A place for you to point to climate and related news, introduce yourself to other Cliscep contributors, and suggest topics for new posts.

390 Comments

  2. #ClimateScan seems to be trending everyday this week
    The tweeters seem to be genuine people
    Probably mostly American and Canadian

    Like

  4. Maybe this should go on a thread discussing our tendency to theory-build when we really don’t have a clue.

    But I can’t remember where that was.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. And while we’re on people commenting on the tweets of mammal-lover Science girl:

    Didn’t know that about the size of bat cities. Jit probably did.

    Like

  6. “But I can’t remember where that was”.

    Are you thinking of my ‘Deconstructing Scepticism” article where I discuss Nassim Taleb’s concept of the theorizing disease?

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Countryfile was from north of Perth/Dundee in Scotland
    20:30 pm intro contains ✅ “Climate Change”
    Prog starts
    20:40 ✅ “Biodiversity town”

    The Charlotte Smith farming news item
    20:43 ✅ “Record breaking HEATWAVE
    20:43 ✅ “These EXTREME weather events are predicted to happen more often cos of Climate Change”
    20:43 “farming is under pressure ✅ “to reduce Climate Change”
    20:44 ✅ “Rewilding” 300,000 Hectares, that’s the England target for 20 years (same size as Lancashire)
    ✅ “Greenhouse gases”
    20:46 ✅ “Cost Of Living Crisis”
    20:48 Exeter farm shop ✅ “Henry Dimbleby ” BBC-royal family
    … says ‘agriculture is evil’ “one of the 2 biggest causes of ✅ Climate Change”

    HD “Since the 70s wheat yields have doubled
    and farmland birds have halved”
    doh We manage land differently now
    We used to have open rubbish heaps and used to put stuff on the soil (sewage chunks) that gulls would gobble up
    ..since we don’t do that there are less gulls
    birds of prey have come in and taken some small birds
    (I also guess the count is flaky eg doesn’t include pheasants)

    – Now Gloucs farmer planting wild flowers for birds and collecting a big grant that magic unicorns pay for.
    9% of his land
    – now Wiltshire with some eco famers
    – Now she’s at an indoor farm in Worcs
    The indoor farm is towers of lettuce pots like trees in a greenhouse
    Doh mostly no-one needs to buy lettuce ..it grows easily in a plant pot

    The reporter started up in Exeter
    so it seems like she’s travelled hundreds of miles in this report about SAVING CO2
    “having no self awareness” is a libmob characteristic

    Like

  8. next item
    Adam said “unlike the sheep I can’t make money from horses”
    Doh his farm is a themepark that costs your family £60 to visit
    £15 for people older than four, Toddler (2-3)£10.00 per ticket too

    Countryside weekly weather
    21:18 ✅ “temperature records”
    21:18 ✅ “scientists say” ”
    that ✅these records wouldn’t have been possible without the effect of climate change”

    21:20 ✅ Drought porn “just 7% of the normal rainfall in the southeast”

    He’s kind of admitted he’s misleading cos the normal is for the whole of July,
    but his 2022 tallies DO NOT include the rain in the last few days

    Liked by 1 person

  10. The Guardian on 1stAugust 2022:

    “UK farmers count cost as heatwave kills fruit and vegetable crops
    Fears of future threats to food security if more extreme heat caused by climate crisis hits production”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/01/uk-farmers-count-cost-as-heatwave-kills-fruit-and-vegetable-crops

    The Guardian on 22nd July 2022:

    “Prices fall as UK heatwave produces glut of soft fruit
    Yields of cherries, strawberries and blueberries could more than double on the same time last year”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/22/prices-fall-as-uk-heatwave-produces-glut-of-soft-fruit

    And there’s also this:

    “‘The vines are loving it’: Hot, dry summer set to make 2022 a great year for English wine”

    https://inews.co.uk/news/english-wine-2022-hot-dry-summer-vines-great-year-1771226?ITO=msn

    Liked by 1 person

  11. I’ve been checking up about the GreatDrought claims that the media has got carried away with
    Their narrative is “We We We are in a drought”
    even our local media is doing that yet their weather focasts keep telling us about rain

