INCONVENIENT FACTS ABOUT PAST TEMPERATURES COME TO LIGHT

 New Study: Retreating East Greenland Glaciers Uncover Plant Debris Dating To The 16th – 17th Centuries | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com) This link shows an important discovery that any impartial person would think deserves to be put in our news bulletins, but I can guarantee that none of the major national news outlets will mention it, for fear of being called "climate change deniers". That is the ridiculous situation that we now find ourselves in where a desire to conform has trumped putting out objective truth.

MORE GOVERNMENT WASTE AS THEY SPEND £160 MILLION TO SAVE £6.4 MILLION

 Here are the details - £170 Million To Be Wasted On “Greener Homes” | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

At a time when the country is in a record debt crisis, how can they afford this? I doubt whether the supposed £170 saving for the tenants will turn out to be realistic.

AFGHANISTAN AND GLOBAL WARMING, WHERE'S THE CONNECTION?

 I believe there is a connection in so far as they are both massive projects taken on by Western governments, costing vast amounts of taxpayers money with huge expectations over a long time frame.

 Today we see the outcome of the policy to turn Afghanistan into a modern democracy, a policy which has cost many thousands of lives. Many said it could not be done. The British Empire could not achieve it, the USSR could not achieve it. It is now absolutely clear that the Western nations, mainly the USA and the UK had failed to create any effective Afghan army despite 20 years of effort. Not only that, but they seemed unaware that this was the case, unless they did know and still left a hopeless Afghan army to allow the Taliban to return to power within a few days of the departure of Western troops. 

So what about the policy on climate change? It too is massively expensive and is supposed to deliver us from the threat of severe weather. The policy goal is to rid us from the use of fossil fuels and instead rely on things like wind and solar energy instead. Many experts have said this is not possible without  severe reductions in our modern lifestyles. It also requires all major industrial nations to join the West in ending fossil fuel use. 

The evidence tells us that this is not happening. China, India, Russia, and Brazil have continued to expand the use of fossil fuels, while making vague promises of reducing at some time in the future. To achieve an improved climate can never be proved as severe weather has always happened and always will, so they will simply declare success when fossil fuel use has been reduced, just as they now try to claim that Al Quaida has been defeated despite the return of the Taliban. 

This all points to another failure, but not before our cost and standard of living have been seriously affected.  

JUDGE ORDERS THE GOVERNMENT TO SHOW THE CALCULATIONS FOR THE COST OF NET ZERO

 Judge orders Committee on Climate Change to back up claim of 'only' 1% of GDP to hit Net Zero

Daily Mail, 7 August 2021

David Rose

A court has told climate policy chiefs to show why they think reaching net zero carbon emissions will cost only 1 per cent of GDP.

To be hit by 2050, the target is the centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s presidency of the UN climate change conference in Glasgow in November.

But critics point out that other countries have put a much higher cost on the same ambitious goal.

The 1.3 per cent figure was published by the Committee on Climate Change in 2019, thereafter being enshrined in law.

Since then the panel has refused repeated requests for access to the spreadsheets behind the calculation. However the Information Tribunal has now ruled that the data must be released.

Judge Sophie Buckley said: ‘There is an extremely strong public interest in enabling scrutiny of the data, models and calculations which underpin the CCC’s conclusion that the net zero target could be met at an annual resource cost of up to 1-2 per cent of GDP.

‘Any errors in the calculations that led to the CCC’s conclusions, which, in turn, led to the legislative change, have the potential to have a very significant impact on the lives and finances of large numbers of people, on the spending of large sums of public money, and on the policies of the UK Government over the next 30 years.’

According to the CCC, the UK’s economic output will be around £4.6trillion in 2050, putting the 1.3 per cent cost at £50billion.

The tribunal case was brought by Andrew Montford, deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, founded by former chancellor Lord Lawson.

Mr Montford filed a freedom of information request for the spreadsheets and when this was refused appealed to Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham.

The CCC has said releasing the spreadsheets would be too time consuming and ‘cause confusion, and distract public debate’. It also said that some parts of the analysis had been written over, instead of being preserved on its computer systems.

Ministers have repeatedly claimed the cost will be modest, citing the CCC’s report.

Lord Deben, chairman of the committee, said it was ‘recognised universally as the most seriously presented, costed effort’.

Lord Lawson said: ‘We must put this potentially ruinous commitment on hold until there has been full disclosure and thorough scrutiny. If it turns out that the estimated cost is far too low, then the Government must think again.’

