It’s time to pin down the definition of the Green Blob
Owen Paterson gets the credit for setting this phrase into popular use (as far as I can tell). Here is his definition:
Owen Paterson: I’m proud of standing up to the green lobby
By this I mean the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape. This tangled triangle of unelected busybodies claims to have the interests of the planet and the countryside at heart, but it is increasingly clear that it is focusing on the wrong issues and doing real harm while profiting handsomely.
Local conservationists on the ground do wonderful work to protect and improve wild landscapes, as do farmers, rural businesses and ordinary people. They are a world away from the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with their self-serving demands, many of which would have harmed the natural environment.
Pressed in Fenbeagle’s hand the Green Blob became The Green B-Lobby. Which adds that edge — the amorphous blob becomes a Lobby blob.
…
Forgive me, Fenbeagle, for rendering the cartoon in gif which uses less memory but destroys the gradients. (To see the original art, which is even better, visit his site ). Published with permission.
Exactly what kind of Blob and Blobby do we mean?
James Murry edits BusinessGreen and, not surprisingly, isn’t too keen on the “Green Blob” term. He argued in July that it’s so broadly defined it is meaningless, or rather, dangerous, in that it combines sensible questioners with eco-anarchists:
As Michael Gove understood before him, if you characterise all your critics as an indeterminate mass you damn those with legitimate and well-intentioned concerns by association with those partisan voices who invariably look a little unhinged when aiming hyperbolic criticism at cabinet ministers. So by eliding all of those who have concerns about fracking and climate change, with those who oppose GM crops, badger culls and questionable pesticides, and then further associating all of them with the disgraceful and pathetic individuals who allegedly sent him death threats Paterson seeks to dismiss all his critics as being in cahoots with the most deluded eco-anarchist.
The problem is that in making the “green blob” appear so ridiculous and all-encompassing Paterson only serves to drown his handful of legitimate points in a sea of his own evidence-lite vitriol.
Murry’s comments about labels being misused to stifle debate and bury sensible critics with deluded ones is a reasonable point. Terms need defining. I’ve said similar things about the use of the term “denier” — a term so-ill defined it groups Nobel Prize winners of physics with high schoolers, and people who object on economic grounds with people who disagree about radiative physics.
But Paterson does define his terms (see the top of this post). He makes it clear he is targeting the self-serving greens who pretend to care for the environment while they profit from it. He is not targeting conservationists, nor people who achieve what they set out to achieve for the environment. For example, the Green Blobby are the ones who claim they want to change the climate, and say they can do that through reductions of CO2, but in the end, the Blobby chooses methods like carbon trading and windpower to do it, even though supercritical coal plants or nuclear plants would be a better way to meet the goal they allegedly want.
The Blobby-scientists are the ones who know the fate of the planet rests on tree ring studies, and rush to broadcast their results, and accept prizes (which weren’t even offered) but can’t be bothered updating the data used in the graphs for the next 16 years.
James Murray is concerned about the effect on the conversation of the term “the Green Blob”, but unaware that everything he says, and them some, applies to his use of “Denier”. He is not entirely happy with the term, but comes up with some pretty odd reasons why:
How to argue with “climate sceptics”
We need a new term. “Climate denier” does not work because many climate sceptics now maintain that they do not deny that climate change is happening (although I often have a hard time believing their partial Damascene conversion), “anti-green” is too clunky and “eco-sceptic” has the same problem as “climate scepticism” in its appropriation of the word “sceptic”.
Note to Murray: Study your topic. No Damascene conversion was necessary, most skeptics have always agreed the world has warmed since the Little Ice Age. The only conversion that occurred was in the propaganda about skeptics.
Don’t mince things up. The term Climate denier doesn’t work because it’s a meaningless namecalling term that literally applies to no one over five. Skeptical scientist is perfect, (as is unskeptical scientist).
Ponder the oxymoron of deniers who switch their views. Since the number of skeptics is rising, the number of skeptics who used-to-be-believers (like myself) is growing. What kind of denier switches sides? — Imaginary ones.
Dear James — you’ve fallen for the bait — as long as you use the term “denier” your brain won’t work. You won’t be able to read anything on the climate topic without feeling blindly smug that you know more about the climate than the professors who debate the IPCC conclusions. Take your own advice, stick to terms you can define, and set yourself the goal of not mistaking a namecalling insult for a term of science.
hi Jo
I guess I had better not look a gif source in the mouth. Merry Christmas Australia….. And Britain of course. DECC the halls with Boughs of holly Fa la la la la la la la la.
…When has anyone ever denied the climate?
540
I thought the DECC was decorated with boughs of folly? But la la la la la a la la la la seems to be their reaction to any criticism.
380
Great cartoons and rhymes on your blog Fenbeagle. I really enjoyed them. Thanks to Jo for the link. I’ll pop in again from time to time. Many thanks. Annie.
120
♫ DECC the halls with Boughs of
hollyfolly Fa la la la la ha ha ha ha. ♬120
There is an exact analogy between North Korea, an aggressive Fascist Dictatorship demanding the end of free speech in other countries otherwise there will be mass terror, and the Eco-fascists like GreenPeace, FoE, WWF and Davey.
They too are imposing their diktat as to the truth with threats of mass terrorism, actually being carried out by Davey and DECC on behalf of the crony capitalists in the UK Committee for Climate Change, which I have renamed the Carbon Politburo.
It’s almost too late to save ourselves from the new political and real darkness descending over Europe, Jean-Claude Juncker playing the Prince of Darkness, or is he our Kim Il Sung?
50
PS I should of course add the Ozzie BOM and University-based agents for eco-fascism, enviro-terrorism, getting stuck in Antarctic Ice, and general academic failure by ignorant fools.
50
I am guessing that you are referring, when mentioning North Korea, to the supposed hack of Sony and their movie? I have been around a few years now, about 70 so far, and I can not recall any movie company producing a comedy about the assassination of a national leader, regardless of what nation. And I can’t imagine any of them producing a movie about a living person without their consent. It appears that IF Sony actually was producing said movie, they chose not to be bothered with such things as human decency and perhaps even such mundane things as insuring that their “movie” would not bring civil action by clearing it with the “real people” in their plot.
Personally, I suspect the “hack” claimed was their way out of the lawsuits that would have transferred ownership of the company TO North Korea, when they realized how thin the legal ice was that they were skating on. But as usual, the west MSM has used the ploy as a new avenue of attack. It is sad that something can be done that is patently wrong – create a movie of a live person without their consent – and the MSM and supposedly intelligent, lawful people attack the person being wronged, rather than the party doing wrong.
00
Thanks. Witn permission I would like to use some of the above in my arguments with warmistas or those of the Green Blob and the Green B-Lobby.
