With Alarmism off the dial, it’s nice to see some pushback coming from the near end of the science-scare. If journalists had asked questions like this back in 1988, it would have been all over by 1989.
Why Climate Alarmism Hurts Us All
Michael Shellenberger, Forbes, does some research on the wilder climate claims. What a novel experiment! He gets answers (at least for now) by taking the line, as he says in his twitter account, “Climate change is real but there’s NO SCIENCE for apocalyptic claims”. So he’s a believer that is concerned about the needless rising anxiety and panic.When the media says “billions will die” Shellenberger wanted to know why. He just pulled on that string and it all unravelled…
It takes a layers of incompetence to wind up an atmospheric spectral change into Death To Billions. Mass delusion and catastrophic hyperbole just doesn’t come from nowhere — it’s starts with incompetent scientists who never ask each other hard questions, not even in the tea rooms. They tell journalists ambiguously phrased, cherry picked lines which are then amped up by the media, who also ask no hard questions and go on to misquote and exaggerate. By then it’s a junkyard of science communication, and that’s when attention-seeking zealots get hold of what they thought were scientific pronouncements and turn them into bumper stickers of enviro-biblical jello.
Firstly the worst quotes come from an XR Activist, not a scientist (why do the media repeat these claims?).
Shellenberger just followed the claims:
I wanted to know what Extinction Rebellion was basing its apocalyptic claims upon, and so I interviewed its main spokesperson, Sarah Lunnon.
“It’s not Sarah Lunnon saying billions of people are going to die,” Lunnon told me. ”The science is saying we’re headed to 4 degrees warming and people like Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Center and Johan Rockström from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are saying that such a temperature rise is incompatible with civilized life. Johan said he could not see how an Earth at 4 degrees (Celsius) warming could support a billion or even half-billion people.”
Lunnon is referring to an article published in The Guardian last May, which quoted Rockström saying, “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that” at a 4-degree temperature rise.
So the XR activist thought it was from a scientist. But when Shellenberger interviewed the scientists it turned out they didn’t say that (well, not exactly):
Rockström… told me that the Guardian reporter had misunderstood him and that he had said, “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or even half of that,” not “a billion people.”
So The Guardian had to make a correction — not 7.5 billion deaths then, only 4 billion (well, that’s alright then?):
Rockström said he had not seen the misquote until I emailed him, and that he had requested a correction, which the Guardian made last Thursday. Even so, Rockström stood by his prediction of four billion deaths.
But note the caveats, it’s not the evidence he has, but the evidence he doesn’t, and it’s not that he’s sure, in his judgement, he’s doubtful:
“I don’t see scientific evidence that a four-degree celsius planet can host eight billion people,” he said. “This is, in my assessment, a scientifically justified statement, as we don’t have evidence that we can provide freshwater or feed or shelter today’s world population of eight billion in a four-degree world. My expert judgment, furthermore, is that it may even be doubtful if we can host half of that, meaning four billion.”
Rockström said half of Earth’s surface would be uninhabitable, people would be forced to migrate to the poles, and other shocks and stressors would result from heatwaves and rising sea levels.
So Shellenberger, bless him, asks the obvious questions that almost no journalist on Earth has asked:
But is there IPCC science showing that food production would actually decline? “As far as I know they don’t say anything about the potential population that can be fed at different degrees of warming,” he said. Has anyone, I asked, done a study of what happens to food production at 4 degrees warming?
And the expert admits he hadn’t really thought of that:
“That’s a good question,” said Rockström, who is an agronomist. “I must admit I have not seen a study. It seems like such an interesting and important question.”
The expert agronomist?
Shellenberger gives him the bad news that warming won’t kill as many people as climate policies will:
In fact, scientists, including two of Rockström’s colleagues at the Potsdam Institute, recently modeled food production.
Their main finding was that climate change policies are more likely to hurt food production and worsen rural poverty than climate change itself, even at 4 to 5 degrees warming.
The “climate policies” the authors refer to are ones that would make energy more expensive and result in more bioenergy (the burning of biofuels and biomass), which would increase land scarcity and drive up food costs.
Similarly, UN Food and Agriculture concludes that food production will rise 30 percent by 2050 unless “sustainable practices” are adopted in which case it would rise just 10 to 20 percent. Technological change significantly outweighs climate change in every single one of FAOs scenarios.
A great piece of work by Michael Shellenberger. Journalism students will study it a hundred years from now, wondering how it all got so stupid…
[…] Snapshots from the climate gabfest in Madrid. Food destruction by climate action. In a report by Jo Nova. […]
20
“A billion people”, or “Eight billion people” – who cares. Take the variant that fits your message, that’s how the post-modern science works.
171
Doesn’t appear to be very much science in it – surely a better description would “be post-science modernism”.
80
🙂
30
8 Billion people will die in the next 100 years if we don’t do something about climate change. Indisputable fact. 😉
31
Maybe they’re worried that at 4C temperature rise, the dinosaurs will roam the earth once again?
140
Methinks what they worry about is that 4° C temperature rise will not be believed any more than any other number they come up with.
Why do they treat this as if 4° will be added to the temperature constantly, day and night. That runs contrary to experience.
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And the more basic question still remains. What does the average temperature of the Earth mean in the first place? A given spot on earth has a certain temperature at some specific time of day, gazillions of places at a gazillion different times. What algorithm do I use to mix all those readings to get the average temperature?
And once I’ve done that what does that number represent? As far as I can find there is only one place where there is evidence that the temperature is warmer than it used to be. The Greenland ice sheet is definitely melting. Can that be a bad thing for Greenland in the long run? Why do they not say a thing about the fact that there is evidence that food crops were once grown on what is now still quite frozen Greenland?
Too many unanswered questions to be sure but that does not equal grounds for panic.
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Roy, the Greenland ice sheet may be “melting” at the edges – I think you mean calving – but my understanding is that it has increased by gazillions of tons of snow (turning to ice) on top. So no change really.
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I was never there myself to observe. A search gets me this. I can no longer find what I remember that had visible fissures in the ice with running water at the bottom but that is hard to ignore. I will be happy to be proven wrong if I’m remembering something else instead.
The internet is an ever changing information landscape. Looks like I start reading again.
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Indeed, I’ve never actually heard why a 2-4C rise (on average) is bad. The worriers seem to have just plucked out a figure and made that the bogyman.
It’s much like temperatures between 30-35C are now considered ‘extreme’ heat, as evidenced in recent Queensland weather reports.
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unless “sustainable practices”…
What the hell does he think farmers have been doing the last 2 thousand years?
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Greg,
That’s only if they’re allowed to clear more land for more crops for more people
by OUR Grubbnmnts. Queensland has laws against land clearing. They don’t
think farmers know how to manage their properties.
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Sustainable = stone age hunter gatherer
In UN speak…..no farming, just a small population and nuts and berries for food.
I think the UN lives in cloud cuckoo land….
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Currently it will be voluntary and hides the decline…or reliable power….
Long term however…likely forced…if youre even allowed to have a “Gaia-hating” aircon….
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/electricity-smart-meters-offer-hope-for-reliable-clean-energy/11766766
“”Late morning, as the temperature rises, Peter Casey reaches for the remote and turns on the air conditioning at his home in suburban Brisbane.
The units installed on the walls of his apartment look the same as any other air conditioners, but there is a difference.
“They’re fitted with “PeakSmart” technology.
“It allows the electricity network company to send a signal that turns the air conditioning down for a short while during times of peak demand when the network is feeling the strain.
“”We cycle down the compressor, which is what creates the cooling part of the air conditioner,” says Peter Price, an executive general manager at Energy Queensland.
