Tony Thomas visited the UK and found old fading National Trust signs using scary photos of flood damage and warning people to “eat local” and change their light globes to stop more floods. He followed that thought to a 2005 web plea from the National Trust, to find them claiming floods are accelerating but using 20 year old photos to scare people with.
Years from now people will study climate propaganda and marvel at how stupid it was. — Jo
Guest Post by Tony Thomas
My wife Marg and I, two Antipodean yokels, wound up at the National Trust’s Bodiam Castle in Kent last month, awed at its 650-year history. After all, our colony’s iconic historical moment was in 1854, when someone broke a hotel lamp in Ballarat, Victoria and precipitated a scuffle between goldminers and police. The ringleader, instead of being quartered like Mel Gibson — sorry, William Wallace — acquired a seat in Parliament next year and eventually died in bed. That’s all you need to know about Australian history, unless you’re into sheep.
Marg and I had lunch and wandered out the back of the Bodiam cafe towards the Rother River. “Hey, come and look at these signs!” she called. I ambled over to the bank that descends steeply to the river.
The first sign said, “The Rother – Where you are standing now will almost certainly be under water in 50 years’ time as a result of climate change. A foretaste of this was given in November 2000 when the river burst its banks and flooded the area.” Below this, the sign had a photo of, sure enough, the water level raised two or three metres to where I was standing. And photos don’t lie.
….
The next sign read:
“We all have a part to play in tackling climate change and by acting together we can make a big difference. The National Trust is helping by looking at its use of energy, water and waste. You can help too by:
- Buying and eating local food
- Insulating your home
- Changing your light bulbs to low energy
- Using public transport, or cycling.
For more information, look at the National Trust website.”
…
We visited heaps of National Trust properties around Kent and admired the dedicated efforts of staff to preserve the built glories England. But that Bodiam signage got to me. “Lions led by donkeys,” I muttered about the Trust’s experts.
The Bodiam signs were faded and I guessed them to be a decade old.
Sign 1 about the ‘almost certain’ massive sea rise by 2050 was just daft: the latest IPCC report talks about half a metre by 2100. And bolstering the claim with a pic of the 2000 Rother floods was even dafter. The Rother is always flooding: photographers love tripping down there to do arty pics of soggy scenes.
Sign 2 reminds me of a never-to-be-forgotten school teacher who talked down to me as though I were an idiot (Don’t say it!). Who came up with that sign wordage? Do changing light bulbs and eating local leeks forestall a planetary Thermageddon?
I took the sign’s advice and found a Climate Change statement on the Trust website , “Climate Change – Forecast? Changeable!” which dates from 2005. It was the Trust’s first go at the topic. At that date the warming halt was only starting and warmists were riding high on their ‘settled science’. The report claimed, “It is clear that we are undergoing a period of rapid and accelerating climate change.” Good try, but the warming halt is now 18 years.
The Trust also threw the switch to activism: “We will be proactive in raising awareness of causes and effects of climate change with members, visitors and the public; and inform people of Trust responses to it.”
A National Trust property hit by the Great Storm of 1987
To ram the point home, the report has a pic of an unnamed stately property with surrounding trees laid waste by storms. The text says, “While there has always been climate change it is the pace of change which marks out the last few decades as something radically different… There is growing occurrence of storm damage to Trust trees and woodlands.” (Their emphasis). But whoa! This pic was obviously from the Great Storm of 1987 when similar damage was pictured at heaps of Trust estates – see http://www.sevenoakschronicle.co.uk/Hurricane-forced-National-Trust-difficult/story-17068178-detail/story.html#6 (h/t to Dennis Ambler.)
If such disasters are a ‘growing occurrence’, surely the Trust could do better in 2005 than to pluck a pic from its 1987 archives?
The authors even fret over visitors getting sunburn because the Trust can’t order them to wear hats and use sunblock. Its own staff are encouraged to cover up, and work displaced shifts to avoid England’s blazing summer sun. (Maybe the authors had been watching that Lawrence of Arabia movie.) The authors also mention “dehydration risk for staff and visitors, and risk of fatalities from unauthorized swimming in lakes etc”. That’s original: global warming will increase drownings of people who swim in Trust lakes without authority.
We get quite close to the East Anglia University bloke’s forecast in 2000, “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is”. The Trust authors say,
“Snowfalls will become increasingly rare – maybe up to 90% less snow by 2080. “
Cranking up the rhetoric, they continue,
“We simply don’t know exactly what the UK’s climate will do very long-term, because it depends on the future level of carbon dioxide and other gas emissions in the atmosphere, and also because some impacts are highly unpredictable in a complex climatic system. The experts believe there is no likelihood of the Gulf Stream closing down within the next two decades, but it is a possibility longer term.”
Phew, I’d been worried about that Gulf Stream!
Moving to the present, Trust director-general Dame Helen Ghosh caused a furore in April by opining that “we must tackle climate change” and hold back the ocean to stop bits of the coastline “falling off into the sea”. (I stuck a topical reference here to Cnut but thought better of it). Dame Helen also wanted to stop climate-change-enhanced silverfish from chomping on the Trust’s books and manuscripts, and she wanted to ladle more love to wind turbines.
This was treated by her denigrators as new Trust policy but the 2005 report and my revelation at Rother suggest the Trust had long been getting on-message with the Maurice Strong and Rajendra Pachauri team (cue an unlikely BBC special: “Whatever happened to those two?”).[i]
Dame Helen is hardly Roberta Crusoe as catastrophist in the West’s national trust scene. Professor Simon Molesworth from Latrobe University (up the road from my Melbourne house) is chairman of the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO), and is seriously ‘into’ climate doom. A down-under ‘Ocker’ flavour even seeps into the INTO website, with a reference to things ‘missin’ in the global debate, and how the Molesworth-drafted INTO ‘Victoria Declaration’ on doomery is ‘often sited’.
The Declaration claims the threat of climate change is drastically understated by UNFCCC and other protocols, i.e. they
“ insufficiently acknowledge the capacity of climate change to substantially, if not totally, undermine the integrity of the world’s cultures, altering most and destroying many…History has shown that the obliteration of a culture leads to social annihilation…” Blah blah.
Compared with this sort of language, Dame Helen is being quite restrained and all those members who quit over her climate advocacy ought to beg her for their tickets back.
Australia meanwhile has tumbled from 40th rank in 2013 to 60th rank in 2015 in the Climate Change Performance Index of the Climate Action Network Europe, so our conservative government must be doing something right.
[i] Pachauri’s lawyer Asish Dikshit (true) won him the right to visit the US from June 29 to July 9 for his brother-in-law’s funeral. There is a condition to his bail on charges of molestation, stalking, sexual harassment and criminal intimidation, that he stay in India unless permitted otherwise.
Maurice Strong, now 86, one-time executive director of the UN Environmental Program, co-created the IPCC, but has lived in Beijing since 2005, when a controversy erupted over his endorsing a USD 988,885 cheque to himself from a shady South Korean business man via a Jordanian bank. He was never accused of any wrong-doing and said he just wanted to sideline himself until the cloud was removed.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122368007369524679
This is the reason I gave up my (UK) NT membership this year (ironically just as I was about to get the senior discount), as I did not want to let my money be used for CAGW propaganda.
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The same here; we gave up on the NT at that time too.
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I might eat a soap impression of my wife and donate it to the NT. Oh, hang on, that’s another stupid idea from the king of hippies. And I don’t have a wife.
Good music though.
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I think they will call CAGW “Global Self Harm”….
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Gaia is a 14 year old cutter?
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The National Trust along with all other charitable organizations are prime targets for infestation by leftists. Nothing is sacred and everything which is not actively opposing leftism gets taken over. There is no such thing as neutral and that is why groups which start out neutral get taken over because they offer no resistance.
Consider organizations like Oxfam, all the hunger charities, RSPCA, RSPCB, Royal Society, Salvation Army, international medical charities, local councils, local libraries, schools, ABC, BBC, Amnesty etc.
Anything and everything which starts out trying to contribute in some altruistic way gets taken over by the shameless left.
“OK, you were trying to protect birds/mice/ hedgehogs/artichokes/children/physicists/ rock paintings/alcoholics/old buildings/supernovae/quasars/ terrorists/lamingtons but there is a more important cause which hurts them and it is climate change!…”
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You shouldn’t be surprised. Charitable organizations have no defense against Leftist infection.
Here is another real world example: Red Cross Australia
This is the BS they publish under their current CEO…
Refugees and asylum seekers: Australian public misses the mark on basic facts
=> http://www.redcross.org.au/files/15_JUNE_2015_Refugee_Week_Australian_public_misses_the_mark_on_basic_facts.pdf
Here is when they get revealed on radio: Ray Hadley – Red Cross wants to open borders
=> http://www.2gb.com/article/ray-hadley-red-cross-wants-open-borders
Things to note:
* The Red Cross Australia CEO is a former Federal ALP minister. (Robert Tickner; Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs under Hawke and Keating.)
* He was one of the early members of Friends of the Earth Australia. (Opposed high-rise development).
* He is using the Red Cross to push the current Leftist asylum seeker policy of open borders. (It is a notable policy being pushed by Leftists on Western countries.)
* The Red Cross is supposed to be impartial and neutral. Its objective is to help people in need. They are NOT supposed to take sides! Especially in terms of politics!
* No other news media outlet (mainstream media) picked up on this story.
The Left will politicise anything and everything. Everything is politics to them, and every organisation is a potential platform to pushed their narratives/agendas/policies. It doesn’t matter if its the ABC or Red Cross Australia; They don’t care as long as someone else is paying for it! (Whether it be the taxpayer or a sympathetic donor to the charity they control).
SIDE NOTE:
The Left don’t want to distinguish between economic refugees and asylum from persecution. This is why they keep pushing their narrative of the latter, even when the majority are actually the former. We saw this in Australia. We see this in Europe. We see this in southern border of USA and the nonsensical “sanctuary states” (where an innocent woman was shot and killed recently). The Left is in full turbo mode with their deliberate open border policy on the West. They do NOT care that it costs the taxpayer. They also don’t care where the asylum seeker is then dumped. If its not in their electorate, its not their problem.
In our case, the majority are quietly dumped in Western Sydney. (That is the gift from the Labor-Greens alliance towards the “icky masses”). My neighbour was scared when she was home alone and a bunch of Sudanese guys turned up to her door, asking for money. They pretend to be a charity when they are not. The police were called when they’ve hassled enough locals. Once the police has a word with them, they move on. No one in the media picks up on what happens with the Left’s open border policy. Especially the long term consequences it has upon society. Because its too Politically Incorrect to do so. Everyone is so feared of being called a racist that they stay silent. Political Correctness (a tool of the Left); now trumps truth, honesty, and even reality.
