US Republicans have passed a bill through the House (but not the Senate yet) aiming to get back some control over the 7 billion dollar science budget. Previously the National Science Foundation (or NSF) had all the fun in dishing out the dough, but the Republicans have had enough. Their wish list includes cutting social sciences by 55%, climate science by 8%, and putting extra money into biology, computers, engineering and hard sciences. It can’t come soon enough.
Critics are howling that this will politicize science, but it’s just the opposite. Science was already politicized, and thanks in no small part to the NSF itself. This would put control of the funding back slightly closer to the voters. The NSF is almost unaccountable to the taxpayer, and if the NSF had not wasted money on so many one-sided pointless extravaganza’s (like $5m for “climate games”) and tipped so much money into “behavioural” studies, the elected members would not be knocking at their door. The NSF has only itself to blame.
Ultimately, elected representatives have to be accountable for public spending, but they like to hand over control to a committee of experts. Said committee grows on the gravy train, and after decades of big-government-dependence, why would anyone be surprised if it transforms into a fan of big-government, boosting projects that promote the big-government agenda? The incentives are all wrong. Our ARC suffers from the same big-governmentitis. (Send a memo to Australian politicians.) ARC grants often seem to be a form of government advertising disguised as research.
h/t GWPF
Republicans Vote to Restrict Climate Funding
US House Republicans voted to place limits on funding for scientific research, including climate change studies, as they passed legislation that more narrowly defines their priorities.
The America Competes Reauthorization Act still has to be reconciled with a Senate version, and the White House has threatened a veto if the measure passes as is.
The bill slightly raises overall scientific funding levels, from $7.3 billion this year to $7.6 billion in 2016.
In previous years the NSF itself determined the allocation of federal grants and funding.
Democrats fumed that the bill automatically slashes social, behavioral and economic sciences by 55 percent compared to 2015, while geosciences including climate research shrinks eight percent to $1.2 billion.
Research budgets for green energy programs would be hit too.
Conversely, Republicans prioritized funding for biology, computer science, engineering, mathematics and physical sciences.
US readers will no doubt set me straight on the finer points of this. And of course, even if the Senate smiles on it, the Pres plans to veto the bill.
Oh dear Jo! I do my best to keep up but there’s so much to read and investigate. I wish I had a fortune to send to you!
Regards, Annie, currently relaxing with a glass of nice Aussie Red in Dubai. 😉
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Also currently enjoying the warmth and dreading the return to freezing Victoria!
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Oi! It’s not freezing down here! The other day it was 2C at 08:00am. We’ve been experiencing global warming ever since, it was 4C the next day and today it’s 9C. Nearly time for T-shirts and shorts.
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But it is Winter in Victoria. Here in Britain it a few weeks off the hottest month of the year. At 7pm I was in the Lake District. At 300m it was just 8C, and wet. Much like November.
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Technically it’s still Autumn here, with four days to go until Winter is officially declared. But we have been having some low temperatures all of May, so maybe it’s an indication of something. Global cooling?
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We have had our first snowfall of the winter in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Not quite skiable yet, but give it a few weeks … 🙂
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2015 hottest ever
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Never mind Annie, we are on the verge of the climate tipping point. It is sure to warm quickly in coming years.
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I predict that the WARMING will start about late October?
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I vote we bring October forward, like in four days time?
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Perhaps we can counteract global warming by getting up earlier in the morning? 🙂
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While I agree that hard science funding is far more valuable than social science funding, I have to point out that the arguments are somewhat contradictory. On the one hand Jo is saying bring the decision making closer to elected representatives, and on the other hand big government dependence is bad. Ultimately (and certainly in Australia) the politicians (ministers) run their respective departments (the days of a frank and fearless civil service are long gone), so political masters and government are essentially the same thing. So which is it? Is political/government interference good or bad?
Perhaps there should be representation of both on the boards? Scientists to guide the project prioritisation within fields and politicians to guide the funding by field?
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Bulldust,
Seriously?
I did not elect a Public Servant or their unaccountable agent or agencies. this includes the Police and the Legal Professions.
Small Government and elected Ministers go hand in hand.
Should they not get the message, they get shown the door. This is as small as you can get good Government.
This then infers that all Boards, quangos, local government entities and other tax payer funded organizations half a half life of the current parliament.
Should they not be able to justify themselves, then they are gone. De-funded, Defunct and out the door.
Should they wish to stay beyond a parliamentary term, then they do need to be frank, fearless and partisan.
Although that won’t stop some sides of Politics trying to abuse them for their own purpose, the only constitutional change I would support would be giving such entities the right to be dismissed, de-funded or otherwise ‘rationalized’ by the new parliament, courtesy of and at the discretion of, the Prime Minister of the Day.
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You may have elected them, but it is several years between elections, and they certainly don’t do your bidding, or even what they promised to do in between those elections much of the time. The facade of compliance goes up for a few weeks, then election, then back to business as usual. Part of the reason we are seeing more churn of politicians and governments these days.
Ultimately politicians will do the bidding of whichever power group they feel most closely tied to … be it unions, lobby groups, industry or whatever. Large government or small, few politicians or many, they are all corruptible. The main advantage of smaller government is that you pay less for it. As long as service levels are sufficient, that should always be a goal. Problem is that peoples’ opinions differ on sufficient service levels and wealth redistribution etc. We could go on at length.
Maybe the question should be … who do you trust more? Politicians or civil servants? As I said, ultimately politicians always have the final say, and heads roll if departments don’t comply. That is a lot of power in the hands of very few, much easier for lobbyists (of whatever colour) to target. Is that desirable?
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Question: when did you last see a career civil servant held responsible for his/her actions (not including criminal conduct such as theft)? Being unionised, they are nearly impossible to hold responsible.
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The worst kind of big-government dependence is the sort which has no accountability to the public. These committees/qango’s/”authorities” will trend to left-leaning bias.
Big-government dependence is bad, but some projects need to be funded by the government, and they should compete with a big non-gov research base. Having an independent non-gov research base would stop the gov sector from getting too far from reality. The question is how we make the incentives work better. At the moment in some fields, the gov has a monopoly, and many skeptical scientists can’t speak, because for them, there is no other employer/funder.
I’d like to see a stronger philanthropic funding base for research, because then we make the most of smart individuals picking the projects to fund. Perhaps tax breaks?
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Incentives are certainly the key. Government in general is not run by efficiency incentives, but rather maximise the power/budget/staff. Worst thing that can happen for a government manager is to have his/her budget cut. It leads to the perverse incentive to make sure they spend, or better still overspend, to “demonstrate” that the funding is required, or better still, insufficient.
Clearly I am as cynical as the next person regarding government structures, and have posted my frustrations many times. If it were a simple problem the answers would have presented themselves by now. Best one can do is to push for greater transparency. This is also something bureaucrats tend to avoid. I don’t think the answer lies in greater concentration of power either, which simply makes corruption simpler as the targets are bigger and fewer in number.
To be honest I think governments are only going to get bigger, for a number of reasons, the main ones being:
1) Technological advances are making many jobs redundant in the not too distant future (think driverless vehicles as a biggie, for example, and longer term knowledge workers will be replaced). The high tech jobs to replace those lost simply aren’t available in the same number. Hence getting civil servants to push papers and pretend to work may be a way of making people feel like they are contributing in the future, or at least until a new economic system can be implemented.
2) Demographics mean the aged are becoming more populous. They need more services. Unless we go the Soylent Green or Logan’s Run option (neither of which I favour – perhaps because I am older than average), they need to be looked after as older people require more services. Unless those services are private, which I see as unlikely in most cases, they will need to be paid for by government, bigger government. If the old are not self-financing then government will need to pick up the tab regardless.
Neither of these two fundamental forces can be resisted, nor should they be. They represent the greater wealth and technology humans will enjoy as time marches on. It does mean a massive disruption to the way we organise our economies in the longer term (I am talking 2-4 decades).
I realise this is somewhat off topic, but I think arguing for smaller government is an unwinnable fight. But let’s play the thought game … let’s say you make 300,000 civil servants redundant overnight in Australia because they weren’t doing all that much anyway (just a hypothetical). What now? There are no jobs for them to go to. Or do we want a society in which increasing number of jobless fight for the few scraps that fall off the private sector table?
But I digress… Yes it is important money be allocated efficiently for research. Ultimately elected politicians, bureaucrats or scientists (or some mix of these) will make that decision. Each group is corruptible. The issue isn’t so much what group has the control, the issue is human frailty. Anyone putting their hand up to be the benign dictator of scientific research funding distribution will be torn to shreds in the media before you sign the first cheque. Good luck with that…
TL:DNR All humans can be corrupted. Who do you trust the most?
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Eventually, though, BD one must reach critical mass where government jobs exceed the capacity of governments to pay for them and remain fiscally solvent.
We are, in Western society globally, headed for a perfect storm as government departments and programs, and welfare in particular remorselessly expands under the influence of the demographic imperatives of an ageing population, the all-pervasive culture of entitlement, an ever-widening definition of disability, the burgeoning of single parenthood, a shrinking of the employment base, and a rapid dwindling of the productive class of taxpayers available to fund them.
These irreconcilable realities will inevitably see our systems collapse under the weight of too many conflicting obligations, possibly precipitously without warning, or more likely through the creeping insidious march of these counter-productive trends in the imbalances between the government and the governed. It is a perverse game of societal roulette, and inevitably the house always “wins”.
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I think you misinterpret my train of thought. It boils down to “don’t send a human to do a machine’s job.” As human productivity becomes largely redundant I see it as inevitable that eocnomic system will have to change. The concept of working long hours for a reasonable wage become meaningless. I am merely arguing we are at the beginning of an era where the demands for human labour are going to diminish, so the basis for wealth distribution, i.e. selling one’s labour, is losing meaning. This is not a dystopian view BTW, quite the opposite.
