Friday 31 March 2023

NET ZERO THE CHINESE WAY

 While here in the UK we diligently and piously refuse to increase the extraction of our own oil and gas resources and blow up our coal-fired power stations, over in china they take a somewhat different approach. See here:

Saudi Aramco To Build $10 Billion Refinery And Petrochemical Complex In China | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

When the Chinese leadership say they will achieve net zero by 2060, I wonder why our leaders believe them?

Thursday 30 March 2023

WIND FARMS CASH IN AS THE PUBLIC LOSE

 Cheap electricity is part of a bygone age. It has been replaced by the net zero driven age of greedy wind farms who sign contracts promising us cheap electricity, only to renege in favour of charging the "market rate". What a rip-off! Read about it here:

Wind farms can simply ignore agreed contracts and cash in big time, FOI reveals  - Net Zero Watch

As we are forced to give up our gas boilers and our petrol cars, you can see how this is going. All our eggs are being forced into one expensive basket!

 

Wednesday 29 March 2023

CARBON CAPTURE - "LIKE EXTRACTING SUNBEAMS FROM CUCUMBERS"

 Richard North writes an interesting article on the latest incarnation of carbon capture and storage;

Climate change: the onset of madness revisited | Turbulent Times

I like his style. He begins with a statement I have often thought myself:

"Future historians are going to have as much trouble understanding this age as contemporary authors have in dealing with the Salem witch trials."

Great stuff!

Tuesday 28 March 2023

THE PEOPLE STRIKE BACK

 Apparently the residents of Greater London are fighting against the extension of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone being brought in by the Mayor, Sadiq Khan. Direct action in a variety of ways is taking place. I thought this would happen after Extinction Rebellion and other offshoots were treated so lightly by the police. This is just the beginning, I suspect. As the authorities clamp down more and more on our freedoms and push up the price of travel, heating etc. ever higher we will end up more like the French.

Read it all here:

Politics: direct action | Turbulent Times

Monday 27 March 2023

NO GOVERNMENT PLAN TO USE HYDROGEN FOR HEATING?

 An article in the 20th March edition of The House magazine (for MPs) looks at how the government intends to "decarbonise" our heating system. There are two options being considered. One is to replace natural gas boilers with hydrogen gas versions and the other is to replace them with heat pumps.

The government's Energy Bill contains provisions for a new heat policy that will require boiler suppliers to sell a percentage of their output as heat pumps each year, much like the electric vehicle policy. This uses the salesmen to convince the public to buy them. This policy would push up the cost of gas boilers which would annoy the public when they found out, so it might not pass. If not, at present the government has no policy to roll out hydrogen so the article says, yet they are carrying out trials of hydrogen boilers right now. 

You can read the whole article, and the whole magazine online at this link:

The House Live | Politicshome.com


Sunday 26 March 2023

ENERGY PRICES TO REMAIN ARTIFICIALLY HIGH DUE TO GOVERNMENT POLICY

 I find it quite astonishing that the government is, on the one hand having to give subsidies to people and businesses because of the high price of electricity, while on the other hand they are themselves raising its price by adding extra charges to the producers. Why is this not being flagged up by the media? Why is no one questioning the minister? Here is an information-packed article from the great Paul Homewood: 

Will Offshore Wind Lower Energy Bills? | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com) 

By the way has anyone noticed the change of name of the former government department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). When you think about it, these two aims (energy security and net zero) do not seem to be very compatible. If, by secure, we mean reliable, then increasing renewables like wind and solar which are at the mercy of the weather, are not the way to go. Of course if reaching net zero is your aim, then wind and solar are the way to go. Interestingly energy security comes first, something a government minister pointed out to me recently. Is this a subtle hint at a change of emphasis? We can only hope!

