An apt caption:
It seems an expensive way to stop tsunami’s.
Still, if you have to run for the not so low-lying hills in the background, perhaps the shiny black sea-walls might still be useful.
But this is what it’s all about. Pacific Islanders play the game, speak the fear, and admonish those who don’t buy them enough goodies. The Chinese heroes offer nice cars and a sports centre. (That’ll really slow the seas and save the corals).
Turnbull turns up to give away $80 million extra dollars of other people’s money, the islanders seem happy, and he is nearly sorta forgiven by the ABC.
It’s hard not to be afraid of climate change when you get free cars.
Australia could still win hearts at climate change forum — ABC
Nearby stood a shiny new fleet of MG SUVs, gifted by China to Micronesia to ferry about the leaders and assorted dignitaries from the forum’s 16 countries.
Established in 1971, the Pacific Islands Forum’s leaders’ summit brings together members for political discussions on deeper regional cooperation and integration.
The first day of the forum was held in a vast hall attached to a basketball court.
A painting on the outside of the stadium blends the Chinese and Micronesian flags and a fading plaque beneath declares that this “friendship sports centre” was financed by the People’s Republic of China.
The early signs from Malcolm Turnbull are good. He turned up with an additional $80 million for climate mitigation in the Pacific and said that he was committed to action on global warming.
One old Pacific hand said that Australia could still win hearts and minds in the region, in spite of the growing influence of Chinese soft power.
Have we paid enough yet? It’s never enough…
h/t David.
In case you didn’t notice, the Chinese have launched a pincer movement. On one side, they are occupying any piece of dirt that can stick it’s head above ambient sea level, and on the other side they are pretending to be everybody’s friend, so they can get their new western-style products in front of the public.
The motive of course, is to move attention away from the fact that, as a peoples, they have been a collection of aggressive war-like nations for the last millennium, or two.
262
Well, the Chinese clearly don’t believe in CAGW and in particular accelerating rising sea levels.
If they did, why would they be militarising tiny specks of sand and coral at great cost in the South China Sea?
Gullible/unscrupulous western politicians believe in anything that they are told ‘saves the world’, as this supposedly translates into votes. Mr Turnbull is clearly one of these, as this $80 million he has sent to money heaven, is unlikely to do even one single dollar’s worth of any real good?
221
I guess it must be so that they can control all that petroleum in that area and get to leave it in the ground for the planet’s sake.
(sarc)
121
I have been wondering about the longetivity of the very expensive and high effort infrastructure on those artificial islands in the South China Sea where the Chinese have done extensive dredging to enlarge and raise those islets a couple of metres above sea level.
As every skeptic knows and the alarmists / natural climate change deniers regularly deny, typhoons / hurricanes – cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere and Indian Ocean, are at their lowest recorded numbers and levels for many decades and possibly for the last few centuries judging by the old ship’s logs.
The Chinese have built these islets up into military grade airfields and small to mid sized naval ship ports during this last decade of the very low typhoon / hurricane levels.
A paper I have just looked at [ Examining the ENSO–typhoon hypothesis ] suggests that during the El Nino events Hurricanes tend to form further east in the Pacific and therefore do not have such a severe effect on the Phillipines and the South China Sea and Vietnam.
We have just been through the approximately three decade long positive phase of the PDO begining in about 1978 , where strong El Ninos were the predominant phase of the PDO.
We have now entered the negative phase of the PDO where La Ninas will become far more likely.
[ as an old aussie farmer, thank the good lord for that after the last couple of decades of very poor seasons here in SE Australia due to the predominance of strong El Ninos and positive Indian Ocean Dipoles despite the Indian Ocean being the only ocean which has generally warmed during the last PDO phase. ]
La Ninas with the Pacific Warm Water Pool remaining in the western Pacific and cool water predominating in the central Pacific pushes hurricane formation much further west and much closer to the Philippines and the South China Seas as well as Vietnam.
The Chinese military will of course have done their homework on the propensity for South China Seas hurricanes to re-create the natural islets by removing the built up man made structures in a matter of a few hours.
However when a substantial structure is created in an open ocean, hurricane susceptible location, the effects of extreme winds and precipitation on those structures can rarely be accurately modelled with usually some quite unforeseen effects coming into play as the structures alter the wind flows around them and they collapse and disintegrate in ways their designers never would have thought possible.
Well we assume the Chinese military have done their homework but like all military, the left hand might not know what the right hand is doing and makes assumptions that what they are up to has been properly sorted out.
And if the Army, Navy and Airforces, all in furious competition for funds like an y military forces anywhere, choose to remain in their own little isolated military cells and throw verbal rocks in private at the other military mob over the road then just maybe somebody somewhere might not have done the job of accounting for the effect of any large hurricanes on those Chinese military establishments a couple of metres above sea level on those small islets in the South China Seas.
All in all, a very interesting problem the Chinese have created in their hubris all by themselves which from a political, military, weather and climate perspective will never go the way the Chinese or anybody else have anticipated.
Unfortunately the pop corn and a lot of things much bigger than pop corn might get very singed before this is all over.
60
Yes they do, they installed hydraulic lifting jacks.
20
The island nations are able to sell their UN vote to the highest bidder. For many it’s their most valuable trading commodity.
120
Beware Chinese, Greek, or anyone bearing gifts. (
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/-financial-imf-economy-euro-greek_myths-ksmn3288_low.jpg
30
So, exactly what are these low-lying islanders doing? Frontline troops are the ones doing the actual fighting, not lolling about waiting for others to act.
Begging for money seems to be how climate worriers on the (cough, cough) frontline fight a non-existent threat.
231
Frontline troops tend to be very low-lying. Believe me.
70
…and the thickness of the buttons on their uniform shirts is of prime importance … for the extra height they hold the soldier inside the shirt off the ground.
(h/t Spike Milligan, Hitler, My Part In His Downfall)
10
Well, good thing that sea level around the Marshall Islands is falling then.