It seems like a long way off for many people, but when you consider the technolgies coming down the road I see the economic disruption as a real issue. It is not that the end state is bad, but the disruption, the change, may be very hard to manage.
Australia has a fairly light government compared to many OECD countries – there are several which have goverment as >50% of GDP. That is about half again the size of Australia’s government sector. Good, bad? These are not objective terms… just different. A more socialist leaning perhaps … but that is a trigger word for most Americans LOL.
My general thesis is that the private sector will have decreasing need of human inputs, hence governments will grow until such time that we figure out a different way to run economies in a fashion that is acceptable to the majority of the citizens. Hence while I see that the libertarian concept of less government interference is inherently appealing, it ignores the issues I have raised above. Like I said, the alternative is very dystopian. An underclass, or worse…
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I think you are probably correct in the general thrust of your argument, but I have little faith that those who consider themselves fit to lead us are even remotely thinking of the ramifications of such matters, let alone actually capable of solving them.
I see no reason also to think that the current trajectory of society is toward anything other than collapse and total system failure before we even reach the point that the impact of mechanisation rendering humans superfluous even becomes an issue.
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Just found a paper examining the risk of job automation. From the conclusion section:
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If you make 300,000 civil servants redundant, AND reduce people’s tax by the amount of money it cost to fund them, then in theory people will spend that money on other stuff.
OK, so those civil servants might have to become miners, or brick layers, or waiters/waitresses, but hey, the best ones won’t be doing jobs like that for long, they will find a way of climbing back up the ladder. If they can’t, then they weren’t good enough to be civil servants either.
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This argument breaks down if the jobs simply aren’t there to be done. Now what? They simply become unemployed and eventually unemployable. We don’t need humans in the mines, for example. Mines are becoming increasingly automated (driverless drill rigs, driverless trucks, driverless trains and so on). I have been in the Rio Tinto control centre … it is extremely impressive. Not many humans needed to run the entire operation of the biggest iron ore miner in the country.
We don’t need humans in warehouses – robots do it better and 24/7.
We don’t need humans moving containers in dockyards – that is an automated job now.
Soon we won’t need taxi drivers, truckers, train drivers, any other form of driver, as it will be automated and safer.
I could go on at length … like I said before, when there is less need for humans to work, the system as we currently have it, becomes untenable. Either the system morphs into something else (probably more socialistic in nature) or we get an underclass of unemployed fighting for scraps.
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Bulldust
While I get in line some thoughts on what you’re on try this
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/a-bit-of-worry-on-china-economics/#comments
And comments
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China’s heading for an “adjustment” … no question of it. Expect massive government intervention to paper over the economic issues they have. Having said that, the advances China has made are nothing short of utterly breath taking. They are now a force to be recognised and shape the future. There is no turning back now. Their toughest problem is liberating the potential of their people, getting rid of government corruption and associated issues. They have too much to lose not doing so, but it is a tricky transition, to say the least.
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Bulldust
Other also think so — https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/a-bit-of-worry-on-china-economics/
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Jo,
This is such an important point.
when I look at all the taxes paid to the government by ordinary citizens I am sure “choice of where it ends up” does cross the minds of the people paying it.
In America we are required to fill in a tax form each April, and yes we get a deduction for charitable donations, but it is offset by the “standard deduction” which often is more than the total individual deductions, so there is less of an incentive to donate.
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No doubt the same pack of whiny fools with thier collective noses in the public trough will start bleating about “muzzling scientists” as they are shrieking here in Canada. Seems they completely ignored the terms of their employment when it comes to making unauthorised public statements while claiming to speak for the government. I expect them to start up with that nonsense in the US as well.
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My Republican brethren on Capitol Hill seldom read farther than the op-ed page of their local newspaper
Which is why they often end up on the receiving end of editorial cartoons.
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Not sure why you are trying to drum up hits for that very sad web site.
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Regrettably the president will no doubt veto the legislation. But it does make an essential policy statement and it chooses more ground for future action. As a thoroughly disgusted Democrat I am glad to see it.
Little could please me better, in fact, than outright abolition of the EPA. We already have 50 state environmental agencies well able to manage the environment without subverting representative government or eviscerating the nation’s economy.
Consider it getting up a head of steam for 2016.
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Well, it is about time! I am glad to see that they are going to put a stranglehold on the green’s bag man!
It always gets down to the money. If a republican is elected as president and the voters elect more republicans to congress we will see a sea change in attitude. All they need to do is to allocate most of the grant money for studying climate change to challenging the current alleged consensus and a new one will appear. Overnight the vast majority of climate scientists will disavow the “proven science” mantra and once again embrace the scientific method.
Why?
Because it has always been and always will be about the money, period!
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I agree this is very good news. Now, let’s hope that the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate stick to what they are proposing. If they do, I believe a Republican will be elected President in 2016. But, if they play their usual game of talk tough and the roll over for Obama, things will only get worse.
We are waiting on several key decisions from the Supreme Court. If Chief Justice Rogers votes as he promised to do in getting nominated and appointed, then many of the “rules by executive action” of Obama will be declared as illegal. But, many believe that the Chief Justice is really a leftist in sheep’s clothing as he performed in telling the Obama Administration what to say so he could approve Obamacare. He told them, they did it, and now Obamacare is the law.
If the Chief Justice is honest, patriotic, and loves the rule of law under our Constitution, these executive rules will be declared illegal and America may start to reverse its rapid decline. However, if he is still leftist, being paid or blackmailed, the rule by decree will be upheld by the Chief Justice and our decline will accelerate.
From here it looks to me like about 1 chance in 4 or so that we will have rule of law again in America.
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The problem is that one man apparently has the ability to veto anything that is passed through government. That’s absolutely amazing. This is democracy?
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Democracy isn’t perfect; it’s only the best system we could come up with. (Sweeping under the rug for simplicity’s sake the fact that the US is a Republic. We have minority rights that a total democracy might infringe if not limited.)
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Nothing ever really is perfect, but I still find it amazing that the president can veto things that have been passed by the legislators, on a whim. I could understand if he was acting as a sort of tie breaker, but to be able to reject what has been effectively passed by a majority is beyond belief.
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Except Barak is a tie breaker in the same sort of way that Putin is a tie breaker.
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Nice analogy. 🙂
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Putin is infinitely more adept at politics than Obummer could ever be!
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Bemused. If both houses override the veto by a 2/3 majority in the House and Senate then the bill becomes law. Hard to do but possible and it has been done more than a few times.
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What a way to run a country. Or run it down as it appears at the moment.
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It is not the presidential veto and the process for sustaining it or over turning the veto that is important or the problem.
The problem is that we have a rogue president that wants to rule by decree.
If the Republicans would do the things they promise to get elected, Obama might have been impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate. But they don’t. After the election they go back to Washington, DC and rollover and vote with Obama rather than against his totalitarian rule by decree efforts.
The problems is that we need to elect honest conservatives Republicans that would stand up to protect our Constitution and the rule of law in America.
The 2016 election will be a bellwether election in that it will indicate whether conservative Republicans will seek to enforce the Constitution and the rule of law, or, if the establishment Republicans (also called RINOS or Republicans in name only) will retain their control of the Republican. If this happens America will accelerate its decline. Then the question of the need for a new conservative political party will be a popular topic/movement.
The problem is that the welfare class (rent seekers or those on the dole) wanted Obama as he promised to redistribute wealth in the country from the rich and middle classes to the welfare class. Big companies (GE, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. discovered that a donation in the 10 to 100 thousand dollar range given at various critical moments in Obamas’ campaigns would open doors at the White House and result in government $billions flowing their way and regulations not enforced as well so that profits surged and surged and let them crush other companies who did not participate in crony deals and rewards for campaign contributions. Obama completely opened our porous orders and started to give 10s of millions of illegal aliens amnesty and the vote. These executive orders are now in court and Obama has a restraining order not to grant amnesty. But the border remains and millions more are entering the country illegally. The objective is to get millions of one party voters and turn our country into a one party dictatorship.
So you see, it is not a structural problem with the presidential veto, rather it is trying to return rule of law to our country that all must obey from illegal immigrants (law says arrest, and prison until they can be deported) to the president.
America only works when there are checks and balances between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. RINO cowardice and betrayal of their oaths to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law undermine the checks and balances and give us a rogue president.
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As long as he is left leaning and pseudo intellectual, its ok because he will always make the right decisions. These people know whats best for us and Im sure its very confusing and frustrating for them that we all want our think for ourselves.
For instance on our left wing broadcasting network yesterday they were discussing same sex marriage (for a change) and agreeing with each other that;
a. Australia is a backward, racist, sexist, homophobic pit of drooling morons
b. We should be “progressive” enough to have a referendum on same sex unions
c. However we should not have referendums on things like capital punishment because (and this is verbatim) “people cant be trusted with topics of that importance”
d. That any proposed referendum needs to pass the “will it do harm” test, which apparently is a test that only a lefty intellectual type can decide the meaning of.
e. We need to “show leadership” on regional refugees and that both major parties (again this is not made up) “need to stop reflecting the will of the electorate and start taking a principled position”
The interesting parts of this are that;
a. The ABC and its cronies detest democracy
b. The ABC regards the Australian public that pays for its existence as a bunch of redneck hicks
c. Only the upper echelons of the ABC are capable of running this nation
d. Whatever happens don’t trust the public with anything you regard as morally important
What I find most amusing is that the proposed vote on what adults do with their genitalia behind closed doors is seen as a freedom of choice measure. So its freeing for homosexuals to have their private lives decided upon by hetro sexuals in a vote….. very interesting cognitive dissonance going on there Id reckon.
