UPDATE: See what David Hone from Shell thought. He went and discovered the “”vegan” “low tech” element who talk of annihilating coal.
Tyndall Centre UK has just held The Radical Emission Reduction Conference: 10-11 December 2013. This is their logo:
Things have to go “radical” now, because there are no sensible pragmatic or long term solutions left:
“About the conference
Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non- radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.
These people are seriously discussing reductions of energy of 8%, not just by 2020, but every year.
“… More specifically the conference will consider how to deliver reductions in energy consumption of at least 8% per year (~60% across a decade). It will foster an up-beat and can-do mentality.
The Radical Emission Reduction Conference
“For collectivists, a focus on opinions and social popularity sits awkwardly with plans to change global climate which requires an understanding of maths and numbers.”
At least no one is pretending cheap solar will save the day. Now the aim is to make coal as expensive as solar (which is much more achievable, sadly).
Charlie Baker, URBED:
Expensive energy is a good thing, isn’t it, when you are a university academic on the government gravy train.
Fighting climate change is like fighting World War II, but it’s more complex (seriously, they say that).
Laurence Delina and Dr. Mark Diesendorf, Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales
Who knew that a life and death battle against mass army’s of killers, with a race to develop better radar, encryption codes, and nuclear weapons, was simpler than fighting a trace gas? Anyone get the feeling these academics don’t know a lot of history?
We just have to change our lifestyles (apparently).
You won’t need to visit relatives anymore, get used to staying at home, and enjoying your “local” environment.
And the Chinese will have to learn to like the low energy lifestyle, I’m sure they will take kindly to being told the American Dream is out of their reach.
These people are so out of touch with reality they are dangerous. The problem is the system that feeds them. Tax dollars supported this event, and the salaries of the people who spoke there. The Tyndall Centre is almost entirely funded through universities and grants: namely the University of East Anglia, University of Cambridge, Cardiff University, University of Manchester, Newcastle University, University of Oxford, University of Southampton, and the University of Sussex. Some money comes from the Chinese, Fudan University. These people are tax-eaters.
Who is responsible for the decision to send taxpayer funds this way instead of something useful? The tax money passes through a web of hands, so accountability becomes a web too. But ultimately someone is responsible for the process and the outcome.
Does the buck stop with David Cameron?
Let me know what other gems lie hidden in the abstracts….
h/t Paul Matthews
UPDATE
David Hone (Shell Climate Change Advisor) actually went to the conference and found a bunch of ideologues.
this was a room of catastrophists (as in “catastrophic global warming”), with the prevailing view, at least to my ears, that the issue could only be addressed by the complete transformation of the global energy and political systems, with the latter moving to one of state control and regulated consumerism. There would be no room for “ruthless individualism” in such a world. The posters that dotted the lecture theatre lobby area covered topics as diverse as vegan diets to an eventual return to low technology hunter-gatherer societies (but thankfully there was one CCS poster in the middle of all this). Much to my surprise I was not really at an emission reduction conference (despite the label saying I was), but a political ideology conference. Although I have been involved in the climate change issue for over a decade, I had not heard this set of views on the issue voiced so consistently in one place. This was a room where there was a round of applause when one audience member asked how LNG and coal exporters in Australia might be “annihilated” following their (supposed) support for the repeal of the carbon tax in that country.
Here was I just thinking (on the Wind Towers post) that the sensible greens (in that case the ones who didn’t like to see rare birds killed) needed to separate themselves from the political activists who wear green disguises. Here’s a different thread, where the economic activists (Shell) wear green disguises, but need to separate themselves from the greens-who-can’t-count.
sounds radical! count me out. look forward to digging into it, tho. meanwhile this remains the level of the MSM debate:
13 Dec: Age: Peter Hannam: Greg Hunt’s claim on carbon figures little more than hot air
Hook, link, sinker
But the release on Friday of the full greenhouse gas inventory figures reveals the bait swallowed whole by much of the media last weekend to be, well, off.
As Fairfax Media reported on Monday, the detailed annual breakdown would probably show that emissions from sectors of the economy directly covered by the carbon tax – specifically the power industry – had fallen. Other sectors, such as fugitive emissions from the gas and coal industries would show a rise.
“It was a disgrace for the government to selectively leak
those figures,” said Greens leader Christine Milne. “What the greenhouse gas figures show is that emissions are coming down in the biggest (emitting) sector in the economy.”
Masked decline
How hard was it for journalists to fill in the blanks?…
Senator Milne said the rise in fugitive emissions comes as both the gas and coal industries ramp up for even faster expansion…
“What is Greg Hunt going to do to get emissions from land clearing and fugitive sources down?,” Senator Milne said…
Sunday’s spin may have hit its mark with the target media audience but in the end it failed in its main goal: to press Labor and the Greens senators to pass the carbon tax repeal bills.
“This (inventory) information flies in the face of Tony Abbott’s attempt to bully the Senate into agreeing to scrap an effective climate change policy this week, without having a credible alternative,” said a media adviser for Labor’s environment spokesman, Mark Butler.
Still, there is always next year and a new Senate from July to scrap the carbon prices and replace it with a Direct Action plan to pay emitters to cut back…
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/greg-hunts-claim-on-carbon-figures-little-more-than-hot-air-20131213-2zc6q.html
reading the comments makes my head hurt.
110
Pat:
if you are going to expose yourself to such sites, you need to build up your immunity.
In Australia read the comments in Earth Garden. Don’t waste your money buying it, you will probably find a copy in the local public library. After a while your tendency to hurl the magazine away with great violence will be replaced by a morbid desire to find the stupidest comment of the month. (I think it is a monthly, it is some time since I ever bothered, because my throwing arm still twitches when I see a copy).
In there you will find the full gamut of the sort of people who go to these conference. If this sounds too extreme a remedy, start with RENEW (quarterly) which gets some of the same types but who aren’t able to reach plague proportions because the Technical Director keeps letting reality creep in.
I don’t know what the equivalent rags are overseas but they will be available. Usually the title will include Mother Earth or Sustainable Living or some such tag.
I can’t make up my mind whether most of these commenters are insane or merely brainwashed. Think of Michael the Realist or Margot as the types closest to sanity. Mind you, you can see the attractions to young healthy upper middle class couples to life on their own 5 -25 acres of well watered, fertile soil conveniently located to services, and rendered affordable by a secure income from the government. They then gradually lose touch with much of society, hence their immoderate outpourings. If you’ve got a sense of humour, small doses won’t do you any harm. But whatever you do, don’t try to debate with them, anything less than complete agreement makes them furious.
180
You do get the feeling that the alarmists are in terminal burnout. Nobody is interested in them anymore and in response they just jack up the hysteria and hype. They’re actually pushing themselves to the political margin.
Pointman
592
Pointman
You could well be right.
Here is a new scare story, but not really sure what we could do about it.
http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/WEBMAIL/thumbnail/291×167/http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1513582/thumbs/a-EARTH-EXPLODING-386×217.jpg
30
Well, if that picture ever eventuates, who is going to care? And will it matter? The Universe will just keep on doing whatever it is doing now.
The sun will explode eventually, perhaps we need a tax on sunlight, to stop that happening? Britain had a window tax at some stage, perhaps it is still on the statute books? That might do the trick.
161
Sorry to nitpick you of all people Rereke, but our sun is much too small to “go supernova”. Rather, it will implode into a ‘white dwarf’. Even that ain’t gonna be pretty!
Mind you, all life will long have departed this planet by one means or anther before this happens.
70
Excuse me! Do I look like an astrophysist? And whatever happened to poetic licence? 🙂
Actually, thank you for pointing that out. I remember reading somewhere (probably in “New Scientist”, before I cancelled it), that the sun would eventually explode and then dramatically contract into a white dwarf. This made sense at the time, because an explosion on earth creates a vacuum which then sucks blast debris into the centre. But in space, it is all vacuum, so that couldn’t happen, could it?