You’re probably wondering where is Sarah-Hanson Young in all this? Well, if a situation doesn’t fit her agenda, she’ll go looking for one! That’s why she is now in Europe looking for asylum seekers and pushing her nonsense over there! (Again, another taxpayer-funded activist-politician.) …I crap you not! Look it up!
See how this is eerily similar to the Climate Change issue?
(1) They push out an agenda.
(2) They are selective about the aspect of what they’re pushing. (Obviously to support their agenda).
(3) They get someone else to pay for it.
(4) They pretend the consequences they cause upon others don’t exist.
(5) When the issue is no longer viable in one place, they will find it in another.
…The same basic strategy over and over again!
SIDE NOTE 2:
By now you should have probably figured out the strategy of the Leftist activist. The intelligent ones don’t do violence like the radical 1960s/1970s. They know protesting is for chumps. To “affect change”, one must put on a mask to infiltrate, gain positions of power/decision-making, and change from within…Its that simple. What gives them away is their actions and behaviours. They cannot hide their intentions forever because they have to take off the mask in order to achieve their goals. This is when the public will notice and react! (Often negatively because of how deceptive the approach is. Say one thing to get into power, do something else when power is actually attained.)
And yes, like this particular article regarding UK National Trust, the only weapon against these people is the truth. Especially exposing them and their behaviour…A good analogy is lighting a candle in a dark room. Even the smallest candle can do that! So when they try to silence, speak louder! It irritates them! 😀
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It really is sad to realise that so many august institutions have fallen into such moral and mental disrepair. The Grand Pied Piper blew his flute and forever more his subjects continue to follow and dance to his tune.
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National Trust says ‘Trust me.’ (
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Really, all it needs is a little scepticism.
Most people have seen little or no change in their weather, the sea level where they live or in places they might have visited around the world and this is often on old docks which have been there for hundreds of years. Yes, there is coastal erosion and geological changes while slow become visible, but really. Why would one tiny gas and one tiny gas only be the major force in world climates?
Water is by far the most important gas/liquid/solid and from clouds to rain and snow and glaciers, can change our world in a short time. It is also the other product of combustion, but no one calls water a pollutant. No one suggests that a bit more in the air makes a huge difference, simply because there is so much around already. That is also true of CO2. Every living thing is solid CO2. In fact there is 50x as much CO2 dissolved in the water than exists in the atmosphere. So you would think that a little warming of the water would increase CO2 dramatically, but it is never mentioned by the IPCC. They argue that increased CO2 produces heating but never would warming produce CO2. The first conjecture is disproven. The second fits the facts, very slight warming has increased CO2 dramatically.
So in this world of scary science where you are told the world will collapse if we do not stay very, very still you have to think someone is pulling your leg. That it has become a world movement of misinformation is due to a perfect storm of self interest, science worship, fear of change and a fundamental belief that it is wrong to be happy and to travel so easily and to have a world without worry. So worry. A lot. If you do not think you are worrying enough, there is always our Tim to tell you where to send money and worry more. Bill will introduce Carbon Indulgences for sinners, so they can keep sinning.
Scepticism and Science meant the end of the fear of the Middle Ages, dismissing the fear of some of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, death, famine, war and conquest. However once again the four horsemen have been harnessed by Climate Alarmists to terrify the world and force the world into a world government run by the unelected power hungry rich UN communists, scions of powerful rich families around the world. Paris is their destiny. We must save the planet or we will drown, die of plague, starve, suffer war and pay for the terrible sin of consumerism. As Bill Shorten and the Greens would tell you, only taxation and communism can save you.
L Ron Hubbard tried communism before Scientology. The Rev Jim Jones as well and we know how that worked out. Religion is better than communism. More profitable than actually working and with wonderful control of your scared and huddled masses. Climate Change is the best of both worlds, a communist religion.
Scepticism is your defence against the Black Arts. Faux scientists are the new high priests or he who must not be named. (Al Gore)
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Most sheeples have such short memories that the moment something occurs within their faddish AGW train of thought, such as a thunderstorm the “likes of which they’ve never seen before” causes them to panic about Gorebull Warbling, regardless the fact they not only forgot all those thunderstorms of the 70’s when they were kids (or are far younger and don’t know what one is), but have even moved to a different part of the country.
The organised religion of AGW will continue until it becomes a fad to rat it out like the sham it truly is.
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I recall that superb “What’s Rangoon to you is Grafton to me” from JJ. ” Hasn’t the weather been strange lately” followed by an ominous reply.”not as strange as it’s going to get!”
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I want a subsidy to grow my own food and I want the supermarkets to be compelled to buy any surplus at a price above the price on offer in the store. I also need a subsidy to ride my bike to the pub or shop,how does $1/kilometer work out? The solar panel owners get incentives ,so what about me.
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I read not long ago that property buyers from China looking for Sydney real estate do not like large gardens unless they can extend a home or build a new larger home n the land. They apparently consider people who grow their own fruit and vegetables to be peasants, poor people not to associate with.
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I guess that’s why new homes no longer have back yards. Very sad.
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NoTricksZone has a piece about the devastating floods in Germany (in 1965). CO2 level 320 ppm.
And for those who think floods only started recently try
http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorhistory/floods1875.html
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Yes, the recent floods in the UK are due specifically to a public plan to return lowlands to marshes for bird life, destroying human habitats in the process by refusing to clear the canals which had drained the marshes and provide flood protection. You see, marsh birds are much more important than people. So are frogs. Don’t get me started on the very rare Australian orange bellied parrot. Natural Selection must stop now, or else. Humans and especially farmers and miners are the problem, especially if you live and work in the inner city anyway and food comes from food stores, electricity from electricity providers. Who needs farmers and miners? They are so yesterday.
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That just reminded me of a spot on the Princes Freeway on the way to Geelong, just between Brooklyn and the refineries at Altona. Someone wanted to develop this triangle of land, but was unable to do so because it apparently harboured special grass and some caterpillar or such that no one ever really saw. I always wondered how this really panned out, considering it was smack bang in the middle of two heavily used roads and in one of Victoria’s largest industrial estates. It also looks as ugly as sin.
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Yeah good point, it is a good idea to obliterate a species because people don’t notice it.
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Rubbish. 99.99% of all species which ever lived are gone, protection or no protection. So watch what you step on. You could be obliterating a species. Man is not a God. Nor is the planet. Survival of the fittest will always keep going, especially with killer bacteria and viruses. Is it be kind to viruses week? Are red backed spiders precious?
Adaption is rapid especially with the lifespan of a caterpillar. All that is needed is reasonable care, but at what point is a species so special, including humans?
Are Polar Bears the ultimate cute species or just huge blood thirsty killing machines, platinum blonde brown bears adapted to living on seals and hunting on the ice? Where do you draw the line? No matter how much care you take, species will vanish, including humans. However the obliteration of the horse from North America after 9 million years happened soon after man arrived and they had to wait for the conquistadors to bring new horses. It seems on the other side of the Pacific, the mongols had found a use for horses other then food.
We also had the obliteration of the giant marsupials when aborigines arrived in Australia with their dogs and fire. Even the rainfall halved at almost precisely the same time, with the gift of fire. Many species have vanished as a result of the mobility of humans. Many humans have vanished with the mobility of viruses, like smallpox and syphilis. One from the Old World and one from the New. What happened to Neanderthals anyway? Are we the new Neanderthals? When will the next obliteration occur with a meteor strike?
Reasonable care. Every unusual caterpillar is precious and why not move the blighters anyway? How hard could that be? You could help move caterpillars and feel really good.
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an idiotic comment. Was that meant to be an argument?
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Tdef I have a feeling you understand aspects of taxonomy but your use here subverts your analogy. When you compare caterpillars to humans you could compare all primates to one species of insect. The non equivalence is silly.
Finally caterpillars are restricted by diet and habitat features not dispersal ability. Considering their requirements for means of nutrition, mating agency and safe places for pupation, they can have very small ranges.
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geeaye ever thought of collecting some specimens of this ‘rare” grass or butterfly/moth and propagating it?
Also I find it highly unlikely that they only occur on a few hundred acres in the middle of the city and nowhere else.
I know the area, haven’t been around there recently, I think it was an army range or munition depot or some such?
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Caterpillars are far more likely to survive than man! Man only left Africa 80,000 years ago, Australian aborigines in the second wave 50,000 years ago. The bigger the animal, the more easily eliminated. Before the invention of agriculture only 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, man was largely just another struggling carnivore, prey. The sharpened stick also helped. Aborigines also in Australia were almost pure carnivores, despite the few yams. Those wombats must have been delicious.
However tiny slow caterpillars have a cunning way to survive and propagate. They turn into butterflies and can cover large distances on the wind. So it is unlikely that they are unique to a tiny area. It is more likely to be a typical invention of someone who did not want development.
The Labor/Green party when planning a $100Bn+ Very Fast Train from Brisbane to Melbourne budgeted $400Million just to study ecology along the rail line. Seem cheap? At 2,000km, this is $200,000 per kilometer to study caterpillars and frogs. At a wage of $100K per ecologist, this is work for 4,000 ecologists for a year covering 500 metres each or 400 ecologists for a decade each covering 500 metres a year, a metre a day looking for caterpillars. Typical crazy stuff from the Greens. What is the chance the line is never built?
All this was before Climate Change. Now no one will survive, except the caterpillars.
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Some species do have very restricted habitats and cities do tend to be built in areas that support more life and diversity than not since humans are attracted to access to food, water and the future availability of both. What is your point? That we spend x billions of dollars in a constant effort to relocate everything rather than y billions preserving some unique habitats?
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And in America:
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2070796_2070798_2070780,00.html
TIME’s Kayla Webley spoke to Robert Holmes, a flood expert with the U.S. Geological Survey, about some of the largest floods in America’s history.
The Mississippi River, 1927, is listed as #1.
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John mentions the worst flood in US history here, The 1927 Mississippi flood.
It’s amazing how art follows life.
Led Zeppelin covered that flood on the IV album, and that song is still one of my favourite Led Zep songs, along with Kashmir.
That song, When The Levee Breaks was a total rework of the original song written a year or so after the time of the flood, by legendary blues artists Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy.
It’s great to be able to trace the history of music back when covers of songs are done, because it adds context.