Personally I think a more informed, adult and libertarian view would be for everyone to accept that what one bloke does to another bloke in the privacy of their home or nightclub IS NO ONES DAMN BUSINESS BUT THEIRS!!!!!!…. but that’s just me…. I do understand the left mentality of requiring a law for absolutely everything, even though I happen to think its borderline insanity.
Finally the one thing they have not fully thought through in the midst of deciding on the micro management details of everyone else’s lives is their own “harm test” should the vote on same sex union result in a NO. Then what?
Ooooopsy!
But that’s the chance you take when you convince yourself you can think for everyone and that in fact its best if you do.
Barak knows what Im saying….. nowhaitmsayin Barak ….. yeah homie….
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I will never get back the 10 minutes I just spent reading about the ‘Climate Games’ nonsense. And the US taxpayers will never get back the millions of dollars spent on such rubbish.
Climate alarmists are always accusing skeptics of being funded by the fossil fuel industries or being driven by some vested self interest. They can never actually point to any significant funding, but it doesn’t stop the accusation being made and repeated. Meanwhile they have billions of dollars floating their way from Governments all over the world, but see no conflict of interest. Even though we all know the money is only there as long as they can maintain the ruse that humans are causing dangerous climate change.
Of course they will scream blue murder if their gravy train is threatened. But if we believed their claim that the ‘science is settled’, then they don’t need ever increasing amounts of research dollars!
The fact is they are desperately seeking ways to get the empirical evidence to fit their claims – I guess that takes time and money. Also, if they can get their desired ‘climate action’ funded, then maybe they will be able to claim success and money well spent when the world doesn’t fry?
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I wasn’t going to read that link, but you made me curious.
(Shortend quotes to point a the subject)
Looks like epic fail from the get-go.
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Sound move for science …in the right direction…
The problem is that the Republican move may tragically be too little, too late. (link today’s The Telegraph)
One wonders whether Paris will go down in history as the point at which The West finally collapsed, critical thought and freedom finally stifled by the Green eco-narcosis?
“It is a fair bet that world leaders will agree this year to impose a draconian “tax” on carbon emissions that entirely changes the financial calculus for coal, oil, and gas, and may ultimately devalue much of their asset base to zero.”
“The International Monetary Fund has let off the first thunder-clap. An astonishing report – blandly titled “How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies” – alleges that the fossil nexus enjoys hidden support worth 6.5pc of world GDP.”
“This will amount to $5.7 trillion in 2015, mostly due to environmental costs and damage to health, and mostly stemming from coal. The World Health Organisation – also on cue – has sharply revised up its estimates of early deaths from fine particulates and sulphur dioxide from coal plants.”
“The killer point is that this architecture of subsidy is a “drag on economic growth” as well as being a transfer from poor to rich. It pushes up tax rates and crowds out more productive investment. The world would be richer – and more dynamic – if the burning of fossils was priced properly.”
“This is a deeply-threatening line of attack for those accustomed to arguing that solar or wind are a prohibitive luxury, while coal, oil, and gas remain the only realistic way to power the world economy. The annual subsidy bill for renewables is just $77bn, trivial by comparison.”
“But whether or not you agree with the IMF’s forensic accounting the publication of such claims by the world’s premier financial body is itself a striking fact. The IMF is political to its fingertips. It rarely deviates far from the thinking of the US Treasury. “
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This utterly appals me Manfred. How do you get through that tangled web of ‘thinking’?
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It’s a tangled web of institutionalised belief. ‘Thinking’ it seems, left the building sometime ago. Seeing the WHO on board is no surprise. Weaving the catastrophists, the risk-monger and the banksters into a queue policed by the UN, UNEP, IPCC, national and local government is the perfect concatenation of ducks in a line….
In France, the duck shooting season opens in August.
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Somebody has been thinking, and few have noticed.
When the Hawke Labor government was elected, they “deregulated the banks”. I didn’t examine the details of this, but it surprised me greatly, simply because it has always been the ratbag right wingers who wanted to do this. Why would a Labor government do it?
Hawke then promoted the ‘high flyer’ Alan Bond. Bond’s activities were abusing the bank deregulation. My take was that the new government first gave the capitalist system enough rope to hang itself, then urged it to get out there and hang itself as quickly as it could. Commentators said that it was because Bond donated $3 million to the ALP, but it was more bizarre than that. The promotion continued even as Bond was doing the things that landed him in gaol ten years later, and included public vilification of critics.
Every prudent businessman knew that what they were dong had to lead to a bust, but of Australia’s “big four” banks, three fell for the promotion and joined the fun. The fourth, whose CEO had been subject of the aforementioned public vilification, went from being one of the smaller banks to becoming Australia’s biggest after the crash of 1987 saw the others fall around it.
This was only part of Australia’s contribution to the crash of 1987. In each annual budget, the Hawke government made changes which promoted investment in a particular sector, only to have the investment trashed by subsequent changes. Time and again they directed private capital up a tree, then cut the tree down. The most spectacular of these actions was massive investment in tourism, which was then bankrupted by Hawke’s pilots strike and 20% interest rates.
The Rudd/Gillard governments cut the tree down up front, secure in the knowledge that public debt must be funded by private capital.
Just as a developer gains ownership of a building and demolishes it to build another of his design, the now Marxist ALP and Communist Greens are working to demolish the capitalist system so that they can replace it with another, no mater what the cost. As far as I can see, their preferred model is the one that Russia threw out 25 years ago after a lifetime of trying to make it work.
US readers note that Michael Milken had been indicted, convicted, gaoled and from memory released before the Australian system got around to charging Bond. No credit to Oz.
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Manfred,
Maybe the IMF is concerned about competition from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
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Would appreciate expansion of your IMF suggestion James?
The Euro State has reached unprecedented levels of debt. The goal to launch an entirely new economic system (see Christiana Figueres) may offer in the short term, a new income stream to the wide array of bankruptees. The slightly longer term outcome is as Ted O’Brien (4.1.1.1.) suggested above, a version of yet another Russian failed five year plan.
What will it take to divest ourselves of this societal green chancre? Will it really take economic ruination and impoverishment before the larger majority start using the lamp posts?
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Manfred,
My guess is that the IMF is trying to maintain the global warming scare to retain relevance, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank may offer reliable and stable funding to non-alternative energy investments.
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Thanks JB. I see. Go AIIB then!
10
All part of the “elites” ramping up towards Paris. Here is another bit –actually it is a text book case of trying to sound important while you actually say nothing
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/25/world-leaders-missed-chance-to-tackle-climate-change-says-economist?CMP=share_btn_tw
Wasn’t there a referendum in Switzerland recently where the voters turned down a form of carbon tax. The IMF do not understand the average voter. Even if something is agreed to in Paris it will not be ratified by individual nations ( Just like the pledges of money. There is a difference between saying you will give and actually giving a cheque).
Meanwhile China is building coal power stations every week and I was told this week they are building 70 !!! nuclear power stations.
India is building coal fired power stations as is Germany. Japan is spending their promised IPCC fund money on coal fired power stations in Indonesia.
The IMF & the IPCC are a joke !!
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The IMF can be explained mathematically:
IMF = UN = Communism = CAGW
Now who said maths was hard?
61
This has to be good news going by the shrill cries of comments from CAGW bedwetters on the net, regain your original fighting spirit USA and show these freedom haters how a good country was built!
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As mentioned, the bill still has to pass The Senate, but that is likely given the Republican control, but will probably meet with yet another presidential veto as Barack Obama tries to salvage one legacy from his presidency. You might recall that in coming into office Obama made some big promises:
– Close Guantanomo Bay within 12 months
– Fix Healthcare insurance reducing the cost by $2,500 for the average family while stating “if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it”
– Secure America’s borders
– Cut taxes for most Americans
– Remedy America’s relationship with the Muslim world
– End the war in Iraq within 16 months (I think he’s finally recognising that ISIS isn’t going anywhere any time soon)
– Get Iran to abandon its nuclear programme
– Reduce global nuclear proliferation
– Support Israel and achieve the two state solution
– Improve relations with Russia including a new nuclear disarmament agreement
– Fix America’s dire debt and deficit position, and
– Take action on Climate change
It was on the basis of many of those promises he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. I wonder what the Nobel committee think of their choice now? He has clearly failed and given up on most if not all of the above apart from Climate Change. He is determined to achieve a lasting legacy and seems to have decided Climate Change is his best shot.
This lead him to make the stupid and futile announcement in November last year that the US and China had agreed the US would reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent of 2005 levels by 2025. Meanwhile China will do nothing to reduce emissions, and in fact will continue its exponential increase in emissions until 2030. By that time they ‘hope’ to be able to stabilise emissions. By then China is predicted to make up about 40% of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions, and India will be looking to replicate what China has done.
I’m sure Obama will be going to Paris in December hoping to ‘lead’ the world in climate change action for which he [thinks he] can be immortalised. A bit like our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd before Copenhagen when he hoped to go there with an emissions trading scheme in his bag. Obama too promised a ‘cap and trade’ scheme in his 2008 Presidential campaign.
I believe Obama is a true believer in that he really doesn’t know any better. He has John Holdren as his chief science adviser, had Hansen in his ear for most of his term in office, and has a rabid EPA telling him CO2 is a pollutant. I think he really believes it. He has never allowed himself to consider an alternative or be exposed to any but the ‘consensus’ group thinkers.
Hopefully his push on climate change will turn out to be as successful as the other key areas he made big promises in. By December most of America and the world should have woken up about the climate scare and reject his position.