150
When to argue with Warmistas:
1) When you have to
2) When you find a Green Blobber willing to engage in sensible debate (see: Unicorn, sighting of)
3) In public debate, where your aim is not to convince the Blobber, but to ridicule them in public
Er, that’s it ….
170
The Green Blob is simply another species of bureaucratic beast, as Jo and many here over the years have continuously pointed out the mechanisms of big government via bureaucracy.
I’ve personally had but a small taste of just how intentionally complex and time wasting a bureaucratic matrix can be and stand in awe at the likes of Peter Spencer taking on such a beast with little more than a sharpened stick, it just shouldn’t be this way in a fair democracy and I feel sad for just comparing our once well earned rights and privileges to a pointed stick.
Such are the outcomes of social engineering by numbers.
330
Yonnie, it’s not just another species of bureaucratic beast. The real problem is that it is an unholy alliance of business-NGO-bureaucrat. That’s the triangle of self-interest that Paterson refers to. If it were just bureaucrats there would not be such an issue, because business would howl, and NGO’s would campaign against it. But with major finance on the line from business, banking and industry, as well as government, there is a river of money supporting a whole layer dedicated workers who in turn support another layer of unpaid useful idiots. The free-helpers soak up the “hero-status”, or enjoy the social permission to be namecalling bullies – a sport they enjoy, but otherwise can’t get away with. It assuages their low self esteem or their western guilt at enjoying the riches of a civilization they really haven’t contributed anything to. Makes them feel important.
And the thing Paterson doesn’t mention (above) is the role the useful idiots play in the media. There, gullible journalists use namecalling to scorn and scoff at any real reporting or scientific debate. I still say, the media IS the problem. With better journalists, the rest would sort itself out.
320
As you say, the lack of competent science reporters is a key problem.
Ask a political journalist why he/she chose that career: the motivation is usually to keep the bastards honest, to unveil lies and corruption, to unspin the propaganda. Their default starting attitude is to assume that a politician is lying if his/her lips are moving.
Ask a science journalist why he/she is doing it: the answer is usually to explain and promote the wonderful achievements of Science and celebrate the warm human stories behind it. (In the specific case of environmental reporters, also: to save the world, the barrier reef and the polar bears.) Their default starting attitude is that a Scientist is always telling the truth and those who question him/her must have vested interests.
A political journalist that approached his job with the apologetic attitude of a science journalist would be a failure, a joke, could never make a career, except as an ABC correspondent. Conversely, and very unfortunately, a science journalist that approached his job with the attitude of a cynical investigative reporter, a Woodward/Bernstein, the attitude that a scientist is lying unless proved otherwise, would NEVER get a job in the MSM, because that’s not what media editors think science journalists should do.
That is why some of the best, true science reporting (of the keep-the-bastards-honest variety) in Australia comes from Boltie, a political journalist by training and attitude.
140
Yes Joanne, the NGO’s have become a big problem in their own right, I have questioned the blurring of our separation of powers in an unelected/unsanctioned method for years now and people never question these organizations because 1/they don’t realize they are not government, 2/the MSM give the impression of NGO’s having legislated powers, 3/people don’t care where their handouts come from.
You might be interested in this local story on the anti wind farm group The Waubra Foundation and it’s recent stripping of charity status by the ACNC driven by the Greens, you will see the hypocrisy in these actions and the finger pointing of Liberal/big business self interests but my local Fairfax rag was remiss on reporting the much bigger corruption involving public money with the Hepburn Wind project.
70
Oh poo forgot the links, Anti wind farm group de-listed and Hepburn Wind, sorry pre mature adjudication.
50
Jo
The Green Blob in the UK is a far more serious problem than you can ever imagine. As a typical recent example of government stupidity on energy:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Ffinance%2Fnewsbysector%2Fenergy%2F11302588%2FNew-gas-plants-to-be-shelved-after-failing-to-win-subsidies.html&ei=sTiVVO-VBIn6Usn-g8AL&usg=AFQjCNHPxR2iUsZRcyIb2WCTy3kWSiz7Ig
The Green Blob has signed the UK’s economic death warrant. By the end of this decade, the UK is going to be so short of electricity generating capacity that blackouts and brownouts will become routine and the price of electricity will have soared by at least 40% in real terms to pay for green subsidies and expensive back up fossil fuell power generation.
Even worse, the UK could end up with a Labour/SNP coalition after next year’s May Election. Red Ed Milliband, the leader of the UK’s Labour Party, is the architect of the country’s disastrous Climate Change Act. The SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) has a stated energy policy of being 100% ‘renewables’ by 2020.
Of course, you can always buy a diesel generator. The problem now is that diesel fuel now has to have a ‘renewables’ component in it, so consequently it degrades and cannot be stored for any length of time.
All this to ‘solve’ a non-problem.
Sigh…………………………
130
Jo,
Might be a useful quote about here
“The year the mainstream media dumped journalism and went into the social media recycling business.”
From http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/i-amuse-myself-68.html#comments
20
Personally, I find it quite hard to get beyond the image of the eponymous Green Blob as an irregular, glistening, slimy, conglomeration of putrid green pus, the Progressive discharge of a large festering boil on the corpus of free society.
Less denigrating perhaps is the image of the Green B-Lobby that resembles the Lernaean Hydra.The problem, cut off one head, and two appear in its place. This is NOT what we want, though I concede it protrays a functional corollary of the Green Blob.
160
James Murray seems to be the denier. Well, actually he is a promoter of wind and solar investments using the tax-power of the state to enrich himself and friends. These things are niche technologies (storage is needed) as far into the future as can be seen. I’d be happy to see a major advance in storage but still think wind should be abandoned.
If he is honest about thinking there is a climate risk because of carbon based fuel then he should be an all out promoter of nuclear technology. That does not seem to be the case.
One of his statements (from the 2nd link to him):
“ I argue the cost of green technologies is falling fast and offers a more secure and reliable source of energy than fossil fuels, and suggest you don’t really care about the poor and are in fact in hock to fossil fuel companies.”
An honest and caring person would not write such ( fill in the blank ).
220
If by, in hock to fossil fuel companies, he means I know what works and will fulfill my needs, then yes, I guess I am in hock to the fossil fuel companies. If he sees it differently I think it’s going to be his problem, not mine.
The self righteous attitude of these zealots is wearing more than a little thin.
230
E.M.Smith has coined a new phrase.
Noticing a comment referring to Argumentum ab coquus or Argument From the Cook in reference to a certain Queenslander, he segued to Argumentum ab Coqui (argument from the Cooks) as a way of referring to cooked data, and those who use it.
130
What crock of rationalizations. Just one more in a long stream of them.
If you want to argue with skeptics, argue numbers, numbers actually recorded by a correctly positioned thermometer. Throw your unproven climate models in the trash and get serious.
Give up fallacious arguments and argue from the position of real empirical data. In short, argue like a scientist and you’ll be taken for one. Argue like anything else and we’ll recognize you for what we always have, a dishonest partisan with an ulterior motive.