    So I can see maybe there is a bone dry southeast cos that is what the journos and activist make out
    yet if you go to Twitter and search on : county and raining
    You see people tweeting that it rained in the garden eg in a lot of SE places on the night of the 21/22
    And when I check the Met Office WOW graphs I see it for some stations, but not others
    .. So the idea of a bone dry county is wrong
    but since the rain falls in pockets, some stations did record less than 10mm in the whole of July

    Like

  12. Give me strength:

    “Climate change: More studies needed on possibility of human extinction”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62378157

    “Catastrophic climate change outcomes, including human extinction, are not being taken seriously enough by scientists, a new study says.

    The authors say that the consequences of more extreme warming – still on the cards if no action is taken – are “dangerously underexplored”.

    They argue that the world needs to start preparing for the possibility of what they term the “climate endgame”.

    They want UN scientists to investigate the risk of catastrophic change.

    According to this new analysis, the closest attempts to directly understand or address how climate change could lead to global catastrophe have come from popular science books such as The Uninhabitable Earth and not from mainstream science research….”.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. “Northern Ireland records driest July this century”. When you click on the link at the BBC website, it morphs into “Northern Ireland weather: Just over 50% of normal rainfall for July”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-62384227

    “It has been the driest July this century in Northern Ireland, with just over 50% of the normal monthly rainfall.

    A total of 45.8mm of rain was recorded for the whole month. It has not been as dry since 2000 when just 40mm of rain fell.”

    “This century” sounds so much more dramatic than “in 22 years”.

    Climate change?

    “Some parts of Northern Ireland have been wetter than others.

    Armagh, for example, recorded just 24mm of rain in July, whereas Castlederg recorded more than three times that amount at 76mm.”

    Doesn’t sound like that. In fairness, for once, they don’t claim that it is, although they do mention that as well as being dry in Northern Ireland in July it also saw some flooding. At that point the BBC couldn’t help itself:

    “An academic from Queen’s University, Belfast, has warned that further such flooding is likely as climate change takes hold.”

    Like

  14. Morrisons launch range of supposed carbon-neutral eggs from chickens fed exclusively upon insects. Insects fed on Morrisons own brand of food waste. Omelettes will never seem the same.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Mark (7:38 AM):

    The ridiculous PNAS paper discussed has this at the start:

    Edited by Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

    How the mighty have fallen. See the Boston Globe of 16 May 2010:

    A cooling trend
    They were friends as global warming skeptics, but then their minds and lives diverged. That these MIT experts now see the facts, and each other, so differently shows how hard climate consensus will be.

    That’s talking about Emanuel and Lindzen of course. 12 more years and it’s deeper into the mire of selling-out for KE.

    Like

  17. Two familiar names on Twitter. I’m not sure if Jaime’s guess is right but the aggregate fact is amazing – and of course flies in the face of green doomsterism.

    Like

  18. Also re: Mark (7:38 AM)

    In the article, Dr Luke Kemp of Cambridge University is quoted as saying:

    “Understanding these plausible but grim scenarios is something that could galvanise both political and civil opinion. We saw this when it came to the identification of the idea of a nuclear winter that helped compel a lot of the public efforts as well as the disarmament movement throughout the 1970s and ’80s.”

    Yes, which is exactly what the Kremlin had in mind when it started its scientific hoax. And I do mean hoax. This is not one of those conspiracy theories we sceptics are said to love. The ‘idea of nuclear winter’, is a well-documented hoax that came and went without anyone losing their job over it. Is that what Dr Kemp is suggesting? We need another hoax to help ‘compel’ people? Or is he just so ill-informed that he still thinks nuclear winter was a respectable scientific theory?

    Like

  19. The following in the Daily Telegraph today:

    “History students warned accounts of religious miracles may disturb them”

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/history-students-warned-accounts-of-religious-miracles-may-disturb-them/ar-AA10dNjM

    Apparently, some of the stuff that went on in medieval times was a bit graphic for today’s sensitive youngsters. It can only be a matter of time before the Bible has to carry the following on its front cover:

    “Warning: Some readers may find parts of this book triggering”.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Thurs 4th August 9am & 9pm BBCRadio4 Sangita Myska show
    Ep.1 asks, “Can ‘feeling the future’ help solve the *climate crisis* ?’.