It is likely that he will leave the presidency as one of the most disappointing US Presidents in modern history given he enjoyed such huge support on his ascendancy and there were such great expectations. He will leave his country in poor shape. The divisiveness between Democrats and Republicans is greater than ever, even though he promised post-partisanship, and the country is more divided on race than when he came to office. The latter largely his own doing.
It is a shame – had I been in the US, I probably would have voted for him first time round in the hope of achieving a more unified country.
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Well, Jaymez. A slight majority of Americans th0ught the way you did. Just under half of us listened to his campaign speeches and promises and knew he was a radical leftist/communist/Muslim and probably not really a citizen of the USA. Obama promised to bring transformational change to our Republic free enterprise system and change it by distributional programs to look more like a European socialist country. He accomplished that. He promised to develop a national police force that was as large and well equipped as the military. He has tried hard and made significant progress on destroying our military and arming such agencies as the postal service, forest service, national park service, Dept. of homeland security, NOAA, IRS, etc. During the 2008 campaign it turned out that he had never worked, had never accomplished anything, and had no administrative experience. In fact, he was not trained to run anything, much less the US government. But he was black, said the right things for the welfare class by promising them everything, and he accomplished much of that too. In a country of about 320 million (it could be close to 400 million if all the illegal immigrants were accurately counted), we now have over 50% that do not work, over 50 million on welfare (the dole) and a real unemployment rate of about 20%. The government has falsified unemployment data, climate data, voting registration, etc., etc. until we don’t trust most government data, records, and statistics. Most of the big companies support his and especially the high tech companies, unions, radical leftists, racists, global warming people at the public trough, and Hollywood love him because of the $trillions of taxpayer gifts and gifts of $trillions more borrowed money from China and Japan. Watch the run-up to the November 2016 elections and the lame duck presidency from November 2016 to Jan 2017 when the new President would take office and see what Obama and his cronies do to finish his agenda. Scary.
90
This sort of fits in this thread IMO
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/05/man-made-climate-change.html
A couple of interesting but o/t items with it too
40
The ABC has a Crystal Ball:
In Depth › Science Features:
22 April, 2004, Crystal ball climate change
It starts …
“The Pentagon recently advised the US government that the biggest threat to America was climate change, not terrorism!”
~ ~ ~
May 26, 2015, cbcnews:
“Is there a link between climate change and terrorism?
U.S. president makes connection between environmental changes and global conflicts”
. . .
11 years & trillion$ later, how is that war on climate going?
170
‘…how is that war on climate going?’
Sol beat the AGW heat after much hype and hubris from the worrier faction, ultimately it was no contest.
70
It’s still alive, keep sending those missiles. We’ll bomb it into submission yet. We can do this.
RIPLY: Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
20
That absurd quote that climate change is the greatest crisis we face or have ever faced comes from Obama not the pentagon. They follow their orders. I still have not decided if the present commander and chief is really this incompetent or if he is crazy like a fox. One thing is for certain, he his no champion of freedom and liberty to any man or woman, rich or poor, anywhere. It is just surreal this situation.
30
If you recall that Obama went to Jeremiah Wright’s church and was preached hatred of America for 10 years or more, you’d understand Obama a lot more.
I always remind myself of a not so old Jewish proverb; “when they say they want to kill you, believe them”.
They love to tell you what they think. They think they’re so clever, and of course if you’re clever too, you’ll think the same way that they do. Mao’s little red book and Hitler’s mein kampf are two that come to mind. I believe Starlin also wrote something along those lines too.
51
There certainly is a link between climate change and terrorism.
Alarmists (a soft word for terrorists) have been basically extorting money from the public with menaces for 20 or more years.
Tim Flannery is absolutely blatant about it. Give him money or we are all doomed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7ioiiI3eBw
I am waiting for the Government for declare all alarmists organisations as terrorist organisations.
20
“Only 3% of Australians believe ‘there is no such thing as climate change’ and 4% are unsure about it, so we can say that vast majority of Australians believe that climate change is a real phenomenon. Of those who believe that climate change is happening, Australians are three times more likely to believe that climate change is caused mainly by human activity than by natural processes. The remainder, nearly half of the population, believe it’s caused by a mix of anthropogenic and natural processes” Ipsos Social Research Institute Research Manager Stuart Clark said.
30
‘Of those who believe that climate change is happening, Australians are three times more likely to believe that climate change is caused mainly by human activity than by natural processes.’
We covered this in the previous thread, if IPSOS referred to ‘global warming’ instead of ‘climate change’ then the outcome would have been completely different.
Its corrupt practice, intending to support the propaganda wing of the Klimatariat.
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Climate change climatechange climate change……….hickory dickory dock.
11
No more surveys. That’s my number one request to whoever is in control of science budgets. If I want my intelligence insulted by sciency-sounding babble I can read the labels on energy drinks.
But no more surveys. Ever again.
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Well said. Surveys mean nothing in science, except to indicate that the believers in the “scientific” conjectures being surveyed lack supporting evidence by more objective measures (that is real world data) so have to resort to the beliefs of the alleged experts. If those alleged experts founded their beliefs on real world data, then the surveys would become superfluous. It is the lack of the real world evidence that makes the surveys necessary. So use of the surveys as primary evidence, should be viewed the same as a prosecution in a criminal case basing their case on hearsay. It should be thrown out.
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One more from the ABC?
There are more and more stories about climate change in the news every day.
But how much do you know about the science behind the headlines?
Find out with our quiz!
20
I got 10 out of 10, who says we dont know any science. The quiz was quite interesting in the complexity of the questions, I would be surprised if the average person on the street (or climate scientist) could manage 5 out of 10
30
I tried to be smart and answer like a member of the public would who believed all the hype. I bombed out – got 6/10. Far too good!
20
Good work stupendous.
Also got 10/10. However I disagree with most of the answers I gave, particularly this one;
Answer: B Greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere absorbing radiation from the Earth’s surface, and preventing much of it escaping into space.
20
Also got 8/10, but only because I followed the party line. Sent the link out to various friends.
00
I couldn’t get past question six.
10
I refused to answer the last two, as couldn’t chose “none of these”.
I got 4/10 🙁
10
After looking over the test I decided it smelled too slanted in the direction it’s creator thinks. Whether 10/10 or 0/10, what does your score mean when the test doesn’t give real choices?
10
How come the $CAGW$ gang in OZ had not thought of the climate change Game here that Jo Mentioned.?
I could wait for a $CAGW$ fan to actually comment on how ridiculous the concept is…but I know that aint going to happen..its to save the planet..dont ya know.. 🙂
31
But how will they find out whether single, Latino mothers are concerned about rising sea levels in the Himalayas if they cut all that important funding?
30
Aw shucks, dear, there goes the neighbourhood. We’re going to be getting real scientists and … and … and those unspeakable engineers and geeks and things moving in. No more Monopoly games. No more creative insults. Those people just brush them off. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised, at all, if most of them were … were … denialists(tm).
It’s going to be very interesting to see what signal this sends to Paris.
I’m hoping it will be a positively destructive one for the UN’s hopes and aspirations.
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Interesting article in the Lancet.
50
Hardly an improvement at all.
THEY KEEP SPENDING OUR DAMN MONEY EVEN THOUGH WE ARE $18+TRILLION IN DEBT AND CLIMBING!!!!!
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Its all good KuhnKat, I don’t think they had any intention of paying China back in any currency other than lead anyway. Besides the Govt will have some nice new revenue streams from taxing air soon.
30
With Republicans set to get tough,
To cut waste, as enough is enough,
To better dispense,
Their dollars and cents,
Now spent on the great climate bluff.
241
Yep!
They have been setting their own exams and marking their own homework all in the name of THE ENVIRONMENT.
Apart from the fact that the majority of these people can’t even explain where this THE ENVIRONMENT actually is ( other than it’s somewhere else ) they also don’t seem to understand that THE ENVIRONMENT or THE CLIMATE couldn’t give a toss about their propensity to waste money.
Maybe when it gets to the Senate someone may possess enough common sense to ask:
Who or what has been the beneficiary of this behaviour of INDEPENDENT authorities?
( In this context, ‘independent authorities’ are those entities who have been granted a legislative monopoly over reporting on this mysteriously elusive THE ENVIRONMENT or THE CLIMATE that always exists SOMEWHERE ELSE)
🙂
40
7 Billion $US that is capital the private sector misses out on. Do we need to spend so much on scientific research? Add the 4.5 billion Israel wants per year for the next 10 years for defense purposes (as aid by the US) and we have 11.5 billion going down the gurgler per year in the US literally for nothing of productive utility. Unless your business goal is to break lots and lots of windows, in order to generate work, or destroy previous productive efforts, then I suppose its capital well spent to generate poverty and economic collapse.
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Can only push like once Louis.
Want to like your comment no less than 100.
That does look like the desired outcome.
If it isn’t….then someone needs to explain how this behaviour is achieving a different outcome.
11
I see a report (paywalled at The Australian) that QANDA is to be reviewed for left-wing bias:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abc-mark-scott-to-review-qa-amid-left-bias-claims/story-fna045gd-1227371834149
I would have thought it patently obvious from the host’s leanings and the selected non-political guests, but there you go. Here is the wikipedia list of QANDA participants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Q%26A_panelists
Actually two more appearances by Coalition than Labor members (sitting) this year, but disproportionately high representtaion of PUP and ex-PUP.
In unrelated news, the sales of white wash have spiked…
30
Here is Fairfax on the story.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/everyone-from-coalition-thinks-abcs-qa-is-biased-to-the-left-says-lnp-senator-james-mcgrath-20150527-ghatyw.html
00
It seems that landfill gas projects may be double dipping (triple dipping?) by getting paid for electricity generated, RET payments and funds from the abatement auctions:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-27/carbon-abatement-auction-goverment-awards-millions-old-projects/6500716
This is the kind of rorting we expect to see under any emissions abatement scheme. Why would we be surprised that the Lib scheme is just as rortable as Labor’s previous ones?
