Sunday, 15 December 2019

UK GENERAL ELECTION - CLIMATE ALARMISTS MARGINALISED

Despite all the prominence given in the news to climate alarm the UK General Election showed no enthusiasm towards parties like the Greens or the Lib Dems or Labour who had featured key policies to spend large amounts of money on it. In fact the result showed the public were far more concerned with deivering Brexit. 

The climate sceptic candidate I mentioned unfortunately did not get elected, but I don't think his scepticism was a factor  - it was most likely because he stood in a seat where the voters were for remaining in the EU and he was for Brexit.

However this MP got re-elected again despite making clear his sceptic views on the climate change issue.

I really hope that more MPs will feel able to speak up against the cult of climate hysteria. They will be doing a real service to their constituents.


Saturday, 14 December 2019

PROMINENT SCIENTISTS REFUTE THE GW CONSENSUS

Prominent scientists are bailing out of the so-called “consensus” on “global warming.” 

Renowned Princeton Physicist Freeman Dyson: "I’m 100% Democrat and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on climate issue, and the Republicans took the right side." Dyson: “The effects of CO2 on climate are really very poorly understood …  The experts all seem to think they understand it, I don’t think they do.  … Climate is a very complicated story. And we may or may not understand it better (in the future). The main thing that is lacking at the moment is humility. The climate experts have set themselves up as being the guardians of the truth and they think they have the truth and that is a dangerous situation.”

Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Dr. Ivar Giaever, Who Endorsed Obama Now Says Prez. is "Ridiculous" & "Dead Wrong" on "Global Warming." Dr. Ivar Giaever: “Global warming is a nonproblem” – “'I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're wrong. Dead wrong.” “Global warming really has become a new religion.” 10

Climate scientist Dr. Anastasios Tsonis retires, then declares “I am a skeptic” in 2019 – Offers to debate – Rejects ‘denier’ label: ‘We don’t live in medieval times.” Tsonis, an emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, authored more than 130 peer-reviewed papers and nine books. “I am a skeptic not just about global warming but also about many other aspects of science.  … Climate is too complicated to attribute its variability to one cause. We first need to understand the natural climate variability (which we clearly don’t; I can debate anybody on this issue). Only then we can assess the magnitude and reasons of climate change.” “If science were settled, then we should pack things up and go home,” he added. “The fact that scientists who show results not aligned with the mainstream are labeled deniers is the backward mentality. We don’t live in medieval times,” he added. 

Green Guru James Lovelock reverses belief in "global warming": Now says "I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy." Condemns Green movement: “It’s a religion really, It’s totally unscientific.” 11

UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist: Global warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in history … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” 12

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol ripped the  warmist narrative: Tol called  Gore’s claims “complete madness.” “It disturbs me hearing people like Al Gore say that he is worried about the future of his grandchildren. Complete madness.” 13



10 65th Nobel Laureate Conference in Lindau, Germany - July 1,, 2015
11 UK Guardian - Sept. 30, 2016
12 Climate Depot Special Report - August 21, 2013
13 Climate Depot Special Report - January 7, 2016



Friday, 13 December 2019

GLOBAL TEMPERATURES HOLDING STEADY FOR TWO DECADES

Global temperatures have been holding nearly steady for almost two decades according to satellites from the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH).6 You will never see that in the mass media.

2018 is the 3rd year in a row of cooling global temperatures – So far 2018 was the third year in a row that the globe has cooled off from its El Nino peak set in 2015.

Norwegian Professor Ole Humlum explained in his 2018 “State of the Climate Report”: “After the warm year of 2016, temperatures last year (in 2018) continued to fall back to levels of the so-called warming ‘pause’ of 2000-2015. There is no sign of any acceleration in global temperature, hurricanes or sea-level rise. These empirical observations show no sign of acceleration whatsoever.”

While 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2016 were declared the “hottest years” or “near -hottest,”  based on heavily altered surface data by global warming proponents, a closer examination revealed the claims were “based on year-to-year temperature data that differs by only a few HUNDREDTHS of a degree to tenths of a degree Fahrenheit – differences that were within the margin of error in the data.” 7

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen ridiculed “hottest year” claims. “The uncertainty here is tenths of a degree. It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny change period,” Lindzen said. “If you can adjust temperatures to 2/10ths of a degree, it means it wasn’t certain to 2/10ths of a degree.”