Gravity sucks!
70
That in itself would have all the pretext you’d have needed to cancel that ‘scragazine’ Rereke!
This isn’t the place to bang on about the differences between a white dwarf and a supernova remnant so I shall cease and desist forthwith.
40
Actually, it will morph into a red giant which will engulf the earth before it finally evolves into a white dwarf
20
I’ll let you know when it happens which way it goes.
🙂
20
Just in case anyone is interested …
Yellow stars like Sol die rather spectacularly but slowly. They do expand … a bit. They throw off mass in a beautiful planetary nebula, which is somewhat fatal for any planets … before becoming a
dwarf. No nova. No red giant.
The red giant is the phase prior to supernova for large blue stars. It does not apply to plain little yellow stars. The Pleiades star cluster contains six or seven large blue stars of this type. The haze in the cluster is from dust and gas from previous supernovas as these biggies pop their corks. Examples of blue stars in their red giant phase (close to their big bangs) in the Southern sky are Betelgeuse (Orion) and Antares (Scorpio). Aldeberan (Taurus) is an interesting case, its an orange star rather than a red giant. These are closest to our solar system.
Good examples of dying yellow stars throwing off planetary nebulae are:
the Butterfly nebula M2-9, the Helix nebula (NGC 7293), and the Cat’s Eye nebula NGC 6543
There are many more out there … with some specacularly beautiful photos from the space telescopes. I use the above nebulae as desktop wallpaper … they haven’t set fire to my monitor, yet.
10
I respectfully disagree with your statement regarding red giants. So does Wikipedia, for what it’s worth. Also, see here:
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/senior/astrophysics/stellarevolution_deathlow.html
for further confirmation.
00
Typo Jo, “army’s” s/b armies.
30
In fact … there is NO case – EVER – in English grammar, where an apostrophe is used to indicate a plural – DESPITE the attempts of the illiterate lefty-educated Gen X, Y, and Z.
91
These academics hate history, because it repeatedly demonstrates the presence of people making rational judgments between good and bad, right and wrong, rather than just letting what made them feel good drive their actions.
280
These academics are (or hopefully soon will be ) history.
151
Clearly they have not understood anything I have been saying!
CO2 does not cause the earth to warm. Warming, if there is any, is due to natural causes.
302
Jo,
In Canada, we are a hurting…
Politicians just don’t get it…
Massive hikes on electrical bills for their poor subsidies on bad technology.
Hike in fuel taxes for our transit system.
Plant closings, store chains closing and layoffs all over.
Aid(charities) for poor way beyond breaking point.
Inflation on basic needs rising and wages falling.
Company buyouts by stock speculators.
Massive debt by everyone including our 3 levels of government.
And the politicians saying our economy is fine and robust.
The banking system is absolutely terrified of deflation as then they have to hike interest rates to keep their RECORD profit margins up.
250
I just got a Christmas note from a Cousin in Sunny Manitoba and they have experienced MINUS FORTY SIX! I’ve seen colder than that in the Yukon, but in Southern Manitoba? Before Christmas? It must have been frigid at Portage and Main!
90
Last March SWMBO and I were held up on “The Canadian” for 14 hours by a fierce [out of season according to the locals] snow storm. -23C in Winnipeg when we stopped there. Sunny but somewhat brisk.
For someone from a temperate climate it was fascinating – and the bar on the train was open anyway.
20
Ah, ‘collectivism’; recounting that peaceful, co-operative golden age around WWII of brotherly love and plenty. What’s not to like? Apart from the 4-6 million slow, lingering painful deaths from starvation in the Soviet Union. How about the 45 million poor souls who perished in China under Mao’s collectivist policies, where peasants had to turn to cannibalism to survive? Widespread misery, malnutrition and high infant mortality in the Western world anyone? Breathtaking doesn’t seem to be an adequate term to describe the ignorance of these tonelessly bleating Malthusian activists and reality-challenged academics.
340
JJB MIKI – Mao is variously ‘credited’ with up to 78M deaths and leads the league table in global genocidal slaughter. There is a handy list of other similar indviduals.
Beats me, it really does, that so many appear to relish wearing T shirts depicting Mao, Che Guevara et al.
For passing trolls, Al Gore T shirts available here.
140
I think some rate higher when you include starvation. Mugabe has been responsible for killing millions and pulling down the country from one of the richest in Africa to one of the poorest. The communist regime in Burma (a name used now by Aung San Suu Kyi- the majority of people are Burmans )has pulled the resource rich country down from one of the richest (per capita) in Asia in the 1930’s to one of the poorest in the process of killing rebels and their supporters as well as causing starvation. The environmental alarmist already have caused poverty and death in poor countries and if allowed to continue with their policies will be responsible for many more deaths than caused by natural catastrophes.
50
– “Mr FOIA”, 13 March 2013.
60
A true hero, Andrew. In every sense of the word. Only those with no morals think otherwise.
40
JJB MKI
And don’t forget Pol Pot; on a pro-rata basis, he’s up there with the best of them. And, like his intellectual forebears, essentially an academic who got the chance to enforce his theories at whatever cost.
Cheers,
Speedy
90
The Uni of NSW have really smart people,they can work out that its easier to get people to rally against an army you can see,as opposed to a money grabbing idea of utter b*****t.
80
“The only remaining utility the fanatics of climate alarmism have is for our ends. Their job is to become ever more strident, more extreme, to become angrier and more marginal, to further discredit the cause and alienate ordinary people. Our job is to encourage them do that.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/used-intelligently-theyre-our-bitches-now/
Pointman
150
Pointman, add in researchers Patrick Davies, Indra Neil Guha, Graham Johnson and the British Medical Journal who, apparently, published a ‘serious’ research study on the drinking habits of James Bond!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/james-bond-an-impotent-alcoholic/story-fn3dxix6-1226782881676
60
It may not be outside the bounds of possibility that the x-rated activists who do really require parental guidance will have a crack at real activism, and I don’t mean pontificating from pillowed armchairs at expensive conference venues.
A little prophylactic locking up – Pitcairn Island – might be a pre-emptive solution? They could roam there to their hearts content.
80
The watermelon speaks! The power of this quote is in the fact she said it! It lays bare the agenda of the alarmists as not saving the planet, but in getting that all mighty “One Ring” of totalitarianism!
220
Here is the bio of uber-green-alarmist Rebecca Willis, who is well-qualified to spout garbage. She’s been doing it for years at the taxpayers’ expense:
Rebecca Willis is an independent researcher. Her work focuses on environmental politics and policymaking at both a national and local level. Rebecca convenes Green Alliance’s Climate Leadership Programme for MPs, and advises the Lake District National Park on climate change. In May 2011 she was appointed as a Council Member of the Natural Environment Research Council. She writes on issues such as climate change, energy policy, public attitudes to the environment, government spending and taxation, and the environmental and social impact of new technologies.
From 2004-11 Rebecca was Vice-Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, working with government ministers, advisers and officials to ensure that government policy reflects sustainability goals.
Her freelance portfolio has included work with a range of organisations including Co-operatives UK, Ashridge Business School, Cranfield University and The University of Leeds. Current and recent projects include:
Low-Carbon Lake District: Development of a carbon budget for the Lake District, to ensure a strategic response to climate change action within the National Park.
The Disrupters: Lessons for low-carbon innovation from the new wave of environmental pioneers, a profile of eight innovators – The Disrupters – who are pioneering solutions to climate change.
A Green Living Initiative, co-authored with Professor Paul Ekins and published by the Policy Studies Institute, analysing the role of tax incentives in promoting sustainable households.
Advice to the Cumbria Strategic Partnership on measures to reduce carbon emissions across Cumbria.
Taking part in the judging panel for NESTA’s Big Green Challenge, a community carbon reduction initiative with a £1 million prize fund.
