February Climateballs
Following on from the first in the series, here is another round-up of recent climate idiocy.
Med islands renewable target
Ibiza and Mallorca have set targets to go 100% renewable by 2050! How much of their electricity is currently from renewables? 2%. So only another 98% to go. Sounds like a complete load of Balearics.
Mann gets engagement prize from AAAS
The AAAS (American Association for Advancement of Science) held a meeting this week. They have given Michael Mann an award for “Public Engagement with Science”. Roger Pielke has written a blog post on this, and several tweets drawing attention to Mann’s public engagement skills:
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/965280231635369984
Icebreaker breaks ice
A tanker has travelled along the North coast of Russia without an icebreaker, for the first time, reports the Guardian and Russia Today. But the ship itself is an icebreaker, newly built for this purpose. Paul Homewood reminds us that a similar bit of fake news came up a few months ago.
Hummus under threat!
Usually it’s coffee or chocolate that are about disappear from the planet due to climate change. But next up in the climate firing line is hummus, due to the vulnerability of chick peas. Somehow, the Guardian seems to have missed this story despite its vital importance to their readers. However, it may be possible to avert the imminent catastrophe by crossing chickpeas with wild strains, scientists say. It’s all top-notch science, published in Nature.
Climate activist only takes one long haul flight a year
Genevieve Guenther, @DoctorVive, Author, activist, climate messaging strategist with a PhD in Renaissance literature, was shocked to hear that Vox’s David Roberts was flying to Utah for a skiing holiday. She then said she’s stopped flying ‘almost entirely’ but still takes one long-haul flight a year. That’s more than most of us I think.
Anthropocene began in 1965, says one tree
“Scientists” have looked at a single tree on an island off New Zealand, and by measuring Carbon 14 in it have declared that the “Anthropocene” era began in 1965. Between October and December 1965, to be precise. It’s no surprise to see that the people involved are “Ship of fools” captain Chris Turney and Al Gore brown-noser Mark Maslin. Of course, to climate blog regulars, this is reminiscent of YAD06, until now the most influential tree in the world. WUWT describes this as a headline grabber posing as science.
Climate Scepticism 
If I didn’t know better, I would think that this was a set of bizarre comedy sketches written and performed by the Monty Python team and hand-picked for a new movie. I think it would be a smash hit at the box office. Just need a title . . . .
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Yes indeed. And there’s so much more. Like arrogant male Bob Ward claiming that climate sceptics are mostly arrogant males who have a ‘problem with women’.
Add your own examples in the comments…
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I’d love to hear Smashy and Nicy powering the White Isle all night on solar power
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Great stuff. Climate warriors need thick breastplates, not because what they say is controversial but more because they display such enormous hypocrisy
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A few years ago Mann wrote a climate comunication piece in Scientific American, called “False Hope”. It was so bad I wrote a blog post laughing at it. I also pointed out to the editor (who is a Marxist ultra feminist type) the technical flaws. I seem to recall the web version was retrofitted to disguise the grossest parts. Anyhow, the paper copy i got shows it clearly. If you want to see what I mean you can either fish for it in my blog (21st Century Social Critic) under July 2014, or look it up with a search engine.
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“A tanker has travelled along the North coast of Russia without an icebreaker, for the first time”…isn’t that like a “baby walks” headline?
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MiaB. More like “MAN WALKS’, since the tanker is itself an ice-breaker.
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You’re all wrong. The correct analogy is “Baby dog bites man on leg, man walks just fine.”
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ASSumptions,
ASSumptions.
Say, whatever
happened to
Conjectures ‘n
Refutations?
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I just realised, my house is even older than I thought – it dates back to another geological epoch!
https://twitter.com/Balinteractive/status/966294511327633408
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Also, fieldwork just got a whole lot simpler for geology students majoring in the Anthropocene.
https://twitter.com/Balinteractive/status/966291695280230401
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Professor Maslin could almost have his own Climateball section. Here he is declaring the exhaustively studied and documented Little Ice Age to be a myth on account of the fact that the Thames froze over only because of the old London Bridge reducing its flow.
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Yes indeed Jaime. In fact I started to write a blog post on his description of the LIA as myth but couldn’t think of anything to say. Like Mann, he’s a gift to the sceptics.
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Climate loon Kevin Anderson: anyone who doesn’t share my fanaticism is a denier:
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There’s a lot of competition, but Ben calls this out as “climate bullshit of the year”:
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We have a late entry for February Climateballs:
The island of Porto Santo, bizarrely described as “off the coast of Portugal”, is going to be powered by “recycled batteries, electric cars and other renewable energy sources”.
Either that, or it’s an ad for Renault cars aimed at the gullible and stupid.
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Chocolate famine? Well at least we’ll still have those bumper
spaghetti crops.
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Beth you are almost exactly a month too early for the harvest. Also that’s a very old bit of film, everything’s automated now. You can contribute to the unemployed spaghetti pickers fund – they even take Aussi dollars.
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Alan, nuthing sadder than an unemployed spaghetti picker,
kinda’ like the Luddites. (
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Could I just squeeze this in?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/horseshoe-hares-turn-white-winter-camouflage-laura-gigliotti-canada-pennsylvania-a8220011.html
With all this “climate change” lying about in thick drifts, those unchanged bunnies are really going to stand out.
and then I’m surprised no-one else has reported this devastating climateball
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180220161206.htm
Swallowtails will never be the same, and it’s all our wicked fault.
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Thanks Alan. Here’s another one that made me laugh. Climate Home’s Karl Mathiesen is concerned that the EU’s latest Brexit proposals do not mention climate change.
https://twitter.com/KarlMathiesen/status/968809401715953664
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Oh those wicked EU bureaucrats. See, so without our firm guiding hand on climate matters the continentals are going to backslide and we are all going to end up with thermageddon (and even colder winters). We have a moral duty to stay in the EU and exert our moral influence. Take pity on our x-pats, forced to live with such climatic depravity (and good wine, pate and cheeses)!
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Niet! Outsky!
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Finally, definitive proof of Russian interference in Brexit. Serfs speak out.
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