So maybe Mr Turnbull can ask for our $80 million back?
303
Tony’s graph is out of date now, however despite the rise in the last year:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/interactive-sea-level-time-series-wizard?dlat=7&dlon=171&fit=n&smooth=n&days=60
It’s still a very flat trend for the last 20 years
111
The 1 in every 8 Australians now living in poverty, many of them homeless, would be grateful if their sad plight could be targeted instead.
60
You are PM for a day and have a comfortable majority in both houses, how would you go about eliminating poverty? A short list will suffice.
20
Simple. Follow the lead set by Paris Hilton, and tell people to STOP BEING POOR!
Problem solved.
(Oh, if only life was so easy…)
20
and
Dare one ask, taking inflation into account does this equate to the 21st century beads and baubles? And in the future, when history delineates the collapse of the
climate scamUN eco-globalism, will the populous of the Island Nations seek apologies, retribution and compensation for being scammed out of progress?Meanwhile, in the real World where China has embarked on a substantial programme of influence, “occupying any piece of dirt that can stick it’s head above ambient sea level” (RW #1) — here is substantive piece of insight into China’s apparent largess here: China’s Aid to Africa: Monster or Messiah?
As I mentioned, beads and baubles.
251
I am glad I am not the only one to think of ‘beads and baubles’ when I read this.
As with all things climate-related, ‘noble cause corruption’ is well and truly at play here. Had it been for any other cause, the ABC would very likely be condemning the expenditure of $80 million via all means at its disposal.
201
We come…long way over big water…to give you many gifts…so you will help calm…our great air god “MSM’…
191
Not bad … 🙂
51
Shhhhh. Before we know it the Kollectiv will have
unintentionallyestablished another Cargo Cult.50
This reminds me of the comic book character the Phantom appearing on dozens of traditional war shields made by people from the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. check out the great artwork.
Many Australian/New Zealand military will know of the cult following the Phantom has amongst it’s ranks.
40
And UN votes.
30
‘As I mentioned, beads and baubles.’
No that was the European way of doing things in the past, this is China in the 21st century.
They are the only nation state willing and able to resurrect the world’s economies, which are in s bit of strife. In darkest Africa they will bring light and telecommunications, lifting the people out of poverty and developing a middle class. It may take 20 years, which would match the greatest economic revolution the world has ever seen.
A reminder that Europeans built their wealth on the backs of African slaves, they have been a complete and utter disgrace. God fearing, I don’t think so.
Anyway, China now has the world’s longest high speed rail network and they would dearly love to build them in America and Australia, if only the Alliance realised China is a benevolent dictatorship and not to be feared.
14
You might be wise looking into your assertions a bit more closely. While European countries were involved in trading African slaves (as well as fellow European slaves, with over a million in north Africa, and many others being shipped across the Atlantic, but, hey, who cares about them, eh?), it was for just a few decades, before the more enlightened put a stop to the practice. However, Arabia and China were trading African slaves for many years before Europe, and for many more years after; one reason why there are not similar problems in those areas as there are in the west is that one of the conditions for the slave deal was castration of the males. Slavery is still extant, today.
Shed your own White Guilt (carefully nurtured though it may be by our modern education systems) and look at reality; while other European countries did give little to their colonies, Britain built an infrastructure, leaving it in its entirety when independence was granted. Some countries built further upon that, and became quite well-off; many left it to slowly disintegrate. Why is anyone’s guess; perhaps they were waiting for someone to rescue them, yet again? While the Chinese might have stepped in to provide that noble role, for now, they may end up with exactly the same results.
50
Slavery was the energy of its day and carried on throughout the Holocene by any race who had the ability to secure them, China was no different. As you know the word Welsh means ‘slave’, Britain was plundered mercilessly by the Vikings and others.
The point I was attempting to make, Europeans had the chance last century to lift Africa out of poverty, but they continued to exploit and now they deserve to lose the economic opportunities which come with renewal and reinvigouration.
20
What a strange observation; so, lifting Africa out of poverty was a job for Europeans? Not Africans, I take it? Why not? Do you not think that Africans are capable of doing that for themselves?
While some of the European countries did exploit, Britain, on the whole, provided not just Africans with opportunities to raise themselves out of poverty, but many around the world. Some took that opportunity, and became wealthy; others did not, falling into disarray shortly after they “cast off the shackles of British oppression”, and plummeting into penury. While mistakes were made (inevitable, I am afraid, where humans are involved), I would say that every country that was under British jurisdiction benefitted greatly from it. That many did not or could not pursue those benefits is not always the white man’s fault.
20
Aren’t all those extra vehicles putting the island at risk of capsizing?
40
Wot goes around comes around!
I see in this morning’s Fairfax rag, the Sydney Morning Herald (used to be a good paper once) that “International Education in NSW grows to $7 billion”.
Sifting through the manure, and taking account that A$1b is 1000 lots of A$1M; it turns out that each one of those girls and boys (and LGPQRTZ’s) that come here are ripped-off A$40,701.75 (plus travel and sundries) to study what? Shiny-bum courses of-course – around 50% are doing (should I say learning, perhaps being spoon-fed) “management and commerce”; just the kind of stuff that some of the rest, learning IT and sundry other things, could build “Apps” so the 50% could stay at home, learn on-line and save all that dreadful fossilised-fuel from making the seas rise.
So its not as though Malcolm, the member for Turnbull, is doing anything useful while he waffles his way here and there for photo-ops -> while pretending its ours, he is just re-cycling what is theirs.
(God taketh away, spends a heap on himself and his mates, then drops a few crumbs off the table!)
Meantime all the boyz and girls on the top-rung at what used to be Universities, slide something like a A$1M each into their wallets each year (and those of their mates) and pretend they are running an “industry” that “produces” something useful!