Rebecca is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars, and has contributed to a range of media including BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme, The Guardian, New Statesman and specialist environmental press. She is an Associate of the think-tank Demos, and of environmental group Green Alliance. From 2001-4 she was Green Alliance’s Director. Previously, Rebecca spent two years as a policy adviser at the European Parliament in Brussels, specialising in international environmental issues.
Rebecca has a degree in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and a masters degree in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex.
60
So, in other words, she is a trained bulls##t artist, who has no scientific knowledge, except how to suck on the taxpayer teat.
110
This is strongly indicative of why certain (types of) people are drawn to such causes. They can hide within the collective and don’t have to take personal responsibility. It also perfectly aligns with why they can’t think for themselves.
80
I see the parallels to WW II all right. It also required a massive effort to defeat a totalitarian ideology.
250
So, a radical plan eh! Reduce power consumption by 8% ….. PER YEAR.
Easy peasy.
Power is consumed in three sectors, Residential, Commerce and Industry, and the Residential sector in Australia consumes 20% of ALL electrical power.
This image shows the average power consumption in a typical Australian home.
Residential Power Usage
Where is the average Australian home going to reduce power consumption by 8% ….. PER YEAR, full in the knowledge that next year you’ll need to find another 8%.
What 8% of your home power consumption will you do without?
That accounts for the homes we live in.
For Commerce, then we close down one office building in 12 per year, one shop in every 12 every year, One Coles or Woolies in every 12 per year. One shopping mall in 12 per year. One twelfth of the electrified rail system each year, one hospital in 12 each year, one University in 12 each year, one twelfth of traffic control each year, one twelfth of street lighting each year, one airport in 12 each year, and on and on and on.
For Industry, one in 12 of them every year also.
Now, you add up all the jobs associated with all of that.
Do you seriously think that any political party in Government would actually survive an election after putting this, umm, plan in place.
Sometimes I’m certain that these people who propose sierrahotelindiatango like this have had part of their brain surgically removed.
Tony.
500
Exactly Tony. Try telling the shivering folk in Europe as they get through the winter without taking to the city parks in search of wood, or their floorboards for that matter. And I can imagine what an 60% reduction across a decade will do to global food production.
130
Tony,
Thanks for your excellent information as per usual.
However, I think you are labouring (no pun intended) under a misapprehension and misinterpretation of what Ms. Willis and co. are actually proposing.
You see, you are looking at reducing 8% of each and every households energy consumption p.a. This is not the solution they mean. They mean that 8% of households have to be relieved of their power usage p.a (i.e. drop off the perch (preferably) or live by candlelight subsisting on grubs and berries otherwise).
You see, this solution involves far simpler maths (and let’s face it, that is not their strong suit), and is far easier to achieve- both radical and rational, don’t you know. By the time they get down to the last 8%, which coincidently includes themselves, then a moratorium on further power reductions can be passed, if only to preserve the “integrity” of society. Otherwise, how could you expect an enlightened society to function without the academic and the bureaucrat, those “special” people who quintessentially provide so much for the benefit of society and its “efficient” organisation? I hope that clarifies things for you, Tony, so you can finally see the error of your ways, before you need to be sent for “re-education” at one of our luxurious
gulagscorrectional facilitieswellness camps.81
Tony,
To “have had part of their brain surgically removed” they must have had a brain at one time. I see no such evidence. I think they were born brainless.
51
Da, Comrade. Savings at all costs.
I know you know all about Smart Grids, but anyone else in the dark about it should look up “Demand Management” via Smart Grids. Never mind what they say they will or won’t do with it, take note of what the technology can do.
The “Smart Grid” essentially means you still have the choice of running your air-conditioner at normal prices – but only at times that you don’t really need it. On the hottest days somebody in another control room (again in theory it’s the power company) decides if your A/C will run at the same time as everyone else. Your A/C may receive “load shedding” or be “deferred”, i.e. switched off remotely.
In theory your “Smart Grid Compatible” device (already being installed in some new air conditioners and trialled by Mitsubishi) will have a switch that allows you to turn on the device even if the Grid has deemed it unworthy, but the Smart Meter ensures you’ll pay a premium for the electricity that device uses during that time. QUOTE “override deferral of an appliance function and incur a higher electricity rate“. In other words, all electrons are equal, but some electrons are more equal than others.
In reality, the generators only see aggregate demand. Therefore when there is high demand then all kWh consumed should go up in price by the same ratio regardless of its application. Indeed it would be automatic in a free market of energy that the activities which were most highly valued by end users would have the higher electricity cost paid and the activities valued less by customers would be gladly foregone. Traditional meters don’t support an informed realtime market because they don’t record the consumption per date and time slot and so the price charged can’t fluctuate with realtime demand like the price of fruit or steel does. But neither is this price variance needed when supply is always increased immediately to match any demand level. Maintaining the spare capacity to do this is built into the standard price charged to everyone.
So we already have a grid system where extra usage costs you extra and the height of the daily aggregate demand peak costs everyone extra. So there’s no need for Smart Meters and Smart Grids because we already have a peak consumption penalty system, right?
But this present arrangement cannot be used for selective enforcement and social engineering by efficiency zealots, global warming Nazis, and miscellaneous other authoritarians, so it’s out with the Dumb Grid and in with the Smart Grid.
Remember, take note of what the system can do, not what they say it should or will do. They condescendingly reassure you “The purpose of the Smart Grid is to provide more efficient use of energy, not for utilities to control or monitor appliance usage”, which is literally self-contradiction because the only way the Smart Meters can make energy savings and grid efficiency increases is precisely by monitoring when an appliance is being used and controlling it!
The nifty thing about Smart Grids is that they can be (and have been) used for pre-paid electricity just like pre-paid phones: “you put money in, and power runs until the cash runs out. England had this after World War II.”
Hooray! There’s the link to WW2 and “wartime mobilisation strategies” just when you thought I was going off-topic. Last time I checked, putting coins in the meter to run the power was an indicator of poverty. If they think we’ll all need such helpful “home energy management systems” in the future then what else do they have planned for the grid?
91
Greenies (and I’ve even heard Labor and Greens politicians doing it as well) harp on about household airconditioning as a huge consumer of electricity. It’s even been disparagingly referred to as The Harvey Norman Effect. It’s also the reasoning behind the installation of Smart meters, as Andrew has referred to above. They would like to isolate some of them from the grid during periods of high power consumption, and I wonder who gets to select the units which do get isolated.
So then, is this the big bogeyman they say it is?
As you can see from the chart above, heating and cooling consumes 38% of all residential power. Half of that is ordinary fans etc in Summer and heaters in Winter.
Airconditioning, reverse cycle, for cooling in Summer and Heating in Winter is less than half of that 38%, as surprisingly few homes do have R/C aircon units, and that total consumption amounts to barely 10% of residential power consumption. What also needs to be taken into account is that it is only used for around 8 to a probable 12 weeks in Summer, and the same time frame for Winter.
So at 10% overall, and with the Residential sector only consuming 20% of total power consumption, then residential airconditioning consumes barely 2% of all power consumption.
Now, the (unstated) intent to remove some of those units from the grids during periods of high consumption will amount to power savings that would be barely noticeable at all.
When you look at the Summer Load Curve on days of really high consumption removing some (Residential) air conditioners from the grid, again, it would still be barely noticeable, and not amount to much of a saving in overall consumption.
So then, where is that huge Summer spike coming from?
Look at the skyline of any major city, well any city at all, and notice all those high rises, all of them work places.
All of them have humungous air conditioning units on the roof. The main task of those units is to circulate breathing air into those buildings, and to circulate that air throughout the building for 24 hours a day, and you can’t just turn them off overnight as it is the actual air supply for the building.
The temperature is set at a constant figure, so in Summer, it feels cooler, and in Winter it feels warmer.
The ambient temperature (outside) is cooler in Winter and hotter in Summer.