Saturday 25 March 2023

THE CLIMATE REVOLT GAINS MOMENTUM

 On 16th March this blog reported on a stunning political upheaval in Holland, see here:

climate science: DUTCH FARMERS GAIN STUNNING VICTORY

Now I see the story is starting to get the mass coverage it deserves. See today's Daily Mail:

European farmers revolt against EU-inspired plans to make people eat INSECTS instead of meat  | Daily Mail Online

It seems clear that the major TV news outlets are determined to suppress this kind of story, but it cannot be maintained. The truth will come out and I predict that, if Western governments continue to pursue restrictive policies against the wishes of the majority of people there will be more and more rebellions. If democracy means anything, it means the majority will be heard, as Macron is finding out right now over his pension policies. In the end politics has to lead to a compromise, or defeat in an election. 

Friday 24 March 2023

WIND INADEQUACY EXPOSED

We all know deep down that wind is unreliable. That is why ships stopped using it and turned to coal and oil, and windmills were replaced by motor-driven machines. I have often wondered why politicians rely so heavily on wind turbines to replace coal and gas power stations. Now a professor has done the maths:

 Wind fantasy land: to cover 8 days of half-speed wind, UK needs 1,000 times the “biggest battery” on Earth « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)

But will those who make policy listen to the science?

Thursday 23 March 2023

SOUTHERN OCEAN TOO COLD FOR ELEPHANT SEALS

I wonder why this has not figured in our news broadcasts? 

 Recent Decades Of Cooling And Sea Ice Expansion Has Led To Declining Elephant Seal Populations (notrickszone.com)

Global warming theory does not predict this cooling of the Antarctic. It just shows how much we still need to find out about the causes of our changing climate. But our political leaders have set their policy and will not be interested in looking more closely at the science. The problem is that the policy is a disaster and very few people seem to realise what is coming in the next few years. However they will soon begin to understand as the cost of living keeps on rising.  

Wednesday 22 March 2023

CLIMATE CHANGE IS "NOT PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS"

 

Find out why from the short video in the link below from one of the most highly qualified climate scientists there is:

Climate change isn’t ‘particularly dangerous’: Richard Lindzen | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

Isn't it extraordinary that such a highly qualified man is ignored by governments and by the mainstream media? He is one of many top experts who say the same thing. Yet the world listens to a school girl who has missed lessons to protest that more needs to be done to stop emitting CO2.  This has nothing to do with science, it is simply politics.  We are living in extraordinary times.

Tuesday 21 March 2023

OH NO, NOT ANOTHER DOOMLADEN REPORT

 Just when you thought that the non-stop reports of climate disasters might be given a rest the UN comes up with yet another:

UN climate report: Scientists release 'survival guide' to avert climate disaster - BBC News

Of course this was given the prime spot on yesterday's BBC news, complete with pictures of recent floods in Pakistan etc. The narrative is that all this extreme weather is due to "climate change" and it will get much worse, but there is still a chance that if we repent our wicked ways and stop emitting CO2 then we can save ourselves. Don't these people realise that by repeating this same message ad nauseum that many people will tire of it and simply turn off. Clearly not. This incessant message of impending doom is carefully designed to prepare us for the very costly and restrictive policies that will be foisted on us all.

But the public aren't fools, they will see that the climate they experience is changing very little. Sure, you get extreme weather, but that has always been the case. Pakistan has had many floods before. Most people will think the sensible way forward is for nations to adapt to try and protect people from these events. To try and claim that they are getting so much worse when the evidence does not support that is a very foolish strategy, for even if the media refuse to show the actual data which does not support this doom-mongering, the evidence will eventually come out via the internet and great websites like Not a Lot of People Know That and Watts Up With That. 

No one is ever invited on to the news to suggest that any of these pronouncements made might be questionable. At one point the presenter said that the world was now warmer than for the past 125,000 years. I would say that is very contentious and there is a lot of evidence to counter it. For example how do they explain that a few years ago a melting glacier revealed beneath it the remains of ancient Alpine trees that were found to be about 400 years old, proving that only 400 years ago the Alps must have been warmer than they are today. Farming communities thrived on Greenland during what is known as the Medieval Warm Period. All this inconvenient material is swept under the carpet. 