The link to the original song (naturally) doesn’t show them doing the song live, as it is from 1929. It shows a couple of images of the pair as well as scenes from this disastrous flood, and what it also shows at the end is another sign, as mentioned in the headline Thread from Tony Thomas, only this sign mentions how a disaster like this lead to measures to see that if and when it happened again, it was nowhere near as bad as this 1927 flood.
We find ways to adapt to anything like this. We don’t just sit around and say ….. Oh woe is me! We do something about it, and that’s something other than putting up a scaremongering sign.
Link to the original song
Tony.
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Great song, Tony. I just love that kind of music. I wish I could play my use like that!
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John
As I recall there was another near record flood in that river somewhere about the 1970 – 80 period.
And I may still have the article where it was estimated that (due to “river reconstruction” by shipping channels, flood plain modifications etc) that it was done on considerably less water,
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I remember that sign. That it is still there, in that condition, is a perfect metaphor for the decaying state of the global warming narrative, containing within it the expression of well meaning ignorance that infests so many believers. The river Rother used to be navigable to this point, this river basin being the centre of the medieval iron industry. Nearby Rye and Winchelsea were built by the romans as ports when they first came about 2000 years ago. They are now a mile or so inland as the longshore drift of shingle, that has continued since the ice age has blocked and diverted that river meaning that it will always flood in heavy rain in the basin. This tidal force built the Dungeness Peninsular which now is home to a nuclear power station and a very large wind farm, both soon to be obsolete industrial relics.
The National Trust, unworried by Islamic Jihad but fearfull that “climate change” puts silverfish under their carpets, might well, in future, preserve their fading sign in remembrance of a lost past and of the weird beliefs held by the populace at that time.
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With signs that claim people can alter complete earth/solar systems by changing a few personal lifestyle habits it must raise the slightest BS alarm bells even for the simplest of believers, the effects of these actions are secondary to participating and conforming to the desired mindset, this is and always has been the outcome of such inane unrealities.
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I have it on good authority that brushing ones teeth with the left hand causes climate change.
All left-handed people should, by law, be registered, and required to brush with the right hand, only. To encourage this, we propose to sponsor advertising in, and on, all media outlets, and also at all sporting events, social gatherings, and within the workplace. The slogan is: If you want them white, then use the right!
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The NT is on to something. A couple of thousand years ago the Claudian invasion of England came ashore where it’s now dry land. A few centuries of no cars, turf roofing, candles and walking…they got that ocean right down!
In fact, if you search for the old mouth of the Rother River…it’s a couple of kilometres inland at New Romney! Big bloody flood in 1287 started the siltation etc, but we can be sure the Plantagenet ban on SUVs was a big help in beating back that sea.
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80 sq. Km of the Rother valley was flooded by a storm in 1960. In fact, parts of the lower valley are below sea level and have always been prone to floods.
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Simple sea level explains little, but a mix of sea level fluctuations and actual (stuff-that-happens) climate change is pretty dramatic. Here’s a map of the Dutch coast showing change between 500 AD and 1555 AD.
http://etymonline.com/columns/holland-coast.jpg
In the seventeenth century, scholars did a comparison of their contemporary coast with the period around 1240 AD for the coast of Schleswig. This is too small but worth straining the eyes:
http://etymonline.com/columns/marschen.jpg
It’s said that the Grote Mandrenke of 1362, about as bad as storms get for Europe, made Amsterdam a seaport…but buggered everyone else.
When we live in times of open discussion and curiosity about the natural world it will be great to know more about medieval storms, surges and sea incursions. Right now a storm like 1287, 1362 (or 1953 for that matter) would be blamed on you-know-what within a day. I can hear it now: “While no single event of this kind can be attributed to AGW, it is nonetheless consistent with a majority of the models….”
Doesn’t seem to be much of way to advance knowledge,does it?
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And in the meantime we’ve got snow in Queensland. The ice age is starting again.
We’re doomed.
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I was watching the news this morning and apparently the climate experts said that this wouldn’t happen again for at least another 10 years. Imagine the surprise if it happens next year and the next and so on. I sure hope it wasn’t Tim Flannery saying it won’t happen again.
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Well, I don’t know about the periodicy of Queensland snowfall, but is just keeps on happening from time to time, and the media go ape about it from time to time. Only now, it will probably become some doom-laden sign of CAGW/climate change/climate variability (I do love that one!) or whatever they have decided to call it this week. It may well happen next year, or next week for that matter. When I lived in Warwick we had light snow, and that winter my agronomist neighbour (with a properly sited Stevenson screen) recorded -12C one morning, and we had a lot of heavy frosts that year as well. It’s weather, it gets hot, it gets cold.
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I hope it WAS Flim-Flam saying QLD snow won’t happen again. that’d be yet another idiotic foot in his overpaid mouth.
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This can’t go on. It will cause a shortage of feet.
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We can rest assured that when this cold winter passes and spring comes to an end global warming will start again in summer.
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Some models are suggesting another episode at the end of their runs. GFS extended I think. Unprecedented! I scream.
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I scream even more when they say “unpreeeeeceeedented”.
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That’s unfair. It was the one thing Victoria had over Queensland and now you have snow too.
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We’ve had snow on and off for ever TdeF, even as far north as the Atherton Tableland west of Cairns on occasion.
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Now that just makes holiday packing difficult.
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Hey Bushkid – we used to live in Cairns and one weekend went up to the tablelands for a leisurely drive and picnic (think it was a Saturday).
Well it blew a storm, rained like crazy and was so cold we had to abandon our picnic and in the end settled for a pub meal at Heberton – Royal Hotel I think it was.
You really have to visit that area to understand how cold it can get even though it’s in the tropics.
Cheers,
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It was a good moment, when we saw Queensland and NSW experiencing a healthy dump of snow and some serious cold, courtesy of the NZ MSM. The silence on climate change / global warming was deafening, all one could hear was background tinnitus.
No one dares, no one. They fear being shredded by laughter and they are terrified of being considered irrelevant. The challenge is thus far unspoken. Articulation cannot be far away.
In the meantime, what was possibly the most telling thing was to listen to thrilled eight and nine year old children playing in the snow with unfettered joy having never experienced the white, cold powder, and having grown up being told at school that they would be very unlikely to see such a thing.
No doubts now where the greatest climate impact lies, for it lies in the real world and it’s not in the catastrophism, the adjustments, the lies and propaganda, the obfuscation and climate ‘skience’, the eco-marxist ideology and MSM confabulation.
Cue….sigh….it’s going to be that sad time again…bring on the exploding heads video. How many times do we have to tell you, there was no snow. No, there wasn’t. No. No!
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Like finding that Santa was real?
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You sure love your Santa ‘A-Ian’.
I think your needle may be stuck in the same groove. Give it a nudge man. Go on. The next groove is bound to be far more interesting. Consider it a potential adventure, perhaps a new vista of imaginative enchantment?
62
Manfred
Getting a bit hard with the string of gifts of drought and green idiocy lately.
With the Australian Labor Party’s hatred of things rural and agricultural I’m beginning to wonder if they think they photosynthesise?
51
Edit for above
Replace “think” with “believe”
50
Manfred
And I should have added
With a stuck record you get the lab binocular microscope, find the groove fault and do some amending so that it tracks properly.
Giving it a shove sounds like a very CAGW fix IMO
20
The difference between climate change and weather, that is the question?
50
13 letters vs. 7 letters. Ergo, weather is shorter term.
30
Remember the BOM raving on about Australia’s “record heat wave” a few months ago?
150
But.. But.. Climate Change ©®™∞ means ALL weather will become more extreme.. Except we’ll only fudge summer figures because it’s supposed to be warming.
172
10cm of snow in Blackheath, NSW, this morning, Great Western Highway closed all the way to Golburn. If this goes on we will be ruined, unless the Main Roads people invest in a snowplough! Does one day of snow provide 97% certainty of a coming ice age? Be very afraid!
151
Sorry, Goulburn!
71
Holy cow. I had to check the news to see if you were joking.
Snow in Queensland. That probably explains why I needed the heater on during the daytime as well as night. Well blow me down with a snowblower… except we don’t have snow blowers up here because it only gets a thick coating once every 31 years apparently.
It’s an awkward fit with the AMO hypothesis of climate forcing, as in 1984 the AMO had stopped cooling 6 years earlier and turned into warming. This time round it is about 3 years after the AMO stopped warming and went into cooling. Maybe it happens with the change of the direction? Or maybe it’s just chaos.
If we see any more kooky coldness like this we may have to consider that in preparation for the Paris summit the Gore Effect has gone global.
131
A picture for posterity.
Stanthorpe, 17 July 2015.
10
The globe continues to warm to hell at a 97% doomsday pace:
This is Norway July 17 – had to scrape windshield
https://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/vaer-og-uvaer/dette-er-norge-17-juli-maatte-skrape-bilen/a/23490367/&edit-text=
50
The UK National Trust was first “infiltrated” by leftie activists more than 25 years ago and has been increasingly advised by that informal group ever since – so that now even the top level of its management are “believers” and conforming to AGW thinking. (I put “infiltrated” in quotation marks because those people joined as bona fide supporters of NT principles and objectives. No doubt a membership base of 1 million was a draw, too, and there may have been some collusion.)
The hurricane of 1987 was very unusual, but not exceptional. Only a year or so before it happened some weather experts (NOT climatologists, if that word had been invented then) had been saying that the UK was possibly “overdue” such an event.
213
I visited the UK in 1988 and managed to get within 30 metres of Princess Diana. I thought there were two big storms just before then, both of which uprooted 300 year old oak trees.
80
I was in the UK in 1987 and recall Michael Fish (BBC weatherman) advising ‘no problem’ prior to the devastation caused by the gales. Someone it is said, phoned the BBC the following day to advise that when driving their solitary Porsche into London on the M4 they had been passed by a traffic cone in the fast lane.
It’s quite funny really. This was before the climate and ideological wars began in earnest and the UN eco-marxists started to exert themselves with any serious intent. Since then of course, humour is in seriously short supply, one of the societal casualties of the Green eco-marxist mania and of course a classic societal red flag signally the demise of rationality proportionate to the Green encroachment.
172
Manfred,
Here is the Royal Meteorological Society’s report of the 1987 storm. The PDF is on a free download link.
10
The National Trust, aka the ‘Keepers of Past Monuments of Greed, Misery, Violence, and Folly’, lost the plot on what people want many years ago.
