MARK CARNEY SHOULD LOOK AT THE FACTS ON INSURANCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

This article by Roger Pielke should be compulsory reading for the Bank of England chief who yesterday gave a speech more appropriate for a climate change activist than for a sober bank chief.

INDIAN PM PLAYS THE "CLIMATE JUSTICE" CARD

In other words he wants the developed nations to compensate India and all other developing nations as well as cutting emissions, while India can go on emitting as much CO2 as it likes. I hope that the developed world's leaders are not as stupid as the Indian PM thinks, but reading some reports I fear that Obama and the EU leaders may fall for this nonsense. The fact is that it is future emissions of CO2 that are being blamed for future warming that are claimed to cause the alleged problem, so discussing past emissions is pointless. Either the Indian leadership are fools or they are playing us for fools. At the present time there has been only 0.8 degrees C of warming and this cannot be attributed to any catastrophic change in climate. Read what the Indian PM says here.

LAW PROFESSOR WANTS UN JUDGES TO RULE ON CLIMATE SCIENCE

Could the scientific arguments on global warming be decided by judges who may not be experts in the area of study that they are ruling on? It is an interesting idea. The nearest I can recall it happening was here, though that case was on a much narrower point. My fear is that it would be very difficult to find a judge or judges that were truly neutral. Whichever side lost would immediately claim the judge was biased. Just reading the case here gives a flavour of what would be expected. I would like to see the two cases put in a public arena. Perhaps instead of a judge we need to have a well educated jury chosen at random.

EU ECONOMY LOOKS MORE AMD MORE LIKE THE OLD SOVIET ONE

This post from the very sound MEP, Roger Helmer, (now of UKIP) has it exactly right. The EU is bringing in more and more regulations to try and lessen the damage that their current regulations are doing and each time they merely increase complexity and confusion. The result is that energy intensive businesses are either folding or moving out. When will the political leaders wake up? Let's hope that UK voters wake up and choose to quit this old-fashioned, left-wing organisation while we can.

CARBON (DIOXIDE) CAPTURE AND STORAGE BITES THE DUST

This article explains how a UK energy company is pulling out of a project on CCS, citing fear of government's lack of support. As the government is waking up to reality, so the private sector is deserting the field as they realise that the subsidies are simply not going to be there. Is this a sign that the Grand Folly is coming to an end? Possibly, but don't hold your breath!

WHY NICHOLAS STERN IS WRONG ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Here is a good article criticising the economist, Nicholas Stern's new book urging urgent action on climate change. Stern has been far too influential in this debate, considering that he is so wrong. This article should be essential reading for those politicians who have paid homage to Stern. He has been debunked many times, but it is good to see it done again in a readable and compelling way.

WILL OBAMA SIGN A CLIMATE TREATY IN PARIS WITHOUT SENATE APPROVAL?

That is what commentators are saying he will do, but whether he can get away with it is another story. For a detailed look at the situation read this report.

VW EMISSIONS FIASCO - WAS CUTTING CO2 PUT ABOVE EMISSIONS HARMFUL TO HEALTH?

Amid all the reporting of Volkswagen’s rigging of emission tests on its diesel cars, one
inconvenient truth has been overlooked by the BBC and many media organisations. It is that we very largely owe the prevalence of these death-traps to the pernicious tyranny of the Green lobby. In their deafness to different points of view — in fact, in their rank intolerance of opposing voices — these people often remind me of religious fundamentalists. They shout down, or seek to censor, those who don’t agree with them. The pity is that mainstream media such as the all-powerful BBC are themselves cowed and meekly quiescent, so that a highly intelligent and well-informed climate-change sceptic such as the former Tory Chancellor Nigel Lawson is virtually excluded from the airwaves. Volkswagen has emerged from this story as a devious and untrustworthy conglomerate. But the biggest lesson of this debacle is that successive British governments have sacrificed the interests of ordinary citizens as they have caved in to the demands of a dangerous bunch of zealots. --Stephen Glover, Daily Mail, 24 September 2015

JOE BIDEN SCAREMONGER-IN-CHIEF

This piece explains.

ARCTIC ICE MELTING PAUSE CONTINUES FOR 9TH YEAR

This article explains that the ice melt in the Arctic Ocean has been more or less stable for nine years and yet some climate alarmists are pretending that this is not so. This is rather similar to those denying the pause in global warming. So, who are the deniers now?

ARCTIC ICE - THE LATEST PICTURE

This piece looks at how this year is working out compared with other recent seasons. Humans have only been able to study the Arctic ice for around 35 years, which is lie the blink of an eye compared to the history of the climate. We simply don't know enough to be able to say whether the Arctic is undergoing an unusual change or simply part of a natural cycle. 