Such one-sided reporting is not normal in our open society, yet it is happening. In other less enlightened nations we call it propaganda. There is no discussion of the cost of the policies required to reduce our CO2 emissions to net zero versus the benefits to us. All we get is repetitive messages about how bad it all is and how we must do whatever it takes to get to net zero. No mention of the fact that we only emit 1% of the world's CO2 and so cannot achieve anything on our own and that nations such as China and India have no intention of reducing their CO2 to zero. 

From the reporting the message seems to be that if we just drive a bit less and eat less meat, turn down the heating, then we can save the planet. Most of us know that this is nonsense, and our political leaders know it, but they just cannot bring themselves to admit it publicly.  

Monday 20 March 2023

GO WOKE - GO BROKE

 Only three months ago the Credit Suisse bank issued its annual Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures report, promising to set the bank at the centre of the global Net Zero carbon trajectory.

 
As shares of the legendary Credit Suisse bank tax haven plunged 24 per cent on Wednesday and fuelled another day of alarm over the risks imbedded in the financial system, green activists at Bill McKibben’s 350.org climate operation distributed invitations to an online Earth Day event titled “Divest/Invest: How we stop banks from fuelling the climate crisis.”

The message might have rung bells of support a week ago. The plan was to stop America’s big banks from investing in fossil fuel development and “shut down” the oil and gas industry.

Such action calls are likely to fall on deaf ears this week as the global policy and investment focus is on keeping the banking industry alive and well. Instead of forcing banks to divest fossil fuels assets, the challenge now is to stop institutions from divesting bank shares.

Today it’s the banking climate that needs to be protected in an environment filled with predictions that the world financial system is in some peril. 

Another caution came from Bob Michelle, the chief investment officer at JPMorgan Asset Management, who warned that Credit Suisse is “absolutely” a sign that there is more trouble on the horizon. It is, said Michelle, the “tip of the iceberg” of banking turmoil to come.

It’s a cold metaphor that neatly brings us back to the climate activist campaign. In their easy-money world, banking icebergs have long ago melted away and there is nothing to worry about except how to get the banks to divest their fossil fuel holdings to make the world safe and green. But this idea that the only problem facing the planet is climate change is going to be more and more difficult to maintain.

There are indications that banks, central bankers and regulators have been dedicating too much effort and resources to the management of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Tracking ESG risks, in other words, may well have been a distraction from managing the real risks foisted on the world economy by high government debt and inflationary monetary policies.

The Bank of England seems to be pulling back on climate change. In a report on climate-related risks issued Monday the Bank implies that climate risks in financial markets seem to be under control and “are appropriate.” It warned, however, that “Any use of macroprudential tools would need to be assessed carefully against how well they mitigate climate risks, their behavioural impacts, and the potential for unintended consequences.” In other words, now is no time to be flirting with unintended consequences of radical climate policy when real financial risks are being overlooked.

Notes of caution over climate management risk were issued in Canada last week by the federal government’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. While climate change is an issue, the biggest risk seemed to be coming from “transition risks” created by government policy. “These risks can emerge from current or future government policies, legislation, and regulation to limit GHG emissions, as well as technological advancements, and changes in market and customer sentiment towards a low-GHG economy.”

Within Credit Suisse, a heavy public focus on ESG and climate issues was accompanied by less obvious failures to manage financial risk.

Only three months ago the bank issued its annual Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures report, a 106-page document signed by its top executives. The report, they said, “provides important information on how we apply our expertise as a bank.” Filled with graphs, metrics and explanations, the report promises to set the bank at the centre of the global Net Zero carbon trajectory.

Credit Suisse’s financial management regime is another story. This week — as its shares fell to near US$2 from highs of US$50 a decade ago — the bank’s annual report said there were “material weaknesses” in its internal controls over financial reporting.

When it comes to bank management of risk in the future, the new focus is likely to be on the books rather than the climate. 