In Britain it is not good to find oneself living in a National Trust recognized ‘listed’ property, for it bring with it an eye-watering amount of expense. Everything from property insurance to basic maintenance will be subject to the scrutiny of NT, to ensure that it is up to their ‘expert’ standards. Note National Trust properties are not allowed to be modernized or upgraded in any way without their permission, such permissions are rarely ever given as the NT enforces a stasis view on properties, maintaining that property must stay in their ‘expertly’ proscribe version only.
Like most organizations that are quasi-governmental and staffed by unaccountable and mostly self described ‘experts’, they have long ago exceeded their original basic remit to protect the British national heritage of buildings and property. These days they’ll slap ‘preservation orders’ on any pile of builders waste they deem historic, thereby giving themselves a good excuse to claim more government assistance (via myriads of farm, agriculture, and other subsidy funds), relentlessly begging for more ‘charity’ money from National Trust members and the British public.
With The National Trust and English Heritage ‘preserving’ anything thought to be heritage throughout the land, they are ensuring that Britain will became little more than a theme park for tourists and little else. So look away other countries this is not the model you want for your country’s history preservation.
For Britain the National Trust – owning 632,000 acres, will ensure that only the right (vetted) people live in their picturesque towns and villages, and no room is made for a modern, industrially enterprising, forward thinking British people employed in actually inventing, engineering, or manufacturing anything the rest of the world wants.
So come to Britain for a historic view of life preserved in the heritage aspic and littered with windmills.
152
Of course windmills are not on National Trust land.
101
I’m one of those people who was a member of the NT for best part of 40 years, until the Helen Ghosh statement in April. No more of my money will be wasted by the NT.
202
Put up some signs saying “No Flooding Allowed Here” and ensure that rising water levels follow the signs.
If the rising water does not follow the signs, then prosecute it.
simple.
141
Too bad you can’t sue the water board or council, because although they claim to own it for reasons of revenue and control, they’ll wash their hands of it as soon as it happens and causes damage.
91
Hmm … swap two letters, and you get, “Too bad you can’t use the water board …”.
Water-Boarding! – what a good idea!
31
We had some severe gales in the UK North Midlands in 1962, I think. Our local big houses lost many trees. It did not major on the national news, though, because the media luvvies live too far away. I expect it was the end of the Sheffield storm mentioned here.
For some serious weather you need to see Sallie Baliunas’s Weather Cooking talk. Of course, the intelligentsia of the day decided that burning lots of women alive was the optimum solution.
101
I am thinking of signing up to the National Trust, just so I can resign in disgust
111
17 July: WUWT: Despite the ‘urgency’ of Paris climate talks, a U.N. sponsored global poll rates climate change dead last
From the United Nations “MY World” initiative, which has recorded the opinions for All Countries & Country Groups with votes of 7,679,273 at the time of this writing…
The data collected so far is telling, at least about opinions surrounding global warming aka climate change. It is dead last in the list of concerns queried…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/17/despite-the-urgency-of-paris-a-u-n-sponsored-global-poll-rates-climate-change-dead-last/
82
The only one the UN cares about is Climate Change, the publicly acknowledged key to political power, wealth and soaking the rich countries and a role for the UN. All that stuff about health, education, peace, welfare, political freedoms. What does that matter compared to wealth and power for the UN bureaucrats? Climate Change may be science rubbish, but it is the key to power. They can do nothing about that other stuff anyway.
71
I always think it strange that people who advocate that everyone ‘eat local’ do not consider that the extension of this is that there must be no exports from one area to another.
Of course, the ‘eat local’ brigade really mean ‘eat as locally as possible’ and just forget about all of the non-local items we like to consume but cannot grow locally as they do not wish to be inconvenienced by being absolutely locked into the beliefs they espouse.
And why stop at eating locally? Why not only use local manufacture?
[snip] (IMHO)
[Please avoid such words. They add nothing to the discussion. Thanks.] AZ
51
It seems to me that eliminating all the leeks would be a good start on stopping any flooding. So why would anyone want to grow more of them? 😉
80
GROANNN…I’m submitting this for Dad Joke of the year Hogue! 🙁
50
As my wife is only too willing to tell me, Yoni, it’s just a “senior moment”. I’ll recover in a few days and be my old self again. 😉
00
PS: What’s a Dad Joke?
00
Sorry! Sometimes I can’t help myself. 🙁
60
Try harder.
10
Alarmist forecasts are a must,
To those in a National Trust,
As they more than agree,
With the I.P.C.C.,
Whose creed has now failed and is bust.
151
I wonder if the National Trust has considered these other exceptional historical weather events culled from Chronology of Notable Weather Events by Douglas V. Hoyt
1114AD
In England, on October 10, the following is stated: “Remarkable drought in the Thames Valley on October 10th, 1114AD: ……Simeon of Durham…records: ‘In this year, the river which bears the name of Medway, for a distance of some miles, receded so far from its bed, on the sixth day before the ides of October, that in the very middle of it not even the smallest vessel could make the slightest way.'”
Considered to be one of the driest years on record: on the 10th October, the Thames at London was so low that men and boys were able to wade across the river. (Combination of notably low tide & the aforementioned drought). (Some sources have the date as the 15th) [Note that the river had a completely different character to that of modern times.] (B)
Then starting in the latter part of this year and continuing in 1115, England has the most severe winter to date. Several wooden bridges are destroyed by the frost.
Very severe winter: the frost lasted for about 9 to 11 weeks and nearly all the bridges in England were damaged by ice. (B)
1116AD
A year of ‘excessive’ rains in England (B; “The Weather” (Kimble & Bush))
1472AD
Quoting Warkworth’s Chronicle of the first 13 years of the reign of Edward IV (i.e. 1461-1474), edition of 1839, published by the Camden Society, pp. 23 & 24. “In the same yere (XIII of King Edward the 4th 1473 [new style, 1472 old style]) Womere waters ranne hugely, withe suche abundance of watere, that nevyr manne saw it renne so moche afore this tyme. … And this Wemere [sic] is vij myle [4.3Km] from Sent Albons [St Albans, River Ver], at a place called Markayate [Markyate] ; and this Wemere ranne at every felde afore specified, and nevere so hugely as it dyd this yere, and ranne stylle to the xiij day of June next yere folowynge. Also ther has ronne suche other waters, that betokeneth lykewyse [refers to ancient superstition that bourne flows presage “derthe or pestylence or grete batayle”] ; one at Lavesham in Kent [modern Lewisham in S.E. London], and another byside Canterbury called Naylbourne and anothe at Croydone in Suthsex [Croydon, Sussex], and another vij myle [4.3Km] a this side the castelle of Dodley [Dudley, W. Midlands?] in the place called Hungeravale ; that whenne it betokenneth batayle it rennys foule and trouble watere ; and whenne betokeneth derthe or pestylence, it rennyth as clere as any watere, but this yere it ranne ryght trouble and foule watere.”
1473-1475
In England, droughts with very hot summers occurred in these three successive years – assumed to be applicable to South/Central England only. (In the period 1473-1479, there were 5 fine summers in this seven year period: 1473, 1474, 1475, 1477 & 1479). (B)
1666AD
A terrible bubonic plague that struck London last year ended this year killing sixty eight thousand people and this year most of London is destroyed by fire including eighty seven churches, thirteen thousand homes (about 80% of the city) and a new law required they be rebuilt of brick and stone. The Great Fire of London lasted 4 days in September. The fire however helped contain the plague.
January Thames frozen over.
In the summer, a severe drought in England reduced the flow of the Thames River so much that it seriously threatened to ruin boatman; the dryness may have contributed to the Great Fire in London that September.
On 27th June: Heat wave began: mostly dry in London since the 12th.
On 5th July, 1666, Pepys writes: “extremely hot … oranges ripening in the open at Hackney”.
July 6th: Beginning of period with occasional showers/heavy rains though often warm.
July 26th: Hail ‘ as big as walnuts ‘ in London and 27th on Suffolk coast.
The climatological summer (June, July & August) of 1666 was amongst the top 10 or so of warm summers in the CET series (began 1659). (B)
In August and September, the drought over these two months is noteworthy because it preceded the Great Fire of London; apparently the east wind, which prevailed during that period, had dried the wooden houses of London until they were like tinder. When the fire started early in September (12th/New Style), the east wind drove the flames before it and helped the fire to spread rapidly; smoke from this reached Oxford in the days thereafter. The prevailing weather was noted as ‘hot and dry’, and strong east Winds during the fire caused great problems with fire-fighting. On the 2nd/old-style (the first day of the fire), a ‘strong’ east wind is noted – Evelyn notes this as a “Fierce” eastern wind in a very dry season. It is not clear though whether the wind was caused by the fire, or was there anyway. However, Evelyn does note that there had been a….”long set of fair and warm weather”. On September 4th (14th new-style), Evelyn still notes: “The eastern wind still more impetuously driving the flames forward.”Later on the 5th, the wind is noted as ‘abating’ — again not certain whether this was due to the fire burning itself out. In any case, this was effectively the end of the Great Fire.
On 15th September: Foul weather in the southern North Sea began the breakdown of the long dry warm summer weather (see previous).
On 19th September: The first considerable rainfall quenched London fire: rainy autumn followed. (B)
1681AD
In England on May 25 at Deptford, p428: “There had scarce fallen any rain since Christmas.” Also on June 12 p428: “It still continued so great a drought as had ever been known in England, and it was said to be universal.” Also “Drought from end March – mid July”
1703AD
The arrival of Europe’s worst ever storm. Records of it destruction can be found for France, Holland/Belgium, and Germany.
On November 26-27, the “Great Storm” struck England wrecking over 100000 homes and crippling the Royal Navy. Thousands died. 30000 sailors were lost at sea. The poorly built Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed. “Sea salt is often contained in rain, and after the ‘great storm’ of November 27th, 1703, salt was found on the trees fourteen or fifteen miles from the coast. A letter from John Fuller, of Sussex, dated December 6th, 1703, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1704, says, ‘We live ten miles off the sea in a direct line … but that the sea-water was blown thus far, … all the twigs of the trees the day after were white, and tasted very salt.'”
1716AD
In England, Thames frozen for 2 months, frost fair took place. Ice on Thames in London lifted around 15 feet by a flood tide but remained intact! The ice must have been astonishingly strong.
In early 1716, the Thames was frozen at London; a great number of shops and stalls were established on the river. A frost fair is held on the Thames (previous ones in 1564, 1608, 1620, 1634, 1677, and 1684).
In September, “A year of drought. A cold dry spring was followed by an equally dry summer, though without great heat……On September 14th the bed of the Thames lay dry above and below London Bridge. This was caused by a combination of drought, strong westerly winds and high tides…. ”
On September 14, the Thames was dry above and below the London Bridge.