But you won’t change because real empirical data doesn’t support what you want the world to believe. Does it?
320
“We need a new term.” Climate crisis cynic.
100
I humbly beg to disagree. 🙂
We who are skeptical of claims about climate change have the right to call ourselves whatever we want to. And skeptic (Aussie — sceptic) is a good descriptive term. I can’t think of a better one.
Those who make the claims we disagree with are free to call themselves whatever they want to, for the same reason we’re free to choose what we call ourselves.
If they don’t like what we call ourselves, so what? Let them complain. We don’t like them calling themselves scientists when they don’t behave like scientists but were not seeking a new term to define them.
In the end their quibbling over terminology is a game they have to play because thay can’t stand up and debate on the merit of the science and they know it. So they have little else they can do but play such games. So let them go at it if they want to and we’ll just expose them. A little ridicule when they get ridiculous is a good thing too. But no new terms. Just expose them.
And Jo is very good at doing the exposing.
Just my 10 cent opinion for whatever it may be worth.
30
He is a “True Believer” who believes his belief will be made real because he believes. If things don’t turn out as he believes, he holds that it is reality that is wrong and not his beliefs. Thus empirical data is irrelevant.
He referred to the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus. The more pertinent scriptural reference is:
If one is to follow the words of Jesus, it is clear that he does not have enough faith or has failed to forgive or both. Hence, his wishes will not be fulfilled until he has enough of both. Should he strengthen his faith and forgive even more, he will find that won’t work either. He must do more of the same endlessly until his last breath.
This is the curse of being a “True Believer”. Such believers are trapped in an loop they cannot exit. Nor can they think of a very simple alternative that actually does work. Reality is exactly and only what it is.
Belief or faith by itself cannot change reality. Nor can a 97% consensus do it. It takes knowledge of what is real followed by correct action based upon that knowledge to make a desired change. Even then, only the changes permitted by reality can be made to happen.
The bottom line is that faith cannot move mountains but moving one tablespoon of the mountain at a time for enough tablespoons can. It takes longer than that if you expect God to do the moving. Even then it will be wind, water, and the slow moving of the supporting tectonic plates that does the work. Faith will have no part in the action.
00
“in that it combines sensible questioners with eco-anarchists”
And of course as skeptics we would have no idea how that feels right?
Good to see the eco-tards (that’s my bit for the day) on the end of some name calling for a change.
100
So what term is used for someone who has not seen any evidence of unnatural or worrying Global Warming or Climate Change or CO2 driven weather or CO2 driven Climate Change? History, archaeology, geology are full of climate change, so climates change. So what? Where is the evidence that any slight change of climate in the last hundred years is the result of CO2? Show us the warming.
Denier, skeptic, doubter, non quite make the grade. There is nothing to be skeptical about when you have not seen any evidence that stands up to scrutiny and after twenty years of utterly dud predictions, clear fabrication of evidence by individuals and institutions and despite hundreds of billions in careful measurement and a total refusal of the world to warm or flood or suffer disastrous climate change, this is now past fantasy. What hiatus? Nothing is happening!
What is needed is a word for someone refuses to believe in man made CO2 driven climate change, a Climate Protestant or even Climate Presbyterian. We can read data and understand the magical graphs and we can see when data has been deleted or fudged or homogonized by the high priests. We can decide for ourselves. Nobel Prize winning Climate Pope Al Gore and his peer reviewed IPCC acolytes can push their religious beliefs. No one believes them anymore. No more carbon indulgences!
100
Pragmatist (or pragmatic).
10
Good to see Fenbeagle’s brilliant work getting due recognition.
The term “Blobby” refers in no small measure to a woman who has been trolling James Delingpole far longer than anyone else, under the name “JoBrighton”.
She became “Jobby” then “Blobby”, but since her “sex-change operation ” now calls herself “Richard Dreyfuss”.
There are various theories as to her identity, but she probably does live in Brighton, current home of the UK’s only Green MP, Caroline Lucas, daughter of Tory voting parents she was very expensively educated at what is now Malvern St James, an all-girls school – as were both my daughters.
My younger daughter lives in Brighton and voted for Lucas, but would not do so ever again, having seen the damage an extreme left-wing eco-fascist council has done to the town.
320
Toad, thanks for filling in this bit of history.
50
Green Blob? I prefer to use the name Gangrene.
160
In this context it is spelt Gang-Green …
170
Bet all the heads say “Feed me Seymour“.
20
“Suddenly Siliggy, is standing beside me….” 🙂
30
Owen Paterson (with one ‘t’) used the phrase “the Green blob” in affectionate imitation of his cabinet colleague Michael Gove (also mentioned above), who would refer to the Leftwing teaching establishment he was taking on as “the Blob”. Gove showed great courage and determination as Education Secretary in tackling those who in half a lifetime have brought basic numeracy and literacy down from essentially 100% to figures as bad as some Third World countries. Like Paterson, though, his reward was to be sacked.
As for the decline and fall of Chris Huhne, the word Schadenfreude was invented for such events.
180
You could tell that both Owen Paterson and Michael Gove were doing something right because of the howls of outrage and derision coming from the lefties.
40
What I think about Huhne and the various Eds….I include Balls…shouldn’t be put into print or this blog.
60
I live in Owen Paterson’s parliamentary constituency and he’s a good guy… which gives me a nice problem at the 2015 General election, because there will be two people I want to vote for – him and the UK Independence Party candidate (anti-EU, anti-windmills). Normally there is none.
10
Until we remove the Westminster jizzweasels who enthusiastically voted for the Greenblob Climate Change Bill, the UK is stuffed.
The Bill was written by the scientifically-illiterate cretin, Bryony Worthington (BA English) and endorsed by the equally scientifically-illiterate cretin, Ed Millibrain (BA PPE).
This suicide note was then taken on by DECC led by convicted perjurer and scientifically-illiterate cretin, Chris Hulne (BA PPE). After this lying criminal was removed, he was replaced by the scientifically-illiterate cretin, “Potato” Ed Davey (BA PPE).
Does anyone see a pattern here?
401
Gave you a tick Kon, before your comment get taken down.
20
Actually, if he has been convicted of perjury, you should be ok.
30
Yes the lying git has;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne
He spent time in clink.
But not nearly enough.
30
So many politicians with a BA PPE.
Hey, I could do that, thinks Tony.
Y’see, in a previous life, following my discharge after 25 years in the RAAF, I worked at a large Printing Company. A requirement for a Company (in Queensland) with more than 30 workers was that they had a Workplace Health and Safety Officer, (WHSO) and, coming from the Air Force, the management thought I would be best suited for that position, so I had to do the course, sit the exams, and get the State Accreditation and License to fill that position as WHSO, not that the Company really wanted me to do anything, because as soon as I started to write policy and implement it, the grumbling started, and after 3 further years, they sub contracted that obligation out, so, umm, I was not really needed any more, now was I?