Read the whole article at this link:
 
Terence Corcoran: The bank crises could take down the ESG push
Financial Post, 17 March 2023
 



Sunday 19 March 2023

DECEPTIVE PHOTO USED BY BBC TO CLAIM DROUGHT FORECAST

 Surely we should expect our state broadcaster to live up to the highest standards when reporting, yet in a recent article claiming that the current winter has been exceptionally dry, the BBC showed a photo of a reservoir with very low levels of water which was discovered to be taken during the height of a summer drought! Read it all here;

Drought risk to England regions after (slightly) dry February, scientists warn | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

 

Friday 17 March 2023

CLIMATE LITIGATION MUST BE STOPPED OR THE WEST WILL GO BROKE

The problem for Western governments is that they have opened Pandora's box by bringing out laws to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 (legally binding in the case of the UK) and so climate activist groups are increasingly taking to the courts to force ever more severe policies to achieve this. See here:  

 Milieudefensie v Shell: Implications of the Dutch court ruling explained | Fieldfisher

If the courts uphold the activists claims then major companies and the government itself will become mired in a very costly stand-off until the law can be changed. What a mess!

Thursday 16 March 2023

DUTCH FARMERS GAIN STUNNING VICTORY

 Take a look at this:

Farmer's protest party win shock Dutch vote victory - BBC News

At last the fight-back begins against government plans to slash nitrogen emissions by dramatically reducing livestock numbers and buying out thousands of farms. How long before people fight back against ever higher fuel bills due to net zero policies? 

60% OF AMERICANS BELIEVE "CLIMATE CHANGE" HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIMATE

That is what this recent poll says:

 Rasmussen Poll Shows 60% of Americans Believe "Climate Change" is a Religion that Has Nothing to do with Climate | The Gateway Pundit

A majority of voters agree with a Republican presidential candidate’s criticism of climate change as a “religion” that isn’t really about the climate at all.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. voters agree – including 47% who Strongly Agree – with Vivek Ramasamy’s recent statement that climate change has become a religion that “actually has nothing to do with the climate” and is really about power and control. Thirty-five percent (35%) disagree with Ramaswamy’s statement, including 25% who Strongly Disagree.

Tuesday 14 March 2023

PRESIDENT BIDEN WAKES UP TO REALITY

 The US President has been forced to face reality and understand that oil will be essential to the USA for decades to come, if not longer. It's a truth that no leader of any Western nation can ignore in the end for all the fine green words they may spout, or else they will find the voters will turn on them.

Here is an extract from the Daily Telegraph to explain:

Joe Biden is facing a showdown with environmentalists and leading Democrats after approving one of the largest ever drilling projects on US land.

His administration gave the green light to the Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope, effectively reversing a policy pledge he made during the 2020 presidential election.

Having entered office vowing “no more drilling on federal lands, period”, Mr Biden’s hand has been forced by soaring energy prices, which have fuelled inflation.

The Willow Project, which has been led by oil behemoth ConocoPhillips, could produce more than 600 million barrels of crude oil over the next 30 years.

It is understood that the president will try to soften criticism by imposing strict restrictions on offshore drilling and strengthening protection on more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

This is unlikely to satisfy critics who are pressing the administration to honour its pledges at a raft of global climate summits.

Environmental groups estimate that the Willow Project will add more than 250 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the next 30 years, equivalent to the annual emissions of 66 coal plants.

Annually, it would equate to adding nearly two million cars onto US roads.

Only last week, nearly two dozen Democrat members of Congress – as well as independent Bernie Sanders – wrote to Mr Biden urging him to kill off what they described as an “ill-conceived and misguided” oil and gas drilling project.

Monday 13 March 2023

GLOBAL WARMING IN THE REAL WORLD

Anthony Watts has introduced a new feature to show what global warming actually looks like in the real world. It's something that is needed to help the general public understand how small the actual warming is. Take a look at this link: 

New WUWT Global Temperature Feature: Anomaly vs. Real-World Temperature | Watts Up With That?

