Matt Ridley
"The world will use about 450 exajoules (billion billion joules) of fossil fuel energy this year and has so far used less than 20,000 exajoules since the Industrial Revolution began. Total oil, gas and coal resources in the Earth’s crust are estimated at more than 570,000 exajoules. So if energy use was a journey from St Pancras to Istanbul by train, we have not yet reached the Channel Tunnel. Resources can be finite yet effectively inexhaustible or, like dodos and forests, infinitely renewable yet easily exhausted."
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Corruption of Climate Science Has Created 30 Lost Years
Climate Realists
"Traditionally, the older scientists held to the prevailing wisdom and were challenged by the new, skeptical graduates looking for wider answers. In climatology, the opposite has happened. The so-called skeptics challenging the prevailing wisdom are the professors who have researched and taught the subject for 30 years or longer. Their knowledge is much wider than that of the new young scientists because climate science has stagnated for thirty years. All the funding was directed to only one side of climate science, and that was the side promoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and accepted as the ‘official science’ by governments. "
"Traditionally, the older scientists held to the prevailing wisdom and were challenged by the new, skeptical graduates looking for wider answers. In climatology, the opposite has happened. The so-called skeptics challenging the prevailing wisdom are the professors who have researched and taught the subject for 30 years or longer. Their knowledge is much wider than that of the new young scientists because climate science has stagnated for thirty years. All the funding was directed to only one side of climate science, and that was the side promoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and accepted as the ‘official science’ by governments. "
Friday, 6 May 2011
Climategate scientists 'too secretive and may have broken Freedom of Information laws'
Daily Mail
"The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November 2009, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails from the UEA’s Climatic Research Unit, and tracks long-term changes in temperature and plays a leading role in compiling UN reports. It is thought that the theft was motivated by the CRU’s repeated refusals to provide detailed information about the data underlying its temperature records. The files showed scientists plotting how to avoid Freedom of Information requests and appeared to show them discussing how to manipulate data. Some of the most controversial contained personal attacks on climate change sceptics and one, by the unit’s Professor Phil Jones, mentioned using a ‘trick’ to massage years of temperature data to ‘hide the decline’. "
ED: This is new?
"The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November 2009, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails from the UEA’s Climatic Research Unit, and tracks long-term changes in temperature and plays a leading role in compiling UN reports. It is thought that the theft was motivated by the CRU’s repeated refusals to provide detailed information about the data underlying its temperature records. The files showed scientists plotting how to avoid Freedom of Information requests and appeared to show them discussing how to manipulate data. Some of the most controversial contained personal attacks on climate change sceptics and one, by the unit’s Professor Phil Jones, mentioned using a ‘trick’ to massage years of temperature data to ‘hide the decline’. "
ED: This is new?
Chris Huhne needs a lesson in economics
Telegraph
"At a time when the UK economy needs every penny of business investment it can get, to be taxing production more to pay for a tax reduction on petrol consumption is bad policy all round. As a trained economist, Mr Huhne will know the correct approach, both from an economic and environmental perspective, is to do the reverse – to incentivise investment in production and disincentivise consumption."
"At a time when the UK economy needs every penny of business investment it can get, to be taxing production more to pay for a tax reduction on petrol consumption is bad policy all round. As a trained economist, Mr Huhne will know the correct approach, both from an economic and environmental perspective, is to do the reverse – to incentivise investment in production and disincentivise consumption."
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Frozen Poles
Dr Richard North
"We might be basking in the sunshine in England – although it is dull and wet at the time of writing – but the Poles are not having such a good time of it. May snowfall and freezing temperatures have descended on south-western Poland, with 41 road deaths and 400 accidents reported since the May weekend began. Traffic has struggled particularly as many drivers had already switched to summer tyres.
In the Lower Silesia and Opole regions, 100,000 homes were left without electricity and temperatures have plummeted as low as 0°C in some areas as frost and heavy fog hampered traffic. Power lines also went down in Walbrzych, Jelenia Góra and the Wroclaw area after trees heavy with snow fell and brought down electricity cables.
The same story applies further east, with the previouly ice-bound Gulf of Finland only now clearing. Just three weeks ago, 38 cargo ships were awaiting icebreaker assistance."