“It cycles down for 20 minutes. The fan still runs, blowing out cold air. Customers don’t know that we’ve done that, but it pulls down the peak demand enough to make a difference.”
Mr Casey got a rebate that covered about half the cost of installing the air conditioners, and he’s a happy customer.
“”We’ve not noticed a thing,” he tells the ABC.
“”The air conditioner works exactly the same as it has before. It’s not noticeable when they’ve activated it, so if the room’s cool it stays cool.
50
LOL … sure.
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I’ve thought that for a while … at least six months.
I can honestly say that they are going to get a big shock when the developing geomagnetic excursion hits home. 🙂
Mainly because no amount of burning “fossil fules” (<- made up word to cover fuels and fools) will ameliorate the cold the Earth's magnetic field minima will create. (See magneticreversal.org. The rate of change of the planetary magnetic field is advertised on the front page.) They have no faith in the Svensmark effect.
(geological-support-for-umbrella-effect-linking-geomagnetic-field-and-climate-nature-2017.pdf: from
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40682)
All this real science will confuse and confound them.
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Hi JoNova,
I just spent the morning rediscover the USA founding fathers concerns and their Electorial Collage.
“Here, the popular vote is tempered by our Electoral College.”
I wondered why:
The reason that the [USA] Constitution calls for this extra layer [Electoral College], rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that most of the nation’s founders were actually rather afraid of democracy. James Madison worried about what he called “factions,” which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole. Madison’s fear – which Alexis de Tocqueville later dubbed “the tyranny of the majority” – was that a faction could grow to encompass more than 50 percent of the population, at which point it could “sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.” Madison has a solution for tyranny of the majority: “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking.”
No question, the Climate Change faction is a threat to citizen rights across the world.
The Rule of Law reigns in the USA in direct relation to our Constitution until a President, one branch of government, goes off the rails. I’m hoping our next one isn’t Scientifically Incompent!!!
The bolding is mine – past to present its insightful.
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Sorry, this is way off topic – please delete
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Was it deleted? I need to know.
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No you want to know you don’t need to know .
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Not deleted yet. I, for one, am glad it wasn’t deleted. In a way, it is not off-topic.
It gives one much to ponder!
Thank you JohnM
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Thanks,
it’s quotes (logic) hundreds of years past.
Sadly, the fears control Australia today.
10
““How dare you!” Will Happer “calls methane ‘irrelevant’ to climate”.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/04/how-dare-you-will-happer-calls-methane-irrelevant-to-climate/
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Currently working through the article – very interesting. Will Happer is an expert on CO2 in the atmosphere, so any paper he is involved with is worth a read.
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“Convincing Frozen People They Are Burning Up”
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/12/convincing-frozen-people-they-are-burning-up/
“Extreme heatwave propaganda from the UN and Reuters.”
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Picked this up from comments and visualised economic collapse, its inevitable, buy Cool Futures.
“The evidence shows that financial markets fully incorporate climate model projections,” conclude Columbia University’s agricultural and resource economist Wolfram Schlenker and sustainable development researcher Charles Taylor. “We find that the market has been accurately pricing in climate change, largely in line with global climate models, and that this began occurring at least since the early 2000s when the weather futures markets were formed.”
Reason
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… a bit more of that and the UN will render themselves climatalogically irrelevant.
Hopefully that will include politically irrelevant …
10
Funny they should mention but I recently got kicked to the curb for saying you Northern Hemisphere lot NEED an extra 5 degrees of warming.
Let alone a minimum of 1000ppm of, gasp, CO2.
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Let’s see, according to models , warming mostly in higher latitudes
Siberian winter changes from -50ºC to -45ºC ! 😉
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LOL. That kind of puts in it perspective!
30
The real point is that if it does warm a bit more, the northern edge of plant growth will move further towards the pole..
.. opening up vast areas of new land for productive food supply.
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Even if anthropogenic global warming were a real thing, there has NEVER been a time in human history when natural warming has been a bad thing for civilisation. I always ask climate catastrophists for an example and they can never provide one.
In fact, civilisation has always thrived during global warming such as the Minoan Warm Period, the Egyptian Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Climate Optimum (as it used to be called) and the Modern Warm Period.
In contrast during periods of natural cooling there is famine, war and disease.
In fact, Chinese civilisation is particularly sensitive to natural cooling. While they are profiting handsomely from supposed global warming through seeing increased manufacturing costs for the West (except USA) and profiting from solar panel sales to naive Westerners, they know we are heading toward global cooling and they know that has severe consequences for them. Hence the main reason they are buying agricultural land all over the world.
A graph of political catastrophes vs precipitation and temperatures in China can be seen at: https://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b8d0f76684970c-pi
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The real intention of the warmists shows it’s ugly head , it has nothing to do with a harmless beneficial trace gas but it’s all about population control .
The science fiction movies of the past where you can only live to a certain age before you go on a permanent magic holiday ring true .
Kids should be panicking but not for the destruction of world by imaginary heating of the planet but for the amount of years they can live before their number comes up .
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Movies such as Soylent Green https://youtu.be/6zAFA-hamZ0 and Logan’s Run https://youtu.be/vZa7_Rk6hwM.
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And ZPG. https://youtu.be/H8EoM0xpZX4
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http://www.overpopulationisamyth.com
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I suspect one day the climate change alarmist phase we are currently experiencing will be studied with much interest as an example of of what I have studied over some time with much interest, namely Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The Tulip mania is my favourite. I also suspect the current climate change alarmist phase has a lot more to go in the West (and perhaps beyond if it really gets much stronger) given the consistent propaganda being sprayed on our students at school and Universities. Imagine what they will do when some of them have top jobs. Some already have and their number is growing. Even some older generation folks are falling for the hoax. Enjoy the madness.
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… one of my favourite books!
(The chapter on the Witch Hunts should also be a warning: it looks to be happening all over again in the EU.)
We should update it: Imaginary Climate Crises and Madnesses of Belief
… lets just hope it doesn’t last long enough to create permanent change…
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Never has the saying “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” been truer than what we have witnessed about the climate in the past thirty years. Combined with the effect of Chinese whispers and Monty Python logic and voila, a nuclear explosion of misinformation! The truth “out there” has become hopelessly lost.
One good blackout, although painful to experience, will bring everyone back to Earth!
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Based on “unknown knowns”
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Unfortunately, I think it will require more than just one blackout. It needs to be a succession of blackouts that become more than just a one-off inconvenience.
Back in 1998, the Longford gas plant had an explosion that caused all gas supplies to Victoristan to be severely affected for two weeks. We muddled through that, doing without hot water, gas cooking etc.
Now electricity is more important across all industries etc, but we need more than just a single blackout to have any wake up effect.
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It will take a long series of blackouts. Coal will be blamed for the blackouts until it is noticed that the coal plants aren’t there any more. The way the media are, that could take a long time.
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Yep, something like..
Coal power is to blame because it couldn’t provide enough electricity once the wind stopped blowing in the early evening.
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I deliberately did not define “good” but that’s what I meant! 🙂
10
Climate Change is Real. What does that mean?
Is the Climate Changing? If so in what direction- hotter or colder, wetter or drier?
What is the human influence? How do humans influence the climate?
Are greenhouse gases involved?
And, is the Change for better or worse?
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Sidney Hook on Bertrand Russell
“What did Russell believe? You tell me the year and I’ll tell you what he believed”.
Adaptable to “climate change” also IMO
30
Remember: There is climate variability which is all “natural” and
there is: climate change which is caused by human activities (so far, there is no evidence…)
20
This must be “climate variability” then?
“Australia just suffered its coldest summer day on record ”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2019/12/australia-just-suffered-its-coldest-summer-day-on-record-.html
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And is the climate changing in the same direction everywhere?