1730AD
A drought started in England and would continue of and on to last until June 1734.
1731AD
Second year of drought.
Drought in England. A dry year in England (see 1741). Very dry, after a ‘great frost’ at the start of the year. Very cold first period of the year, with much snow and ice. London recorded -18c. A warm summer. This year resembles 2003 quite closely, very dry with a minimum of -18 recorded in London (-18c recorded in Aviemore January this year? (2003)) followed by a warm summer (ours has been hot 100F reached and breached) But the similarities are evident, especially on the side of drought.
1732AD Third year of drought.
1733AD
Drought in England continues for its fourth straight year. Also noted in England, for 1733/34, one of the warmest winters (by CET) in the series which began in 1659. Up to 1997, rank=9 Value=6.10; Dec=7.6, Jan=4.3, Feb=6.4 (Others: 1686, 1796, 1834, 1869, 1935, 1975, 1989 and 1990.) (B)
1734AD
Drought in England continues for its fifth straight year, but finally ends in June.
1824AD
On November 23, a tremendous hurricane throughout England that did considerable damage to shipping.
1826AD
In summer, the warmest on record in England. In July, the great drought in England leads to spontaneous fires
1830AD
In England, continued cold from last year. Severe winter. Continuous frost from the 23rd to 31st December, 12th to 19th January, and 31st January to 6th February. Ice on the Thames from late December to late January. Some places completely blocked. 25th December 1830 was cold, with -12c recorded in Greenwich.
1838AD
In January, the Thames is completely blocked by ice. Murphy’s Almanac predicts 20 January as coldest day of the year in UK. It is coldest day of the century.
1852AD
On February 4, Holmfurth England is flooded by a bursting reservoir with many lives (90) are lost and factories destroyed.
On September 5, heavy rains brought widespread flooding to England, causing the Severn Valley to be turned into a continuous sea.
1855AD
On January 14-February 24, a severe frost in London with continued cold weather to June 26.
1866AD
On November 16-17, great floods in the north of England with farms destroyed, mines flooded, mills thrown down, etc; 20 people drown at Leeds.
1868
In 1868-69, England experiences its warmest winter of record.
1875AD
On November 15, the Thames rose by more than 28 feet flooding London.
1878AD
In England, the winter of 1878-1879 is another snowy one. In the north, snow cover remained for 3 months. Snow recorded in November, December, January, February, March and April.
1893AD
On November 15, the Thames overflowed between Oxford and Windsor causing extensive flooding and damage.
1895AD
In February in England, reports of “The upper Thames frozen over at Windsor”.
1897AD
In December in Nairnshire, England, a severe drought. For the past few months, complaints have been made among farmers and rural residents in Nairnshire as to the scarcity of water to such an extent as has not been experienced within the memory of older inhabitants.
192
Good stuff, Tomomason. A few real world facts. I’d like to contribute these, from the late Robin Stirling’s ‘Weather of Britain”:
Floods are nothing new in the UK. For example, in 1912 (Norwich) 1917 (Somerset) 1920 (Lincolnshire) 1929 (Wales) 1931 (Boston) 1932 (Yorkshire and Nottingham) and 1939 the Fens. There are others – the Lynmouth disaster in 1952, and other regions in 1942, 1960, 1968, 1976, 1987, 1995 and more.
90
Carbon500,
The link reference does indeed go to 2008 but I thought to show major events that covers the sort of periods that The National Trust(and English Heritage) appear to be most interested in.
The storm of 26-7 November 1703 remains the worst storm in British history. Nothing of it’s like has come close to the devastation that it caused as it traversed Europe, killing many thousands of people. There are a few references here.
In Britain 90% of wooden bridges lost, 60% of all stone bridges, all churches with steeples were damaged, up to 50% of all building damaged in Britain, 60% of all forests in Britain. It then swept through Europe (France the Low-lands, and Germany) where the damage was also terrible.
I find it strange that any period piece can be viewed historically without reference to the total environment that surrounded both their build or manufacture, and during their period of use.
For instance that when John Constable painted ‘The Hay Wain’ (in fact the majority of his work) England went through a period of very benign weather with the seasonal variations almost perfect for maximum agricultural output. Very cold winters, wet and warm spring, hot summers, mostly dry autumnal fall — perfect.
So when anyone mentions climate change to me I reflect on these past events, and the simple fact that humans are just bystanders in nature’s chaotic plays.
30
‘In England, the winter of 1878-1879 is another snowy one. In the north, snow cover remained for 3 months. Snow recorded in November, December, January, February, March and April.’
Its worth remembering 1879 was also one of the hottest years worldwide.
50
If anybody here wants to get some idea on just how bad weatherwise it could get in England at various periods over the last couple of thousand years I would suggest and recommend the Booty Meteorological site.
After looking at some of that weather and climate history recorded there, we ourselves have lived through what would seem to be one of the most benign climatic periods lasting for over the century or so in English language recorded history
I have browsed through this Booty Meteorological site off and on for most of the last decade.
Unfortunately the owner of the site, a meteorologist is no longer maintaining the site since the end of 2014 due to personal reasons.
But the British Library has agreed to archive it.
TonyB, a very well known UK commenter and a respected student of meteorological history who has commented frequently on Climate Etc and WUWT plus a couple of other blogs was somewhat wary of the historical information that is listed here due to the usual chinese whispers corruption of history that occurs in any instance where we cannot access the direct recorded version of events written by actual witnesses of those events.
But the sources used in this Booty site to acquire this information are arguably as near as we will ever come to getting a handle on the last couple of thousand years of weather and climate in the UK.
10
Newcastle is not the world, but they have the raw data for that part of the planet.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Newcastle2.png
40
A reminder that the Somerset Floods appear to have been managed into existence a year and a half ago. By governments and their instruments; especially the Environment Agency.
The man who managed to get the mess sorted out with as quickly and with as little fuss as possible by wisely tapping into local knowledge; was elevated to the back bench when he spoke up about the failure of the Agency’s management due to bowing to Green elements. A failure in appropriate management that appears to have had the nod of the National Trust for some years.
It seems like lots of quangos and charities need a large dose of herbicide to rid them of excessive greenery.
111
“Years from now people will study climate propaganda and marvel at how stupid it was. — Jo”
I think that plenty of us are already marvelling at the stupidity of it all. I certainly am!
111
considering the events that occurred in the 20th century
if sea level rise and ‘climate change’ are our worst problems
our children and grandchildren will be very lucky
100
Can Australia sue?
> Dutch warmist flies to Australia to sell idea that fossil fuels will make Earth “much more unlivable” (smh)
“Just under a month ago, Marjan Minnesma stood weeping with joy in a Dutch courtroom, as three judges handed her and nearly 900 co-plaintiffs a resounding victory in their battle to force the Netherlands government to adopt more stringent climate action targets.
ABC Lateline, (0.55 sec), Interview: Marjan Minnesma, Director of Urgenda quote, Judge Hans Hofhius:
“Any reduction of emissions contributes to the prevention of dangerous climate change and as a developed country the Netherlands should take a lead in this.”
~ ~ ~
3 reasons Why Australia must sue Marjan Minnesma.
1. One transatlantic flight can add as much to your carbon footprint as a typical year’s worth of driving.
2. Air travel emitted CO2 affects climate, El Niño
3. Drought and fire here to stay with El Nino’s return a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says.
. . .
To exacerbate dangerous climate change in Australia, Marjan Minnesma, currently in Cairns hiding from extreme heat, will be flying to Sydney, Melbourne and other states to discuss what can be done in Australia to fight 97% Doomsday Global Warming.
> Australia could put her on the first plane out, but that would only make El Niño 2015 angrier.
51
Flying in a commercial aircraft uses less fuel per passenger km than driving so a trans-Atlantic flight only contributes to one’s carbon footprint as driving less than the same distance (not saying carbon is bad).
21
Greetings David.
Just because this link exists doesn’t mean it’s correct, but FWIW:
Why flying first class increases your carbon footprint by six times (qz.com)
“The World Bank has published a new working paper (PDF) that shows how passengers in premium airline classes create more of the C02 that leads to global warming.
Essentially, all the extra space for high-paying customers means airlines expend more fuel to move them, especially if some of the more expensive seats are left empty.
Plus, first class passengers tend to take more luggage.
Controlling for relative passenger weight, the efficiency of the aircraft and the length of the trip is tricky, but the numbers in the table below represent a benchmark of how many times greater the carbon footprint is for various classes compared with the average passenger:”
52
Bad math!
20
So by flying in Business instead of First they helped save the planet? But the plane still few, right? With empty First Class seats, perhaps. So what difference did THAT make. I despair, I really do, at the blindness of so many that are meant to be world leaders. Sob.
61
Have you ever tried Trans-Atlantic driving?
Personally, I would prefer to fly.
30
Handjive
Like the extreme heat in this photo?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2015/07/y2kyoto-planeta-22.html#comments
And I like this comment
“Steve from Rockwood | July 17, 2015 1:57 PM | Reply
Al Gore on a wine tour.”
60
I am trying to find the link I read, but, Al Gore is flying to Australia in the next week or two …
30
Will Gore be flying economy so as to mimimise CO2 production? I didn’t think so.
20
Abysmal stuff. We come across zealots all the time.Screaming slavering and ignorant.They would have us in their reeducation cams- or worse.No joke!
20
4 out of 5 dentists recommend climate change for that brighter smile.
50
Glen
Smile remover
https://hro001.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/uneps-trillion-dollar-questions/
40
Why don’t you British citizens paint signs and hang them on Trust property gates: Clean The Bloody Drains
50
You can blame the colonials.
40
Tit for tat export?
40
“Hoarders , people who like to keep everything…..”
A little off topic but “it’s just another bridge” !
One thing that always struck me about these British Institutions, was their preoccupation with preserving
the past.
This bridge looks like it should have been demolished years ago, but in keeping with the “National Trust” and others like it ( Heritage Trust )… every antiquated building, artifact or piece of useless memorabilia (Maunsell Forts) is preserved.
One would have hoped that in a climate changing world this bridge might have been washed away a long time ago… 😀
Literally millions of pounds are spent by these Institutions on “stuff” that people cannot use, but are nice to “look at” !
and of course this “obsession” extends to places outside the UK (places they don’t even own), there is actually a “British Antarctica Heritage Trust” just in case you were feeling really nostalgic.