Now a big part of that WHSO obligation was policy and measures to ensure the safety of workers with regard to the handling of chemicals, and the aspects concerning noise, and chemicals and noise were a big part of a large printing Company. So when I read that all these English politicians have a BA PPE, I thought, hey, I could do that, until I used the search engine to find out what BA PPE really did mean.
Because, as soon as I saw that, the first thing I thought of was the Health and Safety aspect, and here, PPE means Personal Protective Equipment.
It seems that with (especially) politicians, there might be a need for Personal Protective Equipment to protect them from ….. the people who put them there in the first place.
Now, there’s no way known I would want their form of a BA PPE.
Tony.
150
” … no way known I would want their form of a BA PPE ”
LOL
Having studied at Oxford (Polytechnic / Brookes) I was aware of the “gown” as well as the “town” meaning of PPE …
So many of these people who have studied philosophy and formal logic but can’t think straight. Maybe the logic bit has been quietly dropped …
70
Tony, I believe that the appropriate PPE to protect the population from a majority of the politicians and their bureaucratic spawn would be prison cells. (Kind of like an inside out Racal type isolation suit for political pathogens.) I’m guessing that if the whole truth were known about the actions of most political animals (even the ones we “like”) the vast majority would be convicted of the full gamut of the crimes covering extortion, bribery, kick-backs, money laundering, tax evasion etc.
10
I have watched since the 1960,ties this anti human doomsday cult slowly spreading their tentacles into the halls of power [ western governments and the UN mainly] the scares of resources running out, overpopulation not enough food etc. These scares all proved false, then along came global warming aka climate change this morphed into a new religion filling a hole in the brains of the gullible.
Many in high places.
Doomsday cults fail when their prophesy’s do not eventuate, sadly for the warmanistas, the sun got tired after a few rampant cycles. The convolutions in their thought processes trying to find excuses for the failure of the world to do as it is told, can be seen in some of the more recent laughable scientific papers. The inevitable demise of the cult of Gaia has started, they will go kicking and screaming, for many it is a profitable cult.
I also take great delight in watching a parallel demise of the recently closed shop, now slowly opening of the pushers of the standard models of everything. These coming decades may see science grow up into what it should have always been, a search for reality and truth.
I am getting old now and have waited a long time for reality to bite them all on the bum. Thank you for your forum Jo, it has helped return some sanity to the world and all the best for our coming new year. Wayne
220
For TonyfromOz. On thursday our power went out and stayed out. So I wandered down to the local pub as they have a 10kW solar array. The publican was looking very pissed off as he still had no power. Unfortunately you need the mains power to power the inverter. What a joke.
220
I do wonder how many members of the public worldwide signed up for solar, with self sufficiency in mind, not realising at all how such aspirations would be shattered .
140
Something else for Tony from Oz that lends support to his contention.
20
Nearly missed this.
I’m not sure if everybody is taken to the same place when they open the link, but have a look at the chart under the one where the link opens, and in case some of you don’t get the same, then I have l linked to the much larger image of the chart I’m referring to, and that is at this link.
Okay then, look at Onshore Wind. The blue bar shows Nameplate. The red bar shows Output.(the power actually delivered and then reduced back to an equivalent Nameplate, if you can see that point) This gives Onshore Wind a Capacity Factor (CF) of 21%.
Same for Offshore Wind, but hey there’s not all that much of it anyway, and that CF is 35%. (but from a low base)
Solar, and here this is ALL solar, both Industrial PV and also CSP, (Concentrating Solar Power) and here that CF is only 11.2% (Wot Tha)
So, then, now look at the top bar chart. This is the total for Renewables of choice, Wind and Solar, all three of the ones shown below, and ….. FOR THE WHOLE OF EUROPE.
That CF comes in at ….. 17.6%
And hey, it only cost them ….. $502 Billion.
So with Nameplate, we have the equivalent of 84 Large scale new technology USC coal fired power plants.
They deliver the same amount of power as 17 of those 84 Large scale coal fired power plants.
So, it’s the equivalent of opening 84 of those coal fired plants and not even allowing 67 of them to fire up.
Madness.
Converting down to price per power delivery, please do not ever tell me that a new USC coal fired power plant would cost ….. $30 Billion.
Also, don’t you just love the way that Big Green Blobby tells you that something which operates at an efficiency of only 17.6% is not only acceptable, but highly desirable.
They are not cheap, and in actual fact, are enormously expensive, but hey, I couldn’t care less about the price.
Tony.
150
Sometimes it looks on paper like they deliver, but it’s an accounting trick.
Renton becomes a 100 percent renewable energy site
The key phrase is “renewable energy credits”, where in the part of the day the wind wasn’t blowing the plant was actually powered by a combination of hydro and coal, but the coal is covered by “renewable energy credits” which are (hopefully) offset by the wind blowing extra hard at some other time of the day, with that “renewable energy” actually being used by someone else.
10
“Renton becomes a 100 percent renewable energy site”
Good, so they will have no issues with being disconnected from the real electricity grid. 🙂
51
janama and others.
It’s referred to as Islanding.
When the power goes out, and the Authority has to go and work in the area which has no power, they want to be absolutely certain that there is no power whatsoever on the grid, from any source.
Now, as rooftop solar panel systems are connected to the grid, and the grid has failed externally, they don’t want any power on the grid while their workers are attempting to rectify the situation, so, ALL rooftop solar is also isolated from the grid, and will not come back on until the whole grid outage is rectified.
Oh dear, another inconvenient truth.
Tony.
170
In most jurisdictions, a facility with a supply alternative to the grid, such as a diesel driven gen set or a small GT, the connection to the premises must have a system such as a “Kirk Key Interlock” (which is manual) or an approved electronic interlock assembly. This prevents the circumstance that you outline above, since both supplies cannot feed the premises concurrently. The premises is either on the grid or on standby power.
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but of course such an arrangement would be out of the question with this PV solar. It needs to supply and draw from the grid simultaneously in order to enable the supply of horribly expensive power to the grid. What a farce!
31
Not quite right Tony, PV inverters are designed to synchronise to the grid, typically they have no internal time reference to synchronise to produce consistent frequency A/C when the grid is down, nor do they have an isolation switch to prevent feeding to the grid in the event of an outage. Such typical inverters are non-islanding. You can however buy inverters that are capable of isolating (islanding) from the grid, and generate true sine wave electricity to operate the internal system from PV or batteries. Typically full independant solar inverters are capable of this trick, and these are islanding inverters, they can create an off grid power island when the power fails, like a big UPS.
Problem is that rooftop solar is legally not allowed to be islanding, you are not allowed to have storage and you are not allowed to feed the grid at night (using stored electricity). I understand this is done to combat people using generators to take advantage of infeed tariffs, or to use the grid in ways that the power authority doesn’t like ( like not using their power at night) or using the grid as backup to a PV system that otherwise supplies you fulltime (using storage).