Next week, some talking-head with a fancy title will pop-out of a broom-cupboard and announce that in order to keep the gravy hot, they need to sack more staff!
And people believe all this nonsense?
Cheers,
Dr. Bill
220
I’m enjoying this video …
… shot from the window of Turnbull’s fossil-fuelled jet plane as he wings his way over the very islands he wants to save with someone else’s money.
As Turnbull’s fellow traveller, Bill Mckibben said: ” “Hypocrisy” is the price of admission in this battle.”
201
2001: Impassioned Turnbull defends climate change science
“Delivering the Virginia Chadwick memorial lecture last night, Mr Turnbull said a war was being waged on scientists by “those opposed to taking action to cut emissions, many because it does not suit their own financial interests”.
. . .
Turnbull leads from the front in the Global Warming battle with distinction.
181
Sounds more like
“He lead his regiment from behind
He found it less exciting”
50
2001 was a long time ago. Especially in climate science. Even I hadn’t noticed the start of the pause at that stage. And it wasn’t clearly visible for another five years.
30
Ted.
That was a typo from me. It was 2011. Sorry.
00
Gosh, shouldn’t they have sent them BYD’s and then some solar panels and wind turbines to charge them?
50
Sorry, I should have been more specific – BYD E6’s
http://www.byd.com/la/auto/e6.html
50
If we take out AGW from the equation there is nothing unusual happening.
From 1989 China has been plowing money into Micronesia, but it doesn’t amount to more than $80 million and Australia has matched that.
The American Alliance has told us to spend the money under the guise of global warming, a feel good moment and strategic necessity.
The Micronesians want Chinese tourists to invade them and who are we to interfere with free trade.
50
That depends upon what is being traded, and how “free” it is.
60
Beijing doesn’t want to subjugate the Micronesians, its gratis.
They build a large basketball court which doubles as a cyclone proof dwelling, this is the Third Way.
40
New Zealand entered into a Free Trade Agreement with China some years ago, earlier than Australia.
10
Fijians were happy with Chinese tourists. Col Rambuka and Commodore Bainimarama had other ideas when it came to running the place.
20
Fiji is a dictatorship, Beijing understands why they have walked away from democracy.
20
Is this what you are after for Australia, el gordo?
20
Our democracy is safe.
11
thought it was two-part series, but here’s a third.
from William’s smug intro, to Morton’s morose narration, to Hansen’s “sobering words” to “Mr Anthropocene” Steffen’s alarmism, to the lies, misrepresentations & exaggerations of almost everyone involved in this program, this is UNBELIEVABLE – and all that is in the first five minutes of a 54-minute program!
11 Sept: ABC The Science Show: Beyond the coal rush part 3: The transition begins
Reporter: Tom Morton
And despite coal’s low market price in 2016, solar PV is on its way to becoming the cheapest source for electricity. Global investment in renewable energy is now higher than in fossil fuels. Some countries understand the urgency to reduce the amount of coal burnt for electricity. China has a policy to shift away from coal and has begun an energy transition. The nation has plans to reduce coal in its energy mix to 60% by 2020 and then reduce further. China’s wind capacity alone is already 100GW. Australia’s total generating capacity is 60GW. Change is under way. Electricity will be cheaper and cleaner. The challenge is for the world to rebuild its energy system quickly to minimise damage from a warming planet…
Research and travel funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant “The Coal Rush and Beyond”.
Additional funding: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/beyond-the-coal-rush-episode-3:-the-transition-begins/7794744
70
caring for the children?
11 Sept: Globa&Mail: Mark Hume: Have we reached peak wilderness? A new report says yes
The time of peak wilderness is past and we are rapidly headed toward “the last wild,” warns a new report by researchers in Canada and Australia.
According to the study, led by the University of Queensland and the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), there have been “alarming losses … of global wilderness areas over the last two decades.”…
“The continued loss of wilderness areas is a globally significant problem with largely irreversible outcomes for both humans and nature,” states the paper, published recently in the journal Current Biology. “If these trends continue, there could be no globally significant wilderness areas left in less than a century.”…
“If we don’t act soon, there will only be tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet, and this is a disaster for conservation,” Dr. James Watson of the University of Queensland said in a statement. “We have a duty to act for our children and their children.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/have-we-reached-peak-wilderness-a-new-report-says-yes/article31822391/
9 Sept: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Government’s green heating plans branded ‘a total waste of money’
The Government’s strategy for making UK heating supplies green would cost £12,000 for every household and be a “colossal waste of money”, a leading think tank has warned.
Policy Exchange said plans drawn up under the Coalition government for “heat pump” technology to be installed in more than 80pc of UK homes by 2050 would be “very costly and challenging” and called for a rethink by the new Business and Energy Department…
In a report, Policy Exchange estimates that the total cost of the plan to fit heat pumps in most homes could reach £300bn due to a combination of the heat pumps themselves at £8,500 a time, upgrades to the electricity grid and an extra 100 gigawatts of power generation capacity to power the pumps…
PolicyExchange urged the Government to ditch the EU’s 2020 renewable heat target, which currently forced it to encourage specific renewable technologies…
A government spokesman said: “Government has no intention of forcing households into making expensive changes to their heating and has not set a target for electric heat pumps. So we do not recognise the numbers produced.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/08/governments-green-heating-plans-branded-a-total-waste-of-money/
50
I’m sorry? Peak Wilderness?
Seriously?!
Hate to break it to these wonderful researchers and jurnos, but we had “Peak” wilderness right up to the moment when the first proto human decided that it would be more comfortable to sleep if he (or she) just moved some of these annoying plants and rocks out of the way first.
What these people should be more concerned about is the fact that we long seemed to have not only past Peak Media, but also Peak Education as well.