In 2015, the Associated Press was forced to issue a “clarification” on “hottest year” claims, stating in part: “The story also reported that 2014 was the hottest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, but did not include the caveat that other recent years had average temperatures that were almost as high  – and they all fall within a margin of error that lessens the certainty that any one of the years was the hottest.”

Climatologist Pat Michaels explained that, in any case, the world’s temperature “should be near the top of the record given the record only begins in the late 19th century when the surface temperature was still reverberating from the Little Ice Age.”

“Hottest year” claims are purely political statements designed to persuade the public that the government needs to take action on man-made climate change. In addition, the claims of “hottest year” are based on surface data only dating back to the late 19th century, and also ignore the temperature revisions made by NASA and NOAA that have enhanced the warming trend by retroactively cooling the past. 8


 6 The Pause Lives on: Global Satellites: 2016 not Statistically Warmer than 1998 – Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer - January 4, 2017
7 Dr. David Whitehouse noted the 'temperature pause never went away' - January 19, 2017
8 Climate analyst Tony Heller - Real Climate Science - February 14, 2017

Thursday, 12 December 2019

SOMETHING TO TELL THE WIND ENERGY ENTHUSIASTS

Next time someone talks about wind energy as a means to save the planet tell them about the following: 

Time Magazine’s ‘Hero of the Environment’ Michael Shellenberger exposed wind/solar power claims in 2019, explaining that “renewables can’t save the planet.”  "I came to understand the environmental implications of the physics of energy. In order to produce significant amounts of electricity from weak energy flows, you just have to spread them over enormous areas. In other words, the trouble with renewables isn’t fundamentally technical—it’s natural. Dealing with energy sources that are inherently unreliable, and require large amounts of land, comes at a high economic cost,” Shellenberger wrote. 

Shellenberger continued: "As for house cats, they don’t kill big, rare, threatened birds. What house cats kill are small, common birds, like sparrows, robins and jays. What kills big, threatened, and endangered birds—birds that could go extinct—like hawks, eagles, owls, and condors, are wind turbines. In fact, wind turbines are the most serious new threat to important bird species to emerge in decades. The rapidly spinning turbines act like an apex predator which big birds never evolved to deal with."

He added: "In order to build one of the biggest solar farms in California the developers hired biologists to pull threatened desert tortoises from their burrows, put them on the back of pickup trucks, transport them, and cage them in pens where many ended up dying."

Wednesday, 11 December 2019

NEW SHORT VIDEOS DEBUNK ALARMIST JUNK SCIENCE

Two new short videos from Tony Heller can be viewed here and here from the master of communication on climate. Simplicity, clarity and brevity makes for a powerful message. Tony should get an award for his contribution which deserves a much wider audience.

Tuesday, 10 December 2019

UK CLIMATE OUTLOOK - NEW VIDEO

Here's a great new brief video from Tony Heller showing how the climate alarmists are having great difficulty in deciding what the climate of the UK is going to be like. His gentle humour combined with actual press cuttings make his point in a very effective way. Humour is a great weapon if used effectively as Tony does. 

Monday, 9 December 2019

JOURNALIST ASKS AWKWARD QUESTIONS OF CLIMATE EXTREMISTS

Here is the article containing some excellent probing questions leading to some revealing answers. If only all journalists would do the key work of interrogating the wild claims of these activists we might get a more sensible debate instead of one-sided propaganda forced on us day after day with ever more ludicrous claims which, when they don't materialise, will only increase doubts over the whole hypothesis.

Sunday, 8 December 2019

CLIMATE HYSTERIA MEETS DIPLOMACY IN MADRID

This article highlights the growing gulf between what the governments of the world are prepared to do and what the hysterical climate zealots, such as teenager Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion want. 

Here is a short extract: "COP 25 is real negotiations, by real countries, over real issues. The issues are stupid, but still real, because they can lead to really stupid national actions. This I call the moderate camp of alarmists. The hysterics want impossible actions, stuff that cannot happen, which sets them against the moderates."

Saturday, 7 December 2019

HOW MUCH WARMER WAS THE LAST DECADE THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE?