00
Folks as an interesting point, with the fall in oil price from 1.07 a barrel to $58 a barrel, it has now reached the point where a good efficient diesel generator with battery storage is now chaper to run than grid power in most Australian states and especially in SA.
If you live on acreage you should seriously consider 10 kW off-grid islanding solar plus an efficient diesel generator with a small storage system. Even better if you can use the exhaust heat for hot water or space heating. The biosphere will love the extra CO2.
31
“The biosphere will love the extra CO2.”
The biosphere always loves the extra CO2 🙂
11
That is an excellent point. However, one has to consider the question “How long will this price structure be sustained?”
For a quarter century I was maintenance manager for a high pressure natural gas pipeline. For the sake of relibility in some very remote parts of British Columbia, the company chose to generate electricity at each facility with reciprocating or rotating gas fired plant. This policy even extended to the head office building in Vancouver, where there were several instances in which a brief power interruption in the city would leave only one thirteen story building with the lights on in the downtown core. One reason the company pursued this policy was the conviction that should a catastophic interruption of electricity occur, the last thing the public would need was an interruption in the supply of natural gas. (Incidentally, it gets damned cold in them thar hills) Another reason that it was a reasonable policy was that the fuel was available at no cost. It is common place in the world of natural gas transmission that the pipeline company supplies the facility to transport the product for the customers at a specified cost per gigajoule, and the fuel used to do this is supplied by the customer. (Bear in mind that the pipeline involved had about half a million horsepower driving compressors during periods of peak flow. The fuel used to generate electricity was for the most part insignificant)
The point is that by the mid 1980’s it was quite justifiable to connect compressor stations to the grid where access to the grid was accessible, (and the existing generating equipment was maintained for backup) based on the considerable savings in engine maintenance costs. When small industrial engines operate 24/7, maintenance costs are very significant.
I have no idea where the cost benefit would lie in modern South Australia. The wholesale cost of natural gas in those days was a dollar per gigajoule. I heated the family home, including domestic hot water, with natural gas for a dollar a day, even though temperatures plunged below minus forty C in mid winter. The cost of electricity to the residential customer was seven cents per kW-hr, with no connection charge.
20
While that maybe the case where maintenance labour actually costs money, it is far less important in my case. I don’t charge to do the maintenance on my diesel generator, I dont have labour related costs like transport either. Also, the point of adding in a few kWh of storage, is that the genset can run intermittently, you run the genset to charge the batteries at night, and/or kick it in on peak demand when the demand exceeds the inverter capacity. The genset does NOT run 24 x 7. The amount of storage required can be reduced from about 150 kWh (10000 AH) to a more practical 5-10kWh ( saving considerably on batteries). The genset might run say 3 hours a day to keep the batteries topped up when there is no sun.
Commercial systems have completely different exonomics because the maintenance services have to be paid for, instead of being done for free by the owner. You could aply a notional cost for your own time and effort but it’s imaginary, there is no real outlay for your own labour.
00
‘The one ray of light in this sorry saga is that in the long term the latest developments in climate scepticism really do not matter that much. Their arguments are so evidently flawed and short sighted that their ultimate side-lining is assured, just as scientific rigour and an informed public eventually discredits other forms of quack science, confining it to the lunatic fringe.’
James Murray
The irony burns.
50
Who are the A-Lobby ? ( If I might be so bold) and are they Green or of some other persuasion ?
10
With the Greens in mind I cannot recall any media statement from their Party regarding the despicable “Martin Place Terrorist Act on December 15/16” last week. The week prior to that there was a series of MSM releases from Sarah-Hanson Young , the last 2 being posted on Thur 11 December (“damning Manus island report….”) & Friday 12 December (“work rights for refugees a cruel joke”). Come the week starting Monday 15 December and not a word from the Greens Party the entire week as our fine nation grieved over this despicable Terrorist Act by a ……. terrorist (can’t mention that word can I? – certainly the Fairfax MSM outlets didn’t but News Corp MSM outlets did), in particular an article by Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun which really painted the “real picture”. On the other hand there were numerous Coalition & ALP politicians (Federal & State) offering their sympathy following the incident. So why no media statement from the Greens Party? Pretty obvious isn’t it.
70
Matty
…..I’m surprised you had to ask.
60
B-Lobby is them. So A-Lobby is …….Us!
30
Is it the B lobby that gets loaded onto the B-Arc ?
00
Speaking for myself, there has been no conversion, nor do I know anyone who thinks or has ever thought that the climate does not change over time; who are these climate stasists you speak of?
This reference to a partial Damascene conversion in sceptics of CAGW is either false attribution of a belief based on ignorance of your subject of criticism or it is outright intellectual dishonesty, and completely unsophisticated, transparent dishonesty at that.
60
more coverage on UK DECC’s capacity auction:
already costing more than the Guardian’s 750 million pounds, reported yesterday & posted on jo’s previous thread:
19 Dec: Financial Times: Michael Kavanagh: Power auction keeps lights on for 2018-19
The first of a rolling series of auctions designed to prevent the lights going out in Britain in coming years has ended, at the initial cost to the taxpayer of £1bn…
However, that cost could yet rise in future years. An impact assessment signed off by Mr Davey ahead of the auction pointed to annual gross revenues going to providers varying between £700m and £1.8bn in the years between 2018 and 2030.
In spite of these billions of pounds of subsidies expected to flow to power groups in the coming years, officials maintain that the artificial support to protect the UK from capacity shortages will deflate average selling prices, resulting in just £2 a year being added to household bills…
***Britain’s growing dependency on intermittent wind farms and other renewable energy has exacerbated the threat to meeting peaks in electricity demand…
The bulk of winners in the auction, however, were existing gas and coal-fired power plants and nuclear power stations.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/91987576-8795-11e4-bc7c-00144feabdc0.html
19 Dec: CarbonBrief: Mat Hope: Capacity market secures some new gas while providing stay of execution to old coal
Government agrees to pay companies £19.40 per kilowatt to keep fossil fuel power plants available
Only five per cent of projects included in capacity market are new builds
Coal and biomass plants account for 20 per cent of the capacity made available under the market
Scheme expected to add £11 to consumer bills, of which only 54 pence goes towards building new, less carbon intensive, capacity
We take a look at the auction’s result, and what it may mean for the UK’s future energy mix…ETC
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/12/capacity-market-secures-some-new-gas-while-providing-stay-of-execution-to-old-coal-(1)/
10
carbon trading dreams once again on the rise:
20 Dec: Bloomberg: Mathew Carr: Polluting Is Getting Expensive in Europe Again: Carbon & Climate
The surge in European carbon permit prices may just be beginning.