30
Have some of these people never bothered looking out of the aircraft window while travelling to all their climate conference beanfeasts? Hours of flying over North Queensland between Brisbane and Darwin; trees, trees and more trees. Hours and hours of flying over Greenland and Canada, en route from LHR to Calgary; snow and ice, more snow and ice and yet more snow and ice. We saw this in late September when, theoretically, the ice extent was lowest. We were caught in a blizzard on the 4th October coming along route 3 from BC to Alberta. Water on the planet; flights from Melbourne, etc. to the Middle East fly for hours and hours over the Indian Ocean.
I would love to see all those Siberian forests that TdeF has described.
There seems to be quite a lot of wilderness around to me.
10
I saw a report on this on Global News (Canada). All of the human-caused destruction of wilderness, my goodness. I wonder if either the author of the article or the naive and obviously-not-qualified-to-be-a-reporter went to the trouble to determine *how much* of that wilderness was being cleared to make room for bio-fuel crops? A lot, I suspect. The other item from the sockpuppet at UNBC, claiming that the sea creatures from equatorial regions were heading toward the cooler, and much more acidic waters, more temperate regions. His words – “swimming into acid”. Teaching our children……..
40
Quite a lot of otherwise unused, and not used for reason, lands were suddenly an option, as the crops would not have to pass the American palate (as odd as it sees, given our penchant for fast foods, or maybe indicative of how wretched the crop really is) and would be subsidized. The draining of the Ogallala aquifer speeded up, the otherwise “wild” lands (dry crop, not very lucrative, was/could still be, grown in much of the fuel belt) were pressed into service, and the objection to taking acreage out of actual food production was allayed.
With the Ogallala being drained, and the replenishment rate so low (some say 1″ for every 10″ drained, some say less, some say more) (US Army Corps of Engineers rerouted rivers, diminished flooding that helped replenish the waters, reducing the slow rate even more, and we, of course, just took it for granted it would always be there, hah) quite a few areas are doomed to return to dry lands. Another nail in the coffin of ethanol. And quite a few other crops will wither and die.
And some of the folks looking to cash in on the great green gas have lost big time as the low price and high reserves of traditional, plain old oil (and thus gasoline) have put a major crimp in the need for ethanol.
http://farmfutures.com/story-bloomberg-ethanol-bust-adds-fuel-glut-losses-across-corn-belt-0-139155
10
pat has started the OT so here’s mine
Total fuçkwit of the year candidate – Clayton Lyndon of Queensland
He hopes to almost eliminate his annual $13,000 houshold power bill with a newly installed system of 24kW of PV (80 x 300W panels or 96 x 250W panels), 6 Tesla PowerWalls and 2 SolarEdge inverters
https://naturalsolar.com.au/tesla-powerwall/tesla-powerwall-home-battery-and-solar-system-packages/ (scroll down past the quote form)
Sustainable living at its best!
30
Sorry – massive error. It’s 3 inverters, not 2.
20
I notice that it doesn’t seem to explicitly state that this chap will cut himself off from mains power.
I love the option to have a power wall installed without solar panels – for those who want to make their electricity cheaper in theory, but more expensive in practice, whilst not actually reducing reliance on the grid, or “evil” fossil fuels at all.
20
It also doesn’t list what appliances and their power requirements he expects to run day or night, either separately or in conjunction with each other.
This issue is obviously the most critical, which is why both the MSM and activists like this chap avoid it like medieval leprosy.
40
His home must be a champion MacMansion to have that annual power bill which is why the system has so many Powerwalls.
With a nominal output of 3.3kW each, he would be able to run a total load of 19.8kW => 82.5 amp total draw which is pretty effing phenomenal consumption for a house. He’d rarely (if ever) draw a total load like that so I’m guessing the storage sizing was set around his overnight consumption. The nominal 38.4 kWh of storage would allow an average loading 4.8kW over 8 hours which again is effing phenomenal consumption for a house.
The consumption + cost of this system is why I’ve nominated him
30
The report on his weekly system usage shows exports and imports – ergo, still grid connected.
And the PowerWalls aren’t enough to store all the PV generated power in September (36% exported) so the utilisation of his PV array will truly suck, come summer time (unless he leaves the doors open and aircon on).
This takes DUMB to a whole new level
20
9 Sept: UK Telegraph: Christopher Hope: National Trust is accused of being ‘autocratic and out of touch’
In the debate on the floor of the House of Lords, Lord Patten referred to a “cocktail of concerns” relating to the actions of the major conservation charity, including its lobbying activities across a range subjects from global climate change and fracking to agriculture…
But the former Bishop of Oxford and independent cross-bencher Lord Harries of Pentregarth rallied to the defence of the organisation…
Referring to the National Trust as a “landed Leviathan”, he said: “The National Trust indeed has accumulated holdings that no Whig magnate in our House in the 18th century could ever have dreamt of accumulating.”
Lord Patten, who as John Patten was Education secretary in John Major’s Government, added: “Yet the National Trust is totally unregulated except by itself.”…
Lord Patten said: “I think the trust needs to be better regulated. The trust was set up by statute for the benefit of the whole nation and its citizens not just the executive and paid up members of the National Trust.”
He also said there should be an independent review of its governance to ensure the group was acting in the national interest.
But the criticism was rejected by Lord Harries, who is a member of the National Trust…
Broadcaster Lord Bragg accused it of bullying after it acquired a tranche of land in the Lake District that could threaten a farm which upholds an agricultural tradition thousands of years old.
Lord Bragg – who as Melvyn Bragg presented ITV’s South Bank Show for many years – lambasted the trust’s actions, branding it a “disgraceful purchase” and a “nasty piece of work”, adding that its opening bid of £200,000 above the £750,000 guide price to put off other potential buyers was “straight out of the mafia.”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/09/national-trust-is-accused-of-being-autocratic-and-out-of-touch/
when CAGW alarmists chop down trees, it’s ok?
10 Sept: UK Telegraph: The wind without the willows: Wild Wood under threat as National Trust plans to fell riverside trees
by Patrick Sawer & Christopher Hope
The trees and meadows of Winter Hill on the banks of the River Thames in Cookham Dean have a special place in the history of children’s literature.
