Christopher Booker,Telegraph
" Much fun has been had in contrasting the Met Office’s forecasts of our weather during the past three months with what actually transpired. Its prediction on March 26 “slightly favoured drier than average conditions for April-May-June”, with April as the driest month. This forecast, the Met Office assured us, was based on “observations, several numerical models and expert judgment”. What happened, as we know, was that we have had more rain than at any time since records began in 1766, with the wettest April and June in 100 years.
What is timely to recall, however, is the admission made to MPs in March 2010 by Professor Julia Slingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist, that the “numerical models” used by the Met Office to make its short-term weather forecasts are exactly the same as those “we use for our climate prediction work”.
The Met Office’s projections of future climate change are viewed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with total reverence. So the £33 million super-computer which failed to predict the wettest April in more than a century is one of those on which the IPCC relies for its predictions of what the weather will be like in 100 years’ time. It is hard to know which has become more discredited in the past two years, the UK Met Office or the IPCC, both of which rest their faith on computer models as dodgy as one of those proverbial nine-bob notes."
Saturday, 30 June 2012
Friday, 29 June 2012
Solar Pie-in-the-Sky
Donna Laframboise (Canada)
"The article expressed not one iota of skepticism about the solar plant being completed on time or within budget. Nor did it mention the rather salient fact that Cloncurry’s population is a mere 2,400 people. So here we are 4.5 years later. How did things work out? Is Cloncurry a shining example of the clean, green, renewable future to which we should all aspire? Is the entire community humming along on “free energy” harvested from the sun? I’m afraid not. Three years after that news story appeared, the project was abandoned. According to a follow-up news clipping “significant reflective glare issues” – and possible adverse health impacts – had been identified (backup link). In January of this year, the project was resurrected briefly. But the new design would have cost the same $7 million and only powered a fifth of the town. Last month, the Queensland government withdrew financing, thus saving taxpayers a pile of money."
"The article expressed not one iota of skepticism about the solar plant being completed on time or within budget. Nor did it mention the rather salient fact that Cloncurry’s population is a mere 2,400 people. So here we are 4.5 years later. How did things work out? Is Cloncurry a shining example of the clean, green, renewable future to which we should all aspire? Is the entire community humming along on “free energy” harvested from the sun? I’m afraid not. Three years after that news story appeared, the project was abandoned. According to a follow-up news clipping “significant reflective glare issues” – and possible adverse health impacts – had been identified (backup link). In January of this year, the project was resurrected briefly. But the new design would have cost the same $7 million and only powered a fifth of the town. Last month, the Queensland government withdrew financing, thus saving taxpayers a pile of money."
Rainy weather breaks UK record for three months to June
BBC
"The figure was confirmed on a second day of disruption after torrential rain doused parts of the country leaving thousands without power. Transport and schools were also affected after Wales, the Midlands, north-east England, Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland were deluged. Even without the latest storms, this is the second wettest June since 1910. Up to 27 June, total UK rainfall was 130.1mm - just 6mm short of the 2007 record. It is already the wettest June on record for Wales, with 186.3mm of rain this month, compared with the previous record of 183.1mm set in 1998. The Met Office confirmed it had been the wettest April-June period in the UK since 1910."
"The figure was confirmed on a second day of disruption after torrential rain doused parts of the country leaving thousands without power. Transport and schools were also affected after Wales, the Midlands, north-east England, Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland were deluged. Even without the latest storms, this is the second wettest June since 1910. Up to 27 June, total UK rainfall was 130.1mm - just 6mm short of the 2007 record. It is already the wettest June on record for Wales, with 186.3mm of rain this month, compared with the previous record of 183.1mm set in 1998. The Met Office confirmed it had been the wettest April-June period in the UK since 1910."
Carbon taxes: They just don’t work
JunkScience
"In Europe’s carbon-taxing nations, GHG reductions reflect high-wage job losses in sectors that governments have exempted from energy taxes in the unrealized hope of curbing those job losses. Total employment (both public and private sector) in Sweden crashed to almost 12 per cent below 1990 levels in the seven years after Sweden’s carbon tax was first introduced. Sweden’s job count only squeaked back up to 1990 levels in late 2007, before falling off again. ....... In Europe, governments have applied high energy taxes only to energy demand they feel is certain to grow in spite of the new taxes. This is about scoring new government revenues, not emission reductions."
"In Europe’s carbon-taxing nations, GHG reductions reflect high-wage job losses in sectors that governments have exempted from energy taxes in the unrealized hope of curbing those job losses. Total employment (both public and private sector) in Sweden crashed to almost 12 per cent below 1990 levels in the seven years after Sweden’s carbon tax was first introduced. Sweden’s job count only squeaked back up to 1990 levels in late 2007, before falling off again. ....... In Europe, governments have applied high energy taxes only to energy demand they feel is certain to grow in spite of the new taxes. This is about scoring new government revenues, not emission reductions."
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Whatever Happened To Climate Change Crisis?