MET OFFICE CHIEF IN NEPOTISM ROW

This article gives the details of how Julia Slingo's daughter managed to land a job at the Met Office just at the time her mother was appointed as Chief Scientist.  Looks a bit fishy, but the worst aspect is that the Met Office seem to be chief propagandists for the AGW hypothesis.

ALARMIST CLIMATE SCIENTISTS PLEA FOR SCEPTICS TO BE SILENCED BY LAW

This article shows how desperate some of theses climate scientists have become to silence those who disagree with them.

THE CLIMATE CHANGE INDUSTRY IN THE UK

People talk of a "climate change industry". Below is an example which was sent to me. It is surprising that people and organisations are prepared to fork out up to £300 for what is in effect completely pointless, given that there has been no noticeable change in the UK climate during the past century. How much longer can this nonsense keep going?

Climate Change Conference London 21^st December 2015:

The next ‘Planning for Climate Change’ Conferences will be held on the 21^st December 2015 in London and on the 28^th October 2015 in Dublin. Details can be found here and details of the current speaker line up can be found here for London and here for Dublin.   Details can also be found on Facebook& Twitter.   The key focus of both days is to debate and discuss the key issues that face communities, economies and society when it comes to adapting to climate change and addressing the problems and opportunities that climate change brings.  We plan to have up to 30 speakers plus up to 150 delegates on the day.   To register as a delegate, or a speaker please access the registration page or email your requirements  to be a delegate or with your proposal for a speaking slot here.  The cost to attend as a delegate and/or speaker for either conference is as follows:

Delegate and/or Speaker full rate: £250 plus VAT (total of £300).

Reduced rate for students/researchers Delegate and/or Speaker: £125 plus VAT (total of £150).

Climate Change Journal Launch London 21^st December 2015:

At the Planning for Climate Change Conference we will be launching a new academic, policy and research Journal called the Journal of Planning for Climate Change.  This Journal will be a focus point to promote and share research and good practice on how we plan and adapt to the challenges that we face from increasing climate change.  We welcome contributions from anyone who has an interest in this area of policy and we welcome anyone who would like to be a member of the Journal Editorial Board.  If you want to submit a paper for publication please email here. To subscribe to the Journal please visit the subscription page or email here.  Details of the Journal Editorial and Submission Guidance can be found here.

IF THIS ISN'T POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN SCHOOLS THEN WHAT IS?

Here is another "climate change lesson" by Oxfam. It clearly includes inciting children to take part in political campaigning, and yet Oxfam is a charity and this isn't supposed to be allowed.

ALARMIST USES SHOCKING IMAGERY IN NY TIMES ARTICLE

 Timothy Snyder has written this in a desperate attempt to shock readers into believing in the hypothesis of man-made catastrophic global warming (when none has taken place). While some may be suitably shocked into supporting the "cause", quite a lot will see this for the cynical ploy that it is and conclude that it is simply unacceptable. In what way is it acceptable to suggest that somehow man-made climate change will cause a new holocaust? This is just pathetic and desperate.

SOMETHING STRANGE IS HAPPENING IN THE NORTH PACIFIC

Here is the article explaining what is happening. I have not seen this on the news, though it should be. Perhaps it does not fit in with global warming.

UK TO NAME EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS - I NAME THAT BREEZE "BRIAN"

This piece correctly points out how mild our weather generally is, and even our "extreme" weather is mild by global comparison. I wonder why the Met Office has taken this action? Could they be trying to convince us that our weather is becoming more extreme?

BASIC ERRORS IN SCHOOL CURRICULUM BY OXFAM

Here is a sample of the work given by Oxfam to school children in the UK. It is strewn with basic errors (described as "simplification") which make it, in effect, propaganda which should have no place in schools. If this sort of stuff is being taught in schools at any level, then it breaches the guidelines of political impartiality and needs to be investigated. No where could I see any balance, such as giving students the beneficial effects of putting some extra CO2 in the atmosphere. There was no mention of the pause in warming for the past 18 years.

Update - The most basic error in their literature is to show children a glass jar and claim that this acts like CO2 gas by "trapping heat" as in the so-called "greenhouse effect". This is completely wrong as the mechanism by which the jar traps heat is by preventing convection from dispersing the warm air. This is deliberately not taught, and so it is a false idea implanted in the children's mind. Only the brightest child is likely to spot this - though if he did then the teacher would have to admit the analogy is false, undermining the point of the experiment in the context of atmospheric warming. As far as science teaching is concerned, this subject is far too difficult for children aged 7 to 11 to understand and were it not for the political aspect Oxfam would not be interested in pushing it into schools at all. We might as well try to teach them nuclear fission.