It was this bucolic setting, after all, that was the inspiration for Wild Wood – home of Mole, Rat and Badger in Kenneth Grahame’s much loved 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows.
But a bitter dispute has now broken out over the future appearance of Winter Hill, following revelations that its owners, the National Trust, are to chop down many of the trees lining its slopes.
The Trust has told residents in the area that it intends to restore much of the wood, near Maidenhead, to what it says was the hill’s original grassland…
Residents whose homes dot the slopes of Winter Hill have condemned the plans however, describing them as destructive and at odds with the National Trust’s duty to preserve the landscape…READ ON
http://forum.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/21425-the-wind-without-the-willows-wild-wood-under-threat-as-national-trust-plans-to-fell-riverside-trees/
my monthly quota was up at the Tele, but full text is at the above link.
20
Pat,
What about this utter disgrace?
Millions of trees chopped down to make way for Scottish wind farms:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10546071/Millions-of-trees-chopped-down-to-make-way-for-Scottish-wind-farms.html
These global warming nutters are such Hypocrites.
They don’t give a fig for “the environment” !
30
Just to get things in perspective, the Alliance leader wants us to pay $148 million a pop for their out of date lemons… the F35.
11
memo to ABC Science Show:
11 Sept: Yibada: Ana Ablaza: China to Allow Conditional increase in Coal Production
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) will allow companies to increase coal production as prices are increasing in the global market…
Some experts are skeptical if the government really intends to cut production of coal.
According to Deng Shun, an analyst with ICIS China, “China’s coal imports will continue to rise as the country’s production cuts have created a supply shortfall…
http://en.yibada.com/articles/158999/20160911/china-allow-conditional-increase-coal-production.htm
earlier:
8 Sept: Reuters: China’s coal producers seek approval to increase output: sources
By Kathy Chen and Henning Gloystein
The State Council must now decide whether to give the greenlight to the draft proposal, which was discussed at a meeting in Beijing of major producers, provincial officials and the state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, three sources familiar with the gathering said.
Any output increases could take effect as early as Saturday, according to a draft of the proposal seen by the sources, including one who was at the gathering…
The size of the increase in tonnes is not known, but an analyst familiar with the plan said the producers have considered increasing output by 8-9 million tonnes per month.
That’s equivalent to just over a third of the country’s import of the fuel in August…
Australian physical coal prices, which are seen as a benchmark for Asia, have risen by more than 40 percent this year, driven largely by China’s cuts to its domestic mining capacity.
Those moves forced Chinese utilities to import raw material, flipping coal from being a depressed market to what Goldman Sachs now says is one of 2016’s hottest commodities.
Imports last month soared 52 percent from a year ago to 26.59 million tonnes…
Thermal coal is the world’s second most used fossil fuel, after oil, and it is the world’s most used fuel for electricity generation.
Coal accounts for almost two-thirds of China’s energy consumption.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-coal-output-idUSKCN11E1CC
10
Rieder doubles down:
11 Sept: San Francisco Chronicle: Bioethicist: The climate crisis calls for fewer children
by Travis N. Rieder, Johns Hopkins University
Earlier this summer, I found myself in the middle of a lively debate because of my work on climate change and the ethics of having children.
NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden profiled some of my work in procreative ethics with an article entitled, “Should we be having kids in the age of climate change?”…
Clearly, this idea struck a nerve: I was overwhelmed by the response in my personal email inbox as well as op-eds in other media outlets and over 70,000 shares on Facebook. I am gratified that so many people took the time to read and reflect on the piece.
Having read and digested that discussion, I want to continue it by responding to some of the most vocal criticisms of my own work, which includes research on “population engineering” – the intentional manipulation of human population size and structure – I’ve done with my colleagues, Jake Earl and Colin Hickey…
Some comments – those claiming climate change is a hoax, devised by those who wish to control the world’s resources – are not worth responding to. Since 97 percent of all relevant experts cannot convince climate change skeptics of the basic scientific facts, then nothing I say will change their minds…
This anti-life charge is more interesting, but equally wrong. The premise seems to be that those who wish to lower fertility rates must be misanthropic, or fail to see the value of humans. But that gets things exactly backwards: A radical concern for climate change is precisely motivated by a concern for human life – in particular, the human lives that will be affected by climate disruptions.
A valuable philosophical contribution here is the distinction between “making people happy” and “making happy people.” When I feed a hungry person, or prevent a harm from befalling someone, I improve a person’s well-being. But when I create a person whom I will then feed and prevent from harm, I make a person who will predictably be well off. In the first case, I added happiness to the world by helping an existing person; whereas in the second case, I added happiness by creating a person who will be happy. See the difference?…
(This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article)
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bioethicist-The-climate-crisis-calls-for-fewer-9216434.php
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Ahhh, one of those. I wonder if it is only -certain- people who should not have children. You know, those living in the vastly over-crowded areas. Hot, humid over-crowded areas. The ones that set Ehrlich off on his mindless screed of mass starvation before the turn of the century (2000) and – perhaps – set the whole earth-is-dying meme into overdrive.
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MG SUVs?
No LOVERS?
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Chinese interests now own the British Rover brand and rights.
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I’ll only care when ignorant non-traditionalists (eg. China, India, Malaysia) get hold of Porsche or Daimler. I wouldn’t object to the Japanese aquiring these brands, provided that the European designers were retained – Japanese styling sucks 90% of the time.
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Lives have already been saved on eg Leyte in the Phillippines, which is frequently in the path of cyclones, by investing in stabilising the watershed, other flood mitigation, pinning roofs properly etc. The Japanese have been helpful in these endeavours. It’s probably why Tropical Depression Auring in 2001 was not nearly as damaging as Thelma in 1993. Hayan would have been much worse, of course. (The 1881 Haiphong typhoon cost 300,000 lives, 20,000 in the Phillippines, so yeah, with money and real science there’s a bit one can do about climate disasters beyond trying to manipulate the climate itself.)