20
Good article by Dr Judith Curry in today’s Australian.
Dangerous to simplify the complex matter of climate.
“Alarming press releases are issued about each new climate model prediction of future catastrophes from famine, mass migrations and catastrophic fires, yet these press releases don’t mention that these predicted catastrophes are associated with highly implausible assumptions about how much we might emit in the 21st century.”
“We have been told that climate change is an existential crisis. However, based on our current assessment of the science, the climate threat is not an existential one, even in its most alarming hypothetical incarnations.”
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It’s interesting that the serial alarmists always wait until the end of the day before diving in and trying to saturate the comments with their personal attacks and strange beliefs. It’s amazing how many times the 97% consensus stupidity has to be put down.
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Ian Plimer in “Heaven and Earth” has a section “The end is nigh” on “the world will end predictions which didn’t”.
Starting with The New Testament and up to its publication there are about 68 listed and that doesn’t mention more recent Prince Charlie’s, AOC’s, St Greta’s etc.
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During the IPCC Copenhagen Conference the delegation from China explained to other delegates that during the 3,600 years of civilisation in China there were three warmer periods than the present at that time.
Each warmer period had resulted in increased prosperity in China because of higher food crop yields.
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While looking for the three warmer periods article quoting delegates from China I found this reference to 5,000 years;
“The origins of climate change skepticism in China can be traced to a scientist named Coching Chu. A pioneering meteorologist in the 1920s and 1930s, Chu later became vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and attained national fame after authorities decided to teach his life story in school textbooks. In the early 1970s, toward the tail end of his career, he drew from historical Chinese records to hypothesize that global temperatures had risen and fallen by several degrees Celsius during the past 5,000 years — due to natural fluctuations. It was a different conclusion from that reached by researchers in the United States and Europe, some of whom speculated that the planet was cooling. Others were already finding links between human activity and the steady rise in global temperatures. And though to most, Chu’s work on cooling was a footnote at the end of his career, China’s climate skeptics latched on — less for the particulars of his conclusions than for the fact that he’d reached them independently of the West.”
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Formation Of The Chinese Civilisation;
http://www.china.org.cn/e-gudai/index-1.htm
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Apart from historic temperature data that has been altered to “prove” warming, global warming is essentially meaningless in the sense that there are or were insufficient measuring stations to determine any statistically significant warming. Until relatively recently (and before satellite measurements) there were only measuring stations in US and Canada, Western Europe and Australia. Tony Heller has discussed this. https://youtu.be/6kUAtt2pXlc
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Has anyone, I asked, done a study of what happens to food production at 4 degrees warming?
And the expert admits he hadn’t really thought of that:
“That’s a good question,” said Rockström, who is an agronomist. “I must admit I have not seen a study. It seems like such an interesting and important question.”
And there we have it. All that many ‘scientists’ care about is keeping the grant money flowing their way. I’m sure, if a big grant was made available to answer that question, this so-called agronomist would be happy to take it. The only reason he hasn’t even thought to consider the question already, despite it being crucial to his claim, despite it being relevant to his science domain, is that nobody is offering a big fat grant to study it.
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As I said above, there has never been a time in human history when natural warming was a bad thing, even if it were true that the world was warming (when in fact it is likely cooling).
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Highly entertaining and utterly interesting so therefore not boring at all… 🙂
“Dan Britt – Orbits and Ice Ages: The History of Climate”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yze1YAz_LYM
00
Dr Stefan Kröpelin from Cologne University is an expert on the Sahara, he believes higher temperatures and more rainfall will fill the oasis’ and return the Sahara to grassland. Thus regenerating one third of the African continent and providing food and habitat for humans.
10
Global warming lie promoters are in good company with the late Charles Manson himself being a true believer.
https://youtu.be/HCH3_F1RHtg
00
Has anyone, I asked, done a study of what happens to food production at 4 degrees warming? “That’s a good question,” said Rockström, who is an agronomist. “I must admit I have not seen a study. It seems like such an interesting and important question.”
In fact, scientists, including two of Rockström’s colleagues at the Potsdam Institute, recently modeled food production.
Their main finding was that climate change policies are more likely to hurt food production and worsen rural poverty than climate change itself, even at 4 to 5 degrees warming.
The “climate policies” the authors refer to are ones that would make energy more expensive and result in more bioenergy (the burning of biofuels and biomass), which would increase land scarcity and drive up food costs.
“Although it is projected that the negative effects of climate change will increase over time, our conclusions that the effect on agriculture of mitigation is stronger would probably hold even if moving the time horizon to 2080 and considering the strong climate change scenario RCP8.5,” the scenario that IPCC says would lead to a 3 to 5 degree warming.
Similarly, UN Food and Agriculture concludes that food production will rise 30 percent by 2050 unless “sustainable practices” are adopted in which case it would rise just 10 to 20 percent. Technological change significantly outweighs climate change in every single one of FAOs scenarios.
Forbes.com
00
Why climate alarmism hurts us all;
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/12/04/why-climate-alarmism-hurts-us-all/#2290d8fc36d8
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So called climate “scientists” are going to miss the global cooling signal because they are too busy adjusting measured data to “prove” warming.
Unlike natural warming which is ALWAYS a good thing, seriously BAD stuff happens during cooling periods as the Chinese are well aware (see my post above).
50
The Chinese are moving heavily into Southeast Asia – just look what they have done to Sihanoukville in Cambodia! Maybe they are ahead of the climate curve… :).
20
The climatariat has its middle-ground and and even right wing. Their job is to keep things respectable for the mom-and-pop demographic while XR can rage on and still get lots of coverage. Greta will be patronised but played down by these “moderates” because there’s a difference between taxing the average punter and having one’s flight plans messed with. Also, people like Shellenberger are a little embarrassed at the monsters they help create so they pour cold water on the less embarrassed people like XR.
Nope. Shellenberger and Forbes are there to keep things comfy for the globo elites while making sure the IPCC train stays on the rails. It’s about occupying the large middle-ground and keeping even skeptics close to the consensus corral. The Curry strategy. You get smaller and slower white elephants for your money…but they last longer.
I for one am not buying.
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“Rattling the Cage Doors”
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/12/02/rattling-the-cage-doors/
“You see, any curtailment of free speech doesn’t actually silence people. It leads people to communicate in other ways. Which can mean the “rulers” having no clue of what is actually going on in people’s minds because they’re not in on the joke — few of them would understand they’re the joke — and don’t see the communication taking place.”
Via SDA
30
My concern is that our free speech is allowed by those who know it’s best to lead their opposition rather than repress it.
Judith Curry and Michael Shellenberger are perfect examples of Their Majesties’ Loyal Opposition. The first is happily ensconced with the Military/Intell set, the latter with Big Business (ie the business that doesn’t need to fill its till with actual profit this morning).
Think of what Forbes has pulled off here. Thousands of skeptics are reading a long and favourable promotion of the IPCC…with complete approval! Yep. It’s the IPCC to the rescue. Never mind XR. It’s full of snips ‘n snails and puppy dog tails. The IPCC is sugar and spice and all things nice.
Greta and XR are not the main problem. Those pirates sail under the Jolly Roger. The IPCC is the main problem. Those pirates sail under all flags and can enter all ports.
Skeptics need to get over the need for respectability. We can certainly be reasonable and rational, but not respectable. Forbes is thoroughly respectable…and thoroughly putrid, like the rest of the refuse media.
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you may be surprised to learn that I wholeheartedly agree that media is a huge problem in this, both the msm, and the media controlled by people/groups with an ideology to push.
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Psychological manipulation on a grand scale and now that global cooling has begun we need to dismantle the ABC.