In Summer all that glass on those high rises means the internal temperature rises considerably so the compressors on all those units work overtime to try and keep the temperature at the required setting.
In Winter, the temperature warms up during the day, but nowhere near what it does in Summer, hence the inside temperature is closer to the outside temperature, so the compressors don’t work anywhere near as much as they do in Summer.
The compressors on all those units on all those high rises are humungous consumers of electricity. (compared to the considerably small residential units) Their main task however is to recirculate the air into the building throughout the day and night, and they are places of work, so they must stay operational all the time.
Again, how easy is it for people to just say that I make this stuff up to suit the point I’m trying to make.
Look at these two load curves for Australian consumption, both work days. Scroll down to the third graph on the page, and it’s the black upper curve you need to look at.
Winter Load Curve Power Consumption (Monday July 15 2013)
Summer Load Curve Power Consumption (Friday January 18 2013)
Note the Winter one especially. There’s a small peak in the morning, umm, when residential consumption rises as people get out of bed, turn on the heat, shower, chores, brekky, turn off the heat, and then go off to work and school, and power drops slightly, staying low until they all come home from work, turn on the heater, shower, cook and eat dinner chores etc, TV, computers lighting etc.
On the Summer chart, it is exactly the same, only now we have the superimposition of all that workforce consumption from what I mentioned above as all those work places warm up.
That, correctly explained, shows residential airconditioning out to be the lie it is, as that consumption amounts to barely 2% of the overall consumption.
Those Load Curves for actual consumption can say so much, and the green lobby have no understanding of what they show, and in fact they wouldn’t even consider looking at them, even if they knew about them in the first place.
Tony.
51
So then, we have a positively stinking hot Summer’s day when the total power consumption spikes to 30,000MW+
Residential air conditioning makes up 10% of residential consumption which is 20% of overall consumption, so 2% of all power consumption.
Let’s pretend we have 5% of the residences connected to Smart meters so they can isolate some of that huge power consumption.
So now, they isolate 5% of those residential air conditioners.
5% of 2% comes in at 0.1% of total consumption.
0.1% of 30,000MW is 150MW, and that’s isolating (on average) around 60,000 air conditioning units.
Man, that’ll keep the Country running.
See how guilt is an entirely different thing when the real truth of the matter gets explained.
Tony.
50
Slight correction Tony?
0.1% of 30,000MW is 30MW,and that’s isolating (on average) around 12,000 air conditioning units.
Worse than we thought?
50
Thanks Max.
I need to read Preview Post a little more closely before I hit the Post Comment button.
Shows just how stupid the green scare really is.
Tony.
40
I tell you what Tony, if I knew of an an elderly person whose a/c was connected to a smart meter and it was a 2500W unit, I’d be organizing an extension lead so that when the a/c gets switched off, they could plug it into another outlet.
Stuff the green terrorists!
20
High rise buildings are almost always monuments to corporate and political egos rather than legitimate solutions to land shortages. There are only a handful places in the world (eg Hong Kong and Macau) where it makes economic sense to build a high rise building rather than a low rise building (<six stories). High rise buildings typically have much higher embedded energy (due to massive structural loads) and ongoing energy consumption (ventilation, lighting, elevators, water pumping and sewerage etc) than low rise buildings.
Some studies have even suggested that medium density residential buildings over three storeys are (up to 25%) less energy efficient than free standing family homes.
In 50 years time we will probably be demolishing our office towers and medium density housing and encouraging people to live on 1/4 acre blocks in the suburbs.
30
Tall buildings are, in the vast majority of cases, unnecessary and a blight on the environment. They are little more than monuments to inflated egos. A high rise requires about 40% more embedded energy to construct than a low rise (<6 storeys) and requires considerably more energy to operate.
31
BB,
Same as sticking a generator on top of a 90 meter tower waiting for the wind to blow.
Are any of these Greens sane?
30
They are getting more like Dictatorships and Regimes where “The End Justifies The Means”.
The cost in monetary value or lives is immaterial.
Sheer Lunacy and Paranoia.
142
If you appoint me as your benevolent dictator for a few years, as my first deed, I will burn down every public university in this country.
Your grandchildren won’t be able to thank me enough.
254
There is no need for that Baa
Just make every useful professional course free, and all others full cost.
Imagine the speed of courses like gender studies disappearing.
50
Jo,
Our lifestyles have been constantly changing…
Do you see how daily your pocketbook is shrinking and quality and quantity of products have changed?
How about what you buy today is not even close to what you could have bought 30 or 40 years ago?
80
Jo,
How about all these government programs that countries are suppose to compete with the rest of the “free-trade” countries that do not have all these weights on their companies.
Or all these social programs that other countries do not have to contribute in?
Or the massive programming we are bombarded with to buy junk “to keep our economies going” and go into massive debt with high interest rate cards?
80
Jo (or mods) the link in your header is returning a 404 error. Looks like the HTML has an extra http:// on the end. This should work:
The Radical Emission Reduction Conference: 10-11 December 2013
—-
Thanks Dave. Yes, you are right. Fixed now. Cheers – Jo
10
Or even this!
The Radical Emission Reduction Conference: 10-11 December 2013
10
Perhaps the reason the rhetoric is more radical is that all the moderates have abandoned ship leaving only the shrill voices. Bishop Hill had an interesting posting on this today, http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/12/13/a-sudden-realisation.html The true stripes of the movement indeed.
30
Following the Pareto Principle; it looks to me as if 20% of the warmists become catastrophists and provide 80% of the extremism.
Every religion has its fundamentalists.
10
What these goofies overlook is that in time of war, you have to get people who really know how things work to get them to run everything.
Out go most of the top bureaucrats, out go all the goofies and political cronies.
Of course, you do have the other option of keeping things as they are and losing the war.
Anyhow, my guess is that most of these doctors and professors are worried that the CAGW myth is about to explode and become yesterday’s news, which means no more ivory tower. For these types of academics, residing in the ivory tower away from the toiling masses is everything.
Here is the link:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CEoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tyndall.ac.uk%2Fradical-emission-reduction-conference-10-11-december-2013&ei=LRyrUrr0DqHoywO_2ICIDw&usg=AFQjCNG-X-MWVcbF1_ZbDcvYpEmcZcAGjw
70
In time of war, when bombs and missiles are falling about your head (I was hit by one – July 1944) and people will accept the lesser evil of obedience for survival. When this is over they want a future – the promise of which elected a socialist government in 1945 – so much for Churchill! When, by 1950, many basic foods were still rationed (I still have the ration books – just in case!) 2 years after this had ended in defeated, shattered Germany, the result was the rejection of that government. As the northern hemisphere is now entering the “year of the brass monkey” the disaster that is the UK energy policy will become apparent to even the dimmest of voters.
We have an election next year, after the winter utility bills are in, for the European Parliament, a tradition outlet for protest. What you are observing is the first signs of panic amongst the establishment and that they are heeding the words of Oliver Cromwell ” In the bowels of Christ consider that you may be mistaken”.
This reported article indicates that Shell Oil have abandoned the Renewables/ Carbon trading / Environment friendly market strategy. The Government is now heeding the words of the industrialists who are also party contributors. I think they will welcome a thrashing at the polls to radically change policy. After all, if the Lib Dems poll less than 15% they are not going to precipitate a general election.
In passing – in respect of “radical policies” I have found in life a 97% success rate is achieved by a radical policy of “doing nothing”
40
I propose a small-scale proof of concept experiment. Let these “radicals” have an 8% cut in funding, every year for the next 10 years. And a “locally-based society,” which means immediately cut their travel budgets to zero. After ten years they can come back and give us a progress report.
220
That would be the best series of Big Brother ever.
80
Brad
You miss the point, these incredibly wise people are the chosen, the elite, who have ever so reluctantly appointed themselves as the saviours of mankind.