The price of emission rights will rise 61 percent by June 30, according to the median of 16 trader and analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. UBS Group AG says costs may more than double in 2015. Carbon already jumped 45 percent this year, while the 22-member Bloomberg Commodities Index (BCOM) slid 14 percent…
“Because most governments selling allowances have a vested interest in higher prices, it will happen,” Louis Redshaw, a former head of carbon at Barclays Plc and founder of Redshaw Advisors Ltd., which buys and sells permits on behalf of factories, said Dec. 16 in London. “Painful” price swings are probable, he said.
Benchmark prices are headed for the first annual increase since 2010. The cost of emitting a metric ton of carbon dioxide has fallen 77 percent from the peak of 31 euros in April 2006. They traded at 7.16 euros today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London…
Changing the rules of the market in the middle of the current trading phase, which runs from 2013 to 2020, will deter “serious, hard-nosed investors,” Daniel Rossetto, a director of energy adviser Climate Mundial Ltd. in London, said by phone Dec. 8…
***“Three years ago, some people were thinking carbon trading would die,” Barbara Lambrecht, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said yesterday by phone. “The market is now convinced there is a political tail wind for carbon trading. We see a further recovery in carbon permits in the coming months.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-19/polluting-is-getting-expensive-in-europe-again-carbon-climate.html
19 Dec: Bloomberg/BusinessWeek: Mathew Carr: UN Carbon Credit Supply to Drop on Climate Vows: GDF Suez
Emission-cutting projects overseen by the United Nations will probably reduce supply of credits into international markets as developing nations set up alternative programs at home, according to GDF Suez SA.
China’s preliminary plan for a national greenhouse-gas market published last week means projects will now be more inclined to use programs within their own country, said Philipp Hauser, vice president, carbon markets at GDF Suez Energy Latin America, a unit of the world’s biggest utility. China’s move may be followed by others and credits changing hands this week for 50 euro cents ($0.61) a metric ton may rise to a “few euros”by 2020, he said yesterday from Rio de Janeiro…
CERs have plunged 97 percent since 2011 as demand in Europe dried up, settling yesterday at 52 cents a ton on ICE Futures Europe in London…
Issuance of UN CERs will fall 59 percent to about 108 million tons this year, according to UN data compiled by Bloomberg…
To spur additional investment, climate envoys need to provide investors with guidance on measuring, reporting and trading rules, (international policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association in Geneva, Jeff) Swartz said yesterday by phone.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-19/un-carbon-credit-suppl-to-drop-gdf-suez
10
OT. . .
Will Climate Change Make Us More Religious?
http://io9.com/will-climate-change-make-us-more-religious-1673300818
But theyre missing the obvious. . . climate change is a religion. And people pay big money to the Church of Climate Change to appease the Weather Gods.
80
Oh, and if you don’t believe in the religion of climate change then the believers wish you beaten, gassed, tortured, killed. . . basically wiped off the planet.
Sounds very much like certain other religions.
50
At least one journalist in California is on the right track. She has some other opinions that we might enjoy.
30
btw ABC/Fairfax not at all interested in reporting DECC has had to resort to capacity auctions to keep the lights on because of intermittent nature of wind and solar.
very GLOBBY BLOBBY:
19 Dec: Guardian: Alex Evans: Sustainable development goals: eight ways to make reality match ambition
The development targets that will come into force next year reflect high ideals, but delivering on them will involve a transformation of the global economy.
Guardian Global development is supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
PHOTO CAPTION: A woman begs on the pavement outside a coffee shop in Mexico City. Enabling poor people to work in rich countries might foster greater equality.
Next year, governments will agree a new global development framework of breathtaking ambition. We already know the likely shape of the sustainable development goals (SDGS) , which will include targets ranging from ending poverty to reducing inequality both within and between countries; from better governance and peaceful societies to action on climate change, ecosystem restoration, and a big shift towards sustainable consumption and production…
The SDGs are far more ambitious than the millennium development goals (MDGs), which they will replace, and delivering them will be harder. Unfortunately, there seems little prospect of a deal on delivery that is as ambitious as the goals themselves…
What would it look like if the world was serious about a major transformation of the global economy to achieve these goals by 2030? Here are eight ideas…
Global climate policy would be driven by an independent body with powers to advise on the right level for a carbon budget and monitor countries’ performance against their shares of it – just as the independent committee on climate change does in the UK under the 2008 Climate Act. Politicians, with their short-term re-election imperatives, will always have a conflict of interest when it comes to taking hard, long-term decisions about emissions reductions. Just as many governments have relinquished the power to set interest rates, so they need to do likewise on carbon budgets…
This global carbon budget would be shared between countries on an equal, per capita basis. If anything on Earth is the common property of all humanity, it’s the sky. The need for fair sharing of a safe emissions budget is unavoidable.
***This would set the stage for emissions trading to become a massive new source of development finance, potentially much bigger than aid, and especially for the world’s lowest emitters: the least developed countries…
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/19/sustainable-development-goals-eight-ways-reality-match-ambition
re Alex Evans, the writer of the above:
New York Uni Center on International Cooperation: Alex Evans is a Senior Fellow at CIC, where he works on issues including international development, climate change, and global risks.
He has a particular focus on the post-2015 international development agenda, and has undertaken work on it with the UN High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the Brookings Institution, Unilever, the World Resources Institute, and the Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit. His recent publications in this area including Delivering the Post-2015 Development Agenda and What Happens Now? – Taking the Post-2015 Agenda to the Next Stage (with David Steven).
Other current and recent projects include research on global climate policy with the Center for Global Development, a secondment to the UN Secretary-General’s office as the writer of the 2011 UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, working with the UN Development Programme’s senior management team to help develop their current Strategic Plan, and assisting former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown with a forthcoming book on the world in 2025…
http://cic.nyu.edu/content/alex-evans
from Alex Evan LinkedIn:
Policy analysis on development and sustainability. Author of two dozen reports and papers on foreign policy, development, resource scarcity, and global governance, covered in media including the Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, and BBC Newsnight.
Political strategy on multilateral sustainability policy. Advised US government on strategy for the 2012 Rio+20 summit. Seconded to UN Secretary-General’s office as part of team charged with design and execution of UN’s first ever head of government climate summit in 2007…
Consulted for Unilever throughout UN High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, to support CEO Paul Polman’s membership of the Panel, and drafted Unilever’s Post-2015 Manifesto paper…
Author of 2020 Development Futures, a widely cited report commissioned by the NGO ActionAid…
Author of Chatham House and Brookings reports on upgrading foreign ministries and development agencies for the 21st century. Worked with UN Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark’s office to advise on UNDP’s next Strategic Plan, which included major restructuring.
2002: Defra: Led the development of one of three components of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, the world’s first economy-wide emissions trading scheme…
10
It is not that some warmists of the green blobby “don’t bother” to update their graphs (M. Mann). They don’t update them ON PURPOSE, as to update them would demonstrate that the original work was never valid.