60
The light house walk at Byron Bay has a lot of similar signs, erected by the council and the local environment management group.
50
The cliffs over Shanklin, in the Isle of White in the UK, used to have a sign that read, “Do not lean over the edge”.
After a while, the local Council took the sign down, and in doing so, reduced the rate of people falling to their deaths.
70
There is a message in that!
20
Regarding the claim that the planet can be saved by switching to low energy light globes, are there any studies to demonstrate that of one includes the energy used in manufacture compared to incan bulbs that there is a net energy saving. Or are they like windmills, they use more energy to manufacture than they return in a lifetime?
60
That depends on the type of low energy light globe. The generation of most of the alternative globes include electronics, of some description, which obviously increases the energy budget required for manufacture, over and above the normal vacuum or gas-filled globe. I have no data on the economics.
But, we are currently converting all of our globes to LED. Instead of a 100 Watt, 400 lumen reflective floodlight (costing NZ$4.00) with a life expectancy measured in months, we can install either a 7.5 Watt, 600 lumen LED globe (costing NZ$10.00) with a life expectancy of 15,000 hours, which are a bit bright; or we can use a 4 Watt, 350 lumen LED globe (still costing NZ$10.00) with a life expectancy of “up to 15 years”. In reality, we will probably use a mixture of both, in whatever combination works the best.
For both LED globes, the manufacturers claim an 80% energy saving.
30
And more on the light bulb area
“Wind turbines are an ornament in electricity generation – analysis of data from our generation grid”
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2015/07/wind-turbines-are-an-ornament-in-electricity-generation-analysis-of-data-from-our-generation-grid.html
60
Slightly O/T. Politics will, in the end decide when the AGW scam is dead. This poll in the USA is very revealing
http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/07/17/national-journals-political-insiders-poll-reveals-78-say-climate-change-will-play-minor-or-no-role-in-2016-campaign/
If the issue is not going to rate in the USA 2016 election , how much support behind the scenes is Paris really going to get ? It suggests to me that any agreement the USA supports will be so weak , as to be irrelevant. No party wants to go into 2016 with a strong pro AGW agreement fresh in the minds of voters if this poll is correct.
91
Please let it happen.
30
Wait! What?
Your theory stated greenhouse gasses would make it hotter, but instead its made it colder due to the polar vortex, which is now stronger because greenhouse gasses have made it warmer.
new scientist: Antarctic wind vortex is strongest for 1000 years
“In 2009, it seemed that the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica was responsible for boosting the winds.
Now Nerilie Abram from the Australian National University in Canberra and her colleagues have shown the ozone hole is only part of the story.
Global warming is just as important.”
~ ~ ~
90 ppm/co2 ago …
Sydney’s lowest minimum temperature was 2.1 °C (35.8 °F) and was recorded at Observatory Hill on June 22, 1932.
This is how it was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald the following day.
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‘Our greenhouse gas emissions are helping to spin up a giant vortex of winds around Antarctica.’
Slezak is making stuff up and badly needs debunking.
50
I checked that Sydney lowest temp statistic. Luckily the BoM has not got around to altering that yet, it is still the figure of 2.1C. I suppose they wouldn’t need to alter an extreme low as it supports their warming ideology.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=123&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=1932&p_c=-872902444&p_stn_num=066062
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That’s odd I was just checking to see if there were any replies and I clicked on the link I posted above and the BoM reports a problem. I hope is a temporary glitch and not an indication that they are altering the climate record again.
00
17 July: CarbonBrief: Leo Hickman: The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Ottmar Edenhofer (deputy director and chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research )
On whether we need the UNFCCC: “I would be, from my point of view, not wise to abolish the UNFCCC, but it would be also, on the other hand, overly optimistic to rely exclusively on the UN process.”
On the papal encyclical: “I am not in agreement with the encyclical when the encyclical says that in some parts of the world degrowth might be a option for climate policy.”
On climate sceptics: “We might have a rational debate, and I hope we can facilitate this debate. As long as these people want to listen, and these people also want to have a dialogue, instead of just trying to fight for the vested interests.”…
On talking about climate change with his children: “My daughter understands very well that if you try to change the system in such an unprecedented scale, you have to take into account some unknown things. And she is concerned about this, but she has no strong interest in the underlying scientific debate. My son has a strong interest in that, and he understands this very well.”…
The second important insight is that we see a renaissance of coal in Africa. Incredible, large-scale coal renaissance, in particular, in countries which are economically successful. So, up to now, the increase of emissions in Africa is basically driven by oil and gas, but now coal becomes more and more important. Africa could become the future China…
We are not obsessed by carbon pricing. We have done an analysis and we have shown that the low relative price of coal was the incredibly important main driver of the carbonisation pathway in the world. This is an empirical fact…
So definitely we should not say that Africa is not allowed to use any coal. They can use coal to a certain extent, but then other countries, in particular, the Annex-I countries have to use less coal. And this is something which has to be reflected in a kind of a price signal. And it seems to me that when Africa is planning now, their cities, they have to take into account that the carbon price in the future will have, let’s say, 50 euros per tonne of CO2. So what will not work is that Africa will build up a carbon-intensive infrastructure – cities, roads, power-plants – and then in ten years or 20 years from now they will be asked by the negotiators please reduce their emissions…
The 1.5C target is incredibly challenging…
So the first one is so that we almost half the emittable budget from 1000 down to 500 gigatonnes, which is enormous…
I would say the UN process has one major advantage. And the major advantage is it allows, produces, facilitates legitimacy. It’s not efficient at all. But it creates legitimacy. And this is a huge asset to have processes and bodies which are able to create legitimacy…
From my point of view, I have real problems with this notion of climate sceptics, because, as a scientist, you have to be always sceptical, right? There is no science without scepticism, so that’s good to evaluate again and again things, and challenge things and raise questions. But …
The there’s another group where arguing that, OK, we might increase the global mean temperature by burning fossil fuels and deforestation, and the increasing mean temperature might have impacts, but the impacts are not so severe as some people might anticipate. And I would say this group of climate sceptics is a group which is challenging, but there is a lot of uncertainty around the climate impacts. The crucial question is: is this uncertainty around the impacts a reason for acting, or a reason for waiting? And, from my point of view, it is a reason for acting…
So my feeling is that with these two second groups we might have a rational debate, and I hope we can facilitate this debate. As long as these people want to listen, and these people also want to have a dialogue, instead of just trying to fight for the vested interests. As long as scepticism should help and will help to agree on scientific facts and to achieve, so to say, truth, ***in this old European sense, that is fine…READ ON
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/07/the-carbon-brief-interview-prof-ottmar-edenhofer/
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The arrogance of Edenhofer is appalling and is a grim warning of how these people want to control our lives.
40
a reference to the following was posted on WUWT Tips&Notes:
18 July: Reuters: Shelby Sebens: Ex-Oregon governor wanted policy to match fiancee’s paid interests: report
John Kitzhaber, who resigned as Oregon’s governor in February over an influence-peddling scandal, told staff that state energy policies should match those his fiancée was being paid to promote for an outside group, the Oregonian newspaper reported.
In a memo to staff the newspaper obtained through public records requests, Kitzhaber wrote that his fiancée, first lady Cylvia Hayes, ought to play the same role, as a spokesperson and advocate for his office, as she does as a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based ***Clean Economy Development Center.
“Cylvia needs to be advocating the same clean economy policy in her role as spokesperson/advocate for the Governor’s Office and her role as a Clean Economy Fellow. There cannot be any daylight between them,” Kitzhaber said in the 2011 memo posted on the Oregonian website on Thursday. “But this is another reason why she needs a role in developing the policy itself.”…
The center said on its website that Hayes’ fellowship focused on advocating the economic benefits of clean economy projects. She was never on the center’s payroll directly but her fellowship was funded by two foundations, with payments made to Hayes’ consulting firm, 3E Strategies, it said…
Kitzhaber and Hayes have fought the release of their private emails to local media…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-usa-politics-oregon-idUSKCN0PS00N20150718
***Clean Economy Development Center: Cylvia Hayes’ relationship with CEDC
Cylvia Hayes was at no point on the payroll of CEDC. 3E Strategies, Hayes’ consulting firm, provided a portion of Cylvia’s time for CEDC’s regional acceleration fellowship. Hayes’ fellowship was funded by two foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and the Energy Foundation, in 2011 and 2012. All payments from CEDC were made to 3E Strategies.
16 July: OregonLive: Nick Budnick: Kitzhaber told staff state policies should match Cylvia Hayes’ paid agenda
Hayes has said she took $118,000 over two years from the Clean Economy Development Center, a national advocacy group…
Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who is a professor at Loyola Law School, said the memo appears to show Kitzhaber saying “she’s working for them, and we better put her in a role where she can deliver.”…
Hayes operated a Bend consulting firm specializing in renewable energy when Kitzhaber took office in 2011 for his third term.
Kitzhaber designated her first lady and placed her in a powerful role as a government policy adviser…
In 2012, leaders of the Clean Economy Development Center reported that Hayes helped Oregon with “a strategic approach to preventing the development of coal export facilities on the west coast.”
This is the first indication Hayes was paid to work on coal policy, but the exact impact of her participation remains unclear. Kitzhaber came into office with a strong environmental ethic but had kept quiet about his views on coal…
At one point, Hayes shared with Kitzhaber aides an anti-coal article from an advocacy group bashing one of the three corporations trying to build a facility in Oregon…
As her fellowship ended, Hayes entered into a $20,611 contract in February 2013 with another group opposing coal exports…
Another group opposed to coal exports retained Hayes in May 2013 under a $50,000 contract to work on clean economy policies..
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/07/kitzhaber_told_staff_state_pol.html
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Isn’t it great, fail to maintain drainage engineered to stop major flooding and then blame climate change when major flooding takes place in the UK. And here in Australia create massive areas of hard to manage with limited human and financial resources, and banning removal of fuel on the ground by hand or by burning off, and then blame climate change for very hot wild bush fires and warn that as global temperature rises there will be worst to come.
The evil genius of the far-left is fascinating.
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can’t copy the following. click READ MORE to read entire article. Australia gets a mention:
17 July: Institutional Investor: Katie Gilbert: Investors Unite to Press for Action on Climate Change
http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3472199/investors-endowments-and-foundations/investors-unite-to-press-for-action-on-climate-change.html
not sure if this document which was discussed at Addis Ababa has been posted:
pdf 27 pages: 2 April: The World Bank: From Billions to Trillions: Transforming Development Finance
Post-2015 Financing for Development: Multilateral Development Finance
Development Committee Discussion Note
Prepared jointly by African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group
To meet the investment needs of the Sustainable Development Goals, the global community needs to move the discussion from “Billions” in ODA to “Trillions” in investments of all kinds: public and private, national and global, in both capital and capacity…
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEVCOMMINT/Documentation/23659446/DC2015-0002(E)FinancingforDevelopment.pdf
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Thank you Jo, but the propaganda will never look stupid to the wilfully gullible.