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El Gordo,
you’re not still reading tea leaves instead of satellites, are you?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/to:2019.75/plot/uah6/from:1978.75/to:1999.25/trend/plot/uah6/from:1999.25/to:2019.75/trend
The slopes of trend lines for the first half and second half of the data are +0.16 and +0.15 degrees per decade.
As several climate science luminaries have agreed 17 years is the shortest interval that you could measure a climate trend above the noise of weather, even a decadal trend is too short for climate diagnostic purposes. Nonetheless, with a 10-year regression period to try to capture more recent changes in trend, it only looks worse.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/to:2019.75/mean:12/plot/uah6/from:1999.75/to:2009.75/mean:12/trend/plot/uah6/from:2009.75/to:2019.75/mean:12/trend
There is no evidence that global cooling has begun. The only detection system with global coverage shows no such thing.
In all likelihood 17 years of global cooling will occur some time during the next 30 years due to solar activity, but there is no evidence cooling has begun yet. Even if it were to start tomorrow, it would be 10 years before the 0.2°C warming that occurred after 2010 could be reversed.
The only safe bet at this point is that nobody has a climate model that works and nobody can reliably predict when and by how much the global climate will change on a decadal scale.
42
‘In all likelihood 17 years of global cooling will occur some time during the next 30 years due to solar activity.’
In the run up to a Gleissberg you can observe climate change through the behaviour of the oscillations. Also, blocking is now set in concrete and meridional jet streams have increased velocity, convince me that its a global warming signal?
Temperatures have been on a high plateau for a couple of decades, but I’m certain they will begin to fall this time next year with strong La Nina activity between 2020 and 2025.
20
‘ … you’re not still reading tea leaves instead of satellites, are you?’
BoM says the previous La Nina was very strong, so to have any impact on temps it’ll have to be doubly strong.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_November_2019_v6.jpg
20
Aunty uses her statutory independence to deflect valid criticism, this is unsustainable.
30
Agree but on the other hand if it wasn’t for the MSM and their constant rhetoric about absurd gloom and doom claims I’d currently be a troll on the Jonova forum .
10
?
00
Sorry KK was a reference to GeeAye at #22
00
off topic but have you lot ever thought of getting a gravatar. It’s great and you sometimes get called by what is on the pic. I quite enjoy being called leaf.
41
Sycamore
40
Well I’m not plane
00
Quotes from The Guardian?
A vanity publication outlet that contains no objective news and is financed by shuffling any money it has through off-shore tax-havens (see https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-investigate-its-own-tax-arrangements/ )
50
AUDIO: 52min59sec: BBC Newshour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wq52b0xgsft
(paraphrasing)
45min to end: BBC’s Razia Iqbal: UN report, bleak number of people needing humanitarian assistance. 68m now, more than 200m by 2022.
Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: 2020, 168m, because of a combination of conflict, climate change events – more big storms more droughts – & more pandemics, disease events.
BBC’s Iqbal: let’s look at conflicts first. ETC
Iqbal: let’s look at climate change now, because clearly there’s an overlap to some extent:
Lowcock: well, the world leaders are ALL gathered in Spain right now, talking about this. it’s absolutely unequivocally, clear to me, as somebody whose job it is to go and look at all these disasters, that we’re seeing both more very violent storms…but we’re also seeing more frequent & severe droughts. next year, unfortunately, the scientists are telling us, there’s a significant chance of another el nino event. that could have a really devastating effect on the countries of southern Africa and also, potentially, in the Horn of Africa.
Iqbal: all this requires much more consistent, multilateral way of thinking about the world, but we also know, in the last 5 years or so, if not less, leadership around the world, not least the United States, is moving towards a unilateral approach to things…
Lowcock: paradox. on the one hand, we have record fund-raising & the US remains the most generous contributor to the UN appeal that I co-ordinate, but…
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“Has anyone, I asked, done a study of what happens to food production at 4 degrees warming?
And the expert admits he hadn’t really thought of that:”
Where is the long-term planning?
Any ‘global warming’ will take centuries before climate becomes stable.
Do we just keep building solar panels for centuries?
20
No but i suspect there may be centuries of grant money available to study the idea….
10
only heard about this last night. Hazelwood operators found guilty of this, that & the other re fires in 2014 that authorities said were deliberately lit! who knows what did or did not happen with the arson investigations?
20 Nov: ABC: Hazelwood Power Corporation found guilty of putting workers and community at risk during 2014 mine fire
By Nicole Asher, Jarrod Whittaker and Karen Percy
The ABC can now also reveal the Hazelwood Power Station operators were found guilty of pollution offences related to the 2014 fire, which started when two bushfires spread into the open-cut coal mine, in a trial earlier this year.
That trial was subject to non-publication orders while the subsequent trial took place.
Today, a Supreme Court jury found the Hazelwood Power Corporation did not adequately assess the risk of fire, did not have an adequate reticulated water system, failed to slash vegetation around the mine and did not take action early enough to wet down areas around the mine.
After an eight-week trial, jurors also found there were not enough workers at the site with the expertise to fight the fire on the day, and the company failed to adequately assess the risk of a fire entering the mine.
The company was charged with 12 offences and found guilty of 10…
Penalties from both trials will be determined at a later date…
Parent company ENGIE acknowledged the two sets of verdicts in a statement and said it would “consider our options and next steps”…
“The Hazelwood mine fire was an unprecedented event arising from two rapidly moving, ***deliberately lit, external bushfires that approached the mine from different directions in what were extremely challenging conditions.”…
The company’s barrister, Ian Hill QC, told the court the fire was a “rare, exceptional, unprecedented event” and one of the fires was started by ***arsonists…
The companies’ lawyer, Ian Hill QC, unsuccessfully argued the circumstances leading up to the mine fire were “freakish” and “extraordinary” and the company had prepared as well as could be expected…
“Never before had an arsonist or arsonists lit a number of fires driven by 70 to 80 kilometre per hour winds as those three fires lit along the Strzelecki-Driffield Road were.”…
Wendy Farmer, from the Latrobe Valley community group Voices of the Valley called the verdict “exciting”.
“It’s part of the justice for the community,” she said…
Both the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and WorkSafe Victoria applauded the verdicts.
“This verdict sends a clear warning to all employers that WorkSafe can, and will, prosecute them if they fail to put the safety of not only their workers, but also the community, first,” a WorkSafe spokeswoman said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-20/hazelwood-mine-fire-jury-returns-verdict/11696010
26 Feb 2014: ABC: Police hunt arsonist as the battle to contain the Hazelwood mine fire continues
Trevor Row, a spokesman for station operator GDF Suez, says smoke reached the administration section of the power plant, forcing an evacuation of all non-essential staff.
He says about 80 staff were told to leave.
“The power station is about 500 metres away, so it wasn’t really under any threat,” he said…
Police say ongoing Hazelwood blaze caused by a ‘calculated arsonist’
As crews battled the new blaze, Victoria police announced they were searching for an arsonist they say is responsible for the fires, which spotted into the Hazelwood open cut mine.
The fire has been burning for more than two weeks and has caused serious health effects for local residents.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay says on January 28, a person or persons lit a “test fire” in Hazelwood to try to understand how the fire would act.
He says 12 days later, on Victoria’s worst fire day, more fires were deliberately lit.
“At 10:30am on the 9th of February, another fire was lit… in Hazelwood. We believe that was also a test fire,” he said.
“We know that at 1:30pm [on the same day] three different fires were lit at Driffield.
“They spotted into the Hazelwood mine, a fire that’s now been burning for a number of weeks.”…
Mr Lay says the arsonist was “very calculated.”
“They showed an absolute disregard to life and property,” he said.