This piece attempts to give an answer. The figure they give is 0.158 +/_ 0.096 which equates to between 0.062 and 0.254 degrees C. I admit I am not an expert in statistics but for such a small number the range seems huge with the second figure being over four times the first. I wonder if it is even possible to measure such a small amount with any certainty. It could not be noticed by humans using their senses. 

Friday, 6 December 2019

PROOF THAT 98% OF AIR PASSENGERS DON'T CARE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Here is the proof.  Fake surveys keep telling us how much the public want action on climate change. Part of the aim is to scare politicians and trick them into thinking that voters won’t vote for sceptics and will be happy to pay more for electricity, food, cars, and everything. But the awful truth is that the voters “vote” with their own wallets every time they fly, and 98% of them don’t care enough to spend a single dollar. That’s even when the airlines do all the work and just ask their customers to “tick a box”.

That tells us exactly how much the punters are panicking about climate change, and suggests that most western democracies are absolutely ripe-for-the-picking for any politician with the balls to make the case that trying (and failing) to change the global weather will cost a fortune, and the costs will all go back to voters, and it’s an insane waste of money.
The only reason voters ever tick the “we should do more” box is when they think “the government”, i.e. someone else, will have to pay for it.

Thursday, 5 December 2019

BANK OF ENGLAND GOVERNOR TO TAKE UP UNPAID UN CLIMATE JOB

This article confirms that the current Bank of England governor, Mark Carney,has been appointed UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. It is amazing how many well-educated people have become completely convinced that fighting climate change is so vitally important. My first thought was that this was a well-paid job, but no it is an unpaid position. I'm sure Mark Carney is not in need of a paid job, but it seems that he must actually believe in what he is doing.

Wednesday, 4 December 2019

GRETA THUNBERG REVEALS HER TRUE AIM - COMMUNISM

This article reveals that Danish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, is not just a climate change activist, but in fact a communist who, like Extinction Rebellion wants to redistribute the world's wealth. Like every communist before her she believes she can create a more equal world, but as she will learn as she gets older,  not only does every communist have a different idea about how this should be done, but also she will discover that the leaders will always corrupt the system to suit themselves.

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

EU POLITICIANS BEGIN TO BREAK RANKS OVER CLIMATE

See here for details. While they were still defeated it is remarkable that so many voted against, as the EU has been so vocal in demanding action on climate change. It marks a departure from the consensus that has been in place for so long. Could it be that some politicians are beginning to realise the dark tunnel that they are about to enter if they pursue the present course.

Monday, 2 December 2019

CLIMATE SCEPTICS CAN, AND DO, WIN ELECTIONS

Here is some news from earlier in the year that somehow escaped me at the time. It concerns elections held in the Netherlands in which a political party campaigned specifically against the policies being put forward by the governing party and other opposition parties to deal with climate change. The result was that they actually became the largest party. This shows that despite the non-stop one-sided propaganda being put out by the media, when given an alternative to the costly climate policies, a substantial number of voters are ready to vote for them.

Sunday, 1 December 2019

THE CRAZY WORLD OF THE IPCC

Here is a good piece which shows the crazy way the IPCC reaches decisions on the final text of climate change reports. What it shows is that these so-called Summaries for Policymakers are nothing more than the result of political bargaining and do not actually represent what scientists think at all. More on this Here.

Saturday, 30 November 2019

EU PARLIAMENT FACING DILEMMA OVER CO2 EMISSIONS OF BRUSSELS - STRASBURG TRIPS

For fifty years the EU parliament has made monthly trips from Brussels to Strasburg for political reasons at a huge cost both in terms of money and fuel. Now the EU parliament is to consider (and more or less certainly will) call a "climate emergency. How hypocritical would they be, if they did this without ending this wasteful farce. This article explains the details. 

Friday, 29 November 2019

PARIS 1.5 DEGREE C TEMPERATURE LIMIT COMPLETE GUESSWORK

This article explains why. If anyone still believes that the UN IPCC is a purely scientific body then this quote from its 2018 report should convince you otherwise: “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday.” 