40
Of course the world’s warming is not impacting climate, of course any warming is natural, of course the Republicans are right.
Except nobody in that psuedo-scientific policy cesspool can indicate any proper scientific evidence that justifies such a monumental and retarded denial of the evidence. As a example just look up this effort from Roy Spencer of UAH fame, a hero of the Republicans and then look up a thorough analysis of how he thoroughly bastardised the data to produce more fallacious and surreal statistics to feed the climate ferals.
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Yep. Roy Spencer averaged the first five years of UAH data to start comparisons with models. He stated it openly, and did what he stated. For you and Sou that’s “thoroughly bastardizing data”. Yep. Keep ’em coming. You are looking more desperately shrill than ever.
Even David Appell, who is on your side, is not sold on Sou’s theory.
Since Hans von Storch showed the models are wrong, and Spencer is merely confirming that, his results are hardly controversial.
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Sorry, I took: “I looked in trash but couldn’t find it” or similar in your full post to say is was gone. Happy you reposted the spam. And yet you didn’t answer my question on what was spammed.
BTW did you notice how this graph by Roy Spencer has 2013 as the hottest year with 1998 colder than any subsequent year. Maybe you can inform me what he did to the data to create such an unusual effect, an effect not evident in any of his normal monthly updates.
[How embarrassing for you to have so incorrectly read a simple graph. ‘sillyfilly’ seems to have been a well chosen avatar. Anyone who did basic high school maths would read the axis description and conclude that both the climate model projections and the satellite temperatures are cumulative. The average of all the climate models were predicting that the increase in global temperature by 2013 would be more than 0.6C above the 1979-83 average global temperature. The satellites are showing less than 0.4C increase since 1983 and no statistically significant warming this century. John Christy used this more up to date graph at a congressional hearing: http://imgick.al.com/home/bama-media/width620/img/news_huntsville_impact/photo/17798010-mmmain.jpg since the error bars are about 0.1C this graph is certainly showing no statistically significant warming since about 1995 – Mod]
01
Retort makes no sense, the graph of what he calls UAH lower troposphere anomalies(I presume) differs drastically due to the”lucky” choice of baseline. Compare any of the two Spencer graphs to his own site graph and tell me what happened to 1998 in both your link and mine. Next time don’t resort some silly hissy fit and seek avoid the obvious conflicting representations of the temperature data. The 1979-83 choice was both deliberate and contrived, otherwise he would have it as his stock standard climatology, which it isn’t. On a standard climatology the model estimate mean would be some 0.3 dc lower.
[By “Retort,” do you mean a response to something somebody else has said, or are you referring to a piece of laboratory equipment, or were you in such a hurry to comment that your finger could not keep up with your synapse? I am curious.] Fly
00
Tut-tut sillyfilly but aren’t you on the wrong page?
But wait – do I detect a note of cynicism from you? Or just another “dummy spit”
Jo’s reply is too good for you by far!
I think you just deserve a kick up the pants for your rudeness!
Regards
Geoff Williams
Sydney
31
sillyfilly,
“… psuedo-scientific policy cesspool… monumental and retarded denial of the evidence… thoroughly bastardised the data to produce more fallacious and surreal statistics to feed the climate ferals.”
Please explain how this adds to open and transparent debate of the science?
Looks to me like a few own goals there, sf – only goes to prove how desperate you are to shut down debate
50
SF: STILL waiting for you to supply some FACTS for a change. Refer to my earlier challange and reply to even ONE of those points, please.
00
Don’t hold your breath waiting on silly filly to deal with facts or any form of reality. Trolls don’t care about rational discussion.
00
27 May: Politico: Michael Grunwald: Inside the war on coal
How Mike Bloomberg, red-state businesses, and a lot of Midwestern lawyers are changing American energy faster than you think
The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate.
The industry and its supporters use “war on coal” as shorthand for a ferocious assault by a hostile White House, but the real war on coal is not primarily an Obama war, or even a Washington war. It’s a guerrilla war. The front lines are not at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Supreme Court. If you want to see how the fossil fuel that once powered most of the country is being battered by enemy forces, you have to watch state and local hearings where utility commissions and other obscure governing bodies debate individual coal plants. You probably won’t find much drama. You’ll definitely find lawyers from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, the boots on the ground in the war on coal.
Beyond Coal is the most extensive, expensive and effective campaign in the Club’s 123-year history, and maybe the history of the environmental movement…
With a vast war chest donated by Michael Bloomberg, unlikely allies from the business world, and a strategy that relies more on economics than ecology, its team of nearly 200 litigators and organizers has won battles in the Midwestern and Appalachian coal belts, in the reddest of red states, in almost every state that burns coal.
“They’re sophisticated, they’re very active, and they’re better funded than we are,” says Mike Duncan, a former Republican National Committee chairman who now heads the industry-backed American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “I don’t like what they’re doing; we’re losing a lot of coal in this country. But they do show up.”…
Still, there’s no denying the war on coal is leading America into uncharted territory. The Sierra Club wants to eliminate all coal power by 2030, but what will replace it? Wind and solar, despite their rapid Obama-era growth, still make up just 5 percent of U.S. power capacity. And while technologies to store renewable energy (such as Tesla’s newly announced battery packs) are getting cheaper, they’re still a rounding error on the grid. Beyond Coal’s leaders are content to push cleaner power and let utilities figure out how to deliver it, but as OG&E Vice President Paul Renfrow told me: “That’s easy for them to say. We have to keep the lights on.”…
While the (Sierra) Club accepted some donations from natural gas interests under Pope, it is now formally committed to eliminating gas as well as coal by 2030, and it has helped block new gas plants in cities like Austin and Carlsbad, California…
“We want to be principled but pragmatic,” says Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, who stopped the Club’s gas-industry gifts when he took over in 2010. “We’ve wrestled with this, and there’s a definite disagreement with Bloomberg. We don’t see gas as an environmental fix. But we acknowledge that we still need some gas.”
Coal is different. Bloomberg calls it “a dead man walking.” …
When he made his initial gift ($50 million in 2011 for 4-year program) to the Sierra Club, the goal was to secure the retirements of one third of the coal fleet by 2015. The Club is only slightly behind schedule, and in April, Bloomberg came to Washington to announce another $30 million donation, with a new goal of retirement announcements for half of the fleet by 2017. “We’re doubling down on an incredibly successful strategy,” Bloomberg said…
http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/inside-war-on-coal-000002
20
And that deliberate, malicious irresponsibility from Beyond Coal is the key to my earlier comment that I was very, very wrong to think this could not happen in a democracy
To subvert democratic process, only MSM complicity is needed
40
pat;
A very interesting link. I am amazed that the coal fired plants still don’t have scrubbers; the management have been caught sleeping.
Still. the decrease in the nominal capacity supplied by coal is made up by the increase in supply from gas and nuclear. Indeed, as TonyfromOz points out, the amount of electricity from coal has increased as more efficient plants improve their productivity. Wind and solar are merely window dressing.
And as “renewables” increase the disruption to regular supply, there will come a time when the utility companies can’t make a profit from coal, gas, nuclear or hydro. What happens then? Obviously blackouts. Only then will some people grasp the problems with “renewables”, and possibly not even then for they will be cocooned from reality in their expensive “off grid” mansions. It is the non millionaires who will suffer.
50
SOx scrubbers – yes, they do
CO2 scrubbers – mostly not; where economically and in perpetuity to stash the scrubbed CO2 ?
20
Co2 scrubbers?? Why bother?
Cheers,
Dave B
30
ianl8888:
The link specifically claimed sulphur fumes and particulates. If these are being scrubbed then there are lies being told.
In any case scrubbing CO2 with water is pretty much a waste of time.
10
The SOx scrubbers have been around now for over twenty years, mandated since the “acid rain” scare. In fact, these efficient scrubbers have now been blamed for increasing warming (ie. decreasing aerosol particulates and atmospheric SOx concentrations)
CO2 scrubbers (of varying efficacy) are common enough in oil drilling but are of little practical use in coal-fired power stations
20
27 May: UK Daily Mail: Jonathan O’Callaghan: Up to 99% of Everest’s glaciers could be gone by 2100: Global warming could devastate the Himalayas, scientists warn
The research was carried out by scientists from Nepal, the Netherlands and France.
They studied weather patterns in the atmosphere and then created a ***model of conditions on Everest to determine the future impact of rising temperatures on its glaciers.
‘The worst-case scenario shows a 99 per cent loss in glacial mass… but even if we start to slow down emissions somewhat, we may still see a 70 per cent reduction,’ said Dr Joseph Shea of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, who led the study…
Dr Shea was part of a team that published a major study last year using satellite imagery to show how Nepal’s glaciers had already shrunk by nearly a quarter between 1977 and 2010.
But the latest study, published Wednesday in international scientific journal The Cryosphere, shows the region getting much worse by 2100…
‘Once we had tested our ***model and got the weather patterns ***right, we ***increased temperatures according to different emission scenarios for a look at future scenarios,’ Dr Shea said…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3099007/Scientists-warn-Everest-glaciers-risk-disappearing.html
28 May: SMH: AFP: warn Everest glaciers at risk from climate change
Shea, a glacier hydrologist at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, said melting glaciers could form deep lakes which could burst and flood mountain communities living downstream.