Actually, Mann’s non-updating of his Stick says to me [SNIP, we await the court case], as he is working to cause action by others based on material he knows is incorrect. (Fraud requires a wish for and the result of action the other would not take without the misrepresentation involved.)
50
No, Fraud is a misrepresentation of something, deception, or cheating if you like, it does not have to be criminal, for instance every magician and every actor on the planet is fraudulent and so is every person uttering anything about Santa Claus, I’m sure there are lots of children who believe Dr Who and Santa Claus are real, but it’s a fraud. Noone however is really being deprived of anything by these misrepresentations. – criminal Fraud however has avery different meaning. Mann would probably need to show that the accusation of fraud in Steyn’s and CEI’s articles (deceiving someone) implies criminality and is therefore a actionable slander/libel where the common use of fraud as meaning deception as in Santa Claus type fraud would do, and not be actionable as it is the equivalent of saying Mann is the Santa Claus of paleoclimate data. Good luck with that Dr Mann.
There are plenty of reason that one might consisder Mann’s hockey stick deceptive, an one only needs to be personally convinced about that to be able to make that assertion as protected free speech, without malice.
I could put it this way, fraud aint always Fraud.
00
Green Blob spinmeister James Murray reckons there is no such thing as a “green blob, just “environmentalists and green businesses … united by an urgent desire to curb greenhouse gas emissions and develop a more resource efficient and environmentally sustainable economic model” … or … a gang of crony capitalists currently looting the earnings and assets of British taxpayers and energy consumers, together with their ‘useful idiots’, aka The Green Blob.
60
The dominance of the Green blob appears to be ending. Total oil consumption is predicted to drop even in the US next year, despite record low prices. Cars are much more economical to run, thanks to computerization, injection, decreased rolling resistance, aluminum, carbon fibre before you even get to hybrids. Billionaire Al Gore is discredited, even if Kerry and Obama believe him. Even the IPCCs Pachauri has admitted the world has not warmed at all in 18 years. Our Chief Climate Commissioner Flannery even claimed NSW bushfires were a result of Climate Change and Prof Turney nearly killed a shipload of people by refusing to believe Antarctic ice was at record highs. Michael Manne is in the courts defending his hockey schtick and even our CSIRO is admitting the country is greener. The fudging of climate data has failed because satellite data cannot be easily ignored and with many cold winters gone and less than warm summers and without the sea appearing to rise at all, fewer people are easily scared. The Great Barrier reef has recovered from the bleaching in 2006, the polar bears are ok and the caribou were not lost after all. The seas are alkali. Rich countries are still building the cities and airports into the oceans and palaces by the sea.
When I started commenting, I thought a science background would help defeat what seemed an overwhelming amount of science intimidation by opportunistic and inappropriately qualified climate scientists like extinct marsupial student and wombatologist Flannery, Australian of the year. Now it all seems to be fading away, along with Green political power and the 1950s communists, having enjoyed their Green moment of relevance. The watermelons are going off, being exposed as rotten fruit. There is still work to be done, but the blob is melting away. No one believes it anymore, at least in Australia. Even worse, no one cares.
We still have the windmills. In twenty years, disposal of their rusting carcasses and the 300kg neodymium magnets will be a costly ecological problem.
60
‘No one believes it anymore, at least in Australia.’
This poll was obviously loaded, nevertheless we can assume half the electorate has been brainwashed into thinking CO2 is a pollutant.
‘Six out of 10 of Australians think Tony Abbott’s Direct Action policy has left the country with an inadequate policy response to the problem of global warming, according to the latest Fairfax Ipsos poll.’
Kenny/SMH
40
Fairfax? Is that the same as an ABC poll? Yes, Greens still get 14% of the vote and steady, but they are being challenged by a host of opportunists who can see that the public is less Green and more anti Labor, anti Conservative and increasingly anti Green, apart from the inner city dippie hippies. Even the Sex party won a seat in the Victorian election! They work closely with the Voluntary Euthanisia party.
Even our Federal parliament is now dependent on the vote of the Motoring Enthusiasts and the PUP loony party to pass budget measures. No, it seems the Green edifice is crumbling or leaking away rapidly around the world.
Twenty six years of the one IPCC driven scare is quite enough for a fickle electorate on holidays at the beach house in Australia or trying not to freeze through another dismal winter in the Northern Hemisphere. What is more worrying is the expected slowness of governments to undo the Green tape, dismantle the Green council departments and remove the absurdities like the Renewal Energy Targets and subsidies and let people a hundred years from now worry about where the shoreline will be.
Tony Abbott’s Direct Action was simply a reasonable response to the political situation, doing reasonable and relatively cheap things over a number of years which will meet with general community approval. It takes the wind out of the sails for the Greens, or is that propellers? He did get a Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford to add to his LLB. I just hope we get a few new dams before the next dam drought.
Disband the absurd and unnecessary IPCC and it will all happen much faster. There should be no publicly funded Paris love in for the warmists.
60
” In twenty years, disposal of their rusting carcasses and the 300kg neodymium magnets will be a costly ecological problem.”
1. I suspect you way over-estimate the time
2. Let’s not forget the massive tonnage of reinforced concrete to remove as well
3. Who is going to pay for all that? The people who took all the subsidies will have disappeared back into the green slime where they came from.
121
Maybe the magnets can be recycled into electric cars!
Concrete will probably stay there. Lots of WW2 concrete still where it was placed (historical monuments).
Limestone equals solidified CO2. Greens can still claim victory. Or maybe skeptics can. Concrete manufacture is a big producer of CO2, but it is also solidified CO2 , just about forever.
10
I have yet to hear of one lasting 10 or 12 years much less the “design” life of 20 years. (Tony?) I would not want to be the one decommissioning those big NdFeB magnets. Those things are dangerous. How do you get rid of them anyway? Heat the whole thing up to the 400°C Curie point then recycle it or do you have to ship the dynamo assy. back to the factory whole?
00
Professor “Ship of Fools” Turney is currently front runner for Climate Prat 2014.
As usual, Australia punching above its weight ?
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/
70
Too late to vote now.
Professor Christopher Turney of the University of New South Wales is the winner!
50
I prefer the term “Credulist” for the unskeptical CAGW believers who ignore important evidence (i.e., the pause and model failures) and refuse to define what Climate Change is and when it’s going to happen.
40
more evidence the MSM is part of the CAGW lobby. Samenow is a CAGW zealot, but manages to sound almost reasonable until***
16 Dec: WaPo: Jason Samenow: Good Morning America’s Ginger Zee: Respected meteorologist, not “a pornographer”
Associated Press television writer David Bauder raised an interesting question Monday, whether the major TV networks are spending too much time on “flashy” weather stories. Unfortunately, in the process, he printed a needless and demeaning cheap shot at Good Morning America’s Ginger Zee, a highly successful and talented broadcast meteorologist.