THE TRUTH ABOUT COST OF NET ZERO BECOMING CLEARER

 Boris Johnson’s push for Net Zero plunged into chaos

The Sunday Telegraph, 8 August 2021
 
By Edward Malnick, Sunday Political Editor and Emma Gatten, Environment Editor
 
Boris Johnson’s green agenda has been plunged into chaos amid fears that the costs of reaching “net zero” could cripple working class families in newly-won Tory seats.
 
A Treasury review of the costs of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 has been delayed since the spring. There are concerns the analysis highlights that the poorest households will be hit the hardest by the ambition, which will involve policies such as stripping out gas boilers and switching to electric or hydrogen cars.

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is said to be increasingly concerned about a looming crisis over the cost of living for British households, as the country faces the triple threat of rocketing energy bills, the potential for rising prices as a result of inflation, and an as-yet unspecified suite of policies to enable the country to meet the net zero target.



The Treasury review has been held back amid fears that the analysis will lead MPs and the public to the conclusion that Mr Johnson’s net zero strategy would be politically toxic in the Red Wall seats won by the Conservatives in December 2019.

The disclosure comes amid claims of rising tensions between Mr Johnson and the Chancellor, with longstanding friction between Number 10 and Number 11 over the Prime Minister’s spending demands.

On Saturday night it was reported that Mr Johnson had expressed fury over the leak of a letter in which Mr Sunak lobbied for a relaxation of travel restrictions. In a barbed joke, Mr Johnson threatened to demote Mr Sunak to Health Secretary.

The Government had said in December that the review would be published in “spring 2021”. However, it is among several key documents to have been significantly delayed amid wrangling in Whitehall over how to achieve the target without disproportionately “clobbering” the finances of working class families, and plunging the country into hundreds of billions of pounds of further debt.

The issue is likely to be at the centre of Mr Sunak’s autumn spending review, which is expected to decide the overall pots of money available for subsidising green technologies such as hydrogen.

Meanwhile, one adviser of COP26, the climate conference due to be hosted by Mr Johnson in November, said: “I don’t think ministers knew what they were getting in to” when they set targets for the conference, such as securing commitments from attendees that will limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 1.5C. 

One official said: “There was a massive expectation on us as members of the G7 and home of the industrial revolution. Boris was trying to grab as much as he can and to be a mighty great host... But Covid has added massive complications.”

Amid growing disquiet among Tory MPs, a new net zero scrutiny group of backbenchers is being formed to hold ministers to account over the plans. Craig Mackinlay, its chairman, warned that spending vast sums on subsidising green schemes would be seen by the public as “aping” some of Jeremy Corbyn’s pledges at the 2019 election.

He said: “The Conservatives’ strongest hand has always been credibility: credibility to deliver good economics and good governance. To ape the failed policies of an extreme Labour politician does not seem to be the way of electoral success.”

He added: “I’m very pleased the Treasury are actually thinking of this with a financial head on rather than just a warm feeling.”

Downing Street sources insisted that Mr Johnson was “acutely aware” of the need to monitor household finances to ensure that policies aimed at tackling climate change are “affordable for everyone”.

A Whitehall source said: “Obviously, with anything like this, those with less money are going to be disproportionately hit more. That’s common sense. That’s why work is ongoing to ensure the best solutions to ensure we hit 2050 without extraordinary costs to ordinary working class families.”

Insiders said that the “tension” behind the scenes was over the extent to which the Treasury should spend eye-watering sums subsidising green technologies, such as hydrogen and heat pumps – including the question of how many years it would take until taxpayer or consumer subsidies were no longer required.

Last month, Mr Johnson admitted that heat pumps, seen as an alternative to gas boilers, “cost about 10 grand a pop”. He added: “This is a lot of money for ordinary people. We’ve got to make sure that when we embark on this programme, that we have a solution that is affordable and that works for people. We won’t be imposing it until we have been able to create that market.”

There is alarm among some insiders about the amount of progress needed to achieve the net zero target by 2050. On the other hand, Mr Mackinlay’s group believe that, “while something sensible can emerge”, the current approach is “too rapid, too uncosted and too unscientific”.

Number 10 believes that the Government can encourage “early adopters” of such technologies with financial and regulatory incentives, with the hope that prices then fall as the market “takes off”. A similar approach was taken to the wind industry, which has benefited from generous consumer subsidies. “We need to drive down the cost of renewable energy,” a government source said.

But, last week, an industry analysis suggested that most wind farms in Britain will not be economically viable when existing subsidies end, primarily from the 2030s, and many could shut down prematurely without further support.

The Prime Minister believes that, while wind turbines are largely not produced in the UK, if Britain becomes a world leading manufacturer of electric heat pumps and producer of low carbon hydrogen, it can cash in on a “green jobs benefit to the UK as well as reducing emissions”.