The centre is considered by experts to be the leading authority on glaciers in the Himalayas…
(FINAL LINE) The IPCC, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to warn governments around the world about the effects of climate change, was forced to apologise in 2009 for claiming that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/scientists-warn-everest-glaciers-at-risk-from-climate-change-20150527-ghb8nf.html
21
Does this mean they want funding to continue until 2100?
I noticed they only tested higher temperatures with higher CO2. What happens if CO2 rises and the temperature doesn’t (like the last 18 years)?
10
This a good news for two reasons even if little comes of it. First, it sends a message to Obama that he will not have support to do whatever he the UN wants in Paris at the end of the year.
Secondly, it is a push back against the administrative state. This is the biggest problem we face. The leviathan administrative state is out of control; setting its own agenda, writing its own-and everybody else’s -rules, with essentially endless funding, and with the power to enforce its will, only accountable to the executive branch..ie.. Obama at this time. It is a great threat to freedom and liberty everywhere.
50
And recently the opposition tried to count the number of agencies, departments, services, etc., etc. and could not figure out how many there are. Now that is big government!
30
Let’s not forget this man:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
(Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961)
50
ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development) Members, Sponsors & Funding Partners
Non-regional strategic partners and regular supporters includes:
Norway, Germany etc … UNEP, etc
Co-financing project partners includes:
Elsevier Foundation, Ford Foundation, USAID, The World Bank UNEP, WWF. etc
http://lib.icimod.org/record/26961/files/c_attachment_752_5996.pdf
from the SMH/AFP article: “The centre is considered by experts to be the leading authority on glaciers in the Himalayas”.
however, the following which received MSM coverage last year (“women more vulnerable to CAGW blah blah) suggests they don’t exactly specialise in glaciers:
Aug 2014: International Institute for Sustainable Development: ICIMOD Reports on Women’s Adaptation to Climate Change in Nepal
In addition, the report makes several recommendations for gender-sensitive adaptive practices, including: enhance women’s engagement in local-level climate change planning and implementation processes; strengthen local-level women’s organizations and networks; separate or create specific funds and resources for women…increase investment in adequate and skilled local-level service providers (quality and quantity); enhance the capacity of national and local-level institutions for gender equality; include or provide for gender experts within national and local-level climate change-related institutions; conduct awareness raising; and strengthen and develop male gender champions…
The report was launched on 14 August 2014, at a seminar in Arendal, Norway, celebrating the 25th anniversary of GRID-Arendal, a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) collaborating center, and Arendalsuka (Arendal Week), which brings together Norwegian political, business and community leaders each year…
http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/icimod-reports-on-womens-adaptation-to-climate-change-in-nepal/
also found online:
Nepal: ICIMOD pilots first Forest Carbon Trust Fund in Nepal – Helps communities benefit from forest conservation and sustainable use
Financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) under the Climate and Forest Initiative…
21
Unfortunately the bad news is that about 50% of peer-reviewed science contains faked results.
I am just a little skeptical about this claim, but only a little. Faking can merely mean that the researchers conceals weaknesses in an analysis so that the results are biased rather than falsified.
Why? Well to get more grant money is just one of the reasons. Promotion and prestige within an organization is another.
In my opinion, the grant-making system is at least partly at fault and this move by the Congress may partly correct the fault.
But I doubt it. The system has been so flooded with government cash, that reducing the flow will probably increase competition for the reduced prize money and increase the incentive to produce results that the grant-making body wants or is believed to want.
Since the advisers to the grant-making body are often leading figures in a field, there is a built-in tendency to promote research that supports the status quo, especially if politicized like climate science. Thomas Kuhn documented the process, which he called enforcing “normal science”.
70
This move by congress won’t address that faults in research, or in the peer review system. Those faults will remain.
It’s simply shifting the spending of money from Climate Change (which is settled science anyway), to other physics’s based sciences. Nothing more and nothing less.
20
This may seem off topic, but again, it goes right to the heart of this money dispensing outrage, and while there is so much money on offer, it becomes difficult to fight against it, or to try and hold them to account.
It’s money to Science, and here only for approved Science. This dates back even further than when I started all this now more than seven years ago. Advice was given to put the words Climate Change or Global Warming into the proposal and the grant was virtually assured, no matter what the original proposal might not be for, and some of them were not even directly related to the perceived problem of that wording. It’s not their money to give away. It’s the taxpayers money or money raised from loans made on behalf of the taxpayer, and it’s us, in the end, who have to pay those loans back.
It’s money going to Commercial scale renewable power plants, where, in nearly every case, at least half and sometimes more of the construction cost was given as a grant by government, both Federal and State. Again, it’s not their money to give. It’s the taxpayer’s money.
It’s money given as direct subsidies, and let me highlight that with this from the rooftop solar industry. There are no 1.4 Million rooftop installations now here in Australia. The average installation comes in at around 2.5KW. The rebate for this average 2.5KW system is a few dollars under $2,000. So, the overall give away to rooftop solar comes in at $2.8 BILLION.
That’s not given to the purchasers. They just sign the paperwork, and the Installer claims it back, and please don’t tell me the installer doesn’t subtract ALL of this from the cost he charges to purchasers.
Again, all of this is not their money to give away. It’s the taxpayer’s money, and we all pay for it.
There quite literally Rivers of cash flowing out from this Climate Change/Global Warming/whatever, and we, as commenters here at Joanne’s site are virtually powerless to do anything about it.
When there’s this much money on offer, those receiving it will fight tooth and nail to keep those rivers of cash flowing, no matter what we think we might be able to do.
It’s all these things where the money goes. Anything agreed to in an effort to reduce it will be so minor as to be inconsequential.
Those in receipt of all that money only have to utter the meme ….. jobs jobs jobs, and politicians then mimic that meme back to the media, who then compliantly fall in behind their left leaning masters and tell the public, who can bluster all they like.
The money will just keep flowing, none of it theirs to give away.
Tony.
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When I got my rooftop solar. some years ago, the installer did it for free. He said there was enough in it for him to drop the $2000 or so that most installers were charging the customer. The grant for each install was around $8000 at the time. Even though the solar panels have reduced my bill, I am sure that had the government built a few modern coal fired plants all of us would be better off in terms of cheap reliable power. As Tony says, it’s the taxpayer that forks out for the useless dribble of power we get from solar and those of us with panels on our roof just get a little back at everyone else’s expense.
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26 May: CBC: CP: Temperature plunge leaves Ontario vineyards scrambling to prevent crop damage
Lowest temperatures on record for May 22 and May 23
Vineyard owners in parts of southern Ontario are assessing the damage from a record-breaking plunge into cold weather that some growers say has devastated their grape crops.
Both Prince Edward County and the Niagara region were hit with unseasonably low temperatures over the weekend that sent farmers scrambling to prevent frost from killing their fruit…
They rented helicopters, turned on wind machines and set bales of hay aflame in the dead of night, hoping their rescue effort wasn’t for naught….
At the Lacey Estates, the owners burned hay across their 3.5-hectares of land until sunrise on Saturday morning, but they could only prevent some frost damage.
In the lower fields, where cold air settles, all of the baco and chardonnay grapes were destroyed…
Clark Tyler, manager at Harwood Estate Vineyards, estimates that a mere five per cent of grapes at the four-hectare vineyard survived the frost, and some of his friends lost nearly everything.
“It’s difficult to wrap your head around,” Tyler said.
“It has been a complete and utter shocker.”
Lowest temperature on record for May 22 and May 23
Environment Canada says its station in nearby Trenton logged the lowest temperatures on record for both May 22 (-0.3 C) and May 23 (-2 C) since it began monitoring the area in 1935.
“That in and of itself speaks to the relative rarity of getting temperatures this cold, this late into the month of May,” said Geoff Coulson, a warning preparedness meteorologist for the national weather service.
Temperatures also dropped to record levels in the Niagara region where local growers also battled the frost.
A new low of -1.9 C was logged by Environment Canada on May 23…
Small family-owned wineries face the biggest challenge of deciding whether the financial impact of bad weather outweighs the expense of fighting it.
Wind turbines can cost around $40,000 each before factoring in the ongoing cost of fuel, and helicopter rentals aren’t cheap either.
“It’s a little tougher on the small guys,” Dobson Lacey said…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/temperature-plunge-leaves-ontario-vineyards-scrambling-to-prevent-crop-damage-1.3087563
BBC carries the following story but doesn’t have the quote: “The water is very much colder than it has been in May in previous years”.
27 May: UK Argus: Anjelika Rusbridge: Channel swim record dashed by cold water
A swimmer had to end his record attempt for the earliest seasonal English Channel crossing after getting disorientated in the cold water…
The Brighton man had been raising money for the Amaze charity…
Nicky Bagilhole, fundraising manager for Amaze, said: “It was the skipper’s decision because it became too dangerous…
***“The water is very much colder than it has been in May in previous years so achieving the world record was always going to be a massive challenge.”…
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/12972800.Channel_swim_record_dashed_by_cold_water/
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28 May: SavannahNow: David Koenig: Exxon shareholders to vote on climate change, fracking
DALLAS — Exxon Mobil shareholders overwhelmingly rejected several environmental resolutions including proposals to put a climate-change expert on the board and set goals for greenhouse-gas emissions.
At the oil giant’s annual meeting Wednesday in Dallas, CEO Rex Tillerson gave a stay-the-course outlook for the company, which has seen profits decline recently with lower prices for crude oil…
Shareholders rejected a proposal by an organization of Catholic priests in Milwaukee to put a climate-change expert on the board. The Exxon board opposed the resolution, saying several board members have engineering and scientific backgrounds and can handle climate issues, and it gained only 21 percent support…
Others proposed that Exxon Mobil set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its products, such as gasoline, but that got only 9.6 percent support. Vermont state treasurer Beth Pearce said institutional investors are growing more concerned about the topic, and Exxon management’s strategy for diversifying its production beyond oil and gas has been “wholly inadequate.”