"We might be basking in the sunshine in England – although it is dull and wet at the time of writing – but the Poles are not having such a good time of it. May snowfall and freezing temperatures have descended on south-western Poland, with 41 road deaths and 400 accidents reported since the May weekend began. Traffic has struggled particularly as many drivers had already switched to summer tyres.
In the Lower Silesia and Opole regions, 100,000 homes were left without electricity and temperatures have plummeted as low as 0°C in some areas as frost and heavy fog hampered traffic. Power lines also went down in Walbrzych, Jelenia Góra and the Wroclaw area after trees heavy with snow fell and brought down electricity cables.
The same story applies further east, with the previouly ice-bound Gulf of Finland only now clearing. Just three weeks ago, 38 cargo ships were awaiting icebreaker assistance."
Don't let the Watermelons kill the Shale Gas Revolution
Telegraph
"As Dyson puts it in his foreword:
Because of shale gas, the air in Beijing will be cleaned up as the air in London was cleaned up sixty years ago. Because of shale gas, clean air will no longer be a luxury that only rich countries can afford. Because of shale gas, wealth and health will be distributed more equitably over the face of our planet.
And how have the Environmentalists reacted? Why they’re trying to kill the whole thing stone dead, of course."
"As Dyson puts it in his foreword:
Because of shale gas, the air in Beijing will be cleaned up as the air in London was cleaned up sixty years ago. Because of shale gas, clean air will no longer be a luxury that only rich countries can afford. Because of shale gas, wealth and health will be distributed more equitably over the face of our planet.
And how have the Environmentalists reacted? Why they’re trying to kill the whole thing stone dead, of course."
Back to basics: “Green Electric” becomes “General Electric” again
WUWT
"The president of General Electric slams his previous company green policy as being “too elitist”, vows to get back to “working”. Maybe this will mean no more “green sin week” on GE owned TV networks."
"The president of General Electric slams his previous company green policy as being “too elitist”, vows to get back to “working”. Maybe this will mean no more “green sin week” on GE owned TV networks."
Britain's New Climate Realism: We Are Winning The Argument
GWPF
"Only one-quarter of Britons think risks of climate change outweigh the benefits. The private think-tank Ipsos recently surveyed more than 2,000 Britons aged 16 and above about their attitudes toward science. A news release about the survey findings says nothing about climate change."
"Only one-quarter of Britons think risks of climate change outweigh the benefits. The private think-tank Ipsos recently surveyed more than 2,000 Britons aged 16 and above about their attitudes toward science. A news release about the survey findings says nothing about climate change."
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Australia’s carbon tax losing public opinion big time
WUWT
"It seems Australians are waking up to the folly of a carbon tax. I’m sure Mr. Flannery’s quote of the millenium helped bunches."
"It seems Australians are waking up to the folly of a carbon tax. I’m sure Mr. Flannery’s quote of the millenium helped bunches."
Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!”
GWPF
"George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.
Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.
Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony."
"George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.
Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.
Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony."
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Fixed: the IPCC’s Climate Model Evaluation Game
Donna Laframboise (Canada)
"We’ve been told the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is comprised of the world’s top scientific minds. But my research has uncovered something rather different.
One group of IPCC authors are 20-something grad students. Even though their experience of the world is neither broad nor deep, the IPCC has long relied on their expert judgment. Another group are those who’ve been appointed because they’re of the right gender or from the right county. (Since the IPCC is a UN body it’s hardly surprising that it considers these factors important.) A third group are activists and activist scientists.
But there’s yet another large contingent of people – climate modelers. While these individuals are often called scientists, their line of work has little in common with traditional science.
The scientific method involves forming an hypothesis, testing that hypothesis in the real world, and then confirming, adjusting, or abandoning the hypothesis according to what those real-world tests reveal."
"We’ve been told the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is comprised of the world’s top scientific minds. But my research has uncovered something rather different.
One group of IPCC authors are 20-something grad students. Even though their experience of the world is neither broad nor deep, the IPCC has long relied on their expert judgment. Another group are those who’ve been appointed because they’re of the right gender or from the right county. (Since the IPCC is a UN body it’s hardly surprising that it considers these factors important.) A third group are activists and activist scientists.
But there’s yet another large contingent of people – climate modelers. While these individuals are often called scientists, their line of work has little in common with traditional science.