Mr Sunak is said to agree on the need to bring down the cost of green technology but wants the private sector to “do most of the heavy lifting”. The free marketeer MP is thought to see interventions designed to encourage the market to bring down costs over time as “the best use of taxpayers’ money”. A source insisted that Mr Johnson was “in the same camp”.

Publication of the Government’s hydrogen strategy has also been delayed, amid wrangling over the costs of the technology. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, wants to subsidise the industry in a similar way to wind farms, offering Contracts for Difference, which provide renewable energy firms with a guaranteed price for 15 years.

Full front page story (£) 
 

*** see also No 10's 'net zero' carbon target is in disarray as Rishi Sunak baulks at the £1.4trillion cost of making UK a 'world leader' in green policies

LETTER IN THE PRESS

This letter got published and I think it helps to write about other subjects of topical interest which can be linked to some aspect of climate, as editors seem unwilling to use climate sceptic letters.

 "I would like to commend all MPs who voted to reduce our overseas aid budget in the light of the dire financial situation the country now faces.  Our debt is now so high that we would actually have to borrow the money to give it away. Would any of us behave in this way as individuals, of course not. Those who would like to make an extra personal donation have the opportunity to do so via charities.

When the Conservative manifesto was written no one could have foreseen the pandemic and the vast expenditure needed. It would be equally foolish to continue with the policy of reducing our CO2 emissions to net zero by 2050, while other nations, such as China and India are not doing the same. The government has told us that the estimated cost of this is £1.4 trillion pounds, while our emissions represent just 0.9% of world emissions. A huge expenditure for no significant gain."

OPPOSITION TO CLIMATE POLICY BEGINS IN UK PARLIAMENT

 Some Conservative MPs are planning to form a group to argue for a slower transition to net zero. See here: Tory backbenchers prepare to fight cost of net zero greenhouse gas emissions | ITV News

Unfortunately they appear to accept the premise of the necessity of getting there, but argue that it needs to proceed more slowly, which at least buys time for the real climate to show that it is not following the scary predictions of the extremists. It will also be less damaging to the economy.

If you read the linked article you can see that it is clearly written from a climate extremist point of view, such as in this paragraph:

People are now faced with the daily reality of the climate emergency – whether it’s the shocking images of floods in China and Germany, the environmental tragedy of bushfires in Australia, searing heat on the west coast of the Americas, or the repeated warnings - with another this week - of more extreme weather events in the UK. 

The author is linking all the extreme weather events in order to make a case for a "climate emergency", in spite of the fact that even the IPCC have stated that there is no evidence that such events are becoming more common now. These are the kind of scare tactics that are becoming more and more common.

MET OFFICE CLIMATE REPORT JUST A PROPAGANDA EXERCISE

 Met Office’s State of the UK climate report misleads

GWPF Science, 29 July 2021

Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor
 
According to the UK Met Office and repeated by the BBC, The Financial Times and The Independent and others the UK is already undergoing disruptive climate change with increased rainfall, sunshine and temperatures.
 
The year 2020 was the third warmest, fifth wettest and eight sunniest on record according to the latest UK State of the Climate report. It adds that no other year is in the top 10 on all three criteria.Let’s look a little more closely at that claim.

The data can be found here.
 
The top ten years for sunshine in the UK are, in order, 2003, 1995, 2018, 1989, 1955, 1959, 1949, 2020, 1929 and 1921. Note that five of these years are before 1950 and only three this century with the sunniest year being 17 years ago and the years 1949,1955, and 1959 being sunnier than 2020.
 
Conclusion, on this metric alone 2020 is nothing unusual.
 
The top ten years for average temperature in the UK are, in order, 2014, 2003, 2006, 2020, 2011, 2007, 2018, 1921, 1949 and 1959. Note three years are before 1960 and only three are in the past decade. Note also that six years, 2003, 2018, 2020, 1959, 1949 and 1921 appear on both lists, half of them before 1960.
 
Conclusion, on this metric we live in the warmest two decades of the Met Office instrumental record which seems to have plateaued.
 
The top ten UK rainfall years are, in order, 1872, 1903, 2000, 1877, 2020, 2012, 1954, 1998, 2008, 2014. Note two are in the 19th century, three are before 1905, four are before 1955, five are in this century and three are in the past decade at 5th, 6th and 10th place. Only 2020 and 2014 are in the temperature and rainfall top ten, but 2003, 2018, 1959, 1949, 2020 and 1921 are in the temperature and sunniest top ten list.
 
The only year on all three lists is 2020 which is probably statistically unimportant.
 
That the past five years on the rainfall list can occupy between the 5th and the 108th place on the list shows what year on year fluctuations can take place. Other years this century not previously mentioned can be found 2002 (11th), 2015 (14th), 2004 (25th), 2009 (26th), 2007 (35th), 2006 (43rd) and 2011 (45th).
 
