to 100kph came our way.
No fire fuel meant that it burned and went out. Simple as that. Today, as thousands of Australians confront the bushfire threat, we on the Tilligerry peninsular are safe. With only one year of fuel build-up we have little to worry about.
When bushfire management passed from local control to government bureaucracies, the political influence of the green movement virtually stopped the off-season burnoffs. This traditional practice dated back to the black man and his firestick management of the landscape. The European settlers adopted it, as did farmers and local grassroots volunteer firefighters.
In researching my bushfire book White Overall Days, I found that our local brigade averaged some 15 burnoffs per year in the decade of the 1970s; nine in the ’80s, a mere two or three in the ’90s and similar numbers ever since.
The reason for this dramatic fall-off in burnoffs was the complex web of rules and procedures dumped on the local captains to comply with before they could do anything. They simply gave up. It was all too hard.
The bushfire that saved Lemon Tree Passage from a genuine inferno. (Author’s photo)
It was NSW Premier Bob Carr who proclaimed vast areas of the state of NSW as national parks. The problem was that they were not fire-managed and have now been devastated by uncontrollable firestorms. Lives and property have been lost as they roared out of the forests into adjoining farmland and rural communities.
Several things have emerged from the current crisis. Green zealots are blaming coal mining and climate change for the fires. They refuse to concede that the green-leaning management policies caused the fires in the first place by ensuring catastrophic fuel build-up. On the other hand, the vast number of ordinary, sensible people now realize that cool burning delivers a far better environmental outcome than raging wildfires. From what I hear, even some of the self-serving bureaucrats are starting to talk mitigation rather than reactive suppression.
Full post
Quadrant, 12 January 2020
With the eastern seaboard currently ravaged by bushfires, what sort of an idiot would actually cheer when one worked its way down the peninsular where he lived? I did, and there were a lot of others who did the same.
To understand why, we must go back over more than a year when a winter bushfire got going to the west of the town. It did for us what the volunteer firies couldn’t: it got rid of the ground fuel with minimal canopy scorch. No lives or property were lost. Had this ‘good’ bushfire not happened, the peninsular would have been obliterated this summer when a firestorm with winds gusting to 100kph came our way.
No fire fuel meant that it burned and went out. Simple as that. Today, as thousands of Australians confront the bushfire threat, we on the Tilligerry peninsular are safe. With only one year of fuel build-up we have little to worry about.
When bushfire management passed from local control to government bureaucracies, the political influence of the green movement virtually stopped the off-season burnoffs. This traditional practice dated back to the black man and his firestick management of the landscape. The European settlers adopted it, as did farmers and local grassroots volunteer firefighters.
In researching my bushfire book White Overall Days, I found that our local brigade averaged some 15 burnoffs per year in the decade of the 1970s; nine in the ’80s, a mere two or three in the ’90s and similar numbers ever since.
The reason for this dramatic fall-off in burnoffs was the complex web of rules and procedures dumped on the local captains to comply with before they could do anything. They simply gave up. It was all too hard.
The bushfire that saved Lemon Tree Passage from a genuine inferno. (Author’s photo)
It was NSW Premier Bob Carr who proclaimed vast areas of the state of NSW as national parks. The problem was that they were not fire-managed and have now been devastated by uncontrollable firestorms. Lives and property have been lost as they roared out of the forests into adjoining farmland and rural communities.
Several things have emerged from the current crisis. Green zealots are blaming coal mining and climate change for the fires. They refuse to concede that the green-leaning management policies caused the fires in the first place by ensuring catastrophic fuel build-up. On the other hand, the vast number of ordinary, sensible people now realize that cool burning delivers a far better environmental outcome than raging wildfires. From what I hear, even some of the self-serving bureaucrats are starting to talk mitigation rather than reactive suppression.
Full post
Monday 13 January 2020
AUSSIE BUSH FIRES MUCH WORSE IN 1974/5
This article refutes the claim that the Australian bush fires are due to climate change. Once again the alarmists have gone way over the top in trying too hard to blame the fires on climate change. The video of the fires and the suffering of wild life are much too emotive for them to not use them to push their agenda. It is working, as many are deceived into blaming ot on to CO2 emissions, but how long can this go on?
Sunday 12 January 2020
CAN WE TRUST SCIENCE AFTER THIS?