The scientific method involves forming an hypothesis, testing that hypothesis in the real world, and then confirming, adjusting, or abandoning the hypothesis according to what those real-world tests reveal."
Monday, 2 May 2011
New Paper: Greenland ice sheet didn't melt despite temperatures much hotter in the past
The Hockey Schtick
"A new paper from the 2011 Antarctic Science Symposium presents new ice core data from Greenland and finds that not even the southern portion of Greenland was ice-free during the Eemian period, despite temperatures much higher than the present (5°C or 9°F) lasting for 16,000 years (from 130,000 to 114,000 years ago). Meanwhile, alarmists such as Richard Alley (buddy of Michael Mann at Penn State) and James Hansen claim "The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2°C." Note global temperatures have recovered by a mere 0.7°C since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850 and have been flat to declining since 1998."
"A new paper from the 2011 Antarctic Science Symposium presents new ice core data from Greenland and finds that not even the southern portion of Greenland was ice-free during the Eemian period, despite temperatures much higher than the present (5°C or 9°F) lasting for 16,000 years (from 130,000 to 114,000 years ago). Meanwhile, alarmists such as Richard Alley (buddy of Michael Mann at Penn State) and James Hansen claim "The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2°C." Note global temperatures have recovered by a mere 0.7°C since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850 and have been flat to declining since 1998."
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Scots windfarms paid cash to stop producing energy
BBC
"Hadyardhill in South Ayrshire, which is owned by SSE Renewables, was given £140,000 to stop producing energy, while Blacklaw windfarm in Lanarkshire - also owned by Scottish Power - was given £130,000.
The Millennium windfarm in the Highlands and Beinn Tharsuin, just north of Alness, each received £33,000 and £11,500 respectively.
Dr Lee Moroney, planning director for the REF, which has criticised subsidies to the renewable sector in the past, said: "The variability of wind power poses grid management problems for which there are no cheap solutions.In future we need greater electrical energy storage facilities and greater interconnection with our EU neighbours so that excess energy supplies can be sold or bought where required”
"However, throwing the energy away, and paying wind farms handsomely for doing so, is not only costly but obviously very wasteful".
"Hadyardhill in South Ayrshire, which is owned by SSE Renewables, was given £140,000 to stop producing energy, while Blacklaw windfarm in Lanarkshire - also owned by Scottish Power - was given £130,000.
The Millennium windfarm in the Highlands and Beinn Tharsuin, just north of Alness, each received £33,000 and £11,500 respectively.
Dr Lee Moroney, planning director for the REF, which has criticised subsidies to the renewable sector in the past, said: "The variability of wind power poses grid management problems for which there are no cheap solutions.In future we need greater electrical energy storage facilities and greater interconnection with our EU neighbours so that excess energy supplies can be sold or bought where required”
"However, throwing the energy away, and paying wind farms handsomely for doing so, is not only costly but obviously very wasteful".
Windfarms paid to switch off
Bishop Hill
"Wind farm operators in Scotland were paid nearly £900,000 to keep their turbines idle for a night because the National Grid did not need the power."
"Wind farm operators in Scotland were paid nearly £900,000 to keep their turbines idle for a night because the National Grid did not need the power."
Why windmills won’t wash
WUWT
"The UK has hidden much of the cost of its climate measures behind a calculatedly complex web of levies, taxes, charges, and subsidies, and – above all – behind a furtive near-doubling of the true cost of electricity to pay vast subsidies (“yacht money”, as we landowners call it) to anyone connected with windmills. The website of the King Canute Department amusingly calls this obscurantist mish-mash “transparency”.
How much “global warming” will Jumbo the Albino forestall? While it is in operation, it will generate 209,000/365/24 or almost 24 Watt-hours per hour on average: just about enough to drive an electric toothbrush."
"The UK has hidden much of the cost of its climate measures behind a calculatedly complex web of levies, taxes, charges, and subsidies, and – above all – behind a furtive near-doubling of the true cost of electricity to pay vast subsidies (“yacht money”, as we landowners call it) to anyone connected with windmills. The website of the King Canute Department amusingly calls this obscurantist mish-mash “transparency”.
How much “global warming” will Jumbo the Albino forestall? While it is in operation, it will generate 209,000/365/24 or almost 24 Watt-hours per hour on average: just about enough to drive an electric toothbrush."
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