Sunday 12 March 2023

HEAVY RAINFALL JUST AS LIKELY IN THE PAST SAY THE RECORDS

 The Met Office are at it again trying to scare the public into believing that rainfall is going to become dramatically heavier due to global warming. Luckily there are records kept which show that such events are not unprecedented, but have in fact occurred periodically over many years (and no doubt even before records were kept). Here is the evidence:

Extreme Rainfall In 1937 | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com) 

Saturday 11 March 2023

CARBON FOOTPRINT TO GO ON PARCELS?

 

Could we soon be seeing labels on our parcels revealing their carbon footprint? Industry professionals and politicians in Germany are calling for CO2 labels on all parcels, as part of its forthcoming postal law reforms. Where Germany goes, Britain may need to follow, says the UK-based international delivery expert ParcelHero.

ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘Germany is considering radical postal and parcel reforms, in what is expected to be the biggest shake-up of services in 30 years. Its Federal Ministry of Economics is reportedly weighing up legislation to introduce CO2 emissions information. The SPD MP Sebastian Roloff says: "Everything that focuses on more climate protection in parcel delivery is worth considering… There should be more transparency for consumers."

So how do they expect consumers to react? Do they think they will stop ordering items?

Thursday 9 March 2023

ATOLL ISLANDS GROWING NOT SINKING

 Here's another bit of good news that won't appear in the main TV channels. “88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted. It is noteworthy that no island larger than 10 ha decreased in size. These results show that atoll and island areal stability is a global trend, whatever the rate of sea-level rise.”

Read it all here: Science Yields Surprises! Island Nations Growing… “Atoll, Island Stability Is Global Trend”! (notrickszone.com)

Wednesday 8 March 2023

BIG FINANCE USES ITS POWER TO PUSH THE CLIMATE AGENDA

 BlackRock’s tyrannical ESG agenda - UnHerd

As the ESG agenda took hold, the individual investor increasingly found himself shunted aside. The roots of this shift lay in the early Eighties, when federal proxy voting rules were changed to allow fund managers such as BlackRock to vote on behalf of their clients. 

Tuesday 7 March 2023

WILL GAS BOILER BAN DATE BE PUT BACK?

 UK could U-turn on 2035 gas boiler ban as heat pumps cost 'many times more'

Daily Express, 1 March 2023

The Government has hinted that it could U-turn on its proposed ban on the sale of new gas boilers by 2035, as energy experts have warned that heat pump costs will not become cheaper. Over the past year, heat pumps have been hailed as a solution for the energy crisis, because run on electricity instead of natural gas, and are far more efficient than traditional boilers. However, the technology has remained prohibitively expensive for millions of households, with average costs of installation being quoted between £10,000 and up to £13,000 according to some estimates.

Monday 6 March 2023

THE DANGER OF HYDROGEN FOR HEATING

 Madness on stilts: Hydrogen boilers might need ‘four-inch holes in walls to prevent explosions’

The Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2023

Households that have hydrogen boilers installed could be forced to drill a 4x4-inch hole in their wall to mitigate risks of explosion, according to recommendations in a government-backed safety report.

Residents in a neighbourhood being considered for a trial of hydrogen for home heating have been alarmed by a report’s recommendation that rooms with boilers hobs or substantial pipework “should have non-closable vents with [an] equivalent area of 10,000 mm2”.

That is a bit drafty, but never mind - just turn up the heating!

SEA LEVEL - RISING OR FALLING, TAKE YOUR PICK!

 There are three major difficulties with the claim that sea level rises are accelerating.


1. Geological stability: According to tidal gauges in the Gulf of Bothnia, sea levels are falling drastically. Along the coast of Finland, the variation in sea level trends is over 2 meters, over 6 feet. (Pick a sea level trend – rise or fall?)
https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/sea...
The Gulf of Alaska and Hudson Bay are other locations with falling sea levels.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/s...
Conversely, the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Gulf of Mexico are experiencing significant sea level rise from groundwater extraction which is causing the land to sink. Coastal Virginia (Norfolk-Newport News) is an excellent example.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1392/pdf...
(Roger Bezdek did an excellent paper on this problem showing developing funnels of subsiding land around major wells at West Point and Franklin, Virginia, from the USGS report cited, pp 13 & 16.) In my view, the problem for coastal areas is solvable by desalination techniques developed by the Israelis, used in other Mid-Eastern countries and in Carlsbad, California.
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics...
and
https://www.carlsbaddesal.com/...