GWPF
"Once upon a time, climate change and global warming (supposedly the same thing), were or was as a major challenge to the planet and our civilization. It predicated a massive change of the global energy system away from dirty, dangerous and expensive fossil fuels. Everything from nuclear power and wind farms to landfill methane gas recovery, solar power plants and electric cars and bicycles was in vogue. Anything not needing oil or seeming not to, was a great emerging and breaking business opportunity, seized on not by dozens, but by hundreds of hedge funds. Most of which are gone, today. In retrospect we have to ask why this mass illusion, the transition to “a new ecological society” imploded and fell off the teleprompters, off the front pages, and out of the seemingly endless TV special reports on threatened polar bears and collapsing ice cliffs. How could this all disappear so fast?"
"Once upon a time, climate change and global warming (supposedly the same thing), were or was as a major challenge to the planet and our civilization. It predicated a massive change of the global energy system away from dirty, dangerous and expensive fossil fuels. Everything from nuclear power and wind farms to landfill methane gas recovery, solar power plants and electric cars and bicycles was in vogue. Anything not needing oil or seeming not to, was a great emerging and breaking business opportunity, seized on not by dozens, but by hundreds of hedge funds. Most of which are gone, today. In retrospect we have to ask why this mass illusion, the transition to “a new ecological society” imploded and fell off the teleprompters, off the front pages, and out of the seemingly endless TV special reports on threatened polar bears and collapsing ice cliffs. How could this all disappear so fast?"
Michael Mann's Hissy Fit Shows Why Global Warming Alarmists Fear Debate
Forbes
"The Michael Mann hissy fit, I advised the government official, likely had little to do with the other speaker’s credentials. From my own experience with Mann and other politically driven global warming alarmists, they will go to great lengths to avoid appearing on the public stage in a format that requires them to debate or defend their alarmist assertions in the presence of scientists who actually focus on facts rather than scare tactics. I nevertheless gave the government official a list of highly qualified skeptical scientists and wished him good luck with his upcoming conference. “Don’t be surprised, however, if Mann refuses to take the stage with any of these scientists, or anybody else who will ask him challenging questions on the panel,” I predicted. “I know that scientists are supposed to encourage and celebrate critical thinking and open debate, but alarmists like Mann are scientists in only the loosest sense of the term.”
"The Michael Mann hissy fit, I advised the government official, likely had little to do with the other speaker’s credentials. From my own experience with Mann and other politically driven global warming alarmists, they will go to great lengths to avoid appearing on the public stage in a format that requires them to debate or defend their alarmist assertions in the presence of scientists who actually focus on facts rather than scare tactics. I nevertheless gave the government official a list of highly qualified skeptical scientists and wished him good luck with his upcoming conference. “Don’t be surprised, however, if Mann refuses to take the stage with any of these scientists, or anybody else who will ask him challenging questions on the panel,” I predicted. “I know that scientists are supposed to encourage and celebrate critical thinking and open debate, but alarmists like Mann are scientists in only the loosest sense of the term.”
Gina Rinehart saves the world
Telegraph
"The environmental industry, on the other hand, is completely unregulated and, as it has shown time and time again, feels no obligation towards truth, decency or transparency – not least because of its sanctimonious belief that its cause is so just that however many lies it tells the noble end more than justifies the means. We have seen examples of this in everything from its exaggeration of the (virtually non-existent) threat to the world's polar bear population to the way (as reported by Donna Laframboise) its grey literature (ie propaganda) has done much to subvert the credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change's reports. Good. Now we've sorted that one out we're in a better position to understand the significance of Gina Rinehart's move on Fairfax Media, as reported in today's Telegraph:...."
"The environmental industry, on the other hand, is completely unregulated and, as it has shown time and time again, feels no obligation towards truth, decency or transparency – not least because of its sanctimonious belief that its cause is so just that however many lies it tells the noble end more than justifies the means. We have seen examples of this in everything from its exaggeration of the (virtually non-existent) threat to the world's polar bear population to the way (as reported by Donna Laframboise) its grey literature (ie propaganda) has done much to subvert the credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change's reports. Good. Now we've sorted that one out we're in a better position to understand the significance of Gina Rinehart's move on Fairfax Media, as reported in today's Telegraph:...."
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Soak up the sun while you can! Hottest day of June tomorrow set to be followed by more rain, say forecasters
Daily Mail
"This month is already the third wettest June on record, Met Office figures show, with 122.3mm of rain putting it just behind the second wettest June, in 1912, which saw 124.5 mm of rain and a little way off the wettest June, in 2007, which saw 136.2 mm."
"This month is already the third wettest June on record, Met Office figures show, with 122.3mm of rain putting it just behind the second wettest June, in 1912, which saw 124.5 mm of rain and a little way off the wettest June, in 2007, which saw 136.2 mm."
Everything You Know About Paleoclimate May Be Wrong
GWPF
"Ice samples pulled from nearly a mile below the surface of Greenland glaciers have long served as a historical thermometer, adding temperature data to studies of the local conditions up to the Northern Hemisphere's climate. But the method -- comparing the ratio of oxygen isotopes buried as snow fell over millennia -- may not be such a straightforward indicator of air temperature."