Bauder, in his piece headlined “Weather porn? Storms take over evening news“, interviewed TV news consultant Andrew Tyndall.
Tyndall, evidently, believes straight weather coverage is too shallow for the major news networks. Rather than straight weather reporting, he argues, networks should frame weather events in the context of climate change. He uses ABC’s Ginger Zee as a pawn to make his point.
Zauder reports:
“If Ginger Zee reported in the role of climatologist rather than meteorologist, I would praise ABC’s ‘World News Tonight’s’ decision as a daring intervention into a crucial national and global debate,” Tyndall said. “Instead, she is more like a pornographer.”…
“I was left speechless by [Tyndall’s] comment,” blogged Mike Smith, a senior vice president at AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions. “Ginger is an extremely hard working, agenda-free scientist who does a terrific job in a position with tight constraints. Calling her a pornographer is beyond the pale.”
Moreover, Tyndall’s argument that ABC News should present the weather through the lens of climate change is not compelling. It’s notoriously difficult to link certain weather extremes, like hurricanes and tornadoes, to climate change. Attempts to do so, when the established scientific connections are fuzzy and/or contentious, invite criticism from skeptics…
***There is a time and place for climate change coverage (and I would argue more of it is needed on network news programs), but not always as a part of routine weather reports…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/12/16/good-morning-america-s-ginger-zee-respected-meteorologist-not-a-pornographer/?tid=hybrid_1.1_strip_2
20
18 Dec: Live Science: Why I’ll Talk Politics With Climate Change Deniers — But Not Science
by Mark Maslin, University College, London
The doubters range from the conspiracy theorist to the skeptical scientist, or from the paid lobbyist to the raving lunatic.
Climate scientists, myself included, and other academics have strived to understand this reluctance. We wonder why so many people are unable to accept a seemingly straight-forward pollution problem…
In short, it seems when it comes to climate change, it is not about the science but all about the politics…
However, many who deny climate change is an issue are extremely intelligent, eloquent and rational. They would not see the debate as one about belief and they would see themselves above the influence of the media. So if the lack of acceptance of the science of climate change is neither due to a lack of knowledge, nor due to a misunderstanding of science, what is causing it?
Recent work has refocused on understanding people’s perceptions and how they are shared, and as climate denial authority George Marshall suggests these ideas can take on a life of their own, leaving the individual behind. Colleagues at Yale University developed this further by using the views of nature shown above to define different groups of people and their views on climate change. They found that political views are the main predictor of the acceptance of climate change as a real phenomenon…
This is because climate change challenges the Anglo-American neoliberal view that is held so dear by mainstream economists and politicians. Climate change is a massive pollution issue that shows the markets have failed and it requires governments to act collectively to regulate industry and business…
I am well aware of the abuse I will receive because of this article. But it is essential for people, including scientists, to recognise that it is the politics and not the science that drives many people to deny climate change. This does mean, however, that no amount of discussing the “weight of scientific evidence” for climate change will ever change the views of those who are politically or ideologically motivated. Hence I am very sorry but I will not be responding to comments posted concerning the science of climate change but I am happy to engage in discussion on the motivations of denial…
http://www.livescience.com/49179-why-ill-talk-politics-with-climate-change-deniers-but-not-science.html
originally published by The Conversation, which has this Blobby profile. :
Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA is a Professor of Climatology at University College London. He is a Royal Society Industrial Fellowship and Executive Director of Rezatec Ltd. He is science advisor to the Global Cool Foundation, Climatecom Strategies, Steria, Permian Ltd, and Carbon Sense Ltd. He is a trustee of the charity TippingPoint and a member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee. Maslin is a leading scientist with particular expertise in past global and regional climatic change and has publish over 115 papers in journals such as Science, Nature, and Geology. He has been awarded grants of over £32 million (including 24 from NERC, 2 from EPSRC, 2 from DIFD, 1 from DECC, 2 from Carbon Trust and 3 from Technology Strategy Board). His areas of scientific expertise include causes of past and future global climate change and its effects on the global carbon cycle, biodiversity, rainforests and human evolution. He also works on monitoring land carbon sinks using remote sensing and ecological models and international and national climate change policies.
Professor Maslin has presented over 45 public talks over the last three years including UK Space conference, Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, RGS, Tate Modern, Royal Society of Medicine, British Museum, Natural History Museum, CLG, Freshfields, Goldman Sachs and the Norwegian Government. He has supervised 10 Research fellows, 10 PhD students and 19 MSc students. He has also have written 8 popular books, over 30 popular articles (e.g., for New Scientist, The Times, Independent and Guardian), appeared on radio and television (including Timeteam, Newsnight, Dispatches, Horizon, The Today Programme, Material World, BBC News, Channel 5 News, and Sky News. His latest popular book is the high successful Oxford University Press “Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction” the second edition was published in 2009 and has sold over 40,000 copies. Maslin was also a co-author of the recent Lancet report ‘Managing the health effects of climate change’ and a DIFD Report on Population, Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals. He was included in Who’s Who for the first time in 2009 and was granted a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award for the study of early human evolution in East Africa in 2011.http://theconversation.com/why-ill-talk-politics-with-climate-change-deniers-but-not-science-34949
10
“By this I mean the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape.”
It is not only “renewable energy companies”. Look at Volvo.
http://www.volvogroup.com/group/global/en-gb/responsibility/Pages/responsibility.asp
In Sweden it is frequently used by nuclear industry. A group of professors running a climate change blog argues. CO2 is not a problem. Nuclear is good as it is carbon free.
I call this intellectual melt down!
Now, out for a walkabout. Africa Rising!
21
Getting a ‘Sharepojnt Error’ on that link
:-
“The following file(s) have been blocked by the administrator: /group/global/en-gb/responsibility/Pages/responsibility.asp “
20
Same here.
10
It asks for a Login , when you go back one branch.
10
Political scientists refer to these crazy groups as sub-governments and in the US iron triangles. The same players rotate between groups as bureaucrats and lawmakers are ten rewarded with cushy jobs lobbying their ex peers.
From wikipedia n iron triangles.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)
At one corner of the triangle are interest groups (constituencies). These are the powerful interests groups that influence Congressional votes in their favor and can sufficiently influence the re-election of a member of Congress in return for supporting their programs. At another corner sit members of Congress who also seek to align themselves with a constituency for political and electoral support. These congressional members support legislation that advances the interest group’s agenda. Occupying the third corner of the triangle are bureaucrats, who are often pressured by the same powerful interest groups their agency is designated to regulate. The result is a three-way, stable alliance that is sometimes called a sub government because of its durability, impregnability, and power to determine policy.
00
Meant cozy not crazy.
00
[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2014/12/the-green-blob-and-the-green-b-lobby/#more-39697 […]
00