But something tells me that climate billions won’t be directed to commonsense measures which only have the effect of spoiling the cheesy disaster narrative needed by the climatariat and trough-swillers. Got a typhoon in the eastern Pacific? Put up another wind turbine in California or install more solar panels in Brandendburg at 50+ degrees N. Closer to the potential disaster area, install more basketball courts or distribute badminton rackets. That’ll help.
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I meant western Pacific, of course. That’s where the really big ones happen. Interesting that the biggest measured biggies (sub 880 hPa) all occurred in the 1950s and 1970s. Maybe good music and bad hair make cyclones stronger. Sling me a lazy million or two and I’ll prove it with models. Plus anything else you’d like proven.
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7 Sept: Phys.org: AFP: Ecuador begins pumping oil in Amazon nature reserve
“Today, a new era is beginning, a new oil horizon for all Ecuadorans,” said Vice President Jorge Glas at a launch ceremony at the Tiputini oil field—which forms the ITT block together with the nearby fields of Tambococha and Ishpingo.
Together, they hold 1.7 billion of OPEC member Ecuador’s four billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
***President Rafael Correa originally tried to persuade the international community to pay Ecuador $3.6 billion not to exploit the ITT block—an ultimately failed initiative to protect the Amazon and help curb climate change.
But with his government strapped for cash amid a plunge in global oil prices, in the end the leftist leader asked Congress to give the go-ahead to drill, starting with exploration at Tiputini in March.
Next up is Tambococha to the south, in the last quarter of 2016.
The government defied calls from activists to put the decision to a referendum…
Ecuador plans to ramp up production from the block to 300,000 barrels per day by 2022.
http://phys.org/news/2016-09-ecuador-oil-amazon-nature-reserve.html
u can just tell the following is from UCLA Berkeley!
9 Sept: ScienceMag: Social and economic impacts of climate
Authors: Tamma A. Carleton, Solomon M. Hsiang
Structured Abstract
BACKGROUND
For centuries, thinkers have considered whether and how climatic conditions influence the nature of societies and the performance of economies. A multidisciplinary renaissance of quantitative empirical research has begun to illuminate key linkages in the coupling of these complex natural and human systems, uncovering notable effects of climate on health, agriculture, economics, conflict, migration, and demographics…
ADVANCES
Temperature, in particular, exerts remarkable influence over human systems at many social scales; heat induces mortality, has lasting impact on fetuses and infants, and incites aggression and violence while lowering human productivity. High temperatures also damage crops, inflate electricity demand, and may trigger population movements within and across national borders. Tropical cyclones cause mortality, damage assets, and reduce economic output for long periods. Precipitation extremes harm economies and populations predominately in agriculturally dependent settings. These effects are often quantitatively substantial; for example, we compute that temperature depresses current U.S. maize yields roughly 48%, warming trends since 1980 elevated conflict risk in Africa by 11%, and future warming may slow global economic growth rates by 0.28 percentage points year…
Both current and future losses can theoretically be avoided if populations adapt to fully insulate themselves from the climate—why this has not already occurred everywhere remains a critical open question…
Both current and future generations will benefit from near-term investigations. “Cracking the code” on when, where, and why adaptation is or is not successful will generate major social benefits today and in the future…
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6304/aad9837
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WOW.
11 Sept: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Crib notes: UN climate change body appeals for funding
Developing country diplomats may struggle to attend UN climate meetings unless funding for their travel is radically boosted.
That’s the warning in the UN climate body’s latest budget report, which reveals just $80,000 has so far been provided by donors, compared to well over $300,000 at the same point in 2014…
“As at 30 June 2016, EUR 14.4 million, or 54% of the total core budget indicative contributions expected for the year 2016, had been received,” reads another line…
This compared to 77% [EUR 36.6 million] at the same point in 2015. A request for comment was sent to the UN climate body last Thursday.
Many developing countries rely on external funding to ensure they can send adequate numbers of diplomats to the annual UN climate summit, which this year takes place in Marrakech.
***“Marrakech will be the first meeting where we move from negotiations to implementation, and the agreement may well have entered into force by then,” said Thoriq Ibrahim, minister of energy and environment for the ***Maldives and chair of the alliance of small island states.
“It remains absolutely critical that the international community continues to support this process so we can make it work for people on the ground before it’s too late.”
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/09/11/crib-notes-un-climate-change-body-appeals-for-funding/
second Aljazeera video at bottom of article is full show, 48mins36secs. some attempt to vindicate former President Mohammed “Mr Climate” Nasheed.
***8 Sept: VIDEO: Aljazeera: Will Jordan: Exclusive: Maldives president’s corruption revealed
Al Jazeera investigation exposes a $1.5bn money-laundering plot, bribery, theft and fraud in paradise
Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has exposed massive corruption at the top of the Maldives government, including theft, bribery and money laundering. President Abdulla Yameen is accused of receiving cash in bags filled with up to $1m – so much that it was “difficult to carry”, according to one of the men who delivered the money.
A new documentary, Stealing Paradise (LINK), provides an unprecedented insight into how international corruption is carried out. The story is told through data obtained from three of former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb’s smartphones and dozens of confidential documents. It also features secretly recorded confessions of three men who embezzled millions and delivered the stolen cash on the orders of the president and his deputy.