A measure calling for a report on the impact of the company’s hydraulic-fracturing practices drew 24.9 percent support…
On climate change, Tillerson said that models predicting the effects of global warming aren’t very good and that it would be very hard for the world to meet aggressive emission-reduction targets. He said technology can help deal with rising sea levels or changing weather patterns “that may or may not be induced by climate change.”
“Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity,” Tillerson said. “I know that is an unsatisfactory answer to a lot of people.”…
Tillerson repeated his long-held view that renewable energy is not economical yet, adding, “We choose not to lose money on purpose.” Shareholders in the hall broke into applause…
http://savannahnow.com/exchange/2015-05-28/exxon-shareholders-vote-climate-change-fracking
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CAGW crowd assemble in Barcelona this week.
watch Tubiana say it’s not ideological.
also Ed King stating business wants a price on carbon. forget consensus, France threatens to write the text!
VIDEO: 12 mins: 27 May: RTCC: France ready to step in if climate talks stall, says Tubiana
Chief French climate diplomat says hosts of COP21 will take lead if countries fail to deliver new text by August
by Ed King in Barcelona
France will produce its own text for a global climate change agreement if countries taking part in UN negotiations fail to cut the current 90-page document down to size.The host of this year’s UN summit, where an emissions cutting pact between nearly 200 countries is set to be finalised, wants a shorter document by the end of the summer.“We have to get a simpler text by June or the latest by the end of August to work with it,” France’s top climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana told RTCC, speaking at the Carbon Expo event in Barcelona.
“If this does not proceed from the normal process of course that will rely on the presidency of the COP in the summer to produce a new document.”…
Tubiana said France wants the main elements of the deal ready by October to ensure there were “no surprises” that could stymie the process.The last time the UN attempted to secure a global climate solution ended in farce just under six years ago at a summit in Copenhagen…
Decisions this UN forum need to be decided by consensus…
Tubiana admitted the demand for an early resolution to the negotiating text added a level of pressure on countries that could slow talks further, but insisted it was essential work sped up…
France will ensure that plans to help countries adapt to future climate extremes are an integral part of any deal, Tubiana stressed…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/28/france-ready-to-step-in-if-climate-talks-stall-says-tubiana/
26 May: World Bank: Carbon Pricing Is Expanding: Initiatives Now Valued at Nearly $50 Billion
“An effective carbon price is an essential, if insufficient, part of a policy package that can lower emissions and drive the economy toward a low-carbon, resilient future,” said World Bank Group Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change Rachel Kyte. “It makes pollution more expensive, incentivizes efficiency and clean production, and helps business leaders and investors understand the long-term direction of travel(?).”…
Leaders are no longer asking whether they should price carbon but are instead looking to the World Bank Group and others for technical advice as they determine how to put carbon pricing into operation….
At Climate Week Paris May 18-21 and then at Carbon Expo in Barcelona, business leaders headlined panels on carbon pricing and called for wider use of robust, effective carbon pricing mechanisms. They described carbon pricing as a key piece of the policy package necessary to drive more sustainable choices…
The value of ETS’s globally rose from $32 billion a year ago to $34 billion today, despite the repeal of Australia’s Carbon Pricing Mechanism last July, according to Carbon Pricing Watch…
The full State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report, to be released ahead of the international climate talks later this year, will delve into greater detail and analysis of the impacts of carbon pricing initiatives and advantages for international cooperation.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/05/26/carbon-pricing-initiatives-nearly-50-billion
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MSM’s dance with religion:
27 May: AP: Seth Borenstein: Climate of change: The Catholic church’s dance with science
From Galileo to genetics, the Roman Catholic Church has danced with science, sometimes in a high-tension tango but more often in a supportive waltz. Pope Francis is about to introduce a new twist: global warming…
The Catholic Church “has got an uneven and not always congenial relationship with science,” said science historian John Heilbron, who wrote a biography of Galileo. But after ticking off some of the advances in science that the church sponsored, the retired University of California Berkeley professor emeritus added, “probably on balance, the Catholic Church’s exchange with what we call science is pretty good.”…
Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography climate scientist, briefed the pope on climate change. He said scientists felt they were failing in getting the world to understand the moral hazard that man-made warming presents. Now, he said, scientists who don’t often turn to religion are looking forward to the pope’s statement.
“Science and religion doesn’t mix, but environment is an exception where science and religion say the same thing,” Ramanathan said. “I think we have found a common ground.”…
Now politicians and others who reject mainstream climate science, like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, compare themselves to Galileo because scientists scorn them. In fact, Galileo was persecuted for espousing science, not denying it, said Harvard University science historian Naomi Oreskes…
The Vatican even has a science academy.
“Our job in principle is to follow scientific developments closely and then inform on particular occasions the Vatican about new development,” said the academy’s president, Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist Werner Arber. He is a Protestant and academy members include non-Catholics, like Ramanathan, and even atheist Stephen Hawking.
For Consolmagno (Brother Guy Consolmagno, Vatican Observatory Foundation in Arizona), astronomer and cleric, that’s no big deal: “If you believe in truth, you are worshipping the same God as I am.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_POPE_CHURCH_AND_SCIENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-27-10-42-25
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Pashley is in Barcelona too. how nice.
***”travel” was not a typo!
***”construction site” a new Figueres meme!
27 May: RTCC: Carbon pricing winning favour with tiger economies
by Alex Pashley in Barcelona
More leading emerging nations are mulling making the polluter pay than ever before.
China plans to launch the world’s largest emissions trading scheme (ETS) – eclipsing the EU’s seminal practice – next year. South Africa will make lawmakers vote on a carbon tax in 2016, while Chile has its own scheduled for 2017…
“2016 and 2017 is the year for carbon prices for major emerging economies,” said the World Bank’s Xueman Wang at an event highlighting the Partnership for Market Readiness, a $127 million fund to help countries prepare.
Many plans are in the early stages, and so far 40 countries mandate a price on carbon, though they signal the direction of ***travel.
The World Bank’s special climate change envoy, Rachel Kyte, spoke of the “growing inevitability” of carbon pricing at an event in Barcelona this week. While UN top climate official, Christiana Figueres called it a core plank in the ***“construction site” of the climate challenge…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/27/carbon-pricing-winning-favour-with-tiger-economies/
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it looks like Megan didn’t get to go to Barcelona:
27 May: RTCC: Megan Darby: Chevron and Exxon Mobil reject climate warnings
But only 4% of Chevron investors voted for the proposal at its AGM on Wednesday. The meeting was not webcast and attendees were not allowed to take phones or laptops into the room.
Ahead of the meeting, Chevron’s board told shareholders the proposal was “based on a flawed, if not dangerous, premise: that stockholders would be best served if Chevron stopped investing in its business”.
The company acknowledged the role of fossil fuel emissions in driving climate change and said “taking prudent, practical and cost-effective action… is the right thing to do”.
But it said despite countries’ stated intention to limit global warming to 2C, the speed of policy action indicated “a low likelihood” they would succeed…
Andrew Behar, chief executive of As You Sow, told RTCC the result was “not terrible” for a first time resolution. “It is a new concept and I think a fairly strong statement.“The only thing they have ever been asked to do before is write a report…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/27/chevron-and-exxon-mobil-reject-climate-warnings/
Greenpeace are in Barcelona pulling another stunt, of course:
from google translation (as English MSM hasn’t picked up the story):
El Pais, 26 May:
Christiana Figueres: “There is no plan b”.
In the event also they participated also the European Commissioner for Energy and Climate Change, Miguel Arias Cañete, and the Minister of Agriculture, Isabel García Tejerina. While delivering his speech, a Greenpeace activist was in front of the minister and has deployed a small banner, which read: “Save the climate, 100% renewable”. Soon after, another member of Greenpeace has again shown another sign with the same message. Both have been evicted by security officers. This environmental organization has detailed its aim was to denounce this fair in Barcelona on carbon markets is “a smokescreen over the Government’s energy and climate policy”, since the government did not focus on renewables.
Within the fair, which will last until Wednesday, the World Bank Group has presented its annual report on carbon prices. According to the agency, the various instruments that exist to penalize CO2 emissions represent this 2015 about 50,000 million dollars (46,000 million euros). In particular, the purchase of emissions markets have moved 34,000 million. And taxes on carbon generation worldwide involve 14,000 million, as calculated by the World Bank…
http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/05/26/actualidad/1432641685_464821.html
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Off topic. Doing the rounds. Concerned, very worried climate scientists.
Poor worried old Tim. Terribly upset. You just feel like sending money to Tim or a job offer as head of the IPCC. If an Indian Railway engineer can travel 350,000km a year on first class freebies, why not Tim?
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I love the last one we’ve at least 10 000 different papers, completed over 20 years, each using different data sets, and they are all coming to the same climate change conclusions”.
Never in the history of mankind has so much money been spent on pushing a political agenda as Science. The entire project to put a man on the moon cost 1/10th as much as preventing Global Warming. Both projects were successful. One changed the direction of humanity and was a huge achievement. The other was a total waste.
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Matthew England is funny.
“Those environmental degradations will aggravate global conflict as tens of millions of people migrate and their food supplies become threatened…”
They have been saying this for 20 years and all I’ve seen is a sprinkling of economic refugees. Global cooling may cause some dislocations, methinks we’ll probably feed potential refugees in situ.
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Gagged on my ratatouille when I saw this. What dolts.
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I’ve seen better acting in such classics as, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and WAR OF THE WORLDS (the 1953 George Pal version). They scared me as a young kid sitting on the edge of my seat in a darkened theater, particularly that scene in WAR OF THE WORLDS where the martian spacecraft began to unscrew followed by the heat ray rising slowly into sight. I still remember the chill up and down my spine.