As a result, they should obviously be exempt from any cutbacks in energy consumption. After all, they need to keep their minds clear and pure in order to take their thinking and divine visions to the next level. They also need to be free to carry their message far and wide in order to enlighten the uninformed masses.
Shame on you for thinking any less of these wondrous people!
I actually met someone who thought like this, the stereotype of a spoiled brat looking for a reason for her pointless life. Perhaps the description ‘Gorebot’ is a little harsh?
130
These people have not discovered logic or the real world outside of their groups. For instance
1. Where are the robust, unambigous, forecasts of “severe climate change” impacts? Lacking this, the “do-nothing” scenario could be an alternative.
2. Radical emission reduction policies may not work. Useless policies could end up causing mass impoverishment, leaving future generations much less able to cope with the coming climate apocalypse.
3. Radical emission reduction policies may be both necessary and work in theory, but will never be enacted because “radical” activists have not learnt the art of persuasion and appreciating that other points of view are possible.
100
One of the attendees was David Hone, Climate Change Advisor for Shell. He begins his report:-
(Italics mine)
Hattip to BishopHill.
90
It starts to make the predictions regarding Climate Change Refugees look credible. It’s just that they didn’t figure on the source being First World refugees escaping from the ‘Climate Doom Lords’.
Perhaps the IPCC can introduce a new category!
90
More efficient to just exile these vegan-leftie-cooks to Tuvalu, declare a naval blockade and let them sort it out for 30 years.
80
And what have you got against those in Tuvalu?
30
agreed – Heard island should suit them down to the ground.
60
After a month on the island I suspect there would be a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario emerging.
40
They would object to such a plan on purely environmental grounds. An introduced predatory species would endanger the local elephant seal population. The seal steaks would not be nearly as delicious as the irony.
They best beware the surviving seals will have bloodthirsty revenge [cartoon].
10
In view of the amount of energy China and India use and will use; and the CO2 the emit and will emit, as soon as they sign up those two countries to their ideas, then I’ll sit up and take notice.
They may of course be able to borrow some ideas on enforcement from China who implemented the one child policy and had to carry out forced abortions on any woman who dared get themselves pregnant when they already had a child.
20
Oh God, where to begin? I visited the conference website and picked these gems from the programme:
First, the context:
“With large-scale impacts of climate change becoming discernable from the background of natural variability, so concern is rising over the global community’s failure to control emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) captures this pivotal moment in history, when noting that “The current state of affairs is unacceptable … energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs”[i] and emission trends are “perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius, which would have devastating consequences for the planet”[ii]. In similar vein PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC)[iii], the UK Government chief scientist[iv] and a growing body of academics and researchers are allying current emission trends with 4°C to 6°C futures.”
Now, some of the choice presentations:
Professor Fred Steward, Policy Studies Institute, University of Westminster, ‘‘Radical Efficiency’ through city led system innovation for sociotechnical transitions’.
– Say what?
Dr. Christopher Shaw, Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, ‘Generating public support for radical emissions reductions through a radical reframing of climate risks’.
– i.e. propaganda
Stuart Capstick, Cardiff University, ‘Social science prospects for radical change’.
Provost Professor Richard Wilk, Indiana University, ‘The Power of Shame: using social pressure to reduce consumption’,
– Indoctrination
Dr. Dan Calverley, Tyndall Manchester ‘Choice-editing the car market: radical reductions without reinventing the wheel’
– WTF “Choice-editing”? “We will tell you what cars we MAY allow you to drive”.
Dr. Milena Buchs, University of Southampton, ‘Can third sector organisations promote radical behaviour change? A review of Carbon Conversations’.
– bypass the democratic process and elected representatives
Professor Terry Barker, UEA and University of Cambridge, ‘Demand-side regulation in the policy mix to achieve radical GHG reductions: modelling global decarbonisation with E3MG’..
– We will also tell you how little energy you will be permitted to use
Finally, one piece of comic relief:
Dr. Jane Hindley and Professor Ted Benton, Essex Sustainability Institute, University of Essex, ‘What would Churchill say? Political leadership, collective action and the framing of radical emissions reduction strategies’.
– I have a good idea what Churchill would say to this pack of totalitarians…
130
Snow falling in Cairo for first time in 112 years (unable to find reference for that). Previous falls in Jan 1855 and Jan 1639 are much better recorded.
It’s just weather of course.
70
Huffington Post has it and http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2013/12/winter-storm-brings-snow-severe-weather-to-middle-east/
40
Worth reading through. The weather it seems has dampened the enthusiasm for activists of various persusions to continue fighting. Is there a similar fate in store for the Green Pestilence here?
Rare Storm Leaves Jerusalem Snowed In
Dec 13th 2013
JERUSALEM (AP) — A powerful winter storm left Jerusalem covered in snow on Friday, forcing police to block access to and from the city as a cold snap drove some Israelis to seek treatment from emergency medics.
Rare snow also fell in Cairo’s suburbs and the port city of Alexandria while a blanket of white covered St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.
In Syria’s contested northern city of Aleppo, soldiers and rebels took a break from fighting as a thick layer of snow blanketed deserted streets, cars and buildings and temperatures hovered around zero.
An anti-government activist said it has been quieter than it has been in more than a year, since the storm began late Tuesday.
“All the fighters are cold and hiding,” the activist who uses the pseudonym Abu Raed said.
He said residents in the city were relying on diesel or wood heaters although some had only blankets. Snow also fell in Damascus, but was quickly washed away by the rain.
The weather also delayed for the second day an airlift of urgently needed food aid from Erbil, Iraq, to Qamishli in northeast Syria for displaced families, according to United Nations food agency. As soon as the Qamishli airport opens, WFP will start airlifting over 400 tons of food on two aircraft with 12 return flights between Iraq and Syria, it said.
Humanitarian agencies opted for air route because roads leading to Syria’s northern Hassakeh province have not been safe for convoy due to fighting in the area, the agency added.
The cold weather was part of a storm, dubbed Alexa, which has been pounding much of Lebanon and parts of northern Syria since Wednesday, pushing temperatures below zero in mountainous areas and dumping snow and heavy rains. The snow has heaped another layer of misery on the already grim existence of many of the more than 2 million Syrians who have fled the civil war raging in their homeland.
In Lebanon, snow fell on northern and eastern regions where tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are staying, many of them in flimsy plastic tents.
A Lebanese security official said a three-month-old Syrian baby died Friday in the northern town of Akroum. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the newborn had respiratory problems and the cold spell may have aggravated his condition.
Syrian refugees struggled to keep tents in place and were seen gathering sticks of wood from nearby fields to use them for heating. Families crammed into damp, muddy tents struggled to keep warm. In some cases, Syrian children came out of their tents to play with the snow.
Israelis were told over media and public broadcasts on Friday not to enter or leave Jerusalem and some 1,500 people were evacuated from stranded vehicles overnight, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Three emergency centers were set up and medics treated 350 people for cold-related symptoms, Rosenfeld said. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said he asked the military for assistance. The airport also stopped flights briefly and several highways and main roads around Jerusalem were closed.
The weather even featured in talks between visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he was briefed on the emergency measures.
Kerry, a former Massachusetts senator, said the snow made him feel “at home.”
“I have heard of making guests welcome and feeling at home. This is about as far as I’ve ever seen anything go … giving me a New England snowstorm,” Kerry said as he viewed a snow-covered Old City of Jerusalem with Netanyahu.
In the West Bank and Gaza, U.N. relief teams offered emergency services to the worst-hit communities.
In Gaza, which was experiencing its first snow in a decade, more than 500 people were evacuated from their homes, according to Hamas spokesman Ihab Ghussein.
Egypt’s state MENA news agency said the country’s two Mediterranean ports near the city of Alexandria and two ports on the Red Sea remained closed for the third consecutive day Friday.
The report quoted the head of the Alexandria port authority, Adel Yassin Hammad, as saying the decision was taken to avoid possible accidents.