The programme finds that the president’s ministers and aides have plotted to launder up to $1.5bn through the South Asian nation’s central bank, with the help of secretive businessmen from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia…READ ALL
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/exclusive-maldives-president-corruption-revealed-160904110226846.html
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urgent.
comment #20 is in moderation and is a prelude to the following.
it includes quotes by Thoriq Ibrahim, minister of energy and environment for the ***Maldives and chair of the alliance of small island states begging for money to help small states attend COP22 in Morocco later this year:
following has brief Maldives’ segment on police raid at Maldives Independent newspaper & how reporter Zaheena Rasheed (who participated in the Aljazeera’s “Stealing Paradise”) had to flee the country before the docu was aired.
begins at 11mins 15secs in:
10 Sept: Aljazeera: Listening Post (24mins59secs)
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2016/09/politics-journalism-hong-kong-160910085442078.html
11 Sept: Scroll.in: ‘Let me know if you need a lawyer’: Behind the scenes of a raid on a news website in the Maldives
A Scroll.in contributor who works at ‘Maldives Independent’ talks about why the government searched their office over charges of ‘plotting to topple’ the regime.
The raid was conducted at the office in Male, the capital of the Maldives, in the afternoon of September 7, hours after the online release of Stealing Paradise – an Al Jazeera documentary about the alleged laundering of about $1.5 billion by the highest offices of government in the island country…
Among those interviewed were members of the political opposition, watchdog bodies and the editor of Maldives Independent, Zaheena Rasheed. In her years as a reporter, Rasheed has always had an uncomfortable relationship with the regime and its enforcers…
In the documentary too, she was in no mood to hold back. In a memorable sequence, she is seen describing Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen as “reclusive, brutal, corrupt, [and] authoritarian”…
The state-aligned media, too, went on an overdrive to debunk the film…
http://scroll.in/article/816195/tell-me-if-you-need-a-lawyer-behind-the-scenes-of-a-raid-on-a-news-website-in-the-maldives
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8 Sept: Irish Times: Maldives newspaper raided after claims of corruption against leader
Journalists flee ahead of posting of documentary critical of president online
by Michael Safi, Jasper Jackson
Authorities in the Maldives have raided the offices of a newspaper and a human rights NGO and cancelled the passports of fugitive opposition figures after an al-Jazeera documentary aired corruption allegations against the country’s president, Abdulla Yameen.
Local journalists involved with the documentary, broadcast by the Qatari news network on Wednesday evening, had already left the country in anticipation of a backlash, amid warnings by senior politicians that contributors risked jail under defamation laws…
The Maldivian Independent, whose former editor Will Jordan led the al-Jazeera report, reported that a number of floors in the building were searched…
The newspaper’s current editor, Zaheena Rasheed, was interviewed for the documentary and fled to Colombo, Sri Lanka, before its broadcast. She told the Guardian she believed the raids were a form of harassment and “aimed at us”.
She said: “We’ve had one of our journalists disappear, a machete attack on our door, and our security cameras vandalised, so we’ve had to relocate once before. It’s not a safe place for journalists at all.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/maldives-newspaper-raided-after-claims-of-corruption-against-leader-1.2784210
and we are supposed to send $100 billion a year to such places to save them from faux CAGW!
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It seems that the amount TURNCOAT promised is even worse than we thought !
Drowning in cash: Pacific islands love this scare:-
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/drowning-in-cash-pacific-islands-love-this-scare/news-story/c92f2153c1d159cdf4cf7a4a604c8362?nk=6d2d5770e8d572fc46629cc071cd1545-1473665874
$300 Million Dollars wasted on the global warming Scam that could have been used for many useful purposes in Australia !
FFS!!!!
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[…] at the Pacific Island Forum in Vanuatu last week, the Global Warming service commenced with a rousing rendition of the hymn “Repent and Pay, or the Seas will Devour […]
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Re the long history of the Han chinese and their xenophobic and decidedly superior attitudes towards other races.
I suggest that you read Rereke’s comment at #1 over again.
That comment is probably as near correct on Chinese intentions as one could make of it in this age and time.
One of my brothers, his wife and his first two little kids spent four years in western Tanzania in the early to mid 1970’s as the agricultural officer, one of three white men and one black man and a damn good one according to my brother, who had the task of settling and feeding what eventually amounted to some 65,000 refugees out of the then current [ another ! ] war between the Hutus and the Tutsis of Rwanda / Burundi.
As a farm lad and a mature age agricultural degree graduate he was the Agricultural officer in charge of getting the food supplies growing to feed the refugees. They were self sufficient in food within three years after he arrived just as the Refugee settlement was being established.
He operated under a triumvirate of the UN, the Tanzanian Christian Refugee Organisation and the Lutheran World Federation.
And he has a total contempt for the UN and the way its officials operate after getting firsthand and hard learned experiences on UN operations.
He left Tanzania when he was afflicted with the potentially deadly parasite bilharzia, a disease which at that time could only be treated in apartheid South Africa or West Germany where he underwent treatment for 6 months.
He and his wife and now three kids came home with a lot of stories from those far western backblocks of Tanzania near Mpanda which is not that far from Lake Tanganyika.
The Chinese People’s Republic beginning in 1970 had offered to build a 1680 km railway from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia to allow the Zambians to bypass aparthied South Africa when shipping copper ore out of the mines in Zambia.
It is called the TAZARA railway
The Chinese built the railway using almost exclusively Chinese labour with Africans doing the dirty small jobs so the Africans got little in the way of skills from the Chinese.
It was built quite extraordinarily to a Chinese Gauge of 3 feet 6 inches and not to the Tanzanian gauge of one metre [ 3 ft, 3 -3/8 inches ] so it has no connections to the standard Tanzanian rail system.
My brother was told by the Tanzanians that there wasn’t a living animal for 50 kilometres or so each side of the track as the Chinese shot them all out for meat.
There were after all always at least 13,000 or more Chinese working on the railroad at any one time with over 60,000 Chinese eventually being sent to Tanzania to build the railway.
The Chinese apparently treated the native Tanzanians who were in their own country as third rate citizens.
The Americans using only about 30 American engineers in the early 1970’s had trained a very large force of Tanzanians in road building and had constructed the TAMZAM highway which inside of Tanzania runs for some 920 kms from Dar es Salaam to the landlocked Zambian border.