Thursday, 28 November 2019

CLIMATE SCEPTICS HAVE NO CHOICE AT THIS ELECTION

Here's a good article that bemoans the lack of choice for voters at this UK election who are sceptical about the so-called climate emergency. I agree with this premise, but I do understand why the Conservatives decided to go along with the climate alarm stuff - simply because they believe that many have been brain-washed by the constant outpourings of the TV companies, including Saint David Attenborough.

Political parties are ruthless organisations that will quite readily distort the truth to get votes by making promises that are never quite what they seem. Upsetting any section of voters is unwise as Mrs May discovered back in 2017. I am prepared to give Boris the benefit of the doubt and hope that post election he starts back-pedalling on this climate stuff.  

Wednesday, 27 November 2019

UN EXPERT REPORT ALTERED TO TURN IT INTO PROPAGANDA FOR POLITICAL REASONS

Many people completely trust the United Nations, but when you read this article you may well change your mind. The article refers to a scientific report into the alleged chemical attack by Assad's forces during the Syrian conflict. The report led to reprisals by the USA, France and the UK. This could have led to a massive escalation of the conflict.

The point here is that if the UN is capable of using scientific reports here in this way how can we trust other scientific reports from them, such as those on global warming?

Tuesday, 26 November 2019

GERMAN GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO COMMIT TO A CARBON BUDGET

This article explains the details. The main news reports on TV and in the press have not reported this and we can only surmise that the reason is that it underlines the fact that the UK is not part of some big alliance of nations that is aiming for net zero emissions. On the contrary the UK is going alone in forcing its people to become poorer and to undergo the hardship which will inevitably follow from giving up almost all fossil fuel use, despite the fact that, alone, we will have no measurable effect on atmospheric CO2 levels, hence no effect on the climate. 

Monday, 25 November 2019

ALARMIST POLITICIAN GIVES STOCK ANSWER TO SCEPTIC CASE FOR NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY

This piece contains a short video clip of the reaction of an MEP to being presented with a case that there is no climate emergency. It is, in my experience,  a typical response that makes no attempt to refute the facts, but simply denies the points that don't fit the narrative that they have accepted unquestioningly to be true. There is no debate but simply a lofty denial based on some higher irrefutable authority. Most politicians have little knowledge of science themselves and so rely completely on these higher authorities such as the IPCC and even then they are unaware of what the IPCC has actually said as opposed to what Extinction Rebellion or some other activist group has said.

Sunday, 24 November 2019

COUNCILS COME UP AGAINST THE REALITY OF ZERO CO2 EMISSIONS

It's all very well for councils to pass motions declaring a climate emergency but when it comes to making decisions to spend large sums of taxpayers' money they suddenly find it is not nearly so easy. This article is a good example from Brighton Council, which has one of the highest numbers of Green Party members in the country.

Meanwhile at the other end of the country in Cumbria we find the same thing. Despite both councils declaring climate emergencies. 

As a councillor myself I am delighted to say that my own council has rejected the proposal to declare a climate emergency. The councillor who proposed that motion found himself in a dilemma when he, quite rightly, voted in favour of a new plant at the local Fawley Refinery, despite the fact that it implied that fossil fuels would continue for many years to come.


Saturday, 23 November 2019

MICHAEL MANN GOES TO THE SUPREME COURT TO SUE MAGAZINE

This article looks at the case. Mann has recently lost another case against Tim Ball. This latest case was for defamation against the National Review which published an article by Mark Steyn in which he did not pull his punches. Just where is the balance between freedom of speech and defaming someone?

Friday, 22 November 2019

YET MORE TEMPERATURE DATA TAMPERING BY A NATIONAL CLIMATE ORGANISATION

More temperature date fiddling is reported going on in Australia. It is so blatant and yet there is no mention of it in the news media. It seems that the public are being kept in the dark about this, but why you ask. It can only be because they fear some sort of retribution if they do report it.

Thursday, 21 November 2019

THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS AND HERE'S THE PROOF

This article is quite lengthy, but it gives a lot of evidence to back up the title of this post. Here is a short precis without all the evidence to give a flavour of the article:

There is no climate crisis. There is no ocean acidification crisis. There is no extinction crisis.
The greatest expansion of life on Earth occurred 540 million years ago, when CO2 was at its peak. Atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 15 times higher than they are now. Corals and shellfish evolved during that time.  If ocean acidification was a real problem, there would have been no sea life, rather than a massive expansion of life in the oceans..
Earth is getting greener as CO2 increases.  The reason we have coal beds, is because there used to be a lot more atmospheric CO2, which made earth very green.  This greenery turned into thick peat beds, which turned into coal.