2. Changing patterns of prevailing winds. Over 100 years ago the British National Oceanography Center
https://ntslf.org/tgi/newlyn-tidal-...
established tidal gauges at geodetic stable locations at Newlyn, Cornwall, England, https://psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/202.php
and North Shields, Northumberland, England. As Paul Homewood demonstrates, examination of the entire records shows periods of increasing sea level rise and falling sea levels.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wor...
Changing prevailing winds are the most likely cause in changing sea level trends in these locations.

3. As Kip Hansen shows, instrument changes are the most likely cause of the recent fad of accelerating sea level trends. Government scientific organizations should realize that following instrument changes periods of stabilization, or calibration, are needed to assure that different types of instruments are measuring the same thing the same way. The infamous hockey-stick episode demonstrated that proxy data such as tree rings may not measure temperature alone or the same way as thermometers. Many government organizations ignore these past failures and fail to properly standardize measurements.
According to Brown University in Providence, Providence, Rhode Island, has been subject to floods from hurricanes (gales) since 1764.
https://www.brown.edu/Departments/J...

Other major hurricane floods include 1815, 1869, 1938, Carol in 1954, and Connie and Diane in 1955. The 2010 flood was from rain.
https://www.weather.gov/safety/floo...

A problem is its geological location at the small end of a funnel. The construction of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier, completed in 1966, will help against hurricanes and northeasters, but that does not protect against river flooding from the Providence River due to rainfall. In general, sea level rise is real, but not accelerating, and not more than 8 inches per century.

Sunday 5 March 2023

NET ZERO IS A FANTASY-HORROR STORY

Below is an in-depth look at the details and finance needed to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 in the USA. It is a fascinating read which re-enforces the work of other experts in concluding that the policy is impossible to achieve and that attempting it is likely to lead to severe hardship for a majority of the population. Here is the link:  

Feasibility for Achieving a Net Zero Economy for the U.S. by 2050 | Watts Up With That?

Saturday 4 March 2023

WIND POWER INDUSTRY DEMANDS MORE SUBSIDIES

 

The shameless blackmail by the wind industry is a golden opportunity for the Chancellor



Press Release

 





The government should reject the wind industry’s crude blackmail and cancel contracts that appear to have been obtained on the basis of false representations.


London, 3 March - Further details are now emerging of the offshore wind industry’s attempt to obtain additional support for unbuilt projects, first reported by the Financial Times, and the subject of a Net Zero Watch statement (“Demands for more subsidy expose the illusion of falling wind power costs”).

The Times is now reporting that the Danish state-controlled wind giant Ørsted is threatening to cancel the £8 billion Hornsea Three wind farm, the world’s biggest, unless it is given more UK government support through “enhanced capital allowances”.

Hornsea Three was amongst five projects that bid very low prices for UK government Contracts for Difference in 2022. Ørsted claims that it is not alone, and that all these projects are now “in jeopardy”.

The justification offered for this threat is that the company is facing “very extraordinary circumstances” that have increased its costs.

However, since the contracts are inflation-linked in any case, and world steel prices have actually fallen since Ørsted submitted its CfD bid for Hornsea 3, Net Zero Watch does not accept this explanation.

 


 

On the contrary, we refer once again to analysis that we and others have published over the years, demonstrating from audited financial statements that wind CAPEX and OPEX have not fallen significantly, and that the CfD bids were never realistic.
 
We predicted that these companies would eventually return to government demanding even more support. We were widely criticised at the time for this work, with one prominent energy reporter stating that it was bizarre to believe that the wind companies were “banking on threatening to go bust” in order to blackmail government into further subsidy. However, this is precisely the situation that is now emerging.