This article looks at how a group of seven scientists discovered that a published paper on the affect of extra CO2 dissolved in the ocean on the behaviour of fish turned out to be impossible to repeat. Was it due to massive scientific incompetence, or worse?
Saturday 11 January 2020
RECENT AUSTRALIAN FIRES NEED TO BE SEEN IN RELATION TO PAST FIRES
The Australian wild fires seem to be the latest environmental issue to be taken over by climate alarmist news media. Here is a recent video to put this into a historical context.
Friday 10 January 2020
ADAPTATION IS THE KEY TO LIVING WITH CHANGING WEATHER
Editorial: It Is No Conspiracy Against Climate Science To Say We Must Adapt To Changing Weather
The Daily Telegraph, 7 January 2020
One consequence of climate change is a requirement to adapt in order to survive. If there are to be more floods or fires then people need to mitigate their impact or even prevent their happening. It is not to dispute the existence of climate change to argue that changes in environmental practices can exacerbate the effects it is having on our surroundings.
Yet to point out that dredging rivers or clearing away easily flammable undergrowth will help prevent floods or fires is to invite opprobrium from some as a “global warming denier”. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
Since we are told by campaigners that it is almost certainly too late to stop the warming of the planet it is incumbent upon them to encourage people living in vulnerable areas to take preventative measures. In particular they should desist from denouncing those who call for practical action to help control the damage.
In Australia, for instance, the bush fires that have raged for weeks are blamed on climate change and yet the country, which is hot and dry, is no stranger to such phenomena. It has been claimed by some that agencies failed to carry out tree clearances or the prescribed burning of at-risk undergrowth that should take place during less dangerous periods. However, those making such points have come under attack for allegedly seeking to distract attention from Australia’s political arguments over carbon emissions as one of the world’s largest coal producers.
Similar controversy occurred in America two years ago when wild fires raged through California, whose forests regularly see such conflagrations as part of the natural cycle. So polarised has the debate become in the US that environmentalists were blamed for preventing the sort of forest management that helped reduce the fire risk.
Here, recent inundations have been partly attributed to a failure to dredge rivers and other waterways, leaving homes built on flood plains especially vulnerable. There have also been disputes over the annual burning of grouse moors, with green campaigners anxious to stop it while owners say that it is necessary to manage the land.
It is not a conspiracy against climate change science to propose that age-old methods of controlling our environment need to be retained. In future, as it gets wetter and warmer or hotter and drier they will be needed more than ever.
The Daily Telegraph, 7 January 2020
One consequence of climate change is a requirement to adapt in order to survive. If there are to be more floods or fires then people need to mitigate their impact or even prevent their happening. It is not to dispute the existence of climate change to argue that changes in environmental practices can exacerbate the effects it is having on our surroundings.
Yet to point out that dredging rivers or clearing away easily flammable undergrowth will help prevent floods or fires is to invite opprobrium from some as a “global warming denier”. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
Since we are told by campaigners that it is almost certainly too late to stop the warming of the planet it is incumbent upon them to encourage people living in vulnerable areas to take preventative measures. In particular they should desist from denouncing those who call for practical action to help control the damage.
In Australia, for instance, the bush fires that have raged for weeks are blamed on climate change and yet the country, which is hot and dry, is no stranger to such phenomena. It has been claimed by some that agencies failed to carry out tree clearances or the prescribed burning of at-risk undergrowth that should take place during less dangerous periods. However, those making such points have come under attack for allegedly seeking to distract attention from Australia’s political arguments over carbon emissions as one of the world’s largest coal producers.
Similar controversy occurred in America two years ago when wild fires raged through California, whose forests regularly see such conflagrations as part of the natural cycle. So polarised has the debate become in the US that environmentalists were blamed for preventing the sort of forest management that helped reduce the fire risk.
Here, recent inundations have been partly attributed to a failure to dredge rivers and other waterways, leaving homes built on flood plains especially vulnerable. There have also been disputes over the annual burning of grouse moors, with green campaigners anxious to stop it while owners say that it is necessary to manage the land.
It is not a conspiracy against climate change science to propose that age-old methods of controlling our environment need to be retained. In future, as it gets wetter and warmer or hotter and drier they will be needed more than ever.