“This person took actions that were very, very calculated and designed to create significant damage to the community.”
Police believe an arsonist might be active in the area and could continue to light fires on high fire danger days.
Inspector Mark Langhorn says police believe a local or locals are responsible.
“We believe there’s a bit of a systematic arsonist and we really want to put a stop to this person very quickly,” he said.
“It’s our belief the person is well known or well familiar with the community.
“The locations of the fires are around dirt tracks or just off the highway.”
He says the locations had easy get-away-routes and would have been known to the arsonist or arsonists.
Inspector Langhorn says the three fires on the Strzelecki Highway between Mirboo North and Morwell were within a few kilometres of each other.
Police would not say what was used to light the fires and confirm they do not as yet have a suspect.
“This wasn’t necessarily kids fooling around, this was someone with a vehicle and mode of transport to light three fires within a 15 minute period.
“This is someone that has been planning.”…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-25/police-hunt-arsonist-as-hazelwood-fire-continues-to-burn/5283008
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7 Jan 2016: Guardian: Victoria police track 300 potential arsonists, many from Crime Stoppers tips
Police say they are focusing heavily on prevention by monitoring at risk people and the number of people charged has risen dramatically
by Melissa Davey
Although there are a separate 56 people in the state’s prisons for arson-related offences, police are also focusing heavily on prevention, largely thanks to public tipoffs to the independent and anonymous crime reporting hotline, Crime Stoppers…
Data suggests the increased monitoring, involving police from commands throughout the state, is paying off. The number of offenders in Victoria charged with intentionally causing a bushfire rose from nine in 2012-2013, to 39 in 2014-2015…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jan/07/victoria-police-track-300-potential-arsonists-many-from-stoppers-tips
Victorian Govt: Crime Statistics Agency: Spotlight: Arson Offences
6.1 Introduction and scope
In the year ending 30 September 2016, Victoria Police recorded 4,480 arson offences across the state, an offence rate of 74.0 offences per 100,000 people in Victoria. In five years the number of arson offences has increased by 33.6 per cent, up from 3,354 offences in the year ending 30 September 2012. In the last five years the cost of damage due to arson offences exceeded $119 million, as recorded by Victoria Police members, with more than $19 million of this recorded in the last 12 months.
Data for this spotlight has been extracted from the Victoria Police Law Enforcement Assistance Program on 18 October 2016 and reflects criminal offences and alleged offender incidents based on crime recorded by Victoria Police. The data covers a five year period from October 2011 to September 2016…
6.6 Investigation status of recorded offences…READ ON
https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statisticshistorical-crime-datayear-ending-30-september-2016/spotlight-arson-offences
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The lawyer clearly has not been listening to his ABC. Using the term unprecedented alone just doesn’t do it. If only he had spoken the words “climate change” in the same sentence ENGIE would have avoided the guilty verdicts.
20
4 Dec: Guardian: ‘No regrets’: activists who shut down power plant await sentence
Members of WeShutDown stand trial for blockading the Weisweiler plant. Some call it ‘ecoterrorism’, while others label it a masterstroke in the art of protest
by Kate Connolly
The activists from the group WeShutDown blockaded the Weisweiler power plant near Aachen for several hours on 15 November 2017, by halting its coal-carrying conveyor belts and diggers. The energy company RWE, which owns the plant, claims the shutdown cost it €2m.
The group has called its action “legitimate and necessary”, claiming that it stopped significant amounts of emissions from entering the atmosphere…
The 37-year-old Wanja, along with four other activists on trial in Eschweiler, faces charges of trespassing and disturbance of public supply in a case that has received widespread publicity. Their act has been labelled ecoterrorism and industrial sabotage by some, while others consider it a masterstroke in the history of environmental protest in Germany.
The accused are unlikely to face prison sentences, but could receive hefty fines when the judge delivers his verdict, expected on Wednesday.
The activists said they want the publicity given to their trial to have the effect of putting pressure on the German government to act faster to phase out coal mining, which it has pledged to do over the next 20 years…
Seuri Sanare, 28, a member of the Masai community from Monduli in northern Tanzania, was refused the chance to speak…
“The knock-on effects are multiple,” he said (the The Guardian). “People are having to go much further for water for both cattle and humans, at considerable risk to both…
Women in particular were among the most vulnerable, he said. “They are having to get up earlier and earlier to go further and further for that water for their families, and because it’s often still dark, they regularly face rape en route and are vulnerable to sexual exploitation in exchange for water, particularly in the cities.”…ON AND ON
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/04/no-regrets-activists-who-shut-down-power-plant-await-sentence
4 Dec: WDR Germany: Fines for occupiers of the Weisweiler power plant
The district court Eschweiler has on Wednesday (04.12.2019) sentenced five climate activists to low fines.
The verdict has surprised many observers. The three men and two women were not convicted for the occupation of the power plant, but because they resisted police officers. For this they should pay between 250 and 360 euro fine in daily rates. The Weisweiler power plant had to shut down its power by 90 percent in November 2017 due to the blockade…
The prosecution had demanded much higher penalties. In her plea she demanded prison sentences for probation between eight and twelve months. The defendants described their act as self-defense. Due to their high CO 2 emissions, RWE’s power plants are responsible for climate change and natural disasters, and thus the deaths of humans. The defense had demanded acquittals…
***The RWE Group has sued the activists for two million euros in damages. The regional court of Aachen must decide on this at a later date.
https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/rheinland/urteil-klimaaktivisten-eschweiler-100.html
30
When Rockström claims that a world with 4 degree Celsius temperature rise could not support 8 billion people, or half that he is both right and wrong. Correct that the world cannot support 8 billion people but incorrect in connecting that fact to temperature rise. The only reason that we can feed the worlds population is through the profligate expenditure of fossil fuel to manufacture fertilizer, power heavy machinery, transport and process the harvest and then distribute the end product. The push by vested interests using emissions control to lobby against livestock grazing is disturbing and fails to recognize the difference between arable and agricultural land and the calorie input required to put a calorie on a plate. The greater the proportion of food based on crops the greater the amount of fossil fuel required.
While not channeling the club of Rome we need to face the fact that the Earth is a closed system with finite and in reality quite limited resources. A higher CO2 partial pressure will assist in crop output but without massive use of pesticides, herbicides and fossil fuel billions living in large cities will simply die, regardless of the temperature.
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Human imagination and achievement are not finite, they are really quite unlimited resources.
The industrial revolution, still continuing, is abolishing serious poverty, has allowed human population to increase, with longer life spans, and has saved the forests of Europe from being cut down for fuel.
The use of pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuel has been demonized, most of the scares are fraudulent.
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Kylie – not an effective communicator – from 55s in.
Hamish keeps the coal/fossil fuel/stranded assets questions coming:
AUDIO: 8m24s: 5 Dec: ABC Breakfast: Is Australian business heeding the climate change call?
On Breakfast with Hamish Macdonald
Next week, Federal Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor will travel to Spain to attend the United Nations Climate Summit, where the Government’s plan to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 is expected to come under fire.
More than 50 world leaders have been gathering in Madrid for the two-week summit.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging business to do more to tackle climate change.
Guest: ***Kylie Porter, executive director, Global Compact Network Australia
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/is-australian-business-heeding-the-climate-change-call/11768118
***Global Compact Network Australia: Our team
Kylie Porter, Executive Director
Kylie’s career includes working for ANZ Banking Group, National Australia Bank (NAB), Standard Chartered, KPMG and Save the Children and expatriate work in London, Singapore, Nigeria, Switzerland, France and South Africa. Kylie was also a member of the Climate Principles and Chair of the Project Finance and Corporate Banking Working Group; a set of principles for the management of climate change within the financial services sector.