A government spokesperson has been quoted to the effect that Hornsea Three’s “inflation-linked contract was already generous” but they were “open to listening to the sector about concerns they may have”.
 
The Chancellor may choose to listen, but he should reject the industry’s crude blackmail, and indeed take it as a golden opportunity to cancel contracts that appear to have been obtained on the basis of false representations.

Dr John Constable, Net Zero Watch's director of energy, said:

“From 2002 to 2022, the offshore wind industry in the UK has received about £20 billion in subsidy, charged on consumer bills and mostly under the Renewables Obligation. If offshore wind is not yet showing real cost reductions it is unlikely ever to do so. The Chancellor should stand up for consumers and taxpayers and say that enough is enough.”

Friday 3 March 2023

NET ZERO LIKELY TO CAUSE RATIONING AND RISK STARVATION FOR THE WORLD'S POOR

 In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – to be “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”.

 
The battle over nitrogen fertiliser is being hard fought by green activists who argue for massive reductions in its use and more organic methods to be mandated. This can extend to fanaticism, as marked by the Guardian’s George Monbiot who argues for an end to dependence on farming. The ground for less choice and food is also being prepared in academia. Recently, three barking academics operating through the University of Leeds suggested World War II rationing could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Also harking back to the days of spam and when spivs controlled parts of the supply chain was the actress Joanna Lumley, who has suggested a return to a points distribution system and a form of wartime rationing.
 
Back on Planet Reality, the authors publish the graph below showing a “remarkable” increase in crop yields after the widespread use of nitrogen fertiliser began around 1950.

The authors make a general point that any present or future Government actions that omit analysis of the disastrous consequences of reducing fossil fuels and CO2 to Net Zero for low income people, people worldwide, future generations and the United States, “is fatally flawed science and appalling government policy”.
 
Happer and Lindzen state that they are career physicists who have specialised in radiation physics and dynamic heat transfer for decades. These are said to be integral to atmospheric climate science. In their opinion, all Net Zero regulations are scientifically invalid. In summary they state the science is based on fabricated data that omit figures that contradict their conclusions, for example, on extreme weather. In addition, climate models “do not work”, while IPCC findings are “government opinions, not science”. Furthermore the “extraordinary” social benefits of CO2 and fossil fuels are omitted, and any science that demonstrates there is no catastrophic risk of global warming is ignored.
 
Numerous examples are supplied. The authors quote Professor Steven Koonin, a former Under-Secretary of Science for President Obama, as noting in his recent book Unsettled, that, “observations extending back over a century indicate that most types of extreme weather events don’t show any significant change”. Koonin is said to show “multiple egregious examples” of both fabricating data and omitting contradictory data on extreme weather in the U.S. Government Fourth Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) of 2017. The report claims that there were marked changes in temperature extremes across the U.S. The number of high temperature records set in the past two decades “far exceeds” the number of low temperature records, it claims.

Koonin summaries the evidence on extreme temperatures by noting: “The annual number of high temperature records set shows no significant trend over the past century, nor over the past 40 years”. Happer and Lindzen observe a downward trend in high temperatures over nearly 100 years, while CO2 emissions have risen, and “respectfully suggest” that every agency analysing heat waves and high temperatures “has the scientific obligation to apply the scientific method to contradictory facts and avoid fabricating facts”.
 
The authors are distinctly unimpressed with the work of the United Nations IPCC. They note the process of compiling reports is governed by two rules – all Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) are approved line by line by member governments, and these SPMs override any inconsistent conclusions scientists write for IPCC reports.

Full post 

Thursday 2 March 2023

UK PUBLIC CHALLENGE CHANGE TO HYDROGEN BOILERS

Some village people are being asked to take part in an experiment to swap their natural gas boilers for hydrogen gas versions and many of them are objecting. Perhaps they have safety fears, or fear that their bills will go up after the end of a two year deal to keep them the same. Read the details here: 

Villagers stop boiler switch to hydrogen for net-zero trials | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)