Look at Activity 1.3 and in particular the diagram with all the "ideas" posted on it. Not one item is "off message" suggesting complete agreement among all the students who are obviously simply parroting back what they have been told. I wonder what would happen if a child put something "off message" on to the chart? It's time for the child to tell the emperor that he has no clothes.

SCHOOL PROPAGANDA STRAIGHT FROM OXFAM

This link shows what is being done, paid for by the taxpayer. Young children are being indoctrinated right here in the UK.

Here is what Oxfam is doing in Australia.

SOUTHERN OCEAN SINK WORKING FINE SAYS NEW STUDY

Southern Ocean ‘Sink’ Turns The Tide On Climate AlarmThe Australian, 11 September 2015

Graham Lloyd
 The Southern Ocean has recovered its ability to suck vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, overturning fears the natural “sink” had stalled with dire consequences for future climate change.



Acting like a giant lung, the Southern Ocean carbon sink accounts for about 40 per cent of the ocean uptake of anthro­pogenic carbon dioxide.

Climate scientists had feared the uptake of carbon dioxide by the Southern Ocean had slowed in what was feared to be a “feedback” response to human ­activity.

New research published today in the journal Science reveals that rather than stalling, the amount of CO2 being ­absorbed by the Southern Ocean was on the rise again.

It is thought that changes in weather — particularly wind patterns and temperature in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans — were responsible.

The findings have invigorated debate about how well scientists understand the natural variations in the earth’s climate.

Lead author Nicolas Gruber, from ETH Zurich, said the research did not address directly whether fluctuations in the sink strength were because of natural or human-induced variability.

“The starting hypothesis is that they are a result of natural variations,” Dr Gruber told The Australian.

Benny Peiser from the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation said it was “not the first time that lengthier observations have led to the demise of a short-term climate scare”.

“The fact that researchers now acknowledge they cannot predict future trends indicates that they don’t fully understand the underlying physics and mechanisms,” Dr Peiser said.

Contributing author Dorothea Bakker, from the University of East Anglia, said the variation in the Southern Ocean carbon sink was larger than expected on the basis of the growth of atmospheric CO2 alone.

“The Southern Ocean behaves like a giant lung — breathing in and absorbing vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, and releasing it later in the year,” Dr Bakker said.

“The seas around Antarctica absorb significantly more CO2 than they release. They basically help to slow down the growth of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and lessen the rate of climate change.”

CSIRO Southern Ocean expert Steve Rintoul, who was not part of the research team, said the new analysis showed the strength of the Southern Ocean carbon sink varied with time more strongly than expected. “The weakening and strengthening of the Southern Ocean carbon sink reflects changes in ocean temperature and carbon dioxide driven by variations in the winds blowing on the ocean surface,” Dr Rintoul said.

He said the wind changes were caused by human activities such as greenhouse gases emissions and by natural variability. “The results show that overall, the Southern Ocean sink is keeping pace with the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. “This is in contrast to some earlier studies based on model experiments and atmospheric data that concluded the Southern Ocean carbon sink was weakening.”

GWPF science spokesman David Whitehouse said the recovery of the Southern Ocean carbon sink “could be yet another explanation for the surface temperature hiatus”.

He said the research was “another alarmist claim removed by science, showing that the ‘settled science’ isn’t settled at all.

“The fact is that the current models do not fit the observations, so there we have a vital part of future climate prediction shown to be not predictable,” Dr Whitehouse said.

“No one knows why the Southern Oceans are doing this, and no one can say what will happen next. It seems the Southern Ocean, along with a little bit of help from the sun, means that future climate projections, especially decadal ones, have become far more uncertain.

“The closer you look at widely held certainties, the more complex and less understood they become — that’s the science of a complicated earth.”

UK POWER NETWORK PERILOUSLY CLOSE TO BLACKOUTS BY 2016 IF WIND DROPS

Picture a cold and dark wintery evening in November and millions of householders across the country are switching on their kettles at the same time after a long day at work but suddenly there is a big problem.

Another creaking coal-fired power station has been shut down and with barely a breeze blowing to fire up the thousands of wind turbines that Britain has increasingly relied upon to keep the lights turned on, the entire electricity network has become overloaded.

Suddenly, the doomsday scenario of a nationwide energy blackout and power curfews on a scale not seen since the bleak winter of enforced economic hardship of 1979 becomes reality.

This is the fear of experts like Anthony Price, director of Electricity Storage Network, who argues that policymakers have allowed the system to become too vulnerable to outages, which could cost the economy billions of pounds in lost output and productivity.

“As a society we run the risk of paying the price eventually for running everything with the very minimum of spare capacity available,” said Mr Price. “If something does go wrong with the existing generating system we really have no where to run to meet demand.”

His concerns were brought into sharper focus last week with the announcement that the Eggborough power station in Yorkshire would close in March 2016. The plant generates around 4pc of the UK’s electricity and its shutdown at the end of the winter will place a further squeeze on the safety cushion for avoiding a blackout across large areas of the country.

Conventional fossil-fuel burning power stations like Eggborough and the Longannet coal-fired plant in Fife that is also due to close in March are still the most reliable means to produce electricity for the grid, despite the dramatic shift over the last decade towards renewables such as wind or solar.
 
“Things are moving into uncharted territory in terms of security of supply,” said Peter Atherton, utilities equity analyst at Jefferies. “We have never had such a low ratio of conventional power plant capacity compared with renewables and the problem is going to get worse.”

The announcement in May by SSE that it would be closing the giant Ferrybridge power station in Yorkshire by March 2016 has also raised the stakes for regulators who are duty bound to ensure Britain has enough power. Based on the recent closures, power supply levels published by Ofgem show that Britain will be perilously close to blackouts by the winter of 2016 if wind levels prove to be too low to generate adequate electricity for the grid.

According to Mr Atherton the problem started with the Labour government under the former Prime Minister Tony Blair which committed Britain to unachievable targets for building renewable energy capacity.

The suspicion is that Mr Blair went into European climate talks in 2007 not even knowing the difference between energy – which covered everything from transportation to home insulation – and electricity. Almost a decade later, this possible schoolboy error by Mr Blair and his negotiating team could lead to blackouts for the “first time in living memory”, Mr Atherton believes.

“Germany and Spain for example don’t have the same security of supply problem as we do. We are unique in that we have a problem with supply and affordability of power,” he said.

The Coalition and the new Conservative Government have essentially continued along with the same unrealistic policy which has committed Britain to generating around 80pc of its power from renewables and nuclear by 2030. Another problem according to Mr Atherton is the need to build more latency into the renewable network.

He estimates that to replace 1 gigawatt of conventional coal or gas generated power capacity it requires the equivalent of around 3.5 gigawatts of renewables.

“The problem is that the closure programme for conventional plants like Eggborough is running to time but the new build programme is now about four years behind schedule. There is a big mismatch between what is getting shut down and what is getting built to replace it,” said Mr Atherton.

GREENPEACE THE EMPLOYER FROM HELL

This piece reveals the uncomfortable truth about this supposedly worker-friendly organisation which campaigns for so many left-wing causes, which is that they are as cut-throat as any other business and the bottom line is their number one priority. In fact they have become just another multi-national business.

GLOBAL WARMING IS ALL ABOUT OVERTHROWING CAPITALISM SAYS NAOMI KLEIN

This article looks at her recent book in which she explicitly admits that climate change is not about science at all, but it is about changing the world. Why on earth don't the Western political leaders wake up to this reality before they sign up to impoverish their citizens for a false prospectus?

More on this here.






 

POOR NATIONS STILL AFTER CLIMATE MONEY

This article looks at the proposition that the developed nations are somehow "responsible" for the damage caused now and in the recent past by their historic emissions of CO2. This seems to be a complete fiction because (a) temperatures have risen by such a small amount that this could not have made any difference to weather extremes and (b) there has been no increase in extreme weather events over the past hundred years of records. Despite the points just mentioned, as you will see in the linked article, our political leaders seem ready to concede that this historic responsibility is a reality and are about to concede billions of pounds to put it right.

KATRINA - AFTER 10 YEARS WE CAN SEE HOW THIS EVENT WAS USED AS PROPAGANDA

Here is a good article which looks at the way hurricane Katrina was used to make a false case for the threat of increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic, blamed of course on increased CO2 emissions. Now a decade on we can see that this threat has not materialised. Hurricanes have always been a threat and remain so. Had there been an increase,  due to natural variation, they would have said "look, we told you so."

FORMER METEOROLOGIST DISCLOSES YEARS OF CENSORSHIP ON NATURAL WEATHER CYCLES

This article gives the details of yet more evidence of manipulation of freedom of speech to hide any alternative to the man-made global warming mantra.

UK SUMMER - HOW DID THE MET OFFICE PREDICTIONS WORK OUT?