40
Dr. Angela Druckman, University of Surrey, is obviously fully conversant in management-speak. I note however she had neglected two mandatory phrases ‘a new paradigm’ and ‘moving forward’. Hopefully they are in the unquoted parts of her babbling speech.
60
I believe that these people should test their theory by actually living under such an energy poor regime in North Korea.
130
Interesting.
Of course they only have “radical” actions left in their playbook.
Proving themselves to be/have been impervious to facts, empirical measurements and logic all they can do is resort to violence.
While violence is the last refuge of the truly incompetent, in their case I can make an exception.
8% Eh. So if we round up all the greens ,who strangely get about 8% of the vote, an isolate them to a paradise fitting their dreams.
I mean the low energy,low carbon, ecofriendly vision they want to impose upon the collective.
Would that be radical enough for them?
I keep looking at Coats Island, in Hudson Bay Canada.
Its perfect, no infrastructure at all. Its currently -41 Celsius in my part of the Arctic, the telemetry range is perfect we can watch them live the dream via remote camera drones.
110
This is just the organised version of the nutter with the sandwich board.
90
“Taxpayer funded radical plan to make you pay more, use less, stay home. Joy!”
Stay at home? Not for some –
✈ Flying high: Labor ministers racked up millions in VIP travel
✈ Labor ministers went out in style with their round-the-world goodbye tours
.
Next time you hear ‘concern’ about their “children’s children” …
.
✈ Why flying first class increases your carbon footprint by six times
Progressives • Born to rule, but not include.
80
Rare Storm Leaves Jerusalem Snowed In !!!
All those Christmas cards of Santa and reindeers in the snow visiting the nativity scene are correct after all !
80
The real radicals exposing themselves out of desperation of losing favor and power.
40
I would have been mildly impressed if this conference had been conducted entirely by televideo.
But then, it wouldn’t have been much of a conference, would it?
Oh, silly me: For videoconferencing you need things like a stable power supply and computers and stuff that need plastics, silicon chips, rare earths, energy intensive manufacturing, efficient and cheap transglobal logistics and transport…
60
I have been reading the conference abstracts. The 1.01MB file is at radicalplanabstracts.pdf.
On pages 15 to 17 is ‘Responsibility for radical change in emission of greenhouse gases’
Page 16
Page 17
and in conclusion
40
In summary, this abstract says all that matters is saving the planet. It is not about saving the planet for future generations, as we humans do not matter. It is not about the climate models being accurate – as they are supposed to about modelling cause (increasing greenhouse gas levels) with the effect (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming). And it is not science.
30
Apologies if anyone has already posted about this.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/20309919/christmas-cancelled/
I mean, really. How low can these zealots go?
Still, how frustrated are they that they have to resort to these tactics.
40
Not as low as my urge to parody their video.
Green P*ss has strange santa trapped in the basement, he has devoured the elves, reindeer and sleigh harness,next…..
As to frustrated and resorting to this level of tone deaf stupidity, that is par for the course.
All civilized governments need to strip these eco-terrorists of charitable status.
Then start treating them as pirates.
The old fashioned cure.
50
Stakeholders:
12 Dec: NYT: Eric Lipton: New Obama Adviser Brings Corporate Ties
Pacific Gas and Electric sent in a donation as Mr. Podesta championed government incentives to promote solar energy and other renewable sources that the California company buys more of than nearly any other utility…
Even before the White House officially confirmed his appointment, officials said that Mr. Podesta would not participate in the debate over the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline connecting Canada to the Gulf Coast. Mr. Podesta, with the support of clean energy groups, has been a steadfast opponent of the plan.
Joule, a company that has tried but failed to win federal grants to help turn its experimental carbon dioxide-to-ethanol concept into a commercial scale project, is betting its future on its ability to deliver alternatives to fossil fuel…
“I don’t think John has ever joined a board or organization for economic reasons — certainly not ours,” said Bill Campbell, the chief financial officer of Equilibrium Capital, which manages about $560 million in assets that it invests in energy-efficient, sustainable agriculture, among other projects. “He is driven by a sense of purpose and a sense of responsibility.”
The company paid Mr. Podesta by giving him a small ownership share in the firm as well as some cash compensation, Mr. Campbell said
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/us/politics/new-obama-adviser-brings-corporate-ties.html?_r=0
2011: Joule Elects Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to Board of Directors
Joule Unlimited, Inc., pioneer of Liquid Fuel from the Sun™, today announced the election of John Podesta to its board of directors. A veteran of two White House administrations, Mr. Podesta will bring considerable expertise to Joule in the realm of public policy as well as partnering with the public sector…
“As a leading expert in technology policy and a known advocate for clean energy, John is an ideal champion for Joule, and we look forward to leveraging his insights as we progress towards international deployment.”…
“There is no question that clean energy innovation and adoption are among the top economic and security priorities for our nation, and it’s critical that we focus on breakthrough technologies, particularly for liquid fuels, that can sometimes fall through the legislative cracks,” said Mr. Podesta. “I have seen and heard many proposals by renewable energy companies, and can unequivocally say that Joule has a technology and a system unlike any other, with industrial viability and a clear path to market within the next several years. It’s an honor to join the board of a big-thinking category creator like Joule.”…
http://www.jouleunlimited.com/news/2011/joule-elects-former-white-house-chief-staff-john-podesta-board-directors
Uni of Connecticut: Joule Fellows 2012
The Joule Fellows program provides teachers of science, mathematics, and/or technology with an opportunity to gain hands-on exposure to ongoing research in sustainable energy
http://www.engr.uconn.edu/joulefellow/
Joule Fellows Program Embeds Teachers In Research Labs
The Joule Fellows Program is a five-week Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program that kicked off July 13th with the arrival of 11 teachers representing nine schools across Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island…
The Joule Fellows were embedded in engineering laboratories, where they worked side-by-side with faculty and graduate students engaged in ongoing energy research in such areas as biofuels production, various aspects of fuel cells and fuel cell membranes, flame dynamics in power generation and supercritical fluids…
Based on her Joule Fellows experience, Mrs. Perkins said she is planning to apply for a grant to set up an algae-to-biodiesel mini-lab in her classroom…
http://news.engr.uconn.edu/joule-fellows-program-embeds-teachers-in-research-labs.php
10
Don’t forget we have our own ‘Climate Doom Lords’ here, The Wilderness Society, that are going to shut down Coal Mining in Australia.
https://www.wilderness.org.au/articles/our-new-campaign-plan
https://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/fossil-fuels
30
scroll down for a couple of pics & a good laugh:
13 Dec: Blog: Paul Homewood: Maldives Opening Four New Underwater Airports
While Louise Gray was wetting her knickers in the Daily Telegraph at the prospect of handing over billions of our money to compensate low lying island states, and our ludicrous Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, talked about helping “people who are losing their countries below the waves”, the Maldives have been busy getting on with life in the real world.
During the past year, they have been busy building four new airports…
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/maldives-opening-four-new-underwater-airports/
50
I grew up in just such a wonderful utopian situation in PNG during the 1960’s and 70’s. Random power outages, average life expectancy for local adults was 47 years, infant mortality at 40% in a good year, zero imported fresh foods, all fuel was imported at huge costs, locally grown western vegetables where at huge expense ($1.00 for a lettuce where a fortnightly was a $37.50) limited sanitation, fresh water was a luxury if your rain water tanks ran dry but we had plenty of hot water from the solar heart on the roof. Diseases such as yaws, malnutrition, leprosy, small pox, measles and malaria killed or maimed thousands every year. Crime was rampant – (rape, murder, burglary, fraud, drug use) the law a joke in most locations and justice when it was available was usually a death sentence for the guilty. We walked just about every where because we couldn’t afford the fuel bills.