    Does the BBC have an editorial line
    that there is a “Climate Crisis” ?

    That looks to me like PR word, not a science word
    Just like river courses change, climate changes,
    that doesn’t mean it’s a CRISIS

    Like

  21. John – “Warning: Some readers may find parts of this book triggering”

    funny you should mention that. I’m reading “Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist by Michael Shermer” – amazon book blurb –

    “Who is the ‘Devil’? And what is he due? The Devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety’s sake because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn’t you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence ‘unpleasant’ ideas, what’s to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer. The new collection of essays and articles takes the Devil by the horns by tackling five key themes: free thought and free speech, politics and society, scientific humanism, religion, and the ideas of controversial intellectuals. For our own sake, we must give the Devil his due.”

    triggering is one of the topics he has a go at.

    Like

  24. John (02 AUG 22 AT 2:19 PM): Very interesting point, thank you. I didn’t know nothing about nuclear winter, positive or negative. So at least I avoided the trap of the many who “know something that ain’t so” as one of Thomas Sowell’s favourite sayings goes. Like the esteemed Dr Kemp by the sound of it.

    Open advocacy of deception? I woudn’t go that far. Not caring, despite the enormity of the issues at stake? I assume so.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. John and dfhunter: I wouldn’t make the bible a special case. But I’m reminded of one of my closest friends from school, who like me made a commitment to Christ in those days. We met up recently and he told me of three major challenges/setbacks he’d had in the last ten years. (I knew some of it already, including the bracing choice presented after bladder cancer was diagnosed: you can either die or probably die. He went with the latter and he’s now got the all-clear on that.)

    But the third bombshell I didn’t know about: Cambridge has turned him down for a PhD on his very novel ideas on what the author of the book of Job is up to with the Hebrew language. (“Far greater than Shakespeare” is one of the outcomes in Simon’s mind.) “Too eccentric” my alma mater said. That was bound to pique my interest. And then a 30-year-old scholar and associate professor at Edinburgh heard about it and has picked it up as supervisor. And she, Simon says, is brilliant.

    Anyway, it reminded me of other areas of academia. No risk, no reward. Read the difficult bits. And think deeply about them.

    [Correction: Cambridge said “Too idiosyncratic.” Even better.]

    Like

  26. Bladder cancer is common
    First you have minor chemo
    then if it comes back you can opt for major chemo
    or have the bladder cut out
    For women they put a tap on your stomach and fit it to a plastic bladder that it under your shirt.
    Life is then normal except when it accidentally disconnects.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Local news is leading with the wind turbine fire in Hull
    a solitary turbine on an industrial site recently sold to Cargill by Croda International

    “Wind turbine blaze sends smoke billowing across Hull – live updates
    In dramatic scenes, a large plume of smoke is flowing out of a turning windmill”
    It was in the generator winding at the back ..all destroyed now ..reporter said the fire was fueled by oil inside it
    and now it’s a pile of residue
    The turbine is still all there just very charred
    he says a team will be there to take it down

    https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/bankside-wind-turbine-blaze-sends-7414142

    Liked by 1 person

  28. comments “One did this in Lincolnshire a few weeks back. Obviously some dodgy electronics up those towers.”

    Lot of recent Facebook posts. The Hull people seem very anti-turbine

    BBC tweet

    – a burning turbine probably generates more energy than a turning one
    – Is that the plan that the Earth will be cooled by blocking the sun with smoke from burning wind turbines ?

    Liked by 2 people

  29. 2 days ago @SiemensGamesaUK tweeted
    Aug 1
    The first turbine at Kaskasi in Germany includes the first commercial RecyclableBlades,
    made in Hull, a turning point for the #offshorewind industry.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Stew on the exciting bladder cancer / urostomy bag details:

    Life is then normal except when it accidentally disconnects.

    Yep, the size of the bag is highly constrained by this ever-present and embