After yesterday it’s hard to think that anything else is not the solar model. š
I’ll try though and ask Jo a question about the suggestion from scaper at the end of the previous thread, have you considered going into politics namely the senate?
My comment to local paper about a local council and their nest of Green Hornets.
“Appalling. (the highjacking of a local council by warmer religious idealogues)
The whole premise on which sea level rise is predicted is Scientifically false.
Man has no influence over world temperatures via the burning of fossil fuels simply because of the asymptote effect with respect to the behaviour of CO2.
There are no ifs buts or maybes about this; it is scientific base material that is inconvenient to the eco loons.
The available solar energy whether direct or radiated is limited and the ONLY thing which can raise Earth”s temperature is a hotter SUN.
Someone must be held accountable for this fraud being perpetrated on the people of Lake Macquarie.
The truth is that sea levels are currently the most stable they have been for 8,000 years during which time sea levels have declined by 6 to 7 metres.
The people of LMCC are being duped by a bunch of politically inspired hardliners: what do they do all day at work?
The mind boggles.””
End of rant.
Have not yet read David’s new work but assume it places the Sun at the centre of attention re world temperatures.
KK same here with local council and unfortunately every council in Australia, this infestation of Gaia ideology has been a slow process and only succeeded with the public being complacent, myself included.
The reason I asked about politics was even though good people get into politics and try to make positive changes for the public they are increasingly stymied at every turn and point by an increasingly green/socialist corrupted political and media regime.
We have a great Senator John Madigan ,DLP, who despite a good support base from many areas of the community has endured consistent slanderous attacks from political opponents and their agitators with great assistance from the local Fairfax media.
It’s gotten so grubby that when John Madigan opened Lord Monckton’s address here he was publicly mocked by the greens for being anti abortion but supporting the future deaths of millions of children due to climate change skepticism, and even though the majority would condemn such claims it still makes an appearance as news driven by a minority.
End of rant also, I hope I haven’t put you off politics Jo? š
Unfortunately the acceptance of anything in Print or TV as being true and real is destroying a lot of good people.
It virtually makes it impossible for an Independent to run for parliament and sustain the onslaught of the media campaign machines of major parties.
Major parties do have support crew to defend and help their candidates to some extent but the problem is that blatant lies can be allowed into the public domain without any responsibility for damage caused.
Consequently anything goes and somebody can be labeled a “d$g f$ck$r” or worse with total impunity.
While I would love to see Jo “run” I must say that you would have to have a very good support crew.
KK, no different across the ditch in NZ with the local rabble of Green latte swilling Council intelligentsia spouting their collectivista mantras that have been cited in of all places, 350.org
Dunedin becomes first city in New Zealand to divest from fossil fuels
also one of the colder and poorer places in NZ, a University culture more at home with The Conversation than the real world, and one that identifies solidly with the 97% consensus, making spectacularly great sense, in a climate about to become much colder…….
and following closely on the heels of 350.org, proclamations around sea level rises that have led to Council implementation of floor raising policies…..:
the Council has raised the height required for minimum floor levels for some new buildings and extensions to existing buildings in these coastal areas.
All well here and business as usual in Neverland, as you see. Ship-of-fools springs to mind.
Thank you! It really does help and we do need to find a way to make independent science and independent science-commentary a career path. We can’t leave science to the sole control of the government.
And that’s the root of the problem, climate science today delivers what governments want.
India, China and Russia know global warming is a crock, pay some lip service to the concept, and carry on as before.
In the West, with ecoloon, “must be seen to be saving the world” type political leaders, the scientific institutions are required to show the world needs to be a greener place in order to be ‘saved’, while simultaneously providing a reason for new sources of government revenues.
I cannot think of anything apart from Arctic ice cover which indicates there might be any global warming today other than natural cycles. However, there most of the summer ice loss over the last 40 years can probably be explained by: i) increased amounts of Northern Hemisphere soot, ii) changes in salinity due to changes in fresh water inflow and/or ocean currents, and iii) deep ocean floor hydrothermal activity bringing up more saline water to surface. Then, of course the is the obvious embarrassment for alarmists of the growing extent of the Antarctic ice.
Anyhow, I sure hope you have found something special in solar cycles/activity. If you have, then the Climate Inquisition will be after you with a vengeance and there will be a severe outbreak of even snottier trolls here.
ā Australia posted its biggest annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 24 years of records in 2013 as the carbon(sic) tax helped drive a large drop in pollution from the electricity sector. ā
According to the unproven hypothesis of Doomsday Global Warming, perfect weather/climate should be here.
The fall in greenhouse emissions started in 2008 — long before the tax. It was the effect the Rudd-Gillard government appears to have had on our GDP. š
I am very impressed, that yet again it seems an Aussie on a shoe string budget may be leading the world in a scientific endeavour. Seriously looking forward to Jo and Davids new way of looking at what controls our climate. I worry a little that they may be targeted for being heretical to the CO2 cause, do not hesitate to put your hands up for help, I have seen what you have done helping others over the years. Yours Faithfully.
We want skeptics to debate it. (The fans of CO2 models are going to ignore it as long as they possibly can.) All constructive feedback is gratefully received.
And my thanks to Jo and Dave from distant Wales. I hope the ‘project’ will include some sort of tutorial on CO2 for us lesser enabled followers. š As a non-scientist type I must glean my information from the internet and have no real way of confirming what I have learned.
With regard to CO2 gas I read there is a well documented ‘radiation fingerprint’ covering the complete IR range for CO2 centred on three specific bands. These bands are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 microns. The 15 micron band has some 3,800 lines of IR over the range 13 to 17 microns. Wien’s Law tells us there is a peak emission level for any given temperature. For the 2.7 micron band it is ~800C and the 4.3 micron band is ~400C. There is NO WAY CO2 is radiating from the atmosphere at those temperatures! But CO2 can absorb photons at those energy levels which can ONLY come from the sun. Therefore CO2 is SHIELDING the surface from the energy in those bands like an invisible cloud.
Peak emission temperature for 13 microns is -50C, yes, MINUS 50 degrees C. Most of the atmosphere is rather warmer than that so CO2 is radiating continuously over the 13 to 17 micron bands COOLING THE AIR!
Now a point that never seems to enter the discussion; if any material is warm enough to radiate any band of radiation it CANNOT ABSORB radiation over that band. It is statistically possible that the odd photon will be absorbed but because the material IS ALREADY AT OR ABOVE the peak temperature another equivalent photon will be emitted FOR NO CHANGE IN THE ENERGY LEVEL of the material. This applies to solids, liquids and gasses. Thus there is no way radiation from CO2 in the atmosphere over the 13 to 17 micron band can warm the surface. The surface sets the start temperature for the adiabatic lapse rate up the atmosphere. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BACK-RADIATION FROM SO CALLED GREENHOUSE GASSES IN THE ATMOSPHERE.
Therefore CO2 is SHIELDING the surface from the energy in those bands like an invisible cloud
The Sun’s spectrum, as seen from the surface of the Earth has huge absorption bands corresponding with the absorption of O3, O2, H2O (mainly) and CO2. This absorption is clearly shown by the high temperatures in the thermosphere.
” the thermosphere begins about 85 kilometres above the Earth….Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation.- Wikipaedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere
The Earth’s spectrum as seen from a satellite in space also seems to have H2O and CO2 absorption bands.
Now a point that never seems to enter the discussion; if any material is warm enough to radiate any band of radiation it CANNOT ABSORB radiation over that band.
This may be true. It does seem to be confirmed by the observations above. Where are the corresponding emission bands? I would expect to find them using an IR spectrometer at the surface looking up, especially at night time. So far I have not seen that evidence.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BACK-RADIATION FROM SO CALLED GREENHOUSE GASSES IN THE ATMOSPHERE.
Again this may be correct. But even if it is not Reed Coray has a mathematical proof that a hot/warm sphere, surrounded by a radiative shell will be cooler if there is conductive/convewctive coupling between the sphere and the shell!
Despite a quick proof read, I cannot explain the strange formatting of this last paragraph.
have left the solar thread to the “experts”. it will be very interesting to see where it goes.
a friend who visits jo’s site saw a comment i made recently about young people i know being the least interested in CAGW, despite all the MSM/CAGW team’s hype that the young support CAGW action & so on. my friend suggested i check the following article. can’t say i’ll be bothered to pursue the author’s thesis further, but it does capture precisely what i have observed…and i am not even being critical of the young:
22 Feb: Guardian: Christina Patterson: Press record. Is that what we do now
when someone dies?
It’s hard not to infer a link between a growing lack of empathy among young
people and the hours they spend online
Young people, according to a new book called The App Generation by Harvard
psychologist Howard Gardner and digital media expert Katie Davis, spend 80%
of their time on social media talking about themselves. Eighty percent is
quite a lot. If it’s 80%, you’ve got to call it narcissism. If it’s 80%,
it’s narcissism on a sociopathic scale…
Most people aren’t sociopaths, but the ability of young people to empathise,
according to recent research, might not be quite as well developed as their
ability to post selfies on Instagram. The American psychologist Sara Konrath
has collated evidence from 72 studies which seems to show that empathy
levels among American college students are 40% lower than they were 20 years
ago. In the last 10 years, she says, there has been an especially sharp
drop… http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/21/press-record-when-someone-dies-empathy-young-people
from young to old! despite the relentless MSM pushing of CAGW, the CAGW crowd are not really getting their message over to anyone much. and, as someone who visits many pro-CAGW websites daily, it is clear very few people in general, much less young people, comment, or interact with CAGW sites online, compared to WUWT or jo’s.
the failure of multi-million-dollar,celebrity-studded production, series “Years of Living Dangerously” to find an audience says it all really. not even celebrity-in-chief Obama’s appearance could bring in viewers.
likewise, we know older folks being polled are not falling for CAGW, most likely being wise enough to see through the scam, so check these amazing figures. how they compare with Australia, UK, etc i do not know, but i imagine we would find a similar trend across the world, particular where the internet is universally available.
what i’m saying, therefore, is the CAGW crowd are talking to themselves, & any poll they come out with to suggest public interest in CAGW action, is highly dubious:
28 May: NYT: Bill Carter: May Brings a Loss of Viewership for Cable News
Channels
But all the news channels have seen particularly troubling declines in
viewership this month of May: CNN had the least-watched 9 p.m. hour in the
channel’s history and finished fourth, behind Fox News, MSNBC, and even its
sister channel HLN, in attracting the viewers that news advertisers pay for.
MSNBC had its lowest performance in prime time since July 2006…
The category in each of those cases was viewers between the ages of 25 and
54, which is the group advertisers use to pay for commercials in news
programs. Among overall viewers, Fox News did not have nearly as large a
falloff, which reflects that channel’s aging audience…
CNN’s morning program, which had edged ahead of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, fell
well back again. It had only 80,000 viewers in the 25-54 group…
Both CNN and MSNBC would still gladly welcome the numbers Fox News racks up,
of course, but compared to its own history Fox continues to experience
steady losses among viewers under 55 years old. The total day average for
the channel in that 25-54 category was 177,000 viewers.
That remains well above the competition: MSNBC averaged 103,000; CNN
averaged just 99,000…
The audience for news is generally among the oldest in television…
The median age for MSNBC in May was 62.5. For CNN it was 62.8. For Fox News
it was 68.8. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/business/media/may-brings-a-loss-of-viewership-for-cable-news-channels.html?_r=3
I’ve just finished reading Prof Ian Plimer’s new book ‘Not for Greens’. The measure of how good it is, is how much left wing reviewers hate it. It is no surprise that all their criticisms are based on personal attacks and innuendo. They haven’t attacked any of the facts presented by Plimer.
For instance here are some snippets from Crikey’s ‘review’ by deputy editor Cathy Alexander:
Not for Greens: He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon is coming out this month via boutique Catholic publishing house Connor Court.
Crikey’s first attempted smear is to pigeon-hole the books publishers as ‘Catholic’. While Connor Court Publishing does have a wholly owned subsidiary, Modotti Press which specialises in religious text, one of their recent authors Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, who holds doctorates in both History and Political Science, and has written books on Judaism, Science, Politics and Ethics would be bemused to read the description of his publisher as ‘Catholic’!
Connor Court have published in the areas of AUSTRALIAN RULES (FOOTY), AUSTRALIAN STUDIES, BIOGRAPHY, CHILDREN, CLIMATE CHANGE, CURRENT AFFAIRS, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ETHICS/BIOETHICS, HISTORY, ITALIAN STUDIES, PARENTING, PHILOSOPHY, POETRY, POLITICS, RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY, SCIENCE, SEXUALITY, AND SOCIAL STUDIES.
Next Crikey attempt to diminish the author’s and the book’s credibility by writing: “Plimer, a mining geologist, has cachet in Coalition circles.” Painting him as someone who simply has a vested interest in mining, and is from the conservative side of politics.
Crikey avoid mentioning that Plimer is a well credentialled academic and scientist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published many scientific papers, six books and is one of the co-editors of Encyclopedia of Geology. A bit more than Crikey’s description as a mining geologist. And as for the Catholic jibe, Crikey might have mentioned that in one of his books titled ‘Telling Lies for God: Reason vs Creationism’ (1994), Plimer attacked creationists in Australia.
The attempts to smear by Crikey continue trying to mock the books early sales success with:
“Itās already No, 1 on Connor Courtās bestseller list, beating out a 1970s book on sex in Christian marriage with a moving foreword by a Catholic priest, and the memoirs of B.A. Santamariaās brother Joe (B.A. was a Democratic Labor Party identity and Tony Abbottās mentor). The Institute of Public Affairs (of which Plimer is an associate) is promoting Not for Greens as a gift idea.”
Again Crikey are deliberately referencing religious books and political connections, and falsely implying that Connor Court’s next best seller was a 1970’s book on sex in Christian marriage.
Crikey then add, “Last month academic Clive Hamilton named Plimer as one of Crikeyās ādirty dozenā who have done the most to block action on climate change.”
As far as I am concerned that would be a badge of honour given that Clive Hamilton was the one who wrote (in a Crikey article) that ‘climate deniers are deadlier than nazis’. Jo Nova has written extensively on this Ethics and Public Policy professor’s rantings including here.
Crikey’s Cathy Alexander did manage to write a few lines to try to explain the book’s content:
Plimer says the humble teaspoon was created through mineral exploration, mining, smelting and refining, and without coal it would not exist. This apparently proves that a modern, middle-class life is incompatible with environmentalists.
The 200-page book, RRP $29.95, claims wind farms and solar panels use more energy to build than they will ever generate. Plimer, says renewable energy policies have left hundreds of thousands of people in āfuel povertyā. He says greens have a ātotalitarian approach ā¦ the greens are not interested in environmentalismā.
What Alexander wasn’t able to do in her ad hominem filled ‘review’ was to point to any errors in Plimer’s easy to read, fact filled book!
I am extremely widely read with regards to climate science, but still found plenty of new and useful material for me in Plimer’s up-to-date book. It also consolidates many of the ‘skeptics arguments’ succinctly with the relevant details to support the position and shreds the Green advocacy positions.
I highly recommend the book which can be ordered on line here.
As I proposed a few days ago, Keith, 97% is now the brand for the climate change fraud. The Skeptic Shop should jump on it and trademark it ā or Jo and David should. It’s the joke of the century. I’m 97% sure of that.
Neither did he hide his personal agenda, one with which I disagree. But I will still say good for him. š
Were it not for their difference about climate change he and Obama might be bosom buddies. On the other hand, Rossiter appears to be an honest man, so maybe not.
In that earlier Solar Thread, Rereke mentions his Dictionary, and how he uses a SOD. (Shorter Oxford Dictionary)
When I was in the RAAF, the tradition was to purchase something as a going away gift when someone was Posted out. More often than not, it was an engraved pewter beer mug, and I still have half a dozen of those.
In 1991 when I was posted from the School as a technical trades instructor to become the senior Electrical Trade examiner, we had a relatively progressive new WOFF in charge of our Electrical Section, and he wanted to get away from the same old same old engraved pewters, so the Social Club asked me what I would like, and I asked for a quality dictionary, specifically an Australian Macquarie, and they gave me a wonderful Encyclopedic Dictionary, huge and heavy, and used constantly over the years.
When my wonderful Father In Law passed away in 1997, his good lady wife asked if I would like any of his old books. I saw his old Dictionary, and it’s a beautiful old book. It’s a Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the fifth edition, dated 1941, and is illustrated with fine little drawings as well, and it is the same huge size as the Macquarie.
I still use it as well, and often, I find there are words which have fallen out of favour, and as much as you don’t think words disappear, it is in fact not as rare as you may think.
As just one of many examples, look up the word tussore, if you can find it. It’s not in my Macquarie, and yet it appears in many spellings in the old Webster’s.
The main spelling in the old Webster’s is tussah, and it gives six different spellings of that word.
It’s a form of silk, a wild silk spun by undomesticated silkworms, and is light brownish in colour. Back in the late 30’s and early 40’s this wild silk was used to manufacture quality (and quite expensive) suits, and it’s (relatively) close equivalent today might be microfibre, extremely lightweight.
Dictionaries might be considered ho hum, but the two I have are well used.
the first time I came across the word was when reading those Arthur W Upfield novels in his Bony Series, 29 of them in all, the first in 1929, and the last in 1965/6, and that was the only place I have ever seen the word used at all.
It was mentioned during those early novels, and I even found mentions of this in novels written almost into the early 50’s, Bony would wear a Tussore Silk suit on occasions, and I always wondered what it was, because I couldn’t find that word Tussore anywhere. It was actually spelled that way also, which seems odd, because the old Websters from 1941 has Tussah as the original spelling and all other spellings as secondary spellings of the word.
Someone mentioned to me that it might be raw silk, totally unprocessed, and in a way, that was actually partially correct.
The OED is a magnificent piece of work – the original “crowd sourcing” of information. (Refer Doctor of Crawford – “Spelling??)
The whole idea by the Philological Society was to get people to read back on the old books and submit quotes of the earliest quotations of a given word, with the appropriate context. The whole work took about 90 years.
I have a 1975 version of the concise OED – it is a 2 volume set, roughly 15 kg’s worth, complete with a magnifying glass so you can read the little print! I admire the scholarship, but, more importantly, the intellectual integrity of the people who compiled this work.
And, of course, every word represents an idea – each is to be treasured.
Something of interest from the good folks at Radio New Zealand International (Their Copyright):
Kiribati President Anote Tong says it is already too late to save many small island states from being swamped by rising seas.
Mr Tong, speaking to CNN during negotiations in Bonn on a new climate change treaty, says total annihilation is now inevitable for Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and the Maldives.
He says whatever is agreed with the United States or China will not have a bearing on Kiribati’s future, because it is too late.
But Mr Tong says he hopes it could provide a lesson that stronger action is needed on climate change.
He says hopefully that experience will send a very strong message that Kiribati might be on the front line today, but other will be on the front line next – and the next and the next.
New Zealand gives a fair amount of aid money to the Pacific Islands. If this report is true, I hope they stop doing that. I’d hate to think of all that money being wasted.
But then I figured, that there was a opportunity for an entrepreneur to make a killing. So I went on line to see if I could find a suitable holiday property going cheap. But obviously the property owners haven’t got the message yet, because there was nothing in my price bracket. In fact in some of the coral islands, people are building new lavish properties on parts of the reef that have been recently exposed by the receding tide. Surely that can’t be right?
If those who want to live on the beach can keep on building ā actually rebuilding ā on the beach after every bad storm, who’s to say those islanders can’t build on newly exposed reef. What’s sauce for Malibu is sauce for South Pacific Islands.
My only comment would be that both the foolish and the wise get the reward determined by what they do. And by all means New Zealand should not be sending them money, especially not money to save them from a nonexistent problem. But good luck in shutting off the flow of your tax dollars.
AP can write this without laughing! it’s one of the funniest pieces i’ve ever read:
15 June: Daily Mail: AP: Denying climate change is like saying the moon is made of cheese, argues Obama as he takes on global warming deniers at commencement speech.
Obama gave the commencement address at UC Irvine on Saturday
He says Congress is ‘full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence’ of climate change
While in Orange County, the president also attended a closed-door fundraiser at the Laguna Beach home of Getty oil heiress Anne Earhart
‘They say, “Hey, look, I’m not a scientist.” And I’ll translate that for you: what that really means is, “I know that manmade climate change really is happening but if I admit it, I’ll be run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot,'” he said…
The president said today’s young dreamers are fed a steady diet of cynicism but argued they have a right to be optimistic.
‘Consider this: since the time most of you graduated from high school, fewer Americans are at war,’ Obama said. ‘More have health insurance. More are graduating from college. Our businesses have added more than nine million new jobs. And the number of states where you’re free to marry who you love has more than doubled. That’s just some of the progress you’ve seen.’…
While in Orange County, Obama also raised money for the Democratic National Committee at a closed-door fundraiser at the Laguna Beach home of Getty oil heiress Anne Earhart. About 25 people paid up to $32,400 to participate in a roundtable discussion with the president.
He’s spending the rest of the Father’s Day weekend on vacation at the Rancho Mirage home of White House decorator Michael Smith and his partner, U.S. Ambassador to Spain James Costos. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2658079/Denying-climate-change-like-saying-moon-cheese-argues-Obama-takes-global-warming-deniers-commencement-speech.html
this guy wants people to pay skyrocketing electricity prices to keep the CAGW scam going! what a total hypocrite:
ABC: Obama Longs to Break out of White House Bubble
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. June 15, 2014 (AP)
By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press
“I think frankly we’ve all been through a cold and bitter winter and the bear has cabin fever,” said Obama friend and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. “His cabin is a little bit bigger and harder to escape than most.”…
Obama interspersed his four-day weekend with official duties, including Democratic Party fundraising, a speech on climate change and calls to his national security adviser discussing military options to stop a violent insurgency in Iraq…
Obama has taken three weekends away in a golf-friendly place this year after kicking off 2014 on the links in Hawaii.
The Obama family also is planning a longer-than-usual summer vacation to Martha’s Vineyard for two weeks in August, where last summer the president golfed nearly every day on the island.
Obama has golfed every weekend since Washington’s weather got clear enough to allow it in April, save a week when he was in Asia… http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-longs-break-white-house-bubble-24144367
Obama is enjoying just being there. He has no idea what he’s talking about. He rarely attends his daily national security briefing and just as rarely pays any close attention to what his cabinet heads are doing, much less what their subordinates are doing.
What he does pay strict attention to is tightening his grip on the country. By their deeds you shall know them. And that tells the whole story about Obama. “Longs to break out of White House bubble,” is nonsense. He longs to have his whole agenda accomplished and then be free of any responsibility. And if he really wants to be free of responsibility he can hand his letter of resignation to John Kerry (Secretary of State) any day.
Above all, what Obama says to the press is completely unreliable. š
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Obama’s calls to his idiot national security advisor to stop the takeover in Iraq. I would be a better national security advisor than this [snip it myself].
If Australia by any chance is looking for a country to invade, may I suggest the United States?
Well, I’m kidding about that. But a friendly takeover would be a whole lot better than the very unfriendly one happening right in front of me with nothing I can do to stop it.
Noticed in the newspaper today that Conniving Campbell’s “Liberal-In-Name-Only-Party” government has decided to forcibly acquire huge tracts of land from 100 affected owners to help the LINOP’s mining mates build railway lines to the port at Abbot Point. I mean, what better way to ensure the people are represented in government than to break down the barriers between government and private industry and make them all one big happy Family, capiche?
Ask any Queenslander what it would be like to be booted out of their farm and the first words they will say will be that it’s “a win for the landholders”. It’s a shame these two narrow strips are “the only areas in which the State Government was likely to use its powers to compulsorily acquire land for new rail lines”, as Queenslanders have grown tired of property rights, common law contracts, and the free market in land. Surely there are many more plebs who could be turfed out of their land for zee glory of zee Rinehart Reich? Why take 60 metres when you can take 600? As well be lauded for a sheep or a lamb, as they now say.
Right-wing critics may drone predictably about how the mine is worth $40bn in taxes and royalties to the Queensland government, let alone profits to the coal company, which makes any price that landholders could ask in a private sale or lease agreement as mere chump change in the grand scheme of business. But why pay these redneck rentiers in big hats any more than a cent when they should be honoured to surrender their resources for the noble projects of the well-heeled and well-connected. I could also make cynical speculation about exactly which part of the “negotiations with all the mine proponents” was so terribly “exhausting” for the government bureaucrats, yet some sliver of self-restraint remains.
Cynical people – and there are many of them – will say there’s no difference between the Liberal Party and the ALP, but honestly there’s a huge difference between them in who gets your money after the government steals it. The Queensland government will make vastly more in royalties and taxes than it costs them in compensation to the landholders. You see the ALP would just waste their ill-gotten gains, but it takes the economic know-how of the Liberal Party to turn theft into a strategic investment.