Here is an article which looks at the extraordinary way the Met Office shifts its position as their predictions start to unravel. Even their explanations for the weather are inconsistent. I think we all know that weather forecasting is extremely difficult, but by making out that they can do far more than they can they end up looking very foolish. It's time for them to come clean and admit that they know far less than they claim and stop the propaganda.

OBAMA'S ALASKAN CLIMATE PROPAGANDA

This piece looks at the reality of what is actually happening to the climate in Kivali in Alaska where President Obama was seen on our news broadcasts yesterday telling us that there was a catstrophe going on due to sea level rise and increased storms and that this was all due to increases in CO2. Thanks to Paul Homewood we can see the true picture which is that the real cause of the climate change there is retreat of a glacier which has been going on for over 100 years. How strange that the President didn't mention it.

UPDATE Yet more data from Paul Homewood.

HOW THE WARMIST ARGUMENTS DON'T STACK UP

This article was written as a rebuttal of arguments put on an Australian TV programme that supposedly put both sides of the climate change debate, except that they didn't. Instead they deliberately put a very weak case for the climate sceptics and then went on to demolish it, in other words the programme was simply propaganda. The article is a brilliant tour de force by Jo Nova and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the weakness of the warmist case.

UK NORTH SEA OIL INDUSTRY HEADING FOR THE SCRAPHEAP

The Sunday Times, 23 August 2015

Danny Fortson
 The North Sea stands out as one of the world’s most expensive places to operate. Most companies are now operating at a loss. A domino effect may mean that North Sea production will dwindle rapidly in a few years.


Sometimes one company perfectly captures the course of an industry. For the North Sea, that company is Fairfield Energy. Launched a decade ago with $200m from a clutch of savvy investors, led by American buyout firm Warburg Pincus, Fairfield’s plan was to scoop up old oil fields cast off by the industry giants and breathe new life into them.

In 2012 Riverstone, the energy specialist then run by Lord Browne of Madingley, ploughed in another $150m. The renowned former BP boss even joined the board, endorsing Fairfield’s strategy of squeezing the last drops from decades-old platforms whose output had slowed to a trickle.

Yet forces were gathering to dash the company’s plans. The offshore industry’s operating costs doubled in just five years as contractors used a buoyant crude price to ratchet up day rates for drilling rigs and boats. Unions won better salaries and shorter working hours.

The 60% drop in the oil price since last summer to $45 a barrel was the final nail in the coffin.

Rather than styling itself as a saviour of Britain’s oil industry, Fairfield has decided there is more money to be had from feasting on its carcass. Three months ago it took the first steps to transforming itself into a decommissioning specialist. Its old fields have been closed or put up for sale, and it has begun hiring experts to dismantle platforms.

David Peattie, the former BP high-flyer who was parachuted in just two years ago, will leave after a buyer is found for Fairfield’s one reservoir that is producing oil. Browne stepped down from the board this year and at the same time left Riverstone.

A Fairfield source said: “We were set up to put off decommissioning for 10 to 20 years. Now we’re doing the opposite. It’s quite amazing really.”

Fairfield’s transformation from saviour to undertaker is a stark example of the forces battering the industry. The North Sea was once the biggest single contributor to the exchequer, but this year it will hand over little more than £1bn, compared with more than £11.5bn just three years ago, according to the specialist adviser Hannon Westwood.

The Office for Budget Responsibility reckons that the Treasury’s take between 2020 and 2040 will dwindle to a total of just £2bn, a 94% reduction on previous forecasts.

The day when the North Sea goes from asset to liability is not as far away as one might think, not least because the taxpayer is on the hook for roughly 60% of the estimated £30bn decommissioning bill.

Indeed, next year a ship equipped with the world’s largest scissors will chop the top off the first of four platforms in the Brent field, about 110 miles east of the Shetland Islands. The reservoir, after which Britain’s benchmark crude is named, pumped an astonishing 4bn barrels before it was shut down in 2011. It will be the North Sea’s biggest decommissioning project yet. [...]

In the face of that collapse, the North Sea, where rig cooks can bring home £50,000 a year, stands out as one of the world’s most expensive places to operate. Most companies are now operating at a loss.

Only nine of the 120 companies in the North Sea are profitable and, thus, pay tax, according to Ian Norbury at Hannon Westwood. This will get worse.

So far this year only two new projects have been approved, against seven last year and ten in 2013. Exploration is on track to hit a record low, with as few as eight wells planned this year. “The cupboard is bare in terms of planned wells,” said Norbury.

Half a century after the founding of the North Sea industry, its biggest fields are mostly dried up. What remains is the crumbs that are not worth the time or investment of the biggest players.