CO2 makes plants grow faster and makes them use less water. It does not make them go extinct. As CO2 emissions have increased, crop yields have increased with them. As CO2 has risen, agricultural productivity has increased with it.  Hunger has declined sharply.  Poverty has declined sharply.  Life expectancy has increased sharply.  And as CO2 has risen, deaths from natural disasters have plummeted. 

“Scientists say” that sea level is rising faster than at any time in the last 2,800 years.  
This is in direct contradiction to the 1990 IPCC report, which said there was no convincing evidence of an acceleration of sea level rise during the 20th century.
If sea level rise rates were accelerating, tide gauge graphs around the world would be non-linear with an upwards curvature.  Water seeks a level surface, so any nonlinear “response” would be seen globally.  There is no evidence of an upwards curvature in any long-term tide gauge.

The lack of acceleration in sea level rise also tells us that Arctic melt is not accelerating. The only thing which has changed is the data, which has been massively tampered with by government agencies.

Wednesday, 20 November 2019

GLOBAL WARMING CAUSING THE GREAT DIVIDE

Here is an interesting look at the way belief in global warming alarm is dividing people. There are some good points made. In addition I would add that there are a large number of people who publicly claim to believe, but privately do not. This is particularly important in those who are opinion-formers, such as politicians. They don't speak out as they fear that this would lead to them being marginalised, or even be voted out. Interestingly that does not seem to have happened to the odd few who have had the courage to do so, such as David Davies who had an increased majority despite expressing clear sceptic views on climate change. If only more were prepared to do so we might have a real debate on the evidence instead of a phoney silence from our MPs.

Tuesday, 19 November 2019

AFTER 10 YEARS, THOSE CLIMATEGATE EMAILS STILL LEAVE A STAIN ON SCIENCE

Climate Science Proves Scams Don’t Die of Exposure
Tony Thomas, Quadrant, 14 November 2019

 
It’s the tenth anniversary next week of the 2009 Climategate email dump that exposed top climate scientists’ chicanery and subversion of science – and did so in their own words and out of their own mouths, or keyboards.



 
I’ll list a few emails-of-infamy shortly, but first some background.
 
For the three years before Climategate, the climate crowd was ascendant with its pseudo-narrative of “settled science”. Al Gore’s error-riddled propaganda movie Inconvenient Truth of 2006 had swept the Western world and its readily-traduced schoolkids. In 2007 Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the Nobel Peace Prize. In late 2008 Barack Obama won the White House, proclaiming in his modest way, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
 
The Climategate emails hit the blogosphere just a month before the Copenhagen summit was scheduled to lock Western countries into Kyoto Mark 2, a legally-binding commitment to renewables from 2012.
 
Climategate destroyed warmists’ moral high ground and reinforced the natural reluctance of most governments to up-end their economies with emission controls. The  Copenhagen circus fell apart, resolving merely to “take note” of the exhortations to action by Obama and like-minded leaders.
 
The mainstream media strove to ignore and bury the Climategate  revelations. The climate establishment ran half a dozen inquiries with limited briefs and ludicrous lack of rigour, all of which purported to clear the climate scientists of wrong-doing.[1] 
 
But even today, ten years after, scientists faithful to their calling and disciplines can only shudder at what Climategate revealed. Those who subverted the scientific method were not fringe players but at the pinnacle. They were doing the archetypal studies “proving” catastrophic human-caused catastrophic warming (CAGW) and shaping the content and messaging in the six-yearly reports of the IPCC.
 
The hacked (or otherwise revealed) email archive spanning the prior decade was stored by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit[2]. The CRU co-compiled the HadCRUT global temperature series, along with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre. This data set charting alleged global warming in fractions of a degree was a key input to the climate computer models forecasting doomladen heat for this century. (The model forecasts continue to exceed actual measured warming). Based on these dud modelled forecasts, the West is now spending $US1.5 trillion a year in quest of zero CO2 emissions.
 