Before joining the GCNA, Kylie was the Stakeholder Engagement Manager for Corporate Responsibility at NAB where she held responsibility for internal and external engagement on NAB’s corporate responsibility strategy and management of reputation risk issues. Kylie also served on the Corporate Affairs team for the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Financial Services Industry where she held particular responsibility for engagement with consumer advocacy groups…
12 Aug: Age: We can close coal-fired plants without job losses – Germany did
By Corinne Schoch (senior adviser to the ***Global Compact Network Australia)
Last week, AGL Energy announced it would shut down its Liddell power plant in the Hunter Valley in April 2023. Like the closure of Hazelwood, in the Latrobe Valley, in 2017, it was delayed by government pressure. Their neighbouring plants and those in Queensland’s Rockhampton-Gladstone coal belt will steadily close over the next two decades or so. How those towns survive or thrive depends on whether we plan now or simply react as it happens.
No one wants to see ghost towns and ghettos of regional poverty. Well-meaning governments will earmark billions of dollars in support packages. Based on past form, this will come just before the gates are locked and will be applauded. Without a plan, without knowing what works, without policy to back decisions, we risk squandering those billions. Worse still, we risk leaving those assets and communities stranded without a way to dig themselves out…
Potentially, we could learn from Germany’s efforts to manage the Ruhr Valley coal industry. It shut down in 2017 without sacking a single worker…
The Global Compact Network Australia today calls on the federal government to establish the Just Transition Authority. We are the Australian contact point for the UN Global Compact Network, whose 13,500 business and organisation members globally want to advance corporate sustainability and the private sector’s contribution to sustainable development…
21 Sept: The Economist: Dirty, and not quick: Germany’s pricey “coal exit”
THEY CAME in hi-vis jackets and anoraks, beating drums and blowing whistles as the rain pelted down, defiantly defending their dying industry. Perhaps a thousand miners and other workers turned out at the Schwarze Pumpe coal-fired power plant in eastern Germany on September 9th, presenting a boisterous welcome to visitors at a conference on the future of the local Lausitz region. In a clever stunt, they forced those attending to enter through one of two makeshift arches marked “2030” and “2038”, signifying two possible end-dates for the use of coal in Germany. Anyone taking the first was roundly booed.
Next year Germany will miss its emission-reduction targets. Continued dependence on coal is one of the main reasons for this. The share in the electricity mix of brown coal (lignite), the cheapest and dirtiest sort, has remained stable for two decades. No country burns more of it than Germany. Last year the government assembled a commission spanning politicians, industry, scientists, activists and unions to get itself off the stuff…
The commission’s 275-page report, issued in January, commits Germany to end the use of coal no later than 2038, and pledges subsidies worth up to €40bn ($44bn) over 20 years for Germany’s remaining coal-mining areas. Regular reviews will determine when mines must close, and owners will be compensated.
The compromise, not yet implemented in law, left everyone a little dissatisfied. Utilities murmur about supply insecurity; business lobbies fear rising energy prices. The biggest howls come from environmentalists, who want the closure advanced to help meet Germany’s target of cutting emissions by 55% on 1990 levels by 2030…
When foreign competition devastated Germany’s solar industry a few years ago, notes Felix Ekardt, head of the Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy in Leipzig, politicians simply shrugged and pointed to market forces. But private decisions are resented less than political ones. “People don’t forgive the state if it removes jobs,” says Jörg Steinbach, Brandenburg’s energy minister. Two of the three remaining lignite regions are in the former East Germany, where old grievances have found new political expression. In recent state elections the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) swept the board in Lausitz after campaigning against the planned closures…READ ON
https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/09/21/germanys-pricey-coal-exit
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With the rate Germany is moving ahead with CO2 reductions, it is fortunate that they started when they did. In a few hundred years they may actually achieve a reduction. It could be sooner if the German economy collapses of course,
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“The Bongio Report has gone live as a conservative news aggregator alternate to The Drudge Report.
https://bonginoreport.com/
This is in addition to Gab Trends which is also providing an optional location to find news links.
https://trends.gab.com/
Plus
https://www.thepostmillennial.com/dave-rubin-announces-new-platform-that-gives-power-back-to-the-creators/ ”
Via comments at Chiefio
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multiple links:
4 Dec: CarbonBrief: Analysis: Global fossil-fuel emissions up 0.6% in 2019 due to China
by Zeke Hausfather
After increasing at the fastest rate for seven years in 2018, global CO2 emissions are set to rise much more slowly this year – but will, nevertheless, reach another record high.
Emissions from fossil fuel and industry (FF&I) are expected to reach 36.81bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) in 2019, up by only 0.24GtCO2 (0.6%) from 2018 levels, according to the latest estimates from the ***Global Carbon Project (GCP).
The data is being published in Earth System Science Data Discussions, Environmental Research Letters and Nature Climate Change to coincide with the UN’s COP25 climate summit in Madrid, Spain…
The GCP researchers say that “a further rise in emissions in 2020 is likely” as global consumption of natural gas is “surging”, oil use continues to increase and, overall, energy demand rises.
Despite the rapid rise and falling costs of renewables in many parts of the world, the majority of increases in energy demand continue to be met by fossil fuels. For example, gas met around two-fifths of the increase in demand in 2018, against just a quarter coming from renewables…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-fossil-fuel-emissions-up-zero-point-six-per-cent-in-2019-due-to-china
***Global Carbon Project (GCP): Who is Who includes:
Scientific Steering Committee:
Josep (Pep) Canadell, Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere…
SSCMembers:
Chris Jones, Head, Earth System and Mitigation Science Team, Met Office Hadley Centre
https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/about/who.htm
GCP sponsors include CSIRO and Earth Systems & Climate Change Hub, Australian Govt Dept of the Environment & Engergy.
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To put that 36.81GtCO2 in perspective, the atmosphere has lost 2500Gt of water vapour in the last 6 months. Given that water vapour is considered the “most powerful greenhouse gas” and the mass loss of water is 68 times greater than the annual injection of CO2, the CO2 can only regarded as insignificant.
With all that “powerful greenhouse gas” dropping out of the atmosphere we would expect to see a dramatic reduction in surface temperature sa the heat trapped gets an easy pass to the universe.
30
4 Dec: UK Independent: Australia weather: 50C temperatures could become the norm as hundreds of climate records broken in 90 days, report finds
‘Climate change is supercharging the extreme weather events we are witnessing,’ says expert panel
by Andy Gregory
Hundreds of climate records were broken in just 90 days in Australia as temperatures soared and rainfall dried up, according to a new report.
The findings are detailed in a report by the Climate Council of Australia (CCA), which says climate change is “supercharging extreme weather events, putting Australian lives, our economy and our environment at risk”.
By 2040, researchers warn, temperatures of 50C could become commonplace in Sydney and Melbourne unless global warming is limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels…
While the CCA report found 206 climate records were broken last summer – including record-high temperatures and record-low rainfall – it says that “the summer of 2019-20 is shaping up as another terrible trifecta of heatwaves, droughts and bushfires”…
“Nowhere is this tension between the need for urgent action and ideologically driven denial and inaction more evident than in Australia,” Professor (Will) Steffen writes…
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-australia-weather-record-temperature-50-degrees-report-bushfires-koalas-a9231116.html
2 Dec: ClimateCouncil: Report: Dangerous Summer: Escalating Bushfire, Heat and Drought Risk
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/dangerous-summer-escalating-bushfire-heat-drought-risk/
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We have to take action. The MOST effective action is to stop exporting iron ore and coal to China. That will at least slow them down.
All Australians may have to give up on any new big screen TVs and new motor cars due to the loss of foreign income to pay for those things but it will be worth it to save the planet.