Thursday 9 January 2020
THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE
Although it is 12 years since this film was shown on TV here in the UK, I remember it clearly and the huge controversy it caused at the time. I just came across this excellent post which brought it all back to me. Can you imagine any broadcaster showing a film like it today? I can't, not even a discussion where climate sceptics are able to air their views. Thank goodness for the internet.
The mainstream news now shows a nightly round up of the Australian fires interspersed with any floods they can find. Always with the inference that it is caused or exacerbated by climate change, and, of course, no ne is ever asked if there is any other explanation.
The mainstream news now shows a nightly round up of the Australian fires interspersed with any floods they can find. Always with the inference that it is caused or exacerbated by climate change, and, of course, no ne is ever asked if there is any other explanation.
Wednesday 8 January 2020
WHY THE AUSTRALIAN COAL INDUSTRY WON'T SHUT DOWN
This article explains the obvious reason which is that doing so would cause great economic hardship to the country and large numbers of people working in the industry. This is the problem with the whole concept of giving up fossil fuels that alarmists cannot or will not understand.
Tuesday 7 January 2020
MARK CARNEY TALKING HOT AIR ON FUTURE OF FOSSIL FUELS
John Constable: The Future of Oil, Gas, and Coal: Stranded Assets or Safe Refuge?
GWPF Energy, 1 January 2020
Dr John Constable, GWPF Energy Editor
In a classic example of econo-political psy-ops, Mark Carney is using his final days in the Bank of England to intimidate institutional financial managers, in pension funds for example, by suggesting that investments in conventional energy are high risk adventures requiring special justification.
However, consideration of the state of the global energy supply over the last thirty years suggests that if anyone has some explaining to do it is Mr Carney himself. Climate policy failure followed by distressed correction seems more probable than other outcomes, and if any investments are likely to be stranded, it is those such as wind and solar that are in effect wagers on the success of current carbon reduction strategies.
The outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, already more climate activist than responsible guardian of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, seems intent on causing an investment market panic and a consequent stampede out of conventional energy and into renewables. Asked point-blank in a recent interview whether he supported “divestment” from fossil fuels (BBC Today program 30.12.19), he tactfully evaded the question but nevertheless asserted that coal, oil and gas were insecure assets, and that any institutional decision-maker preferring to bet on oil, for example, is engaged in a high risk adventure and must therefore offer special justification for their position.
This pre-emptive strike means that Mr Carney’s own wager, on certain low-carbon technologies, escapes examination. That is the wrong way around. Fossil fuels are known quantities; their physical, thermodynamic, properties are manifestly favourable, and they have as a matter of historical record delivered human wishes for centuries, and still continue to do so at low cost in the present.
What we know about modern renewables, on the other hand, is, to say the least, much less certain. The burden of proof, then, must be on those who believe, as Mark Carney apparently does, not only that low carbon policies will persist for decades to come but also that modern renewables, wind and solar, are now competitive and pose a real threat to conventional sources of energy.
We can gain some insight into the likely strength of his position by charting once again data that this blog has shown on several occasions, global total primary energy supply, which is all that matters if we are concerned with emissions and a transition to low carbon energy:
Figure 1. Global Total Primary Energy (TPE) supply 1990 to 2017 (ktoe). Source: Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) tiny.cc/4eo8hz : Chart by the author.
For the sake of contrast, I have represented the fossil fuels in shades of grey, and the low carbon sources, nuclear, biofuels and waste, and hydro in colours, with the modern renewables on which the low carbon gamble is premised, in bright red. Nearly all the growth in global energy consumption over the period is accounted for by growth in fossil fuels. Renewable energy in total, including traditional biomass in the developing world, made up 13% of Total Primary Energy in 1990 and 14% in 2017. Yes, renewables have grown by 72% over that period, from a low base, but fossil fuels have grown by 59% from a substantial base, and consequently they continue to dominate world energy. There is no “energy transition”.
Perhaps most striking of all, the proportion of low carbon energy, that is nuclear and renewables together, stands today at 19% of global TPE just as it did in 1990, before intense coercive policies supporting renewables were introduced. We can conclude therefore that insofar as there has been any significant impact on global emissions, and this will have only been on the rate of increase, that effect will have come from within the fossil fuel sector itself, including gas-switching and improvements in the conversion efficiency of coal-fired power stations and prime movers such as internal combustion engines. Given the policy pressures applied to the world’s economies since the year 2000 that is an extraordinary failure.
On what grounds, therefore, does Mr Carney believe that institutional investors in fossil fuels, and I quote from his interview, “have to explain the judgement, justify that to the people whose money it ultimately is”? The IEA data clearly suggests that fossil fuel investments require no justification, as investments. On the contrary, the questions probing responsibility and realism should be directed at Mr Carney.
On what grounds does a person of his prominence take to the headlines to prophesy that fossil investments are at risk? He might well want that to happen, but there is nothing in the fundamental data to suggest that this a likely outcome. How can he bring himself to speak so confidently?
The answer appears to be that Mr Carney is less concerned with empirical data than with the virtual reality of Policy World, a group hallucination in which a “fact” can be conjured out of the air, first by nominating a target and then by reinforcing that target with legislation, or to use the term widely employed by journalists, by “enshrining” it in law. Thus, the ambitions of policy become pseudo-concrete legal realities that can be used to intimidate the public. What we want to happen becomes what is going to happen.
Full post
GWPF Energy, 1 January 2020
Dr John Constable, GWPF Energy Editor
In a classic example of econo-political psy-ops, Mark Carney is using his final days in the Bank of England to intimidate institutional financial managers, in pension funds for example, by suggesting that investments in conventional energy are high risk adventures requiring special justification.
However, consideration of the state of the global energy supply over the last thirty years suggests that if anyone has some explaining to do it is Mr Carney himself. Climate policy failure followed by distressed correction seems more probable than other outcomes, and if any investments are likely to be stranded, it is those such as wind and solar that are in effect wagers on the success of current carbon reduction strategies.
The outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, already more climate activist than responsible guardian of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, seems intent on causing an investment market panic and a consequent stampede out of conventional energy and into renewables. Asked point-blank in a recent interview whether he supported “divestment” from fossil fuels (BBC Today program 30.12.19), he tactfully evaded the question but nevertheless asserted that coal, oil and gas were insecure assets, and that any institutional decision-maker preferring to bet on oil, for example, is engaged in a high risk adventure and must therefore offer special justification for their position.
This pre-emptive strike means that Mr Carney’s own wager, on certain low-carbon technologies, escapes examination. That is the wrong way around. Fossil fuels are known quantities; their physical, thermodynamic, properties are manifestly favourable, and they have as a matter of historical record delivered human wishes for centuries, and still continue to do so at low cost in the present.
What we know about modern renewables, on the other hand, is, to say the least, much less certain. The burden of proof, then, must be on those who believe, as Mark Carney apparently does, not only that low carbon policies will persist for decades to come but also that modern renewables, wind and solar, are now competitive and pose a real threat to conventional sources of energy.
We can gain some insight into the likely strength of his position by charting once again data that this blog has shown on several occasions, global total primary energy supply, which is all that matters if we are concerned with emissions and a transition to low carbon energy:
Figure 1. Global Total Primary Energy (TPE) supply 1990 to 2017 (ktoe). Source: Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) tiny.cc/4eo8hz : Chart by the author.
For the sake of contrast, I have represented the fossil fuels in shades of grey, and the low carbon sources, nuclear, biofuels and waste, and hydro in colours, with the modern renewables on which the low carbon gamble is premised, in bright red. Nearly all the growth in global energy consumption over the period is accounted for by growth in fossil fuels. Renewable energy in total, including traditional biomass in the developing world, made up 13% of Total Primary Energy in 1990 and 14% in 2017. Yes, renewables have grown by 72% over that period, from a low base, but fossil fuels have grown by 59% from a substantial base, and consequently they continue to dominate world energy. There is no “energy transition”.
Perhaps most striking of all, the proportion of low carbon energy, that is nuclear and renewables together, stands today at 19% of global TPE just as it did in 1990, before intense coercive policies supporting renewables were introduced. We can conclude therefore that insofar as there has been any significant impact on global emissions, and this will have only been on the rate of increase, that effect will have come from within the fossil fuel sector itself, including gas-switching and improvements in the conversion efficiency of coal-fired power stations and prime movers such as internal combustion engines. Given the policy pressures applied to the world’s economies since the year 2000 that is an extraordinary failure.