Been there and done that and I for one would never contemplate going back and living like that but I feel certain that any of the green watermelons that want to live that way have only to move to somewhere like the Philippines to experience exactly what they would find in real life isn’t as rosy as they are waffling about. Meanwhile the old adage about deep down greenies would be good for Australia if we planted them at about 6 feet and about 10 to the acre still stands good.
50
Meanwhile in Cairo …
00
Meanwhile in Cairo …
30
Confirmed, not a hoax.
Egypt Independent brief story.
More Twitter pics reported at WUnderground.
Well pluck out my brain and call me a mummy; snow in Cairo. Apparently it snows around Mt Sinai every December but until yesterday it had been 112 years since it last snowed in Cairo.
It’s all this
global warmingclimate changeglobal weirding, ya know?30
I went to a lecture on sustainability if I remember correctly hosted by the Christchurch (NZ) chamber of commerce back in 2009 as part of ideas festival and thinking that it might be interesting to hear what was being said as a business consultant was leading the discussion I attended. The consultant certainly knew his numbers and pointed out that the only way to achieve the carbon emission reductions needed to save the planet required significant reductions in human population as the only means to stave off doom. I felt I was in the presence of a Pol Pot sociopath, and in the room of 50 I was the only one who voiced any objection to his nightmare. I’d seen the heart of the green beast. To think that even someone involved with business had been co-opted into this evil was surprising, but within the context of a very green zeitgeist within NZ perhaps not so. I wonder how many more enumerate greenies have come to the same conclusions
30
I felt that i’d inadvertently stumbled into the Wannsee conference, from the few questions posed by what seemed to be public sector employees (who else?) the phrase “The banality of evil” springs to mind. Inculcating the rank and file, the administrative machinery into what must come ahead. I can begin to imagine what they really or subconsciously mean when they invoke wartime mobilisation and its side effects(suppression of free speech, suppressing dissent) to support their cause. I fondly recall Monckton’s interviews with green supporters during Copenhagen to reinforce the amount of thought most green supporters pay towards their masters ideology.
60
[…] Conference: 10-11 December 2013 at the offices of the Royal Society. Joanne Nova reporting on the conference quoted the […]
00
I have just updated this post. I look at six of the conference abstracts.
1. The Philosopher’s case for Totalitarianism. Only saving the planet matters. People “need to let go of their preconceived notions of climate, change, and general structure of cause and effect, science and human life” to achieve this.
2. The Economist’s case for Totalitarianism. We can achieve the de-carbonisation plan, but only with massively increased regulation.
3. The Psychologist sees a problem – people are not going to be persuaded.
4. The Social Scientist’s case for a Dictatorship. The truth is out there for all to see in the IPCC reports, but “current methods of persuasion have failed. We need something different.”
5. Democracy and human rights may have to be suspended – bring on wartime planning?
6. And opportunities exploited for a radical redistribution of emissions – bring on rationing.
They concentrate on the UK – to “solve” what is alleged to be a global problem.
20
Jo, everybody, we, somehow, have to unite against this terror campaign against the world as we know it. I fear for my grandchildren under a communistic regime of the future. Many of my friends say they fear for their grandchildren because of perceived CO2 pollution. I’m having one hell of a battle convincing friends and relatives that Climate change (AKA Global warming) is a fraud and that CO2 is “not guilty” of the crimes it has been accused of. In desperation I cry “What Can I Do” to help rid the world of this insidious crime against humanity. Like John the Baptist I feel like a lone voice “crying in the wilderness” (Biblical text Matthew Chapter 3 verse 3.) Those of us against this tyranny Must Unite.
81
I have a similar problem when trying to discuss this totally complex subject to MSM – fed friends over a few drinks at Christmas.
All I can do is plant a thought and hope they do some research.
21
A senior in Washington State wrote this letter to a couple of senators. Worth a read, I think. It could apply as well in Australia.
A dying senior citizen tells it like it is:
It will be well worth the two minutes it requires to read this. It is quite impressive.
You can be Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Independent or Libertarian and I bet this will hit a nerve. Our country is in real trouble.
This gentleman is obviously quite smarter than the two senators he sent it to. All I can say is amen to everything he said. A very articulate letter sent to the two U.S. Senators from Washington State.
April 3, 2013
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Washington, DC , 20510
Dear Senator:
I have tried to live by the rules my entire life. My father was a Command Sergeant Major, U.S. Army, who died of combat related stresses shortly after his retirement. It was he who instilled in me those virtues he felt important – honesty, duty, patriotism and obeying the laws of God and of our various governments. I have served my country, paid my taxes, worked hard, volunteered and donated my fair share of money, time and artifacts.
Today, as I approach my 79th birthday, I am heart-broken when I look at my country and my government. I shall only point out a very few things abysmally wrong which you can multiply by a thousand fold. I have calculated that all the money I have paid in income taxes my entire life cannot even keep the Senate barbershop open for one year! Only Heaven and a few tight-lipped actuarial types know what the Senate dining room costs the taxpayers. So please, enjoy your haircuts and meals on us.
Last year, the president spent an estimated 1.4 $billion on himself and his family. The vice president spends $millions on hotels. They have had 8 vacations so far this year! And our House of Representatives and Senate have become America ‘s answer to the Saudi royal family. You have become the “perfumed princes and princesses” of our country.
In the middle of the night, you voted in the Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a. “Obama Care,” a bill which no more than a handful of senators or representatives read more than several paragraphs, crammed it down our throats, and then promptly exempted yourselves from it substituting your own taxpayer-subsidized golden health care insurance.
You live exceedingly well, eat and drink as well as the “one percenters,” consistently vote yourselves perks and pay raises while making 3.5 times the average U.S. individual income, and give up nothing while you (as well as the president and VP) ask us to sacrifice due to sequestration (for which, of course, you plan to blame the Republicans, anyway).
You understand very well the only two rules you need to know – (1) How to get elected, and (2) How to get re-elected. And you do this with the aid of an eagerly willing and partisan press, speeches permeated with a certain economy of truth, and by buying the votes of the greedy, the ill-informed and under-educated citizens (and non-citizens, too, many of whom do vote ) who are looking for a handout rather than a job. Your so-called “safety net” has become a hammock for the lazy. And, what is it now, about 49 or 50 million on food stamps – pretty much all Democrat voters – and the program is absolutely rife with fraud with absolutely no congressional oversight?
I would offer that you are not entirely to blame. What changed you is the seductive environment of power in which you have immersed yourselves. It is the nature of both houses of Congress which requires you to subordinate your virtue in order to get anything done until you have achieved a leadership role. To paraphrase President Reagan, it appears that the second oldest profession (politics), bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the oldest.
As the hirsute first Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834 – 1902), English historian and moralist, so aptly and accurately stated, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” I’m only guessing that this applies to the female sex as well. Tell me, is there a more corrupt entity in this country than Congress?
While we middle class people continue to struggle, our government becomes less and less transparent, more and more bureaucratic, and ever so much more dictatorial, using Czars and Secretaries to tell us (just to mention a very few) what kind of light bulbs we must purchase, how much soda or hamburgers we can eat, what cars we can drive, gasoline to use, and what health care we must buy. Countless thousands of pages of regulations strangle our businesses costing the consumer more and more every day.
As I face my final year, or so, with cancer, my president and my government tell me “You’ll just have to take a pill,” while you, Senator, your colleagues, the president, and other exulted government officials and their families will get the best possible health care on our tax dollars until you are called home by your Creator while also enjoying a retirement beyond my wildest dreams, which of course, you voted for yourselves and we pay for.
The chances of you reading this letter are practically zero as your staff will not pass it on, but with a little luck, a form letter response might be generated by them with an auto signature applied, hoping we will believe that you, our senator or representative, has heard us and actually cares. This letter will, however, go on line where many others will have the chance to read one person’s opinion, rightly or wrongly, about this government, its administration and its senators and representatives.