Today, anyone questioning this colossal enterprise is told to “respect the science”. Based on the Climategate emails released in 2009, 2013 and 2015, I’d rather respect the Mafia, who at least don’t claim to be saving the planet. For example, today we’re told that warming of 2 deg C above pre-industrial level is some sort of a tipping point of doom. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, emailed on September 6, 2007, that the supposed 2-degree limit was “plucked out of thin air”, a throwaway line in an early 1990s paper from the catastrophists at the Potsdam Climate Impacts Institute.
 
Now for the emails. We journos love a local angle, and here’s one – the CRU’s Ian “Harry” Harris worked for four years to de-bug and properly document a CRU data base “TS 2.1” of global stations recording monthly temperatures.
 
One input  was from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, with its frequent adjustments that result in a greater warming trend (think Rutherglen and Darwin). Harry’s comments in a 200-page logging of notes:
 
What a bloody mess. Now looking at the dates… something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS [data from an Australian weather station] cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993! … getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. So many new stations have been introduced, so many false references … so many changes that aren’t documented … I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was…Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight…! […]
 
Subverting peer review
 
Climategate showed how warmist scientists gamed the peer review process to ensure a monopoly for their views. When two papers contrary to their ‘consensus’ were published, CRU director Phil Jones and his circle pulled out all stops to get the editor sacked and prevent such papers being considered by the IPCC.
 
Jones, 8 July 2004:

…I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth, leading climate scientist] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
 
US colleague Dr Michael Mann (author of the influential-but-wrong Hockey Stick graph of the past 1000 years’ temperature), July 3, 2003:
 
It seems clear we have to go above [the sceptic author Chris de Freitas] … I think that the community should, as Mike H [warmist scientist] has previously suggested in this eventuality, terminate its involvement with this journal at all levels –reviewing, editing, and submitting, and leave it to wither way into oblivion and disrepute. […]
 
The IPCC exposed
 
UK Met Bureau’s Peter Thorne, concerning work on the IPCC’s 2007 fourth report:
 
I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.
 
Jones admits the political bias in the IPCC’s all-important Summary for Policy Makers (SPM):
 
He says he’ll read the IPCC Chapters! He hadn’t as he said he thought they were politically biased. I assured him they were not. The SPM [Summary for Policy Makers] may be, but not the chapters.
 
IPCC coordinating lead author Jonathan Overpeck:
 
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out [of IPCC reports].
 
Need it be said that leaving out inconvenient stuff is anathema to real, genuine, principled science?
Warmist Mike Hulme agrees that
 
the debate around climate change is fundamentally about power and politics rather than the environment … There are not that many ‘facts’ about (the meaning of) climate change which science can unequivocally reveal
 
From climate scientist Giorgi Filippo, who contributed to all five IPCC Assessment Reports:
 
I feel rather uncomfortable about using not only unpublished but also un- reviewed material as the backbone of our conclusions (or any conclusions)…I feel that at this point there are very little rules and almost anything goes
 
Email 5286 from scientist Hans von Storch:
 
We should explain why we don’t think the information robust yet. Climate research has become a postnormal science, with the intrusion of political demands and significant influence by activists driven by ideological (well meant) concerns.”
 
Also from von Storch:
 
The concealment of dissent and uncertainty in favor of a politically good cause takes its toll on credibility, for the public is more intelligent than is usually assumed
 
Scientist Richard Somerville, 2004:
We don’t understand cloud feedbacks. We don’t understand air-sea interactions. We don’t understand aerosol indirect effects. The list is long.
 
Warmist Kevin Trenberth:
We are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter
 
Michael Mann, 2006:
We certainly don’t know the GLOBAL mean temperature anomaly very well, and nobody has ever claimed we do.
 
Full post

Monday, 18 November 2019

CHINA'S NEW AGENDA - COAL POWER TO BE TOP PRIORITY

China has signalled that coal power will be a top priority within national energy policy as the government prepares its next Five Year Plan (2021-25).