Conclusion regarding rainfall, very variable, 2020 nothing unusual.
 
Also the table in the Met Office’s Press Release detailing 2020 “climate extremes” is as big a non sequitur as one could find in climate science. What happens in one year is not climate.
 
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.com 
 

See also GWPF report Britain's weather in 2019: More of the same again

UK HOUSEHOLDS FIND OUT THE COST TO THEM OF NET ZERO

 In recent weeks, ministers and officials have announced that UK households and businesses will have to fund many of the government’s Net Zero plans via their energy bills and cost of living.

Currently, UK consumers are funding renewable energy investors to the tune of £12 billion per year, taken from consumer bills as stealth taxes. These subsidies are projected to grow over the coming years, reaching a total of about £13 billion a year in the mid-2020s.
 
But on top of this huge and rising cost, the government now plans to add a whole catalogue of additional Net Zero subsidies, as the recent news reports below reveal.
 
* The government plans to force consumers to subsidise the installation of charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) by raising electricity bills. 
 
* Ministers are in the process of drawing up legislation that will force households to fund the construction of new nuclear power plants through the use of a surcharge on energy bills.

* Households face paying an extra £200 per year to fund greenhouse gas removal technology.
 
* The wind energy lobby has warned that consumers will have to subsidise offshore wind farms indefinitely, refuting the often repeated claim that renewables are close to becoming “subsidy-free”, and confirming analysis showing that wind power costs have not fallen.

* Energy bills face an additional rise in cost as the power grid operator is increasingly forced to pay wind farms to switch off turbines. ‘System balancing’ costs alone were £2 billion last year and could hit £2.5 billion per year over the next decade as renewable capacity continues to grow.
 
Industrial and commercial consumers with the option of relocating to countries with cheaper energy will obviously do so.
 
Households, the other hand, will simply have to cut down on food and other expenditures in order to pay their energy bills and cut their standard of living. 
 
The GWPF’s director Benny Peiser said:
 
"It is fairly certain that most households would be unable to keep their heads above water as this torrent of additional Net Zero costs overwhelms their domestic budgets."
 
"Neither Boris Johnson nor his government would survive this unwise and unjust imposition on the British people."

SCARE TACTICS LOSING THEIR POWER TO FRIGHTEN AFTER COVID COMPARISON

 Climate hyperbolists are finding the pandemic stole their thunder

Editorial, The Washington Times, 26 July 2021

Americans are not naturally inclined to peer out the window in the morning to see if the sky is falling. They should, according to opinion-shapers determined to create fear of imminent global catastrophe resulting from humanity’s lively activities. Relentless climate hyperbole, though, may be losing its capacity to trigger public apprehension in an age jaded by coronavirus pestilence.
 
Few understand the power of fear better than perennial politicians. John Kerry is one, and as President Biden’s climate czar, he is leveraging the hypothetical threat from carbon dioxide by equating it with the clear and present danger of COVID-19. Speaking in London last week prior to a G-20 ministerial session on climate, energy, and the environment, Mr. Kerry warned, according to CNBC, that human suffering caused by the COVID-19 pandemic would be “magnified many times over in a world that does not grapple with, and ultimately halt, the climate crisis.”
 
Such dreadful imagery can have no other purpose than to frighten the world into reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The United States shamefacedly cut its carbon dioxide output by nearly 15 percent before the pandemic-triggered economic collapse resulted in an additional 11 percent decline. In contrast, China discharges 28 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and it doesn’t plan to reach peak output until 2030. Communists don’t scare as easily as democrats.

Mr. Kerry is just loathe to mention facts relevant to the climate-change discussion that evoke relief rather than despair. A few are presented in “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,” a recent book by Obama Undersecretary of Energy for Science Steven Koonin. Among them: By failing to reproduce actual temperatures readings from the past, computer models that climatologists rely upon to predict future temperature trends have proved inaccurate. That’s not “settled science.”

Moreover, the author points out that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded thus far that the economic impact of climate change has been mild rather than catastrophic. The body has yet to validate a clear link between warming and natural disasters.

There is a price to be paid for Washington’s incessant hazard klaxons sounding across the national landscape. A new ABC/Ipsos poll finds that only 45 percent of respondents hold an optimistic view of America’s future during the next 12 months. That figure has plummeted 19 points during the past three months – a gloomy assessment of President Biden’s helmsmanship.
 
It’s unsurprising, then, that Mr. Kerry and fellow sky-watchers have reportedly come to loggerheads with nations unamused by proposals to hamstring their economic future. They include China and India, which refused at the G-20 gathering to agree to phase out coal power or endorse the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
 
Full post