I only hope that occasionally you might quietly thank the taxpayer for all the generous entitlements which you have voted yourselves, for which, by law, we must pay, unless, of course, it just goes on the $17 trillion national debt for which your children and ours, and your grandchildren and ours,ad infinitum, must eventually try to pick up the tab.
My final thoughts are that it must take a person who has either lost his or her soul, or conscience, or both, to seek re-election and continue to destroy this country I deeply love and put it so far in debt that we will never pay it off while your lot improves by the minute, because of your power. For you, Senator, will never stand up to the rascals in your House who constantly deceive the American people. And that, my dear Senator, is how power has corrupted you and the entire Congress. The only answer to clean up this cesspool is term limits. This, of course, will kill the goose that lays your golden eggs. And woe be to him (or her) who would dare to bring it up.
Sincerely,
Bill Schoonover
3096 Angela Lane
Oak Harbor, WA
140
why, given the MSM’s absolute delight at mocking & exaggerating the tiniest of Abbott’s failures, has there been little or no MSM coverage since 11 Dec. of the total failure of the Govt to repeal the carbon tax or pass any of the associated bills?
come next year, Clive Palmer will recuse himself, & who knows what other tricks will come into play, that might thwart the passage of these bills? something stinks.
almost impossible to understand the point of the following, except as an opportunity for another headline giving the impression pricing carbon dioxide emissions is no big thing. why is this govt agency seemingly downplaying effects of carbon pricing at this particular time?
14 Dec: SMH: Brian Robins: Carbon price fall expected to moderate electricity bills
The forecast, by the Australian Energy Markets Commission, which oversees the energy markets, anticipates the decline in the carbon price from about 2015 will put downward pressure on household power bills.
It forecasts that the price of power will rise by an annual average of 1.2 per cent a year between 2012-13 and 2015-16…
Queensland would see sustained price rises, averaging 8.6 per cent over the next three years, because of a large planned upgrade to the power network in that state, the forecast said.
***The main driver for the forecast large price rises in Queensland is a ”catch-up in underrecovered costs associated with the closed Queensland Solar Bonus scheme”, the commission said.
Similarly, it said, in the Northern Territory prices were expected to rise a sharp 6.9 per cent annually over the next three years…
The commission forecast is based on the previous federal government’s policy, which predicted a fall in the carbon price from 2015.
***It does not reflect the Abbott government’s planned axing of the carbon price, which has yet to be legislated.
In most states, environmental policies such as the effect of the price on carbon and other renewable energy policy programs add about 17 to 19 per cent to electricity bills…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-price-fall-expected-to-moderate-electricity-bills-20131213-2zcya.html
what a fizzer it was:
11 Dec: News Ltd: Carbon tax repeal hits Senate roadblock
Debate on the package has been tortuously slow, with the opposition and Greens opting for debate on each individual piece of legislation…
Debate was adjourned on a second bill to abolish the Climate Change Authority, set up to recommend carbon emissions targets.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/vote-on-carbon-tax-unlikely-by-years-end/story-e6frfku9-1226779723867
10
Leif Svalgaard at AGU on the Current Solar Cycle: ‘None of us alive have ever seen such a weak cycle’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/13/leif-svalgaard-at-agu-on-the-current-solar-cycle-none-of-us-alive-have-ever-seen-such-a-weak-cycle/
00
hide the cost, hands tied & affordable; Citigroup says “unaffordable”?
12 Dec: SMH: Bloomberg: UK plan to halve carbon emissions affordable, adviser says
The goal caused friction between ministers when it was set in 2011, and the impact of low-carbon policies on energy prices has been a political flashpoint in recent months. The government last week moved some costs for energy to general taxation from customer utility bills to temper rising charges. Lawmakers will reappraise their commitment to fighting global warming as they face elections in 2015, Citigroup Inc. said.
“The current climate change legislation and targets were committed to at a time of consistent economic growth and increasing household incomes,” Sofia Savvantidou, a Citigroup analyst in London, said Wednesday in a note. The removal of some environmental levies from energy bills “indicates to us that the current path to decarbonization is unaffordable.”…
Wednesday’s report examines whether the carbon target is affordable, if it’s feasible to deploy enough renewable energy, and whether companies are having to move manufacturing overseas. The government will decide next year whether to keep the 2025 goal. While it isn’t obliged to follow the committee’s advice, it must spell out its reasons if it fails to do so…
When the goal was set, Business Secretary Vince Cable wrote to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to say he had “a number of concerns” about it.
Maintaining the target would probably bring total savings of 100 billion pounds ($180 billion) at Wednesday’s prices through 2050 because necessary low-carbon investments will be steadily ramped up rather than slowing in the 2020s before having to accelerate again in the 2030s, according to the report…
The U.K. has a legally binding target to lower carbon output 80 per cent by mid-century.
The manufacturing lobby group EEF has repeatedly said that environment policies are contributing to rising energy costs that risk making the U.K. an unattractive location for industrial investment.
“There has been no significant industry relocation to date as a result of low-carbon policies, and there is no reason to expect this in the future,” according to Wednesday’s report.
Maintaining the target will add about 20 pounds to a typical household’s annual energy bill from 2020 to 2030, and “delivering it offers the opportunity for falling bills thereafter,” the committee said.
“You spend a bit of money upfront and you save money further out,” Chief Executive Officer David Kennedy told reporters in London. “Net, you make a very big saving.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/uk-plan-to-halve-carbon-emissions-affordable-adviser-says-20131212-2z741.html
11 Dec: UK Financial Times: Pilita Clark: Cost savings fear if greenhouse gas targets are scaled back
The emission limits for the mid-2020s, known as the fourth “carbon budget”, were first set in 2011 and are supported by the Liberal Democrats. However, some Conservative party MPs fear they could threaten plans by the chancellor, George Osborne, to promote a UK shale gas industry and build dozens of new natural gas power plants…
Critics argue the cost of supporting clean energy and other green measures, due to rise to £7.6bn a year by the end of this decade, also makes the UK less competitive than rival economies abroad.
Low carbon policies are expected to add about £100 to annual household energy bills by 2020 but some energy-intensive industries say green taxes are pushing them to a crisis point…
Ministers have agreed to review whether emissions should be cut more slowly next year, but the Climate Change Act says this can only happen if there have been “significant changes affecting the basis on which the previous decision was made”.
The Committee on Climate Change, which is required to advise on any amendments but cannot veto them, said it had found no such changes “and therefore the budget should not and cannot be changed under the terms of the Act”…
Savings could be as high as £200bn by 2050 if fossil fuel prices rise sharply, it said, adding planned emission reductions would only prove very costly if the world backed off efforts to tackle global warming and fossil fuel prices fell to much lower levels than they are now, which it said was “counter to expectations”.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8619b128-6186-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0.html
00
News just in. . .
Its snowing in Egypt!
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/snow-in-cairo-for-the-first-time-in-112-years/story-fni0xs63-1226783021497
00
The Radical Emissions of this sort will only be reduced when gvernment stops funding
such conferences.
Academia descending to the loony fringe we saw at the last Rio Earth Summit .
20
Speaking of overburdened taxpayers…
The comments are what you’d expect. The lefty heads are in full-on denial mode regarding the origin of the government debt. Most don’t believe the debt is a problem, though even if it was it couldn’t possibly be Labor’s fault.
Tough position to be in. If Libs balance the budget by cutting services the Left would call them a heartless barbarian. If Libs balance the budget by keeping services and raising taxes they stifle employment and growth. If they don’t balance the budget and cut taxes instead the Left blame them for Labor’s ongoing deficit and for giving tax breaks to the rich.
20
The first presentation of the day informed us we could expect electricity price increases to make us use less.
He also wants to retrofit all houses at a cost (in the UK) of £1 trillion. All just to save maybe a quarter of an average household’s spend on energy.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/tyndall-centres-radical-emission-reduction-conference/
10
Rebecca Willis, Eloi Alliance says: nothing intelligent as expected.
00