30
it’s written in the stars:
18 July: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: The ‘stars are aligning’ ahead of ‘most important environmental summit in history’, says UN climate change chief
The most important environmental meeting in history is on course to decisively tackle climate change as an “unstoppable and irreversible” momentum builds to “green the planet”, the United Nations climate change chief has told The Independent.
Christiana Figueres says she is confident that December’s UN summit in Paris – regarded as the most important so far – will deliver its ambitious target to agree on action drastic enough to limit global warming to 2C. Beyond this level, the consequences of climate change become increasingly devastating.
“The stars are aligning towards a Paris agreement that will establish a pathway that keeps us within the limit of 2C,” Ms Figueres said.
“What is unique here is that everyone is realising that this truly is a very, very urgent moment in the history of addressing climate change. That this is a moment we cannot afford to miss.
“And because everybody is mobilised in the same direction, we actually have a very good chance of doing something meaningful.”…
“I would be hard-pressed to find one sector that is not moving forward with communication that is so much better than we had in the past and, even more importantly, with carbon reduction commitments themselves,” she said.
“Whether you look at the investment community, the insurance community, cities, territories, states or companies – it really is quite impressive to see the unending procession of commitment and action underway. It is unstoppable, it is irreversible. What Paris is going to do is to confirm that pathway and give it a legal basis,” Ms Figueres said…
“Frankly what is coming into focus here is the kaleidoscope of all of the different facets that climate change actually covers and each of those facets is finding its voice and become louder and louder for an orchestrated solution,” she added…READ ALL FOR COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR RAPLEY, LORD STERN, ETC.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-stars-are-aligning-ahead-of-most-important-environmental-summit-in-history-says-un-climate-change-chief-10397200.html
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I don’t understand how COP21 works. I’ve heard there could be 15,000 people attending. Is this true? How many get to vote? And by what authority? And on what do they vote?
And who is “representing” Australia? And again, with what authority?
Cheers,
Dave B
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Unless the final release from Paris demands the immediate closure of all coal fired power plants forthwith, then all they will have is quite literally nothing.
Will that happen?
Not on your life.
Tony.
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Leaked information that Shorten Union Labor plan a double carbon tax if elected to government. A general emissions trading scheme and one targeting fossil fuel, as in coal fired power stations. And joined to the EU ETS, our taxes to Europe. Our economy wrecked.
20
17 July: PBS Newshour: What we know — and what we don’t — about global warming
BY Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman
Editor’s Note: Last year was officially the hottest year on record, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Yesterday, the American Meteorological Society delivered more bad news in a report on the state of climate in 2014. Greenhouse gases continued to climb, sea surface temperatures and the global sea level hit a record high and the number of tropical cyclones increased.
Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman, co-authors of “Climate Shock,” argue that we should insure ourselves against climate change. With a 10 percent chance of temperatures rising 11 degrees Fahrenheit or more and the catastrophic damages that could occur as a result, why wouldn’t we? Below, they lay out their case for pricing carbon dioxide pollution and discuss the economic consequences of a warming planet. Watch Thursday’s Making Sen$e segment for more on the subject.
— Kristen Doerer, Making Sen$e Editor
READ ALL
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/know-dont-global-warming/
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17 July: Alaska Dispatch: Polar ice set for 6-meter sea-level rise?
by Irene Quaile, Deutsche Welle
That was the worrying message from a paper published in the journal Science earlier this month…
I was able to talk briefly to one of the authors, Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who was in Paris at an international scientific conference titled “Our common future under climate change.”
Rahmstorf described the new study on polar ice sheet disintegration and sea level as “a review of our state of knowledge about past changes in sea level in earth’s history, especially looking at all the data we have on past warm periods, due to the natural cycles of climate — the ice age cycles — that come from the earth’s orbit.”…
”We have had warmer times in the past, the last one was about 120,000 years ago, and we find that invariably, during these warmer times, the sea level was much higher. It was at least about 6 meters (19.7 feet) higher than today, even though temperatures were only a little bit higher, maybe one to three degrees warmer — depending on what period you are looking at — compared to the pre-industrial climate.”…
“Basically the message is: The kind of climate we are moving towards now — even if we limit warming to 2 degrees (Celsius, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — has in the past always been associated with a sea level several meters higher, which would of course have catastrophic consequences for many coastal cities and small island nations.”…
The authors of the study stress that the further back you go (they tried to estimate sea level as long as 3 million years ago), the more difficult it gets to calculate precisely how high sea level was, given that geological forces push and pull the Earth’s surface and can also cause vertical movement measuring tens of meters. This makes it hard to separate the geological changes in shoreline position from sea level rise caused by polar ice sheet disintegration.
Still, the authors point out that small temperature rises of between 1 and 3 degrees Celsius were, in the past, like today, linked with magnified temperature increases in the polar regions, which lasted over many thousands of years…
The researchers are not able to say how fast sea levels rose in the past, which would be a key piece of information for planning adaptation. Further research will be necessary for that…READ ON
http://www.adn.com/article/20150717/polar-ice-set-6-meter-sea-level-rise
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Slightly off subject, but it is the UK. Looks like solar and wind are both going to have subsidies cut completely in the next budget, in order to bring down power costs, with emphasis to go to development of gas and nuclear. Are you listening, Tony?
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Could you give the web address alone Peter. I was not able to connect to your interesting reference.
40
Why do we need Greens and other Leftists deciding how our energy is generated?
When our energy grid was run by professional engineers we had access to almost limitless, inexpensive energy, as befitting an advanced and energy rich country like Australia.
Now we have pensioners worried about running their heaters for more than an hour per night because electricity is so expensive.
What a disgrace!
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more good news:
17 July: BBC: Chris Mason: Further cuts coming to green energy subsidies
A cabinet source has said that a “big reset” on subsidies paid by consumers, which push up household energy bills, is coming in the autumn.
“There is a hardening view in the cabinet that we’ve got to deal with green subsidies,” the source added…
Within a few weeks, the solar power industry is expecting its subsidies will be cut.
The issue of renewable energy subsidies was discussed at the weekly meeting of the government’s most senior ministers on Tuesday.
Subsidies to the renewable energy industry, paid for by consumers, are expected to add up to £4.3bn this year…
This week, the think tank Policy Exchange said the average household energy bill has risen by £120 over the last five years due to what they called “ill-thought through energy and climate policies”…
But the renewable energy industry fears a cut now could seriously damage an industry at a crucial point in its development.
“We are getting very anxious about what might be coming,” Leonie Greene, from the Solar Trade Association, told the BBC…
“All that support costs money,” she (Energy Secretary Amber Rudd) said (in a speech last month). “We cannot ignore the fact that, obviously, people want subsidies if they are on the receiving end of subsidies, but we have to ensure that we get the good measure of it.”
And there lies the conundrum for the government: attempting to keep bills low, supporting emerging industries and keeping to climate change targets – with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris just a few months away now in December.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33564444
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Huffpo profile of CREATIVE writer below: Aiko Stevenson is a freelance writer from Hong Kong who used to work for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNBC Europe, CNN and Time magazine. She went to the University of Edinburgh in the UK and recently completed a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Hong Kong.
17 July: HuffPo: Aiko Stevenson: “If We Destroy Creation, Creation Will Destroy Us”
Unless the global community strikes an effective deal to rein in its carbon emissions, unchecked climate change could usher in a hellish world of lethal heat, soaring food prices, and the failure of even wealthy states.
That’s the grim conclusion of a new report commissioned by the British Foreign Office…
Writer Mark Lynas likens a 6C world to Dante’s sixth realm of hell, replete with fireballs shooting across the sky, setting the planet alight into one never ending burning inferno…
According to both the World Bank and the Bank of England, fossil fuel companies could lose trillions of dollars once new climate legislation comes into effect…
***Indifferent to the sea change that surrounds them, oil giants like Exxon Mobil, BP, and Shell are still spending billions of dollars every year in search for new sources of oil…
According to professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, an advisor to both Angela Merkel and the Pope:
“In order to stay below 2C, or even 3C, we need to have something really disruptive, which I would call an induced implosion of the carbon economy over the next 20-30 years. Otherwise we have no chance of avoiding dangerous, perhaps disastrous, climate change.”
In the words of Pope Francis, “if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.”…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aiko-stevenson/if-we-destroy-creation-cr_1_b_7779840.html
***what dreamworld doe Stevenson/HuffPo live in? praising a Foreign Office propaganda report? you have to laugh.
remember UK Independent reporting this week that BP, Shell, Eni, Statoil and Total are already planning to exploit Iran’s fossil fuel resources AND
15 July: Reuters: UPDATE 2-Britain hopes to re-open Iran embassy by year-end -Hammond
By Estelle Shirbon and William James
(Foreign Minister Philip) Hammond also said he had spoken to British finance minister George Osborne to ensure that the country was ready to capitalise on the “quite substantial” business opportunities that would arise from the diplomatic agreement.
“I think Iran will want to use some of the unfrozen assets to address some really very large infrastructure deficits, including in the oil and gas production industry, where the UK is very well placed to play a role,” Hammond said…
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/07/15/iran-nuclear-britain-idINL5N0ZV2P720150715
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“If We Destroy Creation, Creation Will Destroy Us” the mind boggles..Thats what a fine arts degree does.. gives one plenty of physics knowledge and the ability to reason..NOT.
20
Leeks are lovely thinly sliced and gently fried in good butter. Here in Old North Wales we typically serve them with lamb and roasted potatoes. Using them as flood-preventers has never occurred to us but if the National Trust say so then I suppose we should comply. The National Trust being the fons et origo of all leek related things.
20
Two degrees (C) in Melbourne this morning amd no wind to power the windmills and dark and weak sun so no solar. Still, pensioners and other low income people will be cold and miserable due to high electricity charges bought about by the Greens / Left and their alternative energy fanatasies. Well done you morons!
40
Flash flood devastates main street of Scottish town of Alyth Friday morning.
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/perth-kinross/video-incredible-scenes-as-homes-and-businesses-are-flooded-in-alyth-1.890456
20
Same thing happened in 1998, but without quite so much devastation.