One thing is for certain when Australia is in drought – the floods are coming. No idea when but they are coming. That is far more predictable and certain than any global warming.
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Comment from a friend
“My boys comments are “this is a good time to get into agric as it can only get better”
30
Better add “, eventually.” at the end of that. And then be careful.
Cheers,
Dave B
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Rick….
I assume sarcasm on your part.
It’s not as though the Chinese don’t have other sources of coal and Iron Ore.They have more coal reserves than Australia does.
10
When they talk about records do they mean observed records or adjusted records. There was nearly a record low maximum for December on 1st December. The record low for December is 13.6°C on 1st December 1969. The observed maximum for 1st Dec 2019 was 13.4°C at 2:53pm so a new record low. However the maximum shown in the relevant Climate Data online page was 14°C so a record low was avoided.
10
See #14.2.1
00
And
“David Bidstrup: Get out the summer woollies.”
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/12/05/david-bidstrup-get-out-the-summer-woollies-2/
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The more they claim to “know” that we are facing more severe conditions, the more responsible they accept for ensuring that we do what is necessary to deal with the consequences.
We do not get to blather in about hypothetical disasters in fifty years’ time as an excuse to sit on our hands and avoid what is necessary NOW.
This morning, I got to attend an RFS teleconference in which all those involved detailed a major shortage of both volunteers and staff. Volunteers because we have a limited ability to walk away from jobs and family, and staff because they are getting run ragged, all around the State, managing fire operations, planning and logistics.
Anyone who wants to keep banging on about climate change can first tell me how their magic windmills will solve the problems we face RIGHT BLOODY NOW!
As I post this, people I know are driving 7 hours to work 12-16 hours shifts on the fire line. I can’t put my hand up for more than local operations for the next fortnight, but I’ve just put my hand up to be available over Christmas..
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Here’s a fun read about the financialisation of the Green New Scare, I mean Deal, etc:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/climate-money-trail/5690209
10
LOL. If the earth overall warms by 4C billions of people can move and live in Siberia, northern Canada, and Antarctica! Silly XRstremists! Zero brains. Why did early humans migrate and change continents?
30
If as I predict the hysteria over climate change continues to escalate here the best thing Morrison can do is order the shut-down of all coal fired power stations to “save the planet” by “direct action” as demanded by the deluded crowds. Then and only then will the hysteria stop dead in its tracks when the masses whine about the loss of the use of their favourite toys.
10
The hottest parts of the planet at the equators have the greatest density and diversity of species and life, and this is where homo sapiens evolved to their current form.
Whereas half the globe is so cold that life is severely restricted.
Their scare campaign will fail as peoples standard of living around the world continues to improve.
30
Cancelled my Advertiser (,News) a few months ago. I resented paying the wages of lefty loonies that were dominating. The last straw was them piling on to one of the few conservatives and he was barely that, having married an ex Labor minister. I miss out on local news but it looks like Forbes is my go to for world news..
00
Cancelled my Advertiser (,News) a few months ago. I resented paying the wages of lefty loonies that were dominating. The last straw was them piling on to one of the few conservatives and he was barely that, having married an ex Labor minister. I miss out on local news but it looks like Forbes is my go to for world news..
10
I’m not doing it the double post. Any idea why it happens?
00
Double posting is fine.
Your question
“Any idea why it happens?”
Do you mean why their climate models fall short in predictions time and time again?
It happens. No scientist can prove to you, what the actual global change in temperature would be in 10 years time if Australia and its diverse cultures of people ceased to exist today.
Scientists use models to predict a climate change outcome for the future and call it science. I call it a guess.
It is similar to what my stockbroker and financial planner do with their financial models when they predict what my wealth will be in 10 years time. Their models deliver amazing results. They call it financial freedom. I see it as just another guess.
10
I thought it was kind of hilarious when they said we needed to reduce the worlds population by billions of people … because otherwise billions of people would die!!
One thing they are consistent on is that billions of people die, regardless of what happens. Why? Because that’s the depopulation plan.
There’s quite a good podcast if anyone is interested.
https://powerhour.alexepstein.com/2019/12/04/best-of-power-hour-robert-zubrin-on-merchants-of-despair/
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hmmm:
4 Dec: Science Mag: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
By Warren Cornwall
Climate change doubters have a favorite target: climate models. They claim that computer simulations conducted decades ago didn’t accurately predict current warming, so the public should be wary of the predictive power of newer models. Now, the most sweeping evaluation of these older models—some half a century old—shows most of them were indeed accurate.
“How much warming we are having today is pretty much right on where models have predicted,” says the study’s lead author, Zeke Hausfather, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley…
The new research is a useful exercise that “should provide some confidence that models can be used to help provide guidance regarding energy policies,” adds Hansen, now director of the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Program at Columbia University…READ ON
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming
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4 Dec: Science Mag: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
By Warren Cornwall
Climate change doubters have a favorite target: climate models. They claim that computer simulations conducted decades ago didn’t accurately predict current warming, so the public should be wary of the predictive power of newer models. Now, the most sweeping evaluation of these older models—some half a century old—shows most of them were indeed accurate.
“How much warming we are having today is pretty much right on where models have predicted,” says the study’s lead author, Zeke Hausfather, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley…
The new research is a useful exercise that “should provide some confidence that models can be used to help provide guidance regarding energy policies,” adds Hansen, now director of the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Program at Columbia University…READ ON
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming
a couple of tweets on the above:
Twitter: Roger Pielke Jr
https://twitter.com/rogerpielkejr?lang=en
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4 Dec: EurActiv: EU leaders to push for climate neutrality at next week’s summit, draft shows
EURACTIV.com with Reuters and euroefe
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels next week will push to agree to put the bloc on net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, their draft joint statement showed on Monday (2 December), heralding a bitter fight looming at their gathering.
The Dec. 12-13 summit of the bloc’s national leaders will aim to endorse “the objective of achieving a climate-neutral EU by 2050,” according to the document seen by Reuters.
European Council president Charles Michel said he will work to “convince” all member states to agree on achieving climate neutrality by 2050 in next week’s summit. He also vowed to pay attention to the “sensitivities” and “interests” of the most economically affected countries…
To convince the reluctant camp, the draft summit conclusions refer to “just and socially balanced transition”, the European Investment Bank’s announcement to unlock 1 trillion euros worth of green investment until 2030, the need to ensure energy security and competitiveness vis-à-vis foreign powers not pursuing such climate goals…READ ON
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/eu-leaders-to-push-for-climate-neutrality-at-next-weeks-summit-draft-shows/
5 Dec: Reuters: Europe’s ‘carbon border tax’ could hurt climate negotiations – China adviser
by Jake Spring
MADRID – The European Union’s proposed “carbon border tax” on imports could introduce uncertain and harmful factors to otherwise friendly cooperation in climate talks, an adviser to China’s negotiating team at a United Nations conference said on Wednesday…
The tax would run counter to the Paris accord which is founded on multilateralism and countries’ voluntary participating, said He Jiankun, a professor at Tsinghua University who is travelling with China’s official delegation…
“If this carbon tax is unilaterally instituted, it could bring uncertain and some harmful factors to the process,” He told reporters, stressing it was his personal opinion.
“Currently adopting this type of cross-border measure could influence the friendly atmosphere of cooperation in the process of confronting climate change.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-accord-china/europes-carbon-border-tax-could-hurt-climate-negotiations-china-adviser-idUSKBN1Y82NC
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5 Dec: Bloomberg: HSBC, StanChart Help Keep Coal Industry Alive, Says Greenpeace
By Alastair Marsh
Four British banks have provided $31.8 billion of financing to coal companies in the past three years, even as they publicly moved away from doing business with some of the fossil-fuel industry, according to Greenpeace.