On what grounds, therefore, does Mr Carney believe that institutional investors in fossil fuels, and I quote from his interview, “have to explain the judgement, justify that to the people whose money it ultimately is”? The IEA data clearly suggests that fossil fuel investments require no justification, as investments. On the contrary, the questions probing responsibility and realism should be directed at Mr Carney.
On what grounds does a person of his prominence take to the headlines to prophesy that fossil investments are at risk? He might well want that to happen, but there is nothing in the fundamental data to suggest that this a likely outcome. How can he bring himself to speak so confidently?
The answer appears to be that Mr Carney is less concerned with empirical data than with the virtual reality of Policy World, a group hallucination in which a “fact” can be conjured out of the air, first by nominating a target and then by reinforcing that target with legislation, or to use the term widely employed by journalists, by “enshrining” it in law. Thus, the ambitions of policy become pseudo-concrete legal realities that can be used to intimidate the public. What we want to happen becomes what is going to happen.
Full post
Monday 6 January 2020
YET ANOTHER UK POLITICIAN SEEMS TO BE BRAINWASHED ON CLIMATE
This piece in the Mail on Sunday is typical of the sort of thing we are being fed on a regular basis in the media. Tobias Ellwood is a Conservative MP and so you would imagine that he is intelligent and yet he doesn't seem to understand why China is continuing to develop large numbers of coal-fired power stations. The answer is that they are by far the most economic and reliable way to produce electricity. Also it is clear that the Chinese leadership do not believe that CO2 emissions will cause Armageddon.
It is interesting that Tobias does not mention that the world should attempt to apply serious sanctions on China (or other nations continuing to build coal-fired power stations). He merely vaguely mentions 'diplomacy'.The fact that he and other politicians never mention such sanctions leads me to think that they are also not really serious about a so-called climate emergency.
Tobias needs to stop soaking up the climate propaganda and actually read the IPCC reports. If he did he would know that regarding droughts (which lead to wild fires), the IPCC has “low confidence” about any evidence that climate change may be causing a net increase in the frequency or severity of drought.
It is interesting that Tobias does not mention that the world should attempt to apply serious sanctions on China (or other nations continuing to build coal-fired power stations). He merely vaguely mentions 'diplomacy'.The fact that he and other politicians never mention such sanctions leads me to think that they are also not really serious about a so-called climate emergency.
Tobias needs to stop soaking up the climate propaganda and actually read the IPCC reports. If he did he would know that regarding droughts (which lead to wild fires), the IPCC has “low confidence” about any evidence that climate change may be causing a net increase in the frequency or severity of drought.
Sunday 5 January 2020
INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULBS GET A REPRIEVE IN USA
Donald Trump has saved the traditional light bulb by allowing consumers in the USA to have a choice. This report gives the details.
Saturday 4 January 2020
HERE IS THE ANSWER TO CLIMATE ALARMIST NEWS PROPAGANDA
This article looks at the widely reported climate alarmist stories and gives the true information as given by the IPCC. It is time we had some balance in all this stuff trotted out by broadcasters night after night with no attempt to give the truth. It is simply propaganda.
Friday 3 January 2020
TEN CLIMATE CHANGE EXAGGERATIONS DEBUNKED
Here are the ten ways that Columbia University claim we will be impacted by global warming. But like many such efforts the claimed impacts fail to consider simple adaptions already practiced by people who live in warm climates.
Thursday 2 January 2020
NO MAUNDER MINIMUM AS NEW CYCLE OF SUNSPOTS BEGINS
Here are the details of the new sunspots emerging. So there is to be no repeat of the deep minimum with no sunspots for the coming decades, as some were predicting. That happened in the 17th century accompanied by severe cold weather with the Thames freezing over. We will have to wait and see if the new cycle is weak or it may revert to a stronger one. It looks as though it is not likely that we will experience a new little ice age.
Wednesday 1 January 2020
STUDY FINDS THAT CLIMATE CHANGE LESSONS ARE RARE AT MEDICAL SCHOOLS
Here is a link to this article which explains the findings and also expresses the view that it should be taught there. Anyone with any sense can not only see why it isn't taught, but that it should not be because there isn't time in the course to even fit in all the medical subjects, so why on earth would they waste time on irrelevant stuff that has nothing to do with medicine?
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