Fallen branches and tree trunks have been left to rot and accumulate in the river basin over the years. They got swept down by the rising torrent and jammed against bridges, almost completely blocking the water course and forcing the water to rise till it found other routes through the town.
Responsibility for waterways has been given to a new national body,SEPA, which creates lots of paperwork, reports & directives but doesn’t keep the waterways clear like its predecessors used to.
Like the floods in England last year, naive, largely academically inspired environmental policy leaves businesses & livelihoods ruined in its wake.
.
20
19 July: Sydney Morning Herald: Kerrie Armstrong: Cardinal George Pell criticises Pope Francis over climate change stance
Cardinal Pell, a well-known climate change skeptic, told the Financial Times the church had “no particular expertise in science”.
“The church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters,” he said.
“We believe in the autonomy of science.”…
Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell to reform the Vatican’s finances nearly 18 months ago.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/cardinal-george-pell-criticises-pope-francis-over-climate-change-stance-20150718-gifhjt.html#ixzz3gGrnWdcA
19 July: Financial Times: Reformer tries to bring light to closed world of Vatican finance
by Rachel Sanderson and James Politi in Vatican City
In an environment known for palace intrigue, he has had to stare down fierce resistance from within the Curia, the mostly Italian Vatican bureaucracy, as he undertakes the daunting task of trying to clean up the Catholic Church’s murky finances…
He has also distanced himself from the Pope’s groundbreaking encyclical letter last month calling for global action on climate change.
“It’s got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful,” he says. “But the church has no particular expertise in science . . . the church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science,” added Cardinal Pell, who has been criticised for being a climate change sceptic.
However, Cardinal Pell also said the encyclical, called “Laudato Si”, was “very well received” and the Pope had “beautifully set out our obligations to future generations and our obligations to the environment”…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f429c28-2bc6-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#axzz3gHhcvWIc
10
reality gets the final word, but not til the CAGW academics get their say!
19 July: ABC: Talib Haider: Scientists warn of bad outlook for future ski seasons as climate change affects snowfall
Recent snowfalls at ski fields in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains may have been good news for holidaymakers, but studies have shown there might be disappointment ahead for snow lovers in the long term…
Related story: Related Story: Resorts reporting best opening ski weekend in several years.
Research conducted by Griffith University’s Environmental Futures Research Institute has warned that snow regions in Australia must adapt to warmer conditions caused by climate change, that is increasingly turning the alpine landscape from white to green.
Study co-author Professor Catherine Pickering said the current trends did not look promising and good years like the recent snow dump had become less frequent…
Snow lovers still optimistic about future
But, Canberra Alpine Club president Lloyd Meehan said snow lovers were content with the current weather conditions and snow levels.
Mr Meehan said he believes while weather patterns changed over time, the decline was not consistent.
“The scientists will tell us that perhaps when you are looking at pure statistical data, there has been a gradual decline,” he said.
“But like many sports, from one year to the next it is a bit hard to actually guess what sort of snow depth we are going to get.
“One year you will get a poor one, the next year – like two years ago – you get quite good ones.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-19/climate-change-to-effect-future-ski-seasons-scientitsts/6610018
in case u didn’t know!
Climate Change Is Literally Setting The World On Fire
Gizmodo Australia-16 hours ago
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18 July: Contra Costa Times: Laurel Rosenhall: California’s Air Resources Board: a bulwark against pollution or an out-of-control bureaucracy?
The ARB, one of the most influential –and controversial — pollution regulatory agencies in the nation, conducts more than 1,500 tests each year at the lab. To environmentalists, the air board offers a bulwark against pollution, setting an example for the nation and the world on how to clean the air and fight climate change. To detractors, it is an out-of-control agency run by unelected bureaucrats who are throttling the state economy.
“It’s come to the point that they tell you what to do, and you salute, and you hope that your members don’t fire you,” said Jay McKeeman, a vice president at the California Independent Oil Marketers Association…
“It’s not hyperbole when I say there is probably not a more important agency — not just in this country but around the world — than CARB and what they’re doing on pollution control and climate change,” said William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies in Washington.
The air board’s roots go back nearly half a century, to a time when thick smog smothered Southern California. Air pollution was a “menace,” in the words of former Gov. Pat Brown, the father of Gov. Jerry Brown.
Its 2 members are appointed by the governor with the consent of the state Senate.
A Dutch-born biochemist at Caltech, Arie Jan Haagen-Smit, took up the challenge…
But in 1968, Gov. Ronald Reagan appointed the “stubborn Dutchman” chairman of the brand-new Air Resources Board…
Adrienne Alvord, the California and Western states director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the air board’s policies are paying off. “They have not been afraid to stand up to oil companies and auto companies, which are obviously very well-heeled interests, in the interest of achieving clean air for the public good,” she said…
Mary Nichols, 70, is at the helm of the ARB…
The agency, which is part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, is approaching 1,400 employees and has a budget of more than $730 million, larger than most states’ environmental agencies…
But since Assembly Bill 32, California’s landmark climate-change law, passed in 2006, “thinking about climate change has become a part of everything we do,” she (Mary Nichols) said…
She spoke at an international climate-change summit in Peru last December. And she’s also visited China for the launch of an emissions-trading system there.
“I think the thing that’s probably surprised me the most is the international role that we play today,” she said…
“The level of authority granted to ARB … is quite dramatic,” said Michael Shaw, a vice president with the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, in testimony in July over a bill that would require the ARB to carry out a plan for cutting petroleum use in half by 2030. “Taking it further, we think, is a tremendous error.”
That’s not how Nichols sees it…
“The science behind global warming requires that more stringent targets be met,” she said. “And California’s goal of being a leader in this field, which we believe benefits our economy overall, requires that we stay ahead of the pack.”
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_28504467/environmentalists-california-air-resources-board-offers-bulwark-against
10
19 July: Philippine Star: Alexis Romero: Paris to hold Summit of Conscience for the Climate
MANILA, Philippines – An international summit seeking to promote environmental awareness ahead of the Paris climate change talks will be held next week, with Sen. Loren Legarda as the lone Filipino participant.
Hosted by the French government, the Paris Summit of Conscience for the Climate will be held on July 21.
“It is designed to remind everyone – including delegates to the COP (Conference of Parties), faith leaders, artists, economists, UN officials and young people around the world – that protecting the planet is a deeply personal issue and ultimately our responsibility as passionate individuals,” said Martin Palmer, secretary-general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation and consultant of the program.
“What is unique about this project is that the faiths, along with the arts and other cultural organizations, are asking a deeply personal question – ‘why do I care’,” Palmer added.
The summit will be opened by French President Francois Hollande and will be hosted by the Elysee Palace through Nicolas Hulot, special envoy of the French President for the protection of the planet.
Aside from Legarda, also invited to the event were faith leaders, Nobel Prize laureates, former UN leaders, writers, environmental activists and personalities involved in humanitarian action, like Vandana Shiva and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The audience will include experts on the climate and environment, ambassadors from countries of the UN climate summit delegates, influential representatives from a diverse range of faith and secular communities and youth ambassadors…
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/07/19/1478583/paris-hold-summit-conscience-climate
UNFCCC: Global Conscience for Climate – Why Do I Care Campaign
Find out people’s stories and submit your own here
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/mobilizing-global-conscience-for-climate/
10
Canberra CAGW academics! of course they would, Matthew!
18 July: SMH: Matthew Raggatt: Canberra academics slam anti-wind stance as ACT goes up breeze
The Abbott government’s sharp direction to end funding for wind farms was a “retrograde” step which would further discourage environmental students, an Australian National University climate change leader said.
Professor Janette Lindesay, the ANU’s Climate Change Institute deputy director, said positive opportunities remained for research into renewable energy but federal decisions did affect student and business prospects.
“Once you change the policy environment to make it less attractive it’s most disappointing – I think it’s a retrograde step,” she said.
“If there is clear policy saying the government is not going to be engaging with renewable energies and is not going to run a large department on climate change, obviously that’s going to affect things.”
The climatologist praised the ACT government for it’s leadership on a renewable energy target and decision to hold another wind farm auction before the end of the year, in contrast to the federal government’s decision to direct the Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to fund wind farms or small or medium solar farms…
University of Canberra professor of urban and regional planning Barbara Norman said blah blah…
Professor Norman was an ACT government appointee to the ACT Climate Change Council, and has taught coastal planning and climate change units interchangeably since 2011.
The Canberra Institute of Technology has had the biggest direct boost of any education organisation from individual wind projects, with a Renewable Energy Skills Centre of Excellence now being built, ***in partnership with renewable developers, to provide technical training for use of wind projects from next year…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/canberra-academics-slam-antiwind-stance-as-act-goes-up-breeze-20150718-gid91j.html
19 July: SMH Editorial: Our future is in renewable energy
Along with clean power, the renewable energy sector could deliver jobs and global investment for decades into the future
***Even given the public support for the government’s shelving of this environmentally positive scheme, it is difficult to come to terms with Mr Abbott’s subsequent apparent mission to curtail all efforts to develop and support clean alternative energy in Australia…
The purpose of government is to safeguard the future of its populace. One of the ways it can do this is by fostering an environment that promotes creativity and innovation, industry and enterprise. It must do this in the context of a natural environment that is safe and healthy for its people.
Renewable energy ticks all these boxes. The Abbott government needs to put ideology aside and promote renewable energy for the good of the country.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/our-future-is-in-renewable-energy-20150718-giews1.html
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playing to his audience:
18 July: UK Western Morning News: Prince Charles exclusive: We must tackle climate change
Tackling global warming is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, the Prince of Wales tells today’s Western Morning News.
In an exclusive interview before the Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall arrive for a three-day visit to the Westcountry on Monday, His Royal Highness warns that we have just 35 years to save the planet from catastrophic climate change.
He says with a global population boost of around three billion by 2050 the 90 trillion dollars of global infrastructure development predicted to take place over the next 20 years must be “as carbon neutral as possible”…
And he warns that while global summits later this year on tackling the crisis will help, the “real work, by governments, the private sector and civil society has yet to begin”.
But the Prince – who takes the title Duke of Cornwall when in the Westcountry – puts his faith in farmers as those “best placed to manage the landscape and wildlife.” In what will be seen by many in the South West farming community as welcome words of support during difficult times, he says farmers are, in the main, “conservationists by nature”.
http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Prince-Charles-exclusive-tackle-climate-change/story-27440039-detail/story.html
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The sign should read “In 50 years time this site will be covered in approx 2000ft of ice!”
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