Then the heat ray wiped out the two guys left to watch over the fire that started when the thing landed. Zap! You’re gone.
My heart was pounding.
Yep, there’s no doubt about it, heat like that scares me. But it was all fiction and I’m now an adult and can recognize it when someone has something to sell. Better yet, I can tell if what they’re selling is worth my money or not. 🙁
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Those photographed are the warm and fuzzy type of scientists with little to no depth of knowledge on thermodynamics. They have the knowledge of primary school children with regard to the physics of the factors that drive earth’s climate.
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this is what it’s all about:
Carbon Expo Barcelona 2015
Jointly organised by: IETA, World Bank, Fira Barcelona
Supporting Organisations include:
American Carbon Registry, Carbon Market Institute, etc
Media Partners: Argus, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, etc
Testimonials:
Christiana Figueres: Exec Secretary, UNFCCC
“Achieving climate neutrality will require ideas and entrepreneurial drive, set in motion by ambitious policy. This year CARBON EXPO takes on special significance for the carbon market community as the world heads towards a new universal, global climate change agreement in Paris.”
Holger Losch, Executive Board Member, BDI (Federation of German Industries)
“Looking forward to the COP21 in Paris, the Carbon Expo 2015 is definitely one of the happening places 2015. The climate finance community is meeting the carbon market league and gets the chance to be inspired by technology incentives at the trade fair. Carbon Expo offers the perfect platform for the different worlds to meet up.”
http://www.carbonexpo.com/
Carbon Expo 2015 – Organisers: IETA, The World Fira Barcelona
IETA and The World Bank are two important agents in the carbon market. The World Bank was the first institution to develop global carbon funds as a public/private partnership – with the creation of the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) in 2000 -and has gone on to create a whole family of funds and facilities designed to expand the volume of carbon trade with its borrowing countries, reduce risk, and extend the reach of carbon finance into diverse niches in the market.
The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) is a non-profit business organization of major companies and the leading voice of this community on emissions trading, whose goal is to ensure that the objectives of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and, ultimately, climate protection, are met. IETA upholds its principles by acting as a think tank, a facilitator of dialogues, an advocate, a market promoter and acting as a body that is able to implement market standards. IETA works for the development of an active, global greenhouse gas market, consistent across national boundaries.
To further ensure the success of the event, the World Bank and IETA have chosen to join forces with Fira de Barcelona, the leading organizer of Spanish industrial – professional trade shows…
http://www.carbonexpo.com/2015-partnership
from The Event Menu at top of page, you can access the Conference Program.
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No matter if everyone before me has said this I’m going to say it. 8% reduction in funding for climate science is a joke. If social sciences deserves a 55% reduction (and it deserves 80 or 90%) so does climate science research.
What have we actually gotten for all the money dumped down the climate research black hole? Nothing but regurgitated and repainted, “Thou shalt not debate because the decision is in and there’s no doubt left so no debate is possible.”
The president’s recent speech shows the whole world what fools we have been to put our effort and our treasure into this nonsense.
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Republicans, where are your heads? Get a grip on reality before it’s too late.
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Thank you Jo, I really hope that the Republicans do not cave, when the pressure comes on.
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another dose of reality:
27 May: Barrons: How China’s SUV Craze Will Drive Oil to $80
Bernstein says strong demand for sports utility vehicles will boost oil producers like China’s CNOOC.
China oil demand for the first four months in 2015 has been stronger than expected and decoupled from weak industrial production growth. Lower oil prices have helped stimulate SUV sales which are in turn pushing up demand for gasoline…
China has surpassed US as the largest oil importer of crude oil as lower prices have led to stronger apparent demand growth and increased stockpiling…
China oil demand is being driven by exceptionally strong gasoline sales, which reflects stronger underlying demand for transportation fuels…
With China oil imports growing at 9% (year to date) and apparent demand growing at 6% (year to date), IEA demand estimates of 300mbd growth (3%) for China are too low…
Oil imports in China continue to grow at close to double digit rates…
This will be positive for oil and oil linked equities in the near term. Our top picks in the region are CNOOC, Oil Search, Inpex and InterOil.
http://online.barrons.com/articles/how-chinas-suv-craze-will-drive-oil-to-80-1432700116
meanwhile, partly taxpayer-funded SBS lives on another planet, it seems:
27 May: SBS: Religious groups call for stronger action on climate change
Australia has formally committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least five per cent by 2020, compared to 2000 levels, towards an international commitment to keep global warming under two degrees celsius.
By comparison, the United States, one of the world’s two largest polluters, has promised to double the rate of pollution reduction by 2025, to a rate of 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels.
***The other, China, says its emissions will peak by around 2030.
Thea Ormerod says Australia is falling behind…
Thea Ormerod from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change says she is not optimistic about getting a positive response from the nation’s senior politicians.
“They’re unfortunately not very responsive. I wish I could say otherwise, but we sort of feel that we have to say what’s important and what’s on our minds. This is a democracy and we’re going to keep trying to act as though it is a democracy, but we’re not seeing much responsiveness. One lives in hope.”
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/05/27/religious-groups-call-stronger-action-climate-change
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wildly spinning the Chevron AGM story!
28 May: FT Alphaville Blog: Izabella Kaminska: Stranded assets and climate stimulus
It was Climate Finance Day in Paris last week, a conference convened under the auspices of UNEP and the UNPRI to address the specific challenges and issues of redirecting capital towards a resilient low-carbon global economy ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference also to be held in Paris, in December.
The big takeaway was consensus is shifting, especially among asset managers and real money investors who no longer view environmental sustainability as a fringe theme…
As example, Axa’s chief executive pledged the insurer would divest €500m of coal assets between now and the end of the year.
The idea of treating climate change as a financial market risk has gained a lot of traction the last few years in no small part to the efforts of Anthony Hobley and colleagues at the Carbon Tracker Initiative…
***And, it’s fair to say, investors, asset managers and even central banks and regulators have begun to take note now the concept of a “Carbon bubble” has been popularised…
Engagement, however, can inspire real change because corporations can be persuaded to start running-off fossil fuel businesses, if not segregating them similar to a good bank/bad bank structure.
On which front a significant coup was had for climate minded investors on Wednesday, as the FT’s Ed Crooks reported:
“Shareholders in Chevron, the US oil group, have voted to give large investors the power to nominate directors to the company’s board, in a landmark success for corporate governance activists”…
Whilst shareholder proposals addressing climate change — including calls to cut emissions — were rejected at both Chevron and Exxon, the opportunity for climate-minded shareholders to gain “proxy access” is still significant. The rule allows investors who have owned 3 per cent or more of Chevron’s shares for at least three years to nominate directors for up to a quarter of the current board’s seats.
All of which bodes well for the beginnings of a major capital re-allocation into clean and renewable businesses.
Even so, some warn there may be financial risks associated with such a turnround, substituting a carbon bubble for a clean-tech bubble instead…
Indeed, many big real-money investors are wary precisely because of clean techs small size and volatile nature. As a result they’re waiting until proven businesses emerge. One needs only to look at the rollercoaster ride of Chinese solar company Hanergy to appreciate the damage too much cheap capital in too small a sector can pose for investors…
The question is perhaps to what degree might Chinese government underwriting of the renewable sector risk also help stimulate China’s economy?
Also: to what degree might a global carbon tax — whether self-inflicted by investor stigmatisation of fossil fuel assets or thanks to some sort of global carbon agreement — increase the cost of capital and thus boost yields for the rest of the developed world? And that’s without even addressing what happens to the cost of capital if and when trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuel subsidies identified by the IMF are removed from the system…
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/05/28/2130645/stranded-assets-and-climate-stimulus/
***now the concept of a “Carbon bubble” has been popularised!!!
popularised by repetition in the MSM.
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“social-climatey type stuff”
A major shift in marketing strategy is being orchestrated by the UN (IPCC) who are trying to save the planet from those heartless CO2 pollutin’ tootin’ bandits.
The restriction against dead Scientists peer reviewing current CAGW papers is to be lifted and the term Science will be interchangeable with the term Séance to help in recruiting those professionals whom in the past have expressed support for CAGW but have now since passed away.
ALL new reports will carry a picture of a cute teddy bear in order to appear more friendly and less arrogant and the phrase “hot spot” is to be categorized as a profanity and will be censored.
All graphical representation of temperature will start using “red” as the only color.
Thermometers are no longer to be used for measuring temperature, instead “windmills” are to be the main source for terrestrial based temperature monitoring and surface temperatures over the ocean will be measured using the speed of the Albatross.
Pictures of icebergs or glaciers are strictly prohibited.
The IPCC are to introduce a new “confidence level” which ranges from 100% – 150% It will be called “slam dunk”.
anyone reading or donating money to a Blog refuting CAGW will be placed on a “no flight” list.
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Speaking of graphs … solar and clouds anyone?
From David Archibald.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SUNOCEANSTEMPS.jpg
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Jo, Great post 😀
You are correct (as usual), President will veto this, cannot see how he would let it through.
probably more significant is the GOP plan (providing the GOP win in 2016 against Hilary) to cut 5.5 Trillion over the next decade, and of course repeal Obamacare.
Hopefully in the next administration we will see fewer dollars going to CAGW research. however the US is still a large contributor to the UN (22% of budget) and thus the IPCC , I suppose it sees it as a way of exerting control over a country(s) without actually invading !
The bad news is that a lot of US money is still going to CAGW research.
The good news is that the U.S economy will not allow climate funding of any kind after 2025
( debt to GDP ratio will equal 100% )
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