On 11 October, Premier Li Keqiang chaired a meeting of the National Energy Commission in Beijing that emphasised China’s energy security and coal utilisation and downplayed the importance of a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

Each meeting of the commission, which was established in 2010 and has met only four times, has had a significant impact on policymaking. Chaired by Premier Li and attended by more than 20 chiefs of China’s ministries and bureaus, the commission is the top body for coordinating energy policy.

Why is energy security back at the top of the agenda?

Li told the conference: “The government should diversify energy supply to improve energy security… enhance domestic oil and gas exploration and development efforts, and promote oil and gas reserves and production, in order to improve oil and gas self-sufficiency”.

The renewed focus on energy security comes amid an increase in domestic consumption of oil and gas, which is largely being met through imports. China’s dependence on energy imports rose from 9% in 2014 to more than 20% in 2018.

China’s domestic crude oil production has declined and efforts to tap unconventional sources of natural gas, such as shale gas and coalbed methane, have faltered.

Other causes for concern lie outside China. The ongoing trade dispute with the US is a threat to the energy trade between the two superpowers, and supplies from the Middle East are at risk from mounting instability in the region.
 
The green transition loses ‘acceleration’

The government’s concern over energy security is positive for coal given that China has lots of it. At the meeting, Li Keqiang spoke of speeding up the construction of large-scale coal transportation and electricity transmission infrastructure. He wants to promote “safe and green coal mining”, the “clean and efficient development of coal-fired power”, and to “develop and utilise coalbed methane”.  

Li also downplayed China’s low-carbon energy transition. At the same meeting in 2016, Li called on China to: “increase the proportion of renewables in the energy mix” and “accelerate” such a transition. This year, there was no mention of renewable energy’s share of the energy mix and “acceleration” was replaced by the blander term “development”. The change of tone was hard to miss….
 
Although China is under international pressure to increase its climate ambition in 2020 and accelerate its energy transition, Chinese policymakers still see coal as the bedrock of the country’s energy security, playing a major role in the 14th Five Year Plan.
 
Full story
 

Told you so:  The Road From Paris: China's Climate U-Turn

Sunday, 17 November 2019

PROPAGANDA POLLING ON CLIMATE MAKES ASTONISHING CLAIMS

Yet more climate propaganda reported in the Guardian.
"A majority of the UK public and almost half of Conservative voters support a radical plan to transform the economy and tackle the climate crisis, a poll suggests."

YouGov found that 56% of people back the total decarbonisation of the UK economy by 2030 and just under half support public spending to make large swathes of public transport free to use. Without knowing the cost, or who pays.
But, below is the crucial question asked. It might as well say "do you want to carry on living as you do now but with more trees?" "The UK Government has committed to a target of bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. This means making efforts to lower carbon emissions and off-setting any emissions with schemes such as tree-planting or using technology like carbon capture and storage. When do you think the Government should aim to be net zero by?"

2025 or earlier                                               32

2030                                                              24

2045                                                                8

2050 or later                                                    8

This should not be a Government target        8

Don't know                                                    19

As Julia Hartley-Brewer suggests, let’s try asking this question again: "Would you agree to give up your car, your central heating, foreign holidays and pay thousands more in tax to deliver an energy policy that will have ZERO effect on climate change?" I wonder what the answer would be then...

Read the full report here.at Breitbart.

Saturday, 16 November 2019

TIME FOR GOVERNMENTS TO BRING IN CONTROLS ON DEMONSTRATIONS

This piece highlights the words of the Australian PM who is suggesting that protestors, in this case on climate change, should be reined in so that they cannot disrupt the lives of ordinary people. It sounds like common sense to me. omeone should ask our party leaders about this during the general election.

Protesting has always been a part of life in a democracy and it must be allowed but with the rise of huge movements as a result of the internet its nature has changed. It's time these mass demos were confined to one area of a city. We had the same problems with strikes back in the 1980's until new laws were brought in to limit them. Now it is generally felt that things are much better. Unions are subject to large fines if they breach the rules. The same should apply to well-funded organisations who cause mass demonstrations.

Friday, 15 November 2019

SCEPTICS v ALARMISTS - THE CLIMATE WAR

There seems to be a game of seeing who has the biggest and best group of scientists. Is it this group or maybe it's this one. The alarmist list is bigger but the sceptic one seems more realistic. As one  well known scientist once said "if just one scientist can disprove my theory it is wrong"