The environmental group said Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc provided “life support” to companies with plans to build new coal plants, according to a report published Thursday.
Greenpeace’s data tracked loans and underwriting of debt securities from the start of 2016 to Sept. 30 of this year. Since 2016, all four of the banks have said they’ve stopped lending to new coal-fired power plants. The banks have moved away from other hydrocarbon businesses: HSBC has said it won’t finance projects in Canada’s oil sands, for instance, and RBS has followed suit.
When contacted by Bloomberg News for comment on Greenpeace’s data, all four banks’ press officers pointed to these policies and simultaneous efforts to finance renewable energy.
Barclays, however, disputed some of Greenpeace’s methodology…
Greenpeace’s data was provided by Urgewald, a non-profit environmental and human rights organization, and BankTrack, a Dutch not-for-profit group that campaigns against the financing of projects it deems environmentally or socially harmful.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-05/hsbc-stanchart-help-keep-coal-industry-alive-says-greenpeace
4 Dec: UK Independent: Revealed: How UK banks are ‘threatening’ humanity with £25bn funding for dying coal industry
Campaigners condemn ‘indefensible’ funding for companies building new coal plants
by Conrad Duncan
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said it was “outrageous” that banks were still providing major funding for the coal industry.
“My message to these banks is simple: stop funding fossil fuels. These investments are incompatible with global climate targets and will be money down the drain,” Mr Bartley said.
“This money should be funding renewable energy and energy efficiency, so that we can tackle the climate emergency with a clean, green future.”….
Sarah Greenfield Clark, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, described the data as “shocking”.
“It is painfully alarming to hear that our banks continue to pour money into fossil fuel activities that threaten our very existence,” Ms Clark said.
“Public concern over the climate and ecological breakdown has never been higher, and yet how many customers know that their money is being used to fund the coal industry.
“This news is a devastating blow for humanity: business as usual must stop now.”….
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-banks-coal-funding-greenpeace-extinction-rebellion-a9232971.html
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sad how DM jumps on this stuff as quickly as the rest of the MSM these days:
5 Dec: Daily Mail: Not-so-Big Bird: Climate change has caused migratory birds to SHRINK in size and their wings to get longer over the past 40 years, study claims
•US researchers measured 70,716 songbirds from 52 species from 1978–2016
•Birds were collected after fatally striking buildings in Chicago while migrating
•The team found subtle but statistically significant overall changes in body size
•Fluctuations were seen on a shorter timescale, synced with temperature shifts
By Ian Randall
Researchers from Chicago and Michigan studied more than 70,000 small, migratory song birds that had been collected after fatal building strikes…
‘We had good reason to expect that increasing temperatures would lead to reductions in body size, based on previous studies,’ said paper author and conservation ornithologist Brian Weeks, of the University of Michigan…
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Ecology Letters (LINK).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7754693/Climate-change-caused-migratory-birds-SHRINK-size-wings-longer.html
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reckless talk, open access:
4 Dec: NYT: Climate Change Is Accelerating, Bringing World ‘Dangerously Close’ to Irreversible Change
By Henry Fountain
More devastating fires in California. Persistent drought in the Southwest. Record flooding in Europe and Africa. A heat wave, of all things, in Greenland.
Climate change and its effects are accelerating, with climate related disasters piling up, season after season.
“Things are getting worse,” said Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, which on Tuesday issued its annual state of the global climate report, concluding a decade of what it called exceptional global heat. “It’s more urgent than ever to proceed with mitigation.”
But reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change will require drastic measures, Dr. Taalas said. “The only solution is to get rid of fossil fuels in power production, industry and transportation,” he said.
Seas are warming and rising faster, putting more cities at risk of tidal flooding or worse. Glaciers are melting at a pace many researchers did not expect for decades. The amount of Arctic sea ice has declined so rapidly that the region may see ice-free summers by the 2030s.
Even the ground itself is warming faster. Permanently frozen ground, or permafrost, is thawing more rapidly, threatening the release of large amounts of long-stored carbon that could in turn make warming even worse, in what scientists call a climate feedback loop…
In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany and other institutions warned that the acceleration of ice loss and other effects of climate change have brought the world “dangerously close” to abrupt and irreversible changes, or tipping points…
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/climate/climate-change-acceleration.html
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all seem to be open access. 8 or 9 articles in all:
5 Dec: Financial Times: The case for a circular world
Businesses, investors and consumers are looking beyond the ‘take-make-waste’ economy
by Sarah Murray
https://www.ft.com/content/43748fb2-f64c-11e9-bbe1-4db3476c5ff0
Financia Times: Special Report: Circular Economy
VARIOUS ARTICLES
https://www.ft.com/reports/circular-economy
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5 Dec: Reuters: ECB’s Lagarde will struggle to fulfil self-imposed climate mission
by Balazs Koranyi, Francesco Canepa
FRANKFURT – Christine Lagarde has called the fight against climate change “mission critical” for the European Central Bank but she will struggle to match those words with actions during her eight years leading Europe’s most powerful financial institution…
“It’s fashionable to include climate change in the discussion but right now it’s much ado about nothing,” said Angel Talavera, an economist at Oxford Economics. “There’s not a lot the ECB can do. Climate change isn’t really part of the ECB’s mandate.”
Central banks have come under growing pressure to do their part in fighting climate change and pioneers like Bank of England chief Mark Carney — soon taking up a UN climate finance job — have spoken up about it for years.
They fear extreme weather events could lead to large fluctuations in economic growth and result in food price surges as crops are wiped out.
It could also pose a systemic risk to the financial system through banks’ exposure to sectors like coal, which may be rendered less viable by policies needed to tackle climate change…
Lagarde has also argued that the ECB’s pension fund could differentiate between green and other assets, but that move would be largely symbolic… READ ON
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-ecb-analysis/ecbs-lagarde-will-struggle-to-fulfill-self-imposed-climate-mission-idUSKBN1Y81QS
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Scotsman the latest to jump on the Thatcher deception:
4 Dec: Scotsman: Climate change: World must heed Margaret Thatcher’s prescient warning from 1989 – leader comment
If we trust in science, humanity will be able to prevent the worst effects of global warming and look forward to a bright future. If not, we face catastrophe…
We must act, and at a faster pace than we are doing currently, but human ingenuity – perhaps with growing help from extraordinary advances in artificial intelligence – knows almost no bounds.
If we put our faith in the best science, it is highly likely that we can look forward to a bright future.
But, if we turn away from this light of the modern world and shun the warnings of virtually the entire scientific community across numerous fields, then, make no mistake, we do risk a catastrophe as wildfires, droughts, flooding and severe storms become more prevalent, threatening food supplies and, ultimately, our future as a species on this planet.
In a prescient address to the United Nations in 1989, one leading politician of the day said: “The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no-one can opt out. Those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not.”
In the minds of some, the science has become associated with left-wing politics, so the identity of this speaker may come as a surprise – Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives’ Conservative, and also, crucially, a trained scientist.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/climate-change-world-must-heed-margaret-thatcher-s-prescient-warning-from-1989-leader-comment-1-5056482
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No I wouldn’t think so either if that was the average temperature but what do you think it should be perfessor and how’re you and the climate changers getting on with your KPIs in that regard?
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There has never been a clinical trial to scientifically prove that losing too much blood will kill you or that sex causes babies, either.
Sometimes, “science” is not required.
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It’s worth pointing out that we don’t have adequate scientific evidence that we won’t be able to feed the world, either.
The best empirical evidence is that warm periods have been times of plenty. Everything else is speculation.
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I think it’s time Pat built his own blog.
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