The American road engineers having a pretty good idea about African maintenance in those days insisted that at least 6 inches thick layer of macadam be used as the main road seal.
Some reading a few minutes ago has revealed that some of the TAMZAM road , which is the main trunk road from the Tanzanian capita, Dar es Salaam to the western interior has not had any maintenance done on a 218 km section since construction in 1973.
BUT, the Chinese built the TANZAR railway parallel to the TAMZAM highway for hundreds of kilometers and used the road as the means of getting heavy equipment and railroad material and thousands of tonnes of heavy rail bed ballast from one section of the railway build to the next, almost destroying the American engineer supervised [ and financed ? ] African constructed road in many places.
The TAMZAM road which was never mentioned in the Chinese Tanzanian railway propaganda of the period. It was of course constructed under the supervision of those capitalistic dictators, the Americans, except by the Tanzanians locals to my brother enabled the Chinese to build the rail line much faster and allowed them to complete it ahead of schedule.
The Chinese built TANZAR railway has never performed anywhere near its claimed 5 million tonnes annual capacity and has been deemed an economic failure with only minor benefits to the various towns and cities along its route.
The African political situation has also changed dramatically which has allowed Zambia to transport its ores through the far more efficient South African ports and facilities instead of using the very long haul TANZAR railway.
The upshot of this from what the Tanzanians themselves told my brother in those early and mid 1970’s is that the Chinese were regarded with a good deal of contempt and distaste by the ordinary Tanzanians of that period for what they had done to and not done for the Africans.
In the end it was all about reinforcing the Chinese presence and influence in east Africa.
Simply because of the inherent Chinese sense of superiority and xenophobic attitude towards other races and peoples they failed to achieve the influence in east Africa that had cost them so much in their attempts to buy that influence in the 1970’s.
‘Not much has changed today with this quote from the Wiki TAZARA Railway article
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Yep it is in their genes… 18c
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I hope you were poking fun at 18C. Otherwise, this is truly one of the dumbest, most racist things you could have come up with.
The attitude is a cultural one, largely due to the inferiority complex from the Opium War and the Western activities (including Japan in this) at the end of the Qing dynasty but also with lingering influence from the imperial traditions over the past millennium.
Great writeup, ROM.
el gordo, you should take note.
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It must have been a practice run for taking over NZ’s railways whose gauge is 3ft 6 inches and has been since the nineteenth century.
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***promises, promises:
9 Sept: The Hindu Editorial: Taking the Paris process forward
Contrary to the belief that a requirement to cut GHGs will make economies less competitive, a major section of global industry and business has reaffirmed the potential for trillions of dollars in green investments flowing from the ratification of the Paris Agreement by the U.S. and China. This is a clear pointer for India, which is estimated to have the third highest individual country emissions as of 2014.
There are distinct low-carbon pathways that India has outlined in its national plan submitted to the UNFCCC.
***Among these, the scaling up of renewable energy and non-fossil fuel sources to 40 per cent of installed power production capacity by 2030 is predicated on technology transfer and the availability of Green Climate Fund resources. Not much progress has been made in this area, and Minister of State for Environment Anil Madhav Dave confirmed recently that no contribution had been received from the Fund. Helping India lock in the right technologies in its growth trajectory is important for a global reduction in greenhouse gases. It is important for the U.S. to help accelerate this process in the area of power generation, following up on the assurances given by Secretary of State John Kerry during his recent visit on clean energy finance, technology, solar catalytic funding and help for power grid upgradation…
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-taking-the-paris-process-forward/article9086406.ece
12 Sept: ClimateAction UNEP: Climate Finance is the game changer we need
By Mafalda Duarte, Manager, Climate Investment Funds
(Mafalda will be speaking on this topic at the Sustainable Investment Forum In New York, 20th September 2016)
Through the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris climate agreement, world leaders have outlined a transformative agenda which heralds a shift from a fossil-fuel based global economy to one that is low carbon and climate resilient. And funding this future means we need to think in terms of trillions not billions.
The private sector – many of whom are already factoring climate change into their business models, investment decisions and disclosure statements – will play a crucial role in driving these investments. And in many developing and emerging economies, the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) can help.
To date, the CIF has allocated more financing to private sector mitigation, forestry and adaptation investments than any other multilateral climate fund. Our $5.6 billion Clean Technology Fund, the largest of the CIF’s four funding windows, is channeling $1.9 billion to support private sector work in renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transport projects and is expected to leverage $20 billion in private sector co-financing…
The scale of the challenge is striking – Brookings Institution research says $90 trillion worth of investment is needed in sustainable infrastructure over the next 15 years. But so is the innovation potential for sustainable energy finance, which is much needed if emerging economies are to develop along a low-carbon path with renewables instead of coal…
For example, in Morocco, the CIF has supported the Noor-Ouarzazate Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) complex – the world’s largest. The CIF channeled $435 million towards the plant, alongside the investment of around $700 million by the African Development Bank and World Bank, contributing to the $3+ billion total from foreign and multilateral investors…
We’re now exploring the next frontier and developing a strategy to raise financing from private capital markets. We know from our years of experience of working with the private sector that investors are keen to increase their low carbon and climate resilient investments. And we’ve just seen 400 investors with $25 trillion in assets reaffirm this by joining the Investor Platform for Climate Actions…
Such innovation is needed if we are to move from billions to trillions.
http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/climate-leader-papers/climate_finance_is_the_game_changer_we_need
if the Noor-Ouarzazate Solar power station is so great, how come it’s impossible to find anything online about how much energy is being produced since it was connected to the Moroccan power grid in February?
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[…] Finally, at the Pacific Island Forum in Vanuatu last week, the Global Warming service commenced with a rousing rendition of the hymn “Repent and Pay, or the Seas will Devour Us”.http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/line-up-the-free-cars-on-the-frontline-of-the-climate-change-war/ […]
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