I’m glad we voted for the Liberal party in Queensland so that we could get some crony capitalist action in the State. It was all part of their “clearly stated policy outcomes” that we’ve never heard before. Isn’t it nice to get a surprise?
Queenslanders get royalties, employment and payroll taxes so it is for the benefit of all Queenslanders. Property acquisitions for roadways and trains are the same. They benefit individuals directly but if they didn’t benefit the community, it wouldn’t get past the courts.
I am looking at the issue of fossil fuel usage worldwide during the great depression (1929 – 1933), and comparing it to the time series of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
I am trying to find the best sources for CO2 concentration for the time period. From what I can tell, the warmists are using the ice core measurements from Etheridge et al (1996) that are available here on NASA’s GISS website:
But they only have 15 years sampled during the period from 1850 to 1957. So then I took a closer look at the Etheridge et al data, which is used extensively by the warmists in unit root and cointegration tests with temperature data.
They took three cores from the Law dome in Antarctica. The warmists have been presenting this as if it is annual data. It’s not!
For the 107 year period from 1850 to 1957, they took only 22 samples from core DE08, 4 samples from core DE08-2, and 11 samples from core DSS. Then they combined the samples from cores DE08 and DE08-2 and fit a spline to the data to interpolate and smooth the data, using a 20 year window.
Thats the annual CO2 concentration data that is found on NASA’s GISS site. The warmist researchers have been taking this smoothed, interpolated data and treating it as if it is annual samples. Then they have tested it for unit roots and tested for cointegration with annual temperature data. This includes Stern and Kaufman (2000), Kaufman and Stern (2002), Kaufman, Kauppi and Stock (2006), and Liu and Rodriguez (2005)and many others.
You cannot do that. Whatever results the warmist researchers got prior to 1958 with the Etheridge data are spurious.
Using smoothed, interpolated data may have been fine for whatever purpose Etheridge et al were using it. But you cannot use it to compute cointegration with annual temperature data.
16 June: Yahoo: AFP: Greenpeace worker loses 3.8 mn euros in bad currency bet
A Greenpeace employee has been fired after losing the environmental charity 3.8 million euros ($5.15 million) in a failed gamble on international currency markets, the group said on Sunday.
“Nothing suggests at this point that he acted for personal gain, it seems to be a terrible miscalculation,” Greenpeace communications director Mike Townsley told AFP…
Netherlands-based Greenpeace, like many big charities, agrees fixed-rate foreign exchange deals with third-party brokers to try to protect themselves from world currency fluctuations.
“It is common practice for organisations like ours, with a worldwide presence,” Townsley said.
“We would be too exposed to currency fluctuations and risk to lose a lot of money.”
Greenpeace, known for its militant anti-drilling campaigns at oil rigs in the Arctic, has a total annual budget of around 300 million euros.
No Greenpeace campaign will suffer as a result of the loss, which will be absorbed by reducing expenses such as infrastructure over the next two to three years… https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/greenpeace-worker-loses-3-8-184808946.html
13 June: Deutsche Welle: EU agrees on biofuels cap
The energy ministers of the EU have agreed to limit the use of food-based biofuels to seven percent. While environmentalists say it is not enough, advanced biofuels manufacturers say they need more incentives.
Responding to criticism that biofuels made from food crops do more environmental harm than good, EU energy ministers agreed to a deal on Friday that foresees a 7 percent ceiling on their use in transport fuel.
The deal must now be approved by the newly-elected European Parliament…
Analysts say the deal could mean the EU missing its goal to get 10 percent of transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020…
“Today’s deal on biofuels is a brazen assault on common sense. In a starving world, phasing out the use of food for fuel is the only sensible thing to do,” Marc-Olivier Herman, Oxfam’s biofuels expert, said regarding today’s EU decision.
“If the proposal adopted by European Ministers today were to go unchanged, European taxpayers will continue to foot a multibillion bill for a policy that fuels hunger, land grabs and deforestation, while actually exacerbating climate change,” he added. http://www.dw.de/eu-agrees-on-biofuels-cap/a-17705265
4 pages: .pdf: Greeenpeace: Response to leaked IB Report
6.Why is Greenpeace anti–ācoal when India has no choice but to burn coal for electricity, power shortages,
RE (renewables) is too expensive etc.
GREENPEACE: Climate change is the biggest threat mankind has ever faced, and the science of climate change is clear… http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/greenpeace_response_to_leaked_ib_report.pdf
I think that David’s and Jo’s solar /Ā climate research project should be relatively free from non science and non relevant and extraneous comments.
Leave that science based project thread to comments that actually impact on and pertain to the discussion about the science behind the project which in my case makes damn good reading in any case to this non science commenter.
I realize it is a very heavy extra work load but could I suggest that Jo continues to runs another of her usual multi interests threads in parrallel with the Solar /climate project science orientated discussion so as to allow her usual loyal and highly opinionated and verbose non science denizens and commenters amongst us to get on with their usual highly opinionated commenting.
____________________
The above points are due to my desire to post on some Greenpeace happenings which have turned up within the last couple of days.
And that certainly does not fit in at all let alone is comparable with with David and Jo’s very important and what appears at this stage to be a ground breaking research project for which the thread is being used for a science based analysis of that project.
[ roll over the various stages of the corporation life cycle graph for a fuller explanation of each stage ]
And then ask just what stage of it’s life cycle you might think that Greenpeace and the other major environmental NGO’s such as the WWF, the Sierra Club and other such leftist water melon outfits that were all founded in the 1960’s to early 1970’s era, the hippie era might be at?
. And what it might mean to those organisations in their current life cycle stage when we see some of the latest developments re their activities and their political international and national standings.
__________________
Headlines re Greenpeace but relevant to all NGO’s;
“Slip up” at Greenpeace: A member of the finance department has made millions of losses through foreign exchange speculations, according to SPIEGEL information. The money came from donations.
The environmental organization Greenpeace has been rocked by a financial scandal. An employee in the Greenpeace headquarters in Amsterdam lost a total of 3.8 million Euros (5.1 million USD) in currency transactions. According to SPIEGEL information the money came from donations that financially strong Greenpeace country organizations, such as the German one, had transferred to the headquarters in Holland.
In future trading an employee of the finance department bet on sinking Euro exchange rates. However, things eventually turned out quite differently. The employee had committed a “serious misjudgement”, and had been sacked meanwhile, said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace International.
Indiaās domestic spy service has accused Greenpeace and other lobby groups of hurting economic progress by campaigning against power projects, mining and genetically modified food, the most serious charge yet against foreign-funded organisations.
The leak of the Intelligence Bureauās report comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modiās new administration seeks way to restore economic growth that has fallen to below 5 percent, choking off investment and jobs for millions of youth entering the workforce.
Greenpeace denied it was trying to block economic expansion, saying the allegations were an attempt to silence dissent and that it stood for sustainable growth.
&
āA significant number of Indian NGOs funded by donors based in US, UK, Germany and Netherlands have been noticed to be using people-centric issues to create an environment, which lends itself to stalling development projects,ā the Intelligence Bureau said.
These included coal-fired power projects, genetically modified organisms, mega industrial projects including South Korean firm POSCOās steel plant and Vedantaās bauxite project both in Odisha, hyro-power projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the strategic state on the border with China.
Together, the cancellation, disruption or delay to these development projects had clipped gross domestic product growth by 2 to 3 percent a year, according to an excerpt of the report seen by Reuters.
NEW DELHI: All set to take action against Greenpeace India, the ministry of home affairs served a show cause notice to the international NGO on Friday asking why its permission to get foreign funding under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) should not be withdrawn. At least ten more NGO’s could receive similar notices within a week.
Greenpeace, a NGO working on environment issues, has been in the centre of controversy with a Intelligence Bureau (IB) report indicting it for fuelling anti-nuclear agitations and adversely effecting Indian economy. A senior MHA official told ET the evidence against Greenpeace was foolproof and it would be difficult for the organisation to defend itself.
At least 10 more NGO’s will be sent notices under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 by the Union Home Ministry by next week, asking them to explain their funding and spending pattern as a “stricter fund monitoring” regime for NGO’s is set to kick in and a “review is already underway” after the IB has raised an alert, a ministry official said.
The NGO’s facing the heat would include six NGOs involved in opposing genetically modified organisms and certain NGO’s in the North-East in touch with Dutch NGO Cordaid. An earlier IB report had named Cordaid role in agitations that led to the Home Ministry withdrawing Cordaid’s permission to get foreign funding.
A similar action is expected against Greenpeace. A recent Home Ministry report dated December 6, 2013 said the NGO sector in India is vulnerable to the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing.
The stricter regime against NGOs would involve immediate measures to ensure registered NGO’s file their statutory annual returns to the government. The review initiated at the Home Ministry has shown that nearly half the registered NGOs under FCRA – 20,825 out of the 43,527 to be precise – did not file annual returns with the central government which contain details of foreign receipts and utilization.
“This is a matter of grave concern and will be rectified soon under a stricter regime,” a senior Home Ministry official said.
A Home Ministry official said Greenpeace was also sent a questionnaire two months ago, asking the NGO to explain its funding and operations. This was part of an ongoing exercise at IB to study the role of NGO’s post the anti-nuclear protests at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. This inquiry revealed certain alleged irregularities on part of Greenpeace.
i’m amazed how quiet the MSM has been about the taxpayer money lost on Fisker:
9 June: Washington Times: Cheryl K. Chumley: U.S. taxpayers out $139M as China buys failed Fisker electric car company
It’s official: Taxpayers aren’t going to recoup the $139 paid into the failed Fisker Automotive company that went bankrupt because it was just
bought up by a Chinese parts dealer, the Wanxiang Group.
The China company bought Fisker for just over $149 million at a recent U.S. bankruptcy auction, Fox News reported.Department’s program was halted, Fox
News said…
Plans are that Wanxiang will turn around and start selling the same car, albeit a bit changed model, back to U.S. markets by the end of the year…
Fisker had received taxpayer dole-outs throuh the Energy Department’s Advance Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program. In 2013, after taking
about $139 million from taxpayers, Fisker filed for bankruptcy. The company ultimately used $192 million of taxpayer dollars before the Energy Departmentās program was halted, Fox News said. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/9/us-taxpayers-out-139m-china-buys-failed-fisker-ele/
ONLY THE IGNORANT GET TO WRITE FOR THE CONVERSATION!
16 June: The Conversation: David Holmes: A responsible international citizen on climate? Doublespeak in the Oval Office
(David Holmes is Senior Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies at Monash University… Over ten years, he has also co-authored three editions of an Australian sociology textbook -2003, 2007 and 2011- with Roberta Julian and Katie Hughes. For the last edition I have written a new chapter on the sociology of climate change, with a new edition coming out in 2014.)
With Kerry there, deputising Abbott as a new sheriff in a US alliance over Iraq might have been on the table.
???However, it is more likely that they would have laid out to Abbott what the US is having to do to prepare the military for climate change.
???This would be strategically a smart thing to do to bring Abbott into the 21st century on climate. We know that Abbott himself is very attracted to military affairs and to cultivating a kind of military charisma to present to voters and his colleagues…
(LIE ) We do know that the meeting had managed to convince Abbott to put global warming back on the G20 agenda under the heading of āenergy efficiencyā…
But as it transpires, if Osborneās (AAP Paul Osborne) report is true, someone somewhere has been giving Obama a false impression about Australia and carbon pricing. The report claims that:
“Barack Obama has offered an olive branch to Tony Abbott on climate change, conceding the Prime Minister won a mandate in 2013 to get rid of the carbon tax.”
There is no record of the form of words by which such an acknowledgement is made.
???It is more believable that this was a claim made by Abbott about Australian voters. He has been wanting to claim this since the last week of the election last year.
Letās recap on whether this mandate ever really existed.
(LIE) Only when Abbott was in an unlosable position in the last week of the election last year with the power-shifting might of the Murdoch press behind him did he ramp up carbon as a mandate issue. Suddenly, the entire election was deemed to be āall about carbonā.
Abbott was simply parroting a News Corp worldwide editorial strategy at the time to politicise carbon and make it into an issue that politicians dare not even touch…
(LIE) Australians do care about the climate crisis. For Abbott to have told Obama, Biden and Kerry that direct action is at least matching Obamaās recent reforms on cutting emissions in the US is a claim that they would have smiled at but not have taken seriously. Henry Waxman, a veteran US politician, has no time for direct action…
(GLOBE INTERNATIONAL? WHO CARES) A Globe International assessment of the climate mitigation strategies of 66 countries rated Australia as the worst international citizen on climate change.
???The pure theatre of these reported advances from Abbott were completely exposed the very next day. Abbott gave a speech to the obscure Asia Society Texas Centre in Houston, where where he re-iterated how important coal will be for Australia in many decades to come, even figuring in Australia becoming an āenergy superpowerā.
???Abbott probably thought Texas was a safe place to be crusading for fossil fuels ā as too many episodes of Dallas would lead you to think ā but perhaps Abbottās advisers should have done their homework. Texas is actually leading the US in wind power, which has increased 70% in only two years.
Texas is also on track to being one of the first US state to attain a 39% cut in its emissions by 2030…
But if Australia wants to be bigger than Texas, the political class will have to rise well above the closed ideological chamber that it occupies, and step up to the climate reality that the whole world is facing… http://theconversation.com/a-responsible-international-citizen-on-climate-doublespeak-in-the-oval-office-28030
COMMENT BY Esther Rosenblaat: Australians don’t care about the climate – the latest CSIRO report showed that only 4 in 10 Australians believe the globe is warming AND the warming is due to anthropogenic causes.
COMMENT BY Henry Verbene to Esther: Please supply a link to that CSIRO report…
I’ll treat it as a misinformation attempt unless the commenter can substantiate it. I do not think the CSIRO is in the polling business anyway…
COMMENT BY Mike Swinbourne: The number in the report is actually 47.3% – I looked it up.
COMMENT BY Henry Verbene: Thanks Mike. Can’t argue with that!…
COMMENT BY Esther Rosenblaat: 47.3% of 81% is 38% – 4 in 10 (another way of extracting the results)…
COMMENT BY Henry Verbene: Thanks Esther. This may change if we do get another El Nino soon as predicted. Public opinion is notoriously fickle…
COMMENT BY Mike Swinbourne: Sorry David, I can’t let you get away with this.
Abbott has been claiming for years that the election would be a referendum on the carbon tax, not just in the last days of the campaign.
Abbott has been claiming for years that the election would be a referendum on the carbon tax, not just in the last days of the campaign.
That being said, that was just another of Abbott’s misdirections and he was completely wrong to make such a demonstrably wrong claim. If it was a referendum on the carbon tax, then he clearly does not have a mandate (which is just another stupid claim), as less than 50% of the country voted for him…
COMMENT BY Gary Stainton : I liked Abbott’s reference to, “an hour or so,” regarding the duration of the meeting. I wonder when President Obama actually joined the meeting. With about 15 minutes to go as some of his predecessors have done to Australian Prime Ministers?
COMMONWEALTH BANK NEEDS TO STOP PROVIDING ANY FUNDING WHATSOEVER FOR THE CONVERSATION.
will post G20 Energy Efficiency links in separate comment.
“energy efficiency” on the Agenda pre the PM’s visit with Obama:
G20.org: Energy Efficiency a focus for the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group
Senior energy, foreign affairs and finance officials from G20 member countries met in Melbourne on 11 and 12 February for the first G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group (ESWG) meeting of 2014.
Members focussed on issues relating to energy efficiency, global energy architecture, market transparency and investment, and continued work on inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
Working group members were joined by experts from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Energy Forum, and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Members acknowledged the importance of energy efficiency and agreed to share national energy efficiency experience and best practice with a view to further improving the uptake of energy efficiency practices and technologies in G20 economies.
The ESWG will meet two more times in May and August, ahead of the Brisbane Leadersā Summit in November 2014. https://www.g20.org/news/energy_efficiency_focus_g20_energy_sustainability_working_group
re-posting:
22 May: Lowy Institute: Infrastructure, tax, energy
This issue of the Monitor focuses on the role of the G20 in infrastructure, tax and energy governanceā¦
The G20 has a number of energy issues on its work program, including energy efficiency, yet it has not adequately addressed the prior need for a revision of the global energy governance framework itself. The G20 should push for an elevation of the International Energy Agency into a truly global forum that brings together all the major energy producers and consumers on equal basisā¦ http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/infrastructure-tax-energy
16 June: SMH: Peter Hannam: Models ‘grossly underestimate’ costs of global warming, Nicholas Stern says
The risks are in fact likely to be so large that a globally coordinated carbon price of $US32-$US103 ($34-$110) per tonne of emissions is needed as soon as 2015 to prevent the temperature increase from exceeding 2 degrees of pre-industrial age levels, said Lord Stern and co-author Simon Dietz, from the UKās Grantham Research Institute.
Within two decades, the carbon price will need to almost triple in real terms to $US82-$US260 a tonne, the two researchers say in their paper to be published in The Economic Journal.
The authors modified the main model used by economists since 1991 to assess the likely effects of climate change. Developed by Yale Professor Bill Nordhaus in 1991, the model has served as a basis for damage estimates, including the recent Fifth Assessment Report by the UNās Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Professor John Quiggin from the University of Queensland welcomed the report: āI have long been concerned that the (existing) model greatly underestimates the costs of extreme global warming of 4 degrees or more, which remains likely unless stronger global action is taken to reduce CO2 emissions.ā
The new report comes after Prime Minister Tony Abbott wrapped up his global trip with a speech in Texas over the weekend in praise of fossil fuels, particularly coal: “Australia should be an affordable energy superpower, using nature’s gifts to the benefit of our own people and the wider world.”
Australiaās carbon price, now at $24.15 a tonne, is likely to be scrapped when the new Senate sits month, next fulfilling a vow Mr Abbott took to the elections in 2010 and 2013. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/models-grossly-underestimate-costs-of-global-warming-nicholas-stern-says-20140616-zs8tr.html
why haven’t these banks invested this $29 trillion in CAGW-associated markets? LOL.
16 June: ZeroHedge: “Cluster Of Central Banks” Have Secretly Invested $29 Trillion In The Market
Submitted by Tyler Durden
Another conspiracy “theory” becomes conspiracy “fact” as The FT reports “a cluster of central banking investors has become major players on world equity markets.” The report, to be published this week by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), confirms $29.1tn in market investments, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries, which “could potentially contribute to overheated asset prices.” Chinaās State Administration of Foreign Exchange has become āthe worldās largest public sector holder of equitiesā, according to officials, and we suspect the Fed is close behind (courtesy of more levered positions at Citadel), as the world’s banks try to diversify themselves and “counters the monopoly power of the dollar.” Which leaves us wondering where are the central bank 13Fs?…
However, as The FT reports, what we have speculated as fact for many years now (given the death cross of irrationality, plunging volumes, lack of engagement, and of course dwindling credibility of central planners)… is now fact…
The report, seen by the Financial Times, identifies $29.1tn in market investments, including gold, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries…
To summarize, the global equity market is now one massive Ponzi scheme in which the dumb money are central banks themselves, the same banks who inject the liquidity to begin with.
That would explain this (SEE GRAPH)…
That said, good luck with “exiting” the unconventional monetary policy. You’ll need it. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-15/cluster-central-banks-have-secretly-invested-29-trillion-market
check the drbenway link in the comments re Australia!?
16 June: Australian: Tristan Edis: NSW regulator reduces solar feed-in price benchmark
The NSW utility regulator, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has suggested that a fair value for energy retailers to pay for solar energy fed into the grid is between 4.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and 9.3 cents/kWh. This has been reduced from the 2013/14 recommendation of 6.6 cents to 11.2 cents.
This price ābenchmarkā is intended solely as a guide to inform energy consumers and retailers and is not a mandatory requirement. Power retailers are free to pay whatever price they wish for generation fed into the grid by its customers, including paying nothing. In addition households can shop around to find the best price available from the range of power retailers serving the NSW residential market…
For further detail behind IPARTās decision see their determination and associated documents. LINK http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/nsw-regulator-reduces-solar-feed-in-price-benchmark/story-e6frg90f-1226956591631
imagine if the MSM properly informed the public where the CAGW scam is heading, in terms of their wallets. the CAGW scam would have been stoppd in its tracks years ago:
16 June: Missoulian: Obama energy price increases are avoidable
Guest column by ED WALKER
Electricity prices are on the rise, and your wallet will soon know it. Frustratingly, the reason those prices are going up has nothing to do with normal economics…
The U.S. Department of Energy expects coal plants with the output capacity to supply 30 million homes to shut down by 2020. That supply will be replaced by more expensive energy sources. The DOE expects prices to increase 13 percent by 2020, and that doesnāt even take into account additional EPA regulations on the horizon…
Advocates of anti-coal policies point to alternative energy as the answer to fill the gap left by closing coal plants. Their claims ignore the data ā even with rapid growth in renewables over the past several years, they can still supply only a small fraction of our coal output. And with the expiration of the renewable energy production tax credit at the end of 2013, the true cost of renewable energy sources will soon become apparent…
And what do we gain by shutting down American coal plants, killing American jobs, and sticking every American with more-expensive energy bills? From a carbon emissions standpoint, the gains are virtually nonexistent. The world is using increasing amounts of coal and other fossil fuels, and necessarily so ā 1.2 billion people in the world still donāt have access to electricity…
(Sen. Ed Walker, R-Billings, represents Senate District 29 in the Montana Legislature. Walker currently serves as a member on the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee and as vice chair of the Senate Finance and Claims Committee.) http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/obama-energy-price-increases-are-avoidable/article_4c1bdd42-f566-11e3-8afe-0019bb2963f4.html
17 June: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Fears for renewables after energy target ‘described as government largesse’
Windfarm owner said he was astonished by attitude of the head of the Coalition’s renewable energy review
Windfarm owners say the head of Tony Abbott’s renewable energy review recently told them they were foolish to ābuild a whole business model on government largesseā, raising fears he will recommend a severe winding back of the renewable energy target.
Simon Holmes a Court, the founding chair of Hepburn Wind, a community windfarm, told Guardian Australia he had been astonished by the comments from businessman Dick Warburton at a meeting last week.
Meanwhile, the now-independent Climate Council has released a report arguing Australiaās coal-fired power stations are among the oldest and dirtiest in the world and difficult to retrofit with carbon capture and storage technology ā leaving renewables such as wind as the least-cost āzero emissionsā option…
Holmes a Court said Warburton asked ādidnāt we feel foolish basing a whole business model on government largesseā. The āgovernment largesseā being referred to was the renewable energy target (RET) that was first introduced by the Howard government, has enjoyed bipartisan support ever since and has attracted about $18bn in investment…
And even government backbenchers who question the science of climate change and oppose the RET concede its total abolition would constitute āsovereign riskā ā a situation where governments change the rules after investment decisions have already been made…
George Christensen, who the climate-sceptic Heartland Institute is sponsoring to address its conference in Las Vegas next month and who chairs the Coalition backbench industry committee, said there were āconflicting views within the Coalition because we are acutely aware of its impact on power prices but on the other hand there is a strong argument we should not disadvantage people who have invested on the basis of what was bipartisan policyā…
Like Warburton, the IPA suggests businesses should not have based investments on government āfavoursā.
āSovereign risk involves a ātakingā of property and should be avoided because, ethical issues aside, it creates great uncertainties for investment, especially investment with long payback times. But sovereign risk from the government withdrawing a favour is different from when it takes a property. No investor can reasonably expect a subsidy to prevail for 15 years as is notionally the case with windfarms and other exotic renewable facilities. And there would be few precedents for a government committing its successors to what would become 24 years of worthless expenditure,ā the IPA says in its submission. …
According to the IPA, there are three options for modifying the RET scheme: READ ON…
The climate commission, which became a crowd-funded independent body after it was abolished by the Abbott government, will release a report on Tuesday arguing that āthe least-expensive zero-emission option available at scale for deployment today in Australia is wind, closely followed by field-scale solar PVā. …
Assuming Australia does need to reduce emissions from its power sector, the report says moving to renewables would be cheaper than trying to āclean upā coal-fired plants…
Others, including Abbottās top business adviser, Maurice Newman, want the RET scrapped altogether.
Newman, the former chairman of the ABC and the ASX, has said persisting with government subsidies for renewable energy represented a ācrime against the peopleā because higher energy costs hit poorer households the hardest and there was no longer any logical reason to have them.
Under legislation, the next review of the RET is supposed to be undertaken by the independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) but the government is seeking to abolish the CCA. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/fears-for-renewables-after-energy-target-described-as-government-largesse
After yesterday it’s hard to think that anything else is not the solar model. š
I’ll try though and ask Jo a question about the suggestion from scaper at the end of the previous thread, have you considered going into politics namely the senate?
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The Solar Model.
My comment to local paper about a local council and their nest of Green Hornets.
“Appalling. (the highjacking of a local council by warmer religious idealogues)
The whole premise on which sea level rise is predicted is Scientifically false.
Man has no influence over world temperatures via the burning of fossil fuels simply because of the asymptote effect with respect to the behaviour of CO2.
There are no ifs buts or maybes about this; it is scientific base material that is inconvenient to the eco loons.
The available solar energy whether direct or radiated is limited and the ONLY thing which can raise Earth”s temperature is a hotter SUN.
Someone must be held accountable for this fraud being perpetrated on the people of Lake Macquarie.
The truth is that sea levels are currently the most stable they have been for 8,000 years during which time sea levels have declined by 6 to 7 metres.
The people of LMCC are being duped by a bunch of politically inspired hardliners: what do they do all day at work?
The mind boggles.””
End of rant.
Have not yet read David’s new work but assume it places the Sun at the centre of attention re world temperatures.
KK
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KK same here with local council and unfortunately every council in Australia, this infestation of Gaia ideology has been a slow process and only succeeded with the public being complacent, myself included.
The reason I asked about politics was even though good people get into politics and try to make positive changes for the public they are increasingly stymied at every turn and point by an increasingly green/socialist corrupted political and media regime.
We have a great Senator John Madigan ,DLP, who despite a good support base from many areas of the community has endured consistent slanderous attacks from political opponents and their agitators with great assistance from the local Fairfax media.
It’s gotten so grubby that when John Madigan opened Lord Monckton’s address here he was publicly mocked by the greens for being anti abortion but supporting the future deaths of millions of children due to climate change skepticism, and even though the majority would condemn such claims it still makes an appearance as news driven by a minority.
End of rant also, I hope I haven’t put you off politics Jo? š
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Hi Yonnie,
Unfortunately the acceptance of anything in Print or TV as being true and real is destroying a lot of good people.
It virtually makes it impossible for an Independent to run for parliament and sustain the onslaught of the media campaign machines of major parties.
Major parties do have support crew to defend and help their candidates to some extent but the problem is that blatant lies can be allowed into the public domain without any responsibility for damage caused.
Consequently anything goes and somebody can be labeled a “d$g f$ck$r” or worse with total impunity.
While I would love to see Jo “run” I must say that you would have to have a very good support crew.
KK
50
KK, no different across the ditch in NZ with the local rabble of Green latte swilling Council intelligentsia spouting their collectivista mantras that have been cited in of all places, 350.org
also one of the colder and poorer places in NZ, a University culture more at home with The Conversation than the real world, and one that identifies solidly with the 97% consensus, making spectacularly great sense, in a climate about to become much colder…….
and following closely on the heels of 350.org, proclamations around sea level rises that have led to Council implementation of floor raising policies…..:
All well here and business as usual in Neverland, as you see. Ship-of-fools springs to mind.
70
One phrase: Icy Lie.
Look under ICLEI; a UN body to propagate Agenda 21 from the local government level up, subverting sovereign powers.
50
Nothing much to say so just thought I’d buy some chocolate.
Thanks Jo and David.
KK
80
Thank you! It really does help and we do need to find a way to make independent science and independent science-commentary a career path. We can’t leave science to the sole control of the government.
150
And that’s the root of the problem, climate science today delivers what governments want.
India, China and Russia know global warming is a crock, pay some lip service to the concept, and carry on as before.
In the West, with ecoloon, “must be seen to be saving the world” type political leaders, the scientific institutions are required to show the world needs to be a greener place in order to be ‘saved’, while simultaneously providing a reason for new sources of government revenues.
I cannot think of anything apart from Arctic ice cover which indicates there might be any global warming today other than natural cycles. However, there most of the summer ice loss over the last 40 years can probably be explained by: i) increased amounts of Northern Hemisphere soot, ii) changes in salinity due to changes in fresh water inflow and/or ocean currents, and iii) deep ocean floor hydrothermal activity bringing up more saline water to surface. Then, of course the is the obvious embarrassment for alarmists of the growing extent of the Antarctic ice.
Anyhow, I sure hope you have found something special in solar cycles/activity. If you have, then the Climate Inquisition will be after you with a vengeance and there will be a severe outbreak of even snottier trolls here.
60
Fall in greenhouse gas emissions biggest in 24 years
ā Australia posted its biggest annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 24 years of records in 2013 as the carbon(sic) tax helped drive a large drop in pollution from the electricity sector. ā
According to the unproven hypothesis of Doomsday Global Warming, perfect weather/climate should be here.
Yet, 2013 was “Angry”, and Autumn 2014 is “Abnormal”.
. . .
Further evidence carbon(sic) taxes cannot control weather/climate.
50
The fall in greenhouse emissions started in 2008 — long before the tax. It was the effect the Rudd-Gillard government appears to have had on our GDP. š
193
I am very impressed, that yet again it seems an Aussie on a shoe string budget may be leading the world in a scientific endeavour. Seriously looking forward to Jo and Davids new way of looking at what controls our climate. I worry a little that they may be targeted for being heretical to the CO2 cause, do not hesitate to put your hands up for help, I have seen what you have done helping others over the years. Yours Faithfully.
130
Wayne,
Much as I appreciate and respect the work of David and Jo, let’s not get ahead of ourselves quite yet.
Remain sceptical until proven otherwise. š
70
We want skeptics to debate it. (The fans of CO2 models are going to ignore it as long as they possibly can.) All constructive feedback is gratefully received.
150
And my thanks to Jo and Dave from distant Wales. I hope the ‘project’ will include some sort of tutorial on CO2 for us lesser enabled followers. š As a non-scientist type I must glean my information from the internet and have no real way of confirming what I have learned.
With regard to CO2 gas I read there is a well documented ‘radiation fingerprint’ covering the complete IR range for CO2 centred on three specific bands. These bands are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 microns. The 15 micron band has some 3,800 lines of IR over the range 13 to 17 microns. Wien’s Law tells us there is a peak emission level for any given temperature. For the 2.7 micron band it is ~800C and the 4.3 micron band is ~400C. There is NO WAY CO2 is radiating from the atmosphere at those temperatures! But CO2 can absorb photons at those energy levels which can ONLY come from the sun. Therefore CO2 is SHIELDING the surface from the energy in those bands like an invisible cloud.
Peak emission temperature for 13 microns is -50C, yes, MINUS 50 degrees C. Most of the atmosphere is rather warmer than that so CO2 is radiating continuously over the 13 to 17 micron bands COOLING THE AIR!
Now a point that never seems to enter the discussion; if any material is warm enough to radiate any band of radiation it CANNOT ABSORB radiation over that band. It is statistically possible that the odd photon will be absorbed but because the material IS ALREADY AT OR ABOVE the peak temperature another equivalent photon will be emitted FOR NO CHANGE IN THE ENERGY LEVEL of the material. This applies to solids, liquids and gasses. Thus there is no way radiation from CO2 in the atmosphere over the 13 to 17 micron band can warm the surface. The surface sets the start temperature for the adiabatic lapse rate up the atmosphere. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BACK-RADIATION FROM SO CALLED GREENHOUSE GASSES IN THE ATMOSPHERE.
70
Agree Richard,
The Sun’s spectrum, as seen from the surface of the Earth has huge absorption bands corresponding with the absorption of O3, O2, H2O (mainly) and CO2. This absorption is clearly shown by the high temperatures in the thermosphere.
” the thermosphere begins about 85 kilometres above the Earth….Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation.- Wikipaedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere
The Earth’s spectrum as seen from a satellite in space also seems to have H2O and CO2 absorption bands.
This may be true. It does seem to be confirmed by the observations above. Where are the corresponding emission bands? I would expect to find them using an IR spectrometer at the surface looking up, especially at night time. So far I have not seen that evidence.
30
New excuse for the pause š
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/14/stunning-admission-and-a-new-excuse-for-the-pause-lousy-data/
80
My God! Lousy data. Who would believe it? They were so-o-o-o-o certain. What a disappointment. š
20
have left the solar thread to the “experts”. it will be very interesting to see where it goes.
a friend who visits jo’s site saw a comment i made recently about young people i know being the least interested in CAGW, despite all the MSM/CAGW team’s hype that the young support CAGW action & so on. my friend suggested i check the following article. can’t say i’ll be bothered to pursue the author’s thesis further, but it does capture precisely what i have observed…and i am not even being critical of the young:
22 Feb: Guardian: Christina Patterson: Press record. Is that what we do now
when someone dies?
It’s hard not to infer a link between a growing lack of empathy among young
people and the hours they spend online
Young people, according to a new book called The App Generation by Harvard
psychologist Howard Gardner and digital media expert Katie Davis, spend 80%
of their time on social media talking about themselves. Eighty percent is
quite a lot. If it’s 80%, you’ve got to call it narcissism. If it’s 80%,
it’s narcissism on a sociopathic scale…
Most people aren’t sociopaths, but the ability of young people to empathise,
according to recent research, might not be quite as well developed as their
ability to post selfies on Instagram. The American psychologist Sara Konrath
has collated evidence from 72 studies which seems to show that empathy
levels among American college students are 40% lower than they were 20 years
ago. In the last 10 years, she says, there has been an especially sharp
drop…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/21/press-record-when-someone-dies-empathy-young-people
30
from young to old! despite the relentless MSM pushing of CAGW, the CAGW crowd are not really getting their message over to anyone much. and, as someone who visits many pro-CAGW websites daily, it is clear very few people in general, much less young people, comment, or interact with CAGW sites online, compared to WUWT or jo’s.
the failure of multi-million-dollar,celebrity-studded production, series “Years of Living Dangerously” to find an audience says it all really. not even celebrity-in-chief Obama’s appearance could bring in viewers.
likewise, we know older folks being polled are not falling for CAGW, most likely being wise enough to see through the scam, so check these amazing figures. how they compare with Australia, UK, etc i do not know, but i imagine we would find a similar trend across the world, particular where the internet is universally available.
what i’m saying, therefore, is the CAGW crowd are talking to themselves, & any poll they come out with to suggest public interest in CAGW action, is highly dubious:
28 May: NYT: Bill Carter: May Brings a Loss of Viewership for Cable News
Channels
But all the news channels have seen particularly troubling declines in
viewership this month of May: CNN had the least-watched 9 p.m. hour in the
channel’s history and finished fourth, behind Fox News, MSNBC, and even its
sister channel HLN, in attracting the viewers that news advertisers pay for.
MSNBC had its lowest performance in prime time since July 2006…
The category in each of those cases was viewers between the ages of 25 and
54, which is the group advertisers use to pay for commercials in news
programs. Among overall viewers, Fox News did not have nearly as large a
falloff, which reflects that channel’s aging audience…
CNN’s morning program, which had edged ahead of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, fell
well back again. It had only 80,000 viewers in the 25-54 group…
Both CNN and MSNBC would still gladly welcome the numbers Fox News racks up,
of course, but compared to its own history Fox continues to experience
steady losses among viewers under 55 years old. The total day average for
the channel in that 25-54 category was 177,000 viewers.
That remains well above the competition: MSNBC averaged 103,000; CNN
averaged just 99,000…
The audience for news is generally among the oldest in television…
The median age for MSNBC in May was 62.5. For CNN it was 62.8. For Fox News
it was 68.8.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/business/media/may-brings-a-loss-of-viewership-for-cable-news-channels.html?_r=3
30
Rare Historical Photos (via catalaxy)
~ ~ ~
Interactive trek to Mt Everest.
Compare glaciers.
Walk the streets, receive a blessing …
Enjoy.
30
I’ve just finished reading Prof Ian Plimer’s new book ‘Not for Greens’. The measure of how good it is, is how much left wing reviewers hate it. It is no surprise that all their criticisms are based on personal attacks and innuendo. They haven’t attacked any of the facts presented by Plimer.
For instance here are some snippets from Crikey’s ‘review’ by deputy editor Cathy Alexander:
Not for Greens: He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon is coming out this month via boutique Catholic publishing house Connor Court.
Crikey’s first attempted smear is to pigeon-hole the books publishers as ‘Catholic’. While Connor Court Publishing does have a wholly owned subsidiary, Modotti Press which specialises in religious text, one of their recent authors Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, who holds doctorates in both History and Political Science, and has written books on Judaism, Science, Politics and Ethics would be bemused to read the description of his publisher as ‘Catholic’!
Connor Court have published in the areas of AUSTRALIAN RULES (FOOTY), AUSTRALIAN STUDIES, BIOGRAPHY, CHILDREN, CLIMATE CHANGE, CURRENT AFFAIRS, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ETHICS/BIOETHICS, HISTORY, ITALIAN STUDIES, PARENTING, PHILOSOPHY, POETRY, POLITICS, RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY, SCIENCE, SEXUALITY, AND SOCIAL STUDIES.
Next Crikey attempt to diminish the author’s and the book’s credibility by writing: “Plimer, a mining geologist, has cachet in Coalition circles.” Painting him as someone who simply has a vested interest in mining, and is from the conservative side of politics.
Crikey avoid mentioning that Plimer is a well credentialled academic and scientist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published many scientific papers, six books and is one of the co-editors of Encyclopedia of Geology. A bit more than Crikey’s description as a mining geologist. And as for the Catholic jibe, Crikey might have mentioned that in one of his books titled ‘Telling Lies for God: Reason vs Creationism’ (1994), Plimer attacked creationists in Australia.
The attempts to smear by Crikey continue trying to mock the books early sales success with:
“Itās already No, 1 on Connor Courtās bestseller list, beating out a 1970s book on sex in Christian marriage with a moving foreword by a Catholic priest, and the memoirs of B.A. Santamariaās brother Joe (B.A. was a Democratic Labor Party identity and Tony Abbottās mentor). The Institute of Public Affairs (of which Plimer is an associate) is promoting Not for Greens as a gift idea.”
Again Crikey are deliberately referencing religious books and political connections, and falsely implying that Connor Court’s next best seller was a 1970’s book on sex in Christian marriage.
Crikey then add, “Last month academic Clive Hamilton named Plimer as one of Crikeyās ādirty dozenā who have done the most to block action on climate change.”
As far as I am concerned that would be a badge of honour given that Clive Hamilton was the one who wrote (in a Crikey article) that ‘climate deniers are deadlier than nazis’. Jo Nova has written extensively on this Ethics and Public Policy professor’s rantings including here.
Crikey’s Cathy Alexander did manage to write a few lines to try to explain the book’s content:
Plimer says the humble teaspoon was created through mineral exploration, mining, smelting and refining, and without coal it would not exist. This apparently proves that a modern, middle-class life is incompatible with environmentalists.
The 200-page book, RRP $29.95, claims wind farms and solar panels use more energy to build than they will ever generate. Plimer, says renewable energy policies have left hundreds of thousands of people in āfuel povertyā. He says greens have a ātotalitarian approach ā¦ the greens are not interested in environmentalismā.
What Alexander wasn’t able to do in her ad hominem filled ‘review’ was to point to any errors in Plimer’s easy to read, fact filled book!
I am extremely widely read with regards to climate science, but still found plenty of new and useful material for me in Plimer’s up-to-date book. It also consolidates many of the ‘skeptics arguments’ succinctly with the relevant details to support the position and shreds the Green advocacy positions.
I highly recommend the book which can be ordered on line here.
90
Jaymez.
The first Plimer book was a massive work of art which took a lot of focus and reliance on my scientific background to get through it.
Many warmer critics claim to have read it and gave it a real rubbishing.
I would suspect that 97% of them (there’s that number again) either did not read it or were unable to understand it.
KK
60
As I proposed a few days ago, Keith, 97% is now the brand for the climate change fraud. The Skeptic Shop should jump on it and trademark it ā or Jo and David should. It’s the joke of the century. I’m 97% sure of that.
60
You’re right Roy; the alternative view on the matter, 3% doesn’t carry anywhere near the weight of the new Brand for CAGW.
btw We will be spending two weeks exploring your country over the coming July August based in Falls Church Va.
Plan to visit Washington and New York and just relax.
KK
10
You will find much to see in DC, much too much to allow relaxing. I hope the Smithsonian is high on your list.
Enjoy!
Roy
20
Caleb has his say !!! OUCH !!!!!
60
Thanks Griss he did not mince his words
30
Neither did he hide his personal agenda, one with which I disagree. But I will still say good for him. š
Were it not for their difference about climate change he and Obama might be bosom buddies. On the other hand, Rossiter appears to be an honest man, so maybe not.
20
In that earlier Solar Thread, Rereke mentions his Dictionary, and how he uses a SOD. (Shorter Oxford Dictionary)
When I was in the RAAF, the tradition was to purchase something as a going away gift when someone was Posted out. More often than not, it was an engraved pewter beer mug, and I still have half a dozen of those.
In 1991 when I was posted from the School as a technical trades instructor to become the senior Electrical Trade examiner, we had a relatively progressive new WOFF in charge of our Electrical Section, and he wanted to get away from the same old same old engraved pewters, so the Social Club asked me what I would like, and I asked for a quality dictionary, specifically an Australian Macquarie, and they gave me a wonderful Encyclopedic Dictionary, huge and heavy, and used constantly over the years.
When my wonderful Father In Law passed away in 1997, his good lady wife asked if I would like any of his old books. I saw his old Dictionary, and it’s a beautiful old book. It’s a Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the fifth edition, dated 1941, and is illustrated with fine little drawings as well, and it is the same huge size as the Macquarie.
I still use it as well, and often, I find there are words which have fallen out of favour, and as much as you don’t think words disappear, it is in fact not as rare as you may think.
As just one of many examples, look up the word tussore, if you can find it. It’s not in my Macquarie, and yet it appears in many spellings in the old Webster’s.
The main spelling in the old Webster’s is tussah, and it gives six different spellings of that word.
It’s a form of silk, a wild silk spun by undomesticated silkworms, and is light brownish in colour. Back in the late 30’s and early 40’s this wild silk was used to manufacture quality (and quite expensive) suits, and it’s (relatively) close equivalent today might be microfibre, extremely lightweight.
Dictionaries might be considered ho hum, but the two I have are well used.
Tony.
70
Great story Tony.
My Shorter Oxford (1973) has Tussore. How did you find that word?
Funk and Wagnalls Dictionary (1974 has Tussah.
20
peter c,
the first time I came across the word was when reading those Arthur W Upfield novels in his Bony Series, 29 of them in all, the first in 1929, and the last in 1965/6, and that was the only place I have ever seen the word used at all.
It was mentioned during those early novels, and I even found mentions of this in novels written almost into the early 50’s, Bony would wear a Tussore Silk suit on occasions, and I always wondered what it was, because I couldn’t find that word Tussore anywhere. It was actually spelled that way also, which seems odd, because the old Websters from 1941 has Tussah as the original spelling and all other spellings as secondary spellings of the word.
Someone mentioned to me that it might be raw silk, totally unprocessed, and in a way, that was actually partially correct.
Tony.
40
Thanks for putting me on to the Bony books Tony.
Have quite a few now having raided all the local second hand book stores but may have to buy the rest overseas.
KK
00
Tony
The OED is a magnificent piece of work – the original “crowd sourcing” of information. (Refer Doctor of Crawford – “Spelling??)
The whole idea by the Philological Society was to get people to read back on the old books and submit quotes of the earliest quotations of a given word, with the appropriate context. The whole work took about 90 years.
I have a 1975 version of the concise OED – it is a 2 volume set, roughly 15 kg’s worth, complete with a magnifying glass so you can read the little print! I admire the scholarship, but, more importantly, the intellectual integrity of the people who compiled this work.
And, of course, every word represents an idea – each is to be treasured.
Cheers,
Speedy.
30
Tony, books are obsolete. š
10
At least they’re obsolete as long as we can keep the generators turning.
10
Tony – you may enjoy this – Spike Milligan and Word Power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPKbg06eJ2M#t=38
00
It’s started… I’ve posted Big News Part II: For the first time ā a mysterious notch filter found in the climate.
Enjoy!
50
Something of interest from the good folks at Radio New Zealand International (Their Copyright):
New Zealand gives a fair amount of aid money to the Pacific Islands. If this report is true, I hope they stop doing that. I’d hate to think of all that money being wasted.
But then I figured, that there was a opportunity for an entrepreneur to make a killing. So I went on line to see if I could find a suitable holiday property going cheap. But obviously the property owners haven’t got the message yet, because there was nothing in my price bracket. In fact in some of the coral islands, people are building new lavish properties on parts of the reef that have been recently exposed by the receding tide. Surely that can’t be right?
40
Rereke,
If those who want to live on the beach can keep on building ā actually rebuilding ā on the beach after every bad storm, who’s to say those islanders can’t build on newly exposed reef. What’s sauce for Malibu is sauce for South Pacific Islands.
My only comment would be that both the foolish and the wise get the reward determined by what they do. And by all means New Zealand should not be sending them money, especially not money to save them from a nonexistent problem. But good luck in shutting off the flow of your tax dollars.
30
Lighten your day!
Particularly if you can read French which I can’t somewhat to my regret but I still got a good laugh out of these climate cartoons.
http://pensee-unique.fr/dessins.html
If Jo had a translator around, tossing one or two of these cartoons in occasionally would bring many a smile.
40
I don’t read French either, but some of them look like great fun.
Pachaurinochio… lol !!
41
AP can write this without laughing! it’s one of the funniest pieces i’ve ever read:
15 June: Daily Mail: AP: Denying climate change is like saying the moon is made of cheese, argues Obama as he takes on global warming deniers at commencement speech.
Obama gave the commencement address at UC Irvine on Saturday
He says Congress is ‘full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence’ of climate change
While in Orange County, the president also attended a closed-door fundraiser at the Laguna Beach home of Getty oil heiress Anne Earhart
‘They say, “Hey, look, I’m not a scientist.” And I’ll translate that for you: what that really means is, “I know that manmade climate change really is happening but if I admit it, I’ll be run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot,'” he said…
The president said today’s young dreamers are fed a steady diet of cynicism but argued they have a right to be optimistic.
‘Consider this: since the time most of you graduated from high school, fewer Americans are at war,’ Obama said. ‘More have health insurance. More are graduating from college. Our businesses have added more than nine million new jobs. And the number of states where you’re free to marry who you love has more than doubled. That’s just some of the progress you’ve seen.’…
While in Orange County, Obama also raised money for the Democratic National Committee at a closed-door fundraiser at the Laguna Beach home of Getty oil heiress Anne Earhart. About 25 people paid up to $32,400 to participate in a roundtable discussion with the president.
He’s spending the rest of the Father’s Day weekend on vacation at the Rancho Mirage home of White House decorator Michael Smith and his partner, U.S. Ambassador to Spain James Costos.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2658079/Denying-climate-change-like-saying-moon-cheese-argues-Obama-takes-global-warming-deniers-commencement-speech.html
20
this guy wants people to pay skyrocketing electricity prices to keep the CAGW scam going! what a total hypocrite:
ABC: Obama Longs to Break out of White House Bubble
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. June 15, 2014 (AP)
By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press
“I think frankly we’ve all been through a cold and bitter winter and the bear has cabin fever,” said Obama friend and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. “His cabin is a little bit bigger and harder to escape than most.”…
Obama interspersed his four-day weekend with official duties, including Democratic Party fundraising, a speech on climate change and calls to his national security adviser discussing military options to stop a violent insurgency in Iraq…
Obama has taken three weekends away in a golf-friendly place this year after kicking off 2014 on the links in Hawaii.
The Obama family also is planning a longer-than-usual summer vacation to Martha’s Vineyard for two weeks in August, where last summer the president golfed nearly every day on the island.
Obama has golfed every weekend since Washington’s weather got clear enough to allow it in April, save a week when he was in Asia…
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-longs-break-white-house-bubble-24144367
10
Obama is enjoying just being there. He has no idea what he’s talking about. He rarely attends his daily national security briefing and just as rarely pays any close attention to what his cabinet heads are doing, much less what their subordinates are doing.
What he does pay strict attention to is tightening his grip on the country. By their deeds you shall know them. And that tells the whole story about Obama. “Longs to break out of White House bubble,” is nonsense. He longs to have his whole agenda accomplished and then be free of any responsibility. And if he really wants to be free of responsibility he can hand his letter of resignation to John Kerry (Secretary of State) any day.
Above all, what Obama says to the press is completely unreliable. š
10
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Obama’s calls to his idiot national security advisor to stop the takeover in Iraq. I would be a better national security advisor than this [snip it myself].
If Australia by any chance is looking for a country to invade, may I suggest the United States?
Well, I’m kidding about that. But a friendly takeover would be a whole lot better than the very unfriendly one happening right in front of me with nothing I can do to stop it.
20
Noticed in the newspaper today that Conniving Campbell’s “Liberal-In-Name-Only-Party” government has decided to forcibly acquire huge tracts of land from 100 affected owners to help the LINOP’s mining mates build railway lines to the port at Abbot Point. I mean, what better way to ensure the people are represented in government than to break down the barriers between government and private industry and make them all one big happy Family, capiche?
Ask any Queenslander what it would be like to be booted out of their farm and the first words they will say will be that it’s “a win for the landholders”. It’s a shame these two narrow strips are “the only areas in which the State Government was likely to use its powers to compulsorily acquire land for new rail lines”, as Queenslanders have grown tired of property rights, common law contracts, and the free market in land. Surely there are many more plebs who could be turfed out of their land for zee glory of zee Rinehart Reich? Why take 60 metres when you can take 600? As well be lauded for a sheep or a lamb, as they now say.
Right-wing critics may drone predictably about how the mine is worth $40bn in taxes and royalties to the Queensland government, let alone profits to the coal company, which makes any price that landholders could ask in a private sale or lease agreement as mere chump change in the grand scheme of business. But why pay these redneck rentiers in big hats any more than a cent when they should be honoured to surrender their resources for the noble projects of the well-heeled and well-connected. I could also make cynical speculation about exactly which part of the “negotiations with all the mine proponents” was so terribly “exhausting” for the government bureaucrats, yet some sliver of self-restraint remains.
Cynical people – and there are many of them – will say there’s no difference between the Liberal Party and the ALP, but honestly there’s a huge difference between them in who gets your money after the government steals it. The Queensland government will make vastly more in royalties and taxes than it costs them in compensation to the landholders. You see the ALP would just waste their ill-gotten gains, but it takes the economic know-how of the Liberal Party to turn theft into a strategic investment.
I’m glad we voted for the Liberal party in Queensland so that we could get some crony capitalist action in the State. It was all part of their “clearly stated policy outcomes” that we’ve never heard before. Isn’t it nice to get a surprise?
10
Queenslanders get royalties, employment and payroll taxes so it is for the benefit of all Queenslanders. Property acquisitions for roadways and trains are the same. They benefit individuals directly but if they didn’t benefit the community, it wouldn’t get past the courts.
00
The states have a legal right to resume property as long as they pay fair compensation. City houses frequently get resumed to build roads.
00
Request for assistance.
I am looking at the issue of fossil fuel usage worldwide during the great depression (1929 – 1933), and comparing it to the time series of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
I am trying to find the best sources for CO2 concentration for the time period. From what I can tell, the warmists are using the ice core measurements from Etheridge et al (1996) that are available here on NASA’s GISS website:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/ghgases/Fig1A.ext.txt
There is also this site:
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/data.htm
I downloaded their spreadsheet, but it only gives a a few data points for the period I am interested in, and they come from several different sources.
Are there any other sources? Please correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can tell, the warmists are only using the Etheridge data?
00
I know all you Aussies are having your morning coffee right now, so I thought I’d tell you want I found, via Wattsupwiththat.com.
I did find this, CO2 estimates from Siple Station ice cores:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/siple.html
But they only have 15 years sampled during the period from 1850 to 1957. So then I took a closer look at the Etheridge et al data, which is used extensively by the warmists in unit root and cointegration tests with temperature data.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/lawdome-data.html
They took three cores from the Law dome in Antarctica. The warmists have been presenting this as if it is annual data. It’s not!
For the 107 year period from 1850 to 1957, they took only 22 samples from core DE08, 4 samples from core DE08-2, and 11 samples from core DSS. Then they combined the samples from cores DE08 and DE08-2 and fit a spline to the data to interpolate and smooth the data, using a 20 year window.
Thats the annual CO2 concentration data that is found on NASA’s GISS site. The warmist researchers have been taking this smoothed, interpolated data and treating it as if it is annual samples. Then they have tested it for unit roots and tested for cointegration with annual temperature data. This includes Stern and Kaufman (2000), Kaufman and Stern (2002), Kaufman, Kauppi and Stock (2006), and Liu and Rodriguez (2005)and many others.
You cannot do that. Whatever results the warmist researchers got prior to 1958 with the Etheridge data are spurious.
Using smoothed, interpolated data may have been fine for whatever purpose Etheridge et al were using it. But you cannot use it to compute cointegration with annual temperature data.
00
almost no coverage of this in the MSM!
16 June: Yahoo: AFP: Greenpeace worker loses 3.8 mn euros in bad currency bet
A Greenpeace employee has been fired after losing the environmental charity 3.8 million euros ($5.15 million) in a failed gamble on international currency markets, the group said on Sunday.
“Nothing suggests at this point that he acted for personal gain, it seems to be a terrible miscalculation,” Greenpeace communications director Mike Townsley told AFP…
Netherlands-based Greenpeace, like many big charities, agrees fixed-rate foreign exchange deals with third-party brokers to try to protect themselves from world currency fluctuations.
“It is common practice for organisations like ours, with a worldwide presence,” Townsley said.
“We would be too exposed to currency fluctuations and risk to lose a lot of money.”
Greenpeace, known for its militant anti-drilling campaigns at oil rigs in the Arctic, has a total annual budget of around 300 million euros.
No Greenpeace campaign will suffer as a result of the loss, which will be absorbed by reducing expenses such as infrastructure over the next two to three years…
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/greenpeace-worker-loses-3-8-184808946.html
00
a start:
13 June: Deutsche Welle: EU agrees on biofuels cap
The energy ministers of the EU have agreed to limit the use of food-based biofuels to seven percent. While environmentalists say it is not enough, advanced biofuels manufacturers say they need more incentives.
Responding to criticism that biofuels made from food crops do more environmental harm than good, EU energy ministers agreed to a deal on Friday that foresees a 7 percent ceiling on their use in transport fuel.
The deal must now be approved by the newly-elected European Parliament…
Analysts say the deal could mean the EU missing its goal to get 10 percent of transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020…
“Today’s deal on biofuels is a brazen assault on common sense. In a starving world, phasing out the use of food for fuel is the only sensible thing to do,” Marc-Olivier Herman, Oxfam’s biofuels expert, said regarding today’s EU decision.
“If the proposal adopted by European Ministers today were to go unchanged, European taxpayers will continue to foot a multibillion bill for a policy that fuels hunger, land grabs and deforestation, while actually exacerbating climate change,” he added.
http://www.dw.de/eu-agrees-on-biofuels-cap/a-17705265
00
15 June: Bhaskar India: Ashish Pandey: Centre serves notice to Greenpeace; NGO responds to āleakedā IB report
Greenpeace responds to various accusations and the ‘leaked’ IB Report that alleges it and other NGOs in the country for receiving foreign donations to hamper India’s economic growth…
http://daily.bhaskar.com/article-ht/NAT-TOP-ngos-come-under-scanner-centre-serves-notice-greenpeace-responds-to-leaked-ib-re-4647901-PHO.html
4 pages: .pdf: Greeenpeace: Response to leaked IB Report
6.Why is Greenpeace anti–ācoal when India has no choice but to burn coal for electricity, power shortages,
RE (renewables) is too expensive etc.
GREENPEACE: Climate change is the biggest threat mankind has ever faced, and the science of climate change is clear…
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/greenpeace_response_to_leaked_ib_report.pdf
00
I think that David’s and Jo’s solar /Ā climate research project should be relatively free from non science and non relevant and extraneous comments.
Leave that science based project thread to comments that actually impact on and pertain to the discussion about the science behind the project which in my case makes damn good reading in any case to this non science commenter.
I realize it is a very heavy extra work load but could I suggest that Jo continues to runs another of her usual multi interests threads in parrallel with the Solar /climate project science orientated discussion so as to allow her usual loyal and highly opinionated and verbose non science denizens and commenters amongst us to get on with their usual highly opinionated commenting.
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The above points are due to my desire to post on some Greenpeace happenings which have turned up within the last couple of days.
And that certainly does not fit in at all let alone is comparable with with David and Jo’s very important and what appears at this stage to be a ground breaking research project for which the thread is being used for a science based analysis of that project.
So onto the Greenpeace happenings
I would once again point readers here to the Adizes Institutes Understanding the Corporate Lifecycle
[ roll over the various stages of the corporation life cycle graph for a fuller explanation of each stage ]
And then ask just what stage of it’s life cycle you might think that Greenpeace and the other major environmental NGO’s such as the WWF, the Sierra Club and other such leftist water melon outfits that were all founded in the 1960’s to early 1970’s era, the hippie era might be at?
. And what it might mean to those organisations in their current life cycle stage when we see some of the latest developments re their activities and their political international and national standings.
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Headlines re Greenpeace but relevant to all NGO’s;
Environmentalists as speculators: Greenpeace employee gambled donor millions – Spiegel Online (2014) [ and lost ! ]
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INDIA LABELS GREENPEACE A āTHREAT TO NATIONAL ECONOMIC SECURITYā
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i’m amazed how quiet the MSM has been about the taxpayer money lost on Fisker:
9 June: Washington Times: Cheryl K. Chumley: U.S. taxpayers out $139M as China buys failed Fisker electric car company
It’s official: Taxpayers aren’t going to recoup the $139 paid into the failed Fisker Automotive company that went bankrupt because it was just
bought up by a Chinese parts dealer, the Wanxiang Group.
The China company bought Fisker for just over $149 million at a recent U.S. bankruptcy auction, Fox News reported.Department’s program was halted, Fox
News said…
Plans are that Wanxiang will turn around and start selling the same car, albeit a bit changed model, back to U.S. markets by the end of the year…
Fisker had received taxpayer dole-outs throuh the Energy Department’s Advance Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program. In 2013, after taking
about $139 million from taxpayers, Fisker filed for bankruptcy. The company ultimately used $192 million of taxpayer dollars before the Energy Departmentās program was halted, Fox News said.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/9/us-taxpayers-out-139m-china-buys-failed-fisker-ele/
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ONLY THE IGNORANT GET TO WRITE FOR THE CONVERSATION!
16 June: The Conversation: David Holmes: A responsible international citizen on climate? Doublespeak in the Oval Office
(David Holmes is Senior Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies at Monash University… Over ten years, he has also co-authored three editions of an Australian sociology textbook -2003, 2007 and 2011- with Roberta Julian and Katie Hughes. For the last edition I have written a new chapter on the sociology of climate change, with a new edition coming out in 2014.)
With Kerry there, deputising Abbott as a new sheriff in a US alliance over Iraq might have been on the table.
???However, it is more likely that they would have laid out to Abbott what the US is having to do to prepare the military for climate change.
???This would be strategically a smart thing to do to bring Abbott into the 21st century on climate. We know that Abbott himself is very attracted to military affairs and to cultivating a kind of military charisma to present to voters and his colleagues…
(LIE ) We do know that the meeting had managed to convince Abbott to put global warming back on the G20 agenda under the heading of āenergy efficiencyā…
But as it transpires, if Osborneās (AAP Paul Osborne) report is true, someone somewhere has been giving Obama a false impression about Australia and carbon pricing. The report claims that:
“Barack Obama has offered an olive branch to Tony Abbott on climate change, conceding the Prime Minister won a mandate in 2013 to get rid of the carbon tax.”
There is no record of the form of words by which such an acknowledgement is made.
???It is more believable that this was a claim made by Abbott about Australian voters. He has been wanting to claim this since the last week of the election last year.
Letās recap on whether this mandate ever really existed.
(LIE) Only when Abbott was in an unlosable position in the last week of the election last year with the power-shifting might of the Murdoch press behind him did he ramp up carbon as a mandate issue. Suddenly, the entire election was deemed to be āall about carbonā.
Abbott was simply parroting a News Corp worldwide editorial strategy at the time to politicise carbon and make it into an issue that politicians dare not even touch…
(LIE) Australians do care about the climate crisis. For Abbott to have told Obama, Biden and Kerry that direct action is at least matching Obamaās recent reforms on cutting emissions in the US is a claim that they would have smiled at but not have taken seriously. Henry Waxman, a veteran US politician, has no time for direct action…
(GLOBE INTERNATIONAL? WHO CARES) A Globe International assessment of the climate mitigation strategies of 66 countries rated Australia as the worst international citizen on climate change.
???The pure theatre of these reported advances from Abbott were completely exposed the very next day. Abbott gave a speech to the obscure Asia Society Texas Centre in Houston, where where he re-iterated how important coal will be for Australia in many decades to come, even figuring in Australia becoming an āenergy superpowerā.
???Abbott probably thought Texas was a safe place to be crusading for fossil fuels ā as too many episodes of Dallas would lead you to think ā but perhaps Abbottās advisers should have done their homework. Texas is actually leading the US in wind power, which has increased 70% in only two years.
Texas is also on track to being one of the first US state to attain a 39% cut in its emissions by 2030…
But if Australia wants to be bigger than Texas, the political class will have to rise well above the closed ideological chamber that it occupies, and step up to the climate reality that the whole world is facing…
http://theconversation.com/a-responsible-international-citizen-on-climate-doublespeak-in-the-oval-office-28030
COMMENT BY Esther Rosenblaat: Australians don’t care about the climate – the latest CSIRO report showed that only 4 in 10 Australians believe the globe is warming AND the warming is due to anthropogenic causes.
COMMENT BY Henry Verbene to Esther: Please supply a link to that CSIRO report…
I’ll treat it as a misinformation attempt unless the commenter can substantiate it. I do not think the CSIRO is in the polling business anyway…
COMMENT BY Mike Swinbourne: The number in the report is actually 47.3% – I looked it up.
COMMENT BY Henry Verbene: Thanks Mike. Can’t argue with that!…
COMMENT BY Esther Rosenblaat: 47.3% of 81% is 38% – 4 in 10 (another way of extracting the results)…
COMMENT BY Henry Verbene: Thanks Esther. This may change if we do get another El Nino soon as predicted. Public opinion is notoriously fickle…
COMMENT BY Mike Swinbourne: Sorry David, I can’t let you get away with this.
Abbott has been claiming for years that the election would be a referendum on the carbon tax, not just in the last days of the campaign.
Abbott has been claiming for years that the election would be a referendum on the carbon tax, not just in the last days of the campaign.
That being said, that was just another of Abbott’s misdirections and he was completely wrong to make such a demonstrably wrong claim. If it was a referendum on the carbon tax, then he clearly does not have a mandate (which is just another stupid claim), as less than 50% of the country voted for him…
COMMENT BY Gary Stainton : I liked Abbott’s reference to, “an hour or so,” regarding the duration of the meeting. I wonder when President Obama actually joined the meeting. With about 15 minutes to go as some of his predecessors have done to Australian Prime Ministers?
COMMONWEALTH BANK NEEDS TO STOP PROVIDING ANY FUNDING WHATSOEVER FOR THE CONVERSATION.
will post G20 Energy Efficiency links in separate comment.
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“energy efficiency” on the Agenda pre the PM’s visit with Obama:
G20.org: Energy Efficiency a focus for the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group
Senior energy, foreign affairs and finance officials from G20 member countries met in Melbourne on 11 and 12 February for the first G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group (ESWG) meeting of 2014.
Members focussed on issues relating to energy efficiency, global energy architecture, market transparency and investment, and continued work on inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
Working group members were joined by experts from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Energy Forum, and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Members acknowledged the importance of energy efficiency and agreed to share national energy efficiency experience and best practice with a view to further improving the uptake of energy efficiency practices and technologies in G20 economies.
The ESWG will meet two more times in May and August, ahead of the Brisbane Leadersā Summit in November 2014.
https://www.g20.org/news/energy_efficiency_focus_g20_energy_sustainability_working_group
re-posting:
22 May: Lowy Institute: Infrastructure, tax, energy
This issue of the Monitor focuses on the role of the G20 in infrastructure, tax and energy governanceā¦
The G20 has a number of energy issues on its work program, including energy efficiency, yet it has not adequately addressed the prior need for a revision of the global energy governance framework itself. The G20 should push for an elevation of the International Energy Agency into a truly global forum that brings together all the major energy producers and consumers on equal basisā¦
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/infrastructure-tax-energy
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16 June: SMH: Peter Hannam: Models ‘grossly underestimate’ costs of global warming, Nicholas Stern says
The risks are in fact likely to be so large that a globally coordinated carbon price of $US32-$US103 ($34-$110) per tonne of emissions is needed as soon as 2015 to prevent the temperature increase from exceeding 2 degrees of pre-industrial age levels, said Lord Stern and co-author Simon Dietz, from the UKās Grantham Research Institute.
Within two decades, the carbon price will need to almost triple in real terms to $US82-$US260 a tonne, the two researchers say in their paper to be published in The Economic Journal.
The authors modified the main model used by economists since 1991 to assess the likely effects of climate change. Developed by Yale Professor Bill Nordhaus in 1991, the model has served as a basis for damage estimates, including the recent Fifth Assessment Report by the UNās Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Professor John Quiggin from the University of Queensland welcomed the report: āI have long been concerned that the (existing) model greatly underestimates the costs of extreme global warming of 4 degrees or more, which remains likely unless stronger global action is taken to reduce CO2 emissions.ā
The new report comes after Prime Minister Tony Abbott wrapped up his global trip with a speech in Texas over the weekend in praise of fossil fuels, particularly coal: “Australia should be an affordable energy superpower, using nature’s gifts to the benefit of our own people and the wider world.”
Australiaās carbon price, now at $24.15 a tonne, is likely to be scrapped when the new Senate sits month, next fulfilling a vow Mr Abbott took to the elections in 2010 and 2013.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/models-grossly-underestimate-costs-of-global-warming-nicholas-stern-says-20140616-zs8tr.html
16 June: WUWT: Eric Worrall: $260 / ton for carbon ā the price of salvation
Lord Stern: Models āgrossly underestimateā costs of global warming
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/16/260-ton-for-carbon-the-price-of-salvation/#more-111564
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given IEA claims $53 trillion in investment is required to “allow the world to keep climate change below the critical 2 degree threshold”
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/13/over-40-trillion-investment-needed-keep-energy-demand-2035-iea-report-concludes
why haven’t these banks invested this $29 trillion in CAGW-associated markets? LOL.
16 June: ZeroHedge: “Cluster Of Central Banks” Have Secretly Invested $29 Trillion In The Market
Submitted by Tyler Durden
Another conspiracy “theory” becomes conspiracy “fact” as The FT reports “a cluster of central banking investors has become major players on world equity markets.” The report, to be published this week by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), confirms $29.1tn in market investments, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries, which “could potentially contribute to overheated asset prices.” Chinaās State Administration of Foreign Exchange has become āthe worldās largest public sector holder of equitiesā, according to officials, and we suspect the Fed is close behind (courtesy of more levered positions at Citadel), as the world’s banks try to diversify themselves and “counters the monopoly power of the dollar.” Which leaves us wondering where are the central bank 13Fs?…
However, as The FT reports, what we have speculated as fact for many years now (given the death cross of irrationality, plunging volumes, lack of engagement, and of course dwindling credibility of central planners)… is now fact…
The report, seen by the Financial Times, identifies $29.1tn in market investments, including gold, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries…
To summarize, the global equity market is now one massive Ponzi scheme in which the dumb money are central banks themselves, the same banks who inject the liquidity to begin with.
That would explain this (SEE GRAPH)…
That said, good luck with “exiting” the unconventional monetary policy. You’ll need it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-15/cluster-central-banks-have-secretly-invested-29-trillion-market
check the drbenway link in the comments re Australia!?
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16 June: Australian: Tristan Edis: NSW regulator reduces solar feed-in price benchmark
The NSW utility regulator, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has suggested that a fair value for energy retailers to pay for solar energy fed into the grid is between 4.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and 9.3 cents/kWh. This has been reduced from the 2013/14 recommendation of 6.6 cents to 11.2 cents.
This price ābenchmarkā is intended solely as a guide to inform energy consumers and retailers and is not a mandatory requirement. Power retailers are free to pay whatever price they wish for generation fed into the grid by its customers, including paying nothing. In addition households can shop around to find the best price available from the range of power retailers serving the NSW residential market…
For further detail behind IPARTās decision see their determination and associated documents. LINK
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/nsw-regulator-reduces-solar-feed-in-price-benchmark/story-e6frg90f-1226956591631
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imagine if the MSM properly informed the public where the CAGW scam is heading, in terms of their wallets. the CAGW scam would have been stoppd in its tracks years ago:
16 June: Missoulian: Obama energy price increases are avoidable
Guest column by ED WALKER
Electricity prices are on the rise, and your wallet will soon know it. Frustratingly, the reason those prices are going up has nothing to do with normal economics…
The U.S. Department of Energy expects coal plants with the output capacity to supply 30 million homes to shut down by 2020. That supply will be replaced by more expensive energy sources. The DOE expects prices to increase 13 percent by 2020, and that doesnāt even take into account additional EPA regulations on the horizon…
Advocates of anti-coal policies point to alternative energy as the answer to fill the gap left by closing coal plants. Their claims ignore the data ā even with rapid growth in renewables over the past several years, they can still supply only a small fraction of our coal output. And with the expiration of the renewable energy production tax credit at the end of 2013, the true cost of renewable energy sources will soon become apparent…
And what do we gain by shutting down American coal plants, killing American jobs, and sticking every American with more-expensive energy bills? From a carbon emissions standpoint, the gains are virtually nonexistent. The world is using increasing amounts of coal and other fossil fuels, and necessarily so ā 1.2 billion people in the world still donāt have access to electricity…
(Sen. Ed Walker, R-Billings, represents Senate District 29 in the Montana Legislature. Walker currently serves as a member on the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee and as vice chair of the Senate Finance and Claims Committee.)
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/obama-energy-price-increases-are-avoidable/article_4c1bdd42-f566-11e3-8afe-0019bb2963f4.html
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17 June: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Fears for renewables after energy target ‘described as government largesse’
Windfarm owner said he was astonished by attitude of the head of the Coalition’s renewable energy review
Windfarm owners say the head of Tony Abbott’s renewable energy review recently told them they were foolish to ābuild a whole business model on government largesseā, raising fears he will recommend a severe winding back of the renewable energy target.
Simon Holmes a Court, the founding chair of Hepburn Wind, a community windfarm, told Guardian Australia he had been astonished by the comments from businessman Dick Warburton at a meeting last week.
Meanwhile, the now-independent Climate Council has released a report arguing Australiaās coal-fired power stations are among the oldest and dirtiest in the world and difficult to retrofit with carbon capture and storage technology ā leaving renewables such as wind as the least-cost āzero emissionsā option…
Holmes a Court said Warburton asked ādidnāt we feel foolish basing a whole business model on government largesseā. The āgovernment largesseā being referred to was the renewable energy target (RET) that was first introduced by the Howard government, has enjoyed bipartisan support ever since and has attracted about $18bn in investment…
And even government backbenchers who question the science of climate change and oppose the RET concede its total abolition would constitute āsovereign riskā ā a situation where governments change the rules after investment decisions have already been made…
George Christensen, who the climate-sceptic Heartland Institute is sponsoring to address its conference in Las Vegas next month and who chairs the Coalition backbench industry committee, said there were āconflicting views within the Coalition because we are acutely aware of its impact on power prices but on the other hand there is a strong argument we should not disadvantage people who have invested on the basis of what was bipartisan policyā…
Like Warburton, the IPA suggests businesses should not have based investments on government āfavoursā.
āSovereign risk involves a ātakingā of property and should be avoided because, ethical issues aside, it creates great uncertainties for investment, especially investment with long payback times. But sovereign risk from the government withdrawing a favour is different from when it takes a property. No investor can reasonably expect a subsidy to prevail for 15 years as is notionally the case with windfarms and other exotic renewable facilities. And there would be few precedents for a government committing its successors to what would become 24 years of worthless expenditure,ā the IPA says in its submission. …
According to the IPA, there are three options for modifying the RET scheme: READ ON…
The climate commission, which became a crowd-funded independent body after it was abolished by the Abbott government, will release a report on Tuesday arguing that āthe least-expensive zero-emission option available at scale for deployment today in Australia is wind, closely followed by field-scale solar PVā. …
Assuming Australia does need to reduce emissions from its power sector, the report says moving to renewables would be cheaper than trying to āclean upā coal-fired plants…
Others, including Abbottās top business adviser, Maurice Newman, want the RET scrapped altogether.
Newman, the former chairman of the ABC and the ASX, has said persisting with government subsidies for renewable energy represented a ācrime against the peopleā because higher energy costs hit poorer households the hardest and there was no longer any logical reason to have them.
Under legislation, the next review of the RET is supposed to be undertaken by the independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) but the government is seeking to abolish the CCA.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/fears-for-renewables-after-energy-target-described-as-government-largesse
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