"Ice samples pulled from nearly a mile below the surface of Greenland glaciers have long served as a historical thermometer, adding temperature data to studies of the local conditions up to the Northern Hemisphere's climate. But the method -- comparing the ratio of oxygen isotopes buried as snow fell over millennia -- may not be such a straightforward indicator of air temperature."
Sunday, 24 June 2012
MPs have no idea how to meet the 'carbon' target they voted for
Telegraph, Christopher Booker
"The great global warming scare has long been dying on its feet, but that sad fiasco of a conference in Rio last week saw it finally dead and buried. “It’s pathetic, it’s appalling,” wailed a spokesman for WWF, one of the thousands of green activists who flew to Rio, many at taxpayers’ expense, to see the last rites read over their lost dream. Their cause has even been abandoned by one of its most outspoken champions, the green guru James Lovelock of “Gaia” fame, who now admits that the warming scare was all a tragic mistake, and that talk of “sustainable development” is just “meaningless drivel”.
"The great global warming scare has long been dying on its feet, but that sad fiasco of a conference in Rio last week saw it finally dead and buried. “It’s pathetic, it’s appalling,” wailed a spokesman for WWF, one of the thousands of green activists who flew to Rio, many at taxpayers’ expense, to see the last rites read over their lost dream. Their cause has even been abandoned by one of its most outspoken champions, the green guru James Lovelock of “Gaia” fame, who now admits that the warming scare was all a tragic mistake, and that talk of “sustainable development” is just “meaningless drivel”.
Most Britons No Longer Believe Climate Change Is Man-Made
Climate Realists
"Less than half the public believe climate change is man-made, according to a new poll. The YouGov survey for The Sunday Times reveals just 43% think human activity is making the world warmer. This compares with 55% when the same question was asked in 2008. The number who believe the world is not becoming warmer has risen from 7% to 15%."
"Less than half the public believe climate change is man-made, according to a new poll. The YouGov survey for The Sunday Times reveals just 43% think human activity is making the world warmer. This compares with 55% when the same question was asked in 2008. The number who believe the world is not becoming warmer has risen from 7% to 15%."
UN Reaps Sustainability Pledges Worth $513 Billion in Rio
Bloomberg
"The summit in Rio in 1992 led to treaties on global warming, deserts and biodiversity. This year’s gathering, the UN’s biggest ever, had 45,300 delegates from more than 180 nations. It produced a non-binding document, with nations agreeing to keep talking about still-undefined “sustainable development goals.”
"The summit in Rio in 1992 led to treaties on global warming, deserts and biodiversity. This year’s gathering, the UN’s biggest ever, had 45,300 delegates from more than 180 nations. It produced a non-binding document, with nations agreeing to keep talking about still-undefined “sustainable development goals.”
Saturday, 23 June 2012
Rio+20 Earth Summit is a washout
Telegraph
"It is always a bad sign when a UN conference ends on time: if anything substantive is at stake, these unwieldy gatherings of 190 governments invariably overrun, only reaching resolution in the early hours of the morning. So it says much about the inconsequentiality of the agreement in Rio that it was finalised even before the meeting began."
"It is always a bad sign when a UN conference ends on time: if anything substantive is at stake, these unwieldy gatherings of 190 governments invariably overrun, only reaching resolution in the early hours of the morning. So it says much about the inconsequentiality of the agreement in Rio that it was finalised even before the meeting began."
Sustainable Development: The latest UN scare
WUWT
"The real “stakeholders” – the world’s poorest people – were barely represented at Rio+20. Their health and welfare, dreams and aspirations, pursuit of justice and happiness were given only lip service – then brushed aside and undermined. The proceedings were controlled by bureaucrats who do not know how to generate new wealth, generally oppose efforts by those who do know, and see humans primarily as consumers and polluters, rather than as creators and innovators, protectors and stewards."
"The real “stakeholders” – the world’s poorest people – were barely represented at Rio+20. Their health and welfare, dreams and aspirations, pursuit of justice and happiness were given only lip service – then brushed aside and undermined. The proceedings were controlled by bureaucrats who do not know how to generate new wealth, generally oppose efforts by those who do know, and see humans primarily as consumers and polluters, rather than as creators and innovators, protectors and stewards."
Thursday, 21 June 2012
What on earth are they smoking at Rio?
Andrew Bolt,Herald Sun (Australia)
"... Because that’s what this conference and so many of its kind are really about, right? Having meetings to have meetings, and to raise the cash for more meetings where everyone is a hero and all hold hands to go ommmm. Oh, excuse me, the hat is being passed around again: ..."
"... Because that’s what this conference and so many of its kind are really about, right? Having meetings to have meetings, and to raise the cash for more meetings where everyone is a hero and all hold hands to go ommmm. Oh, excuse me, the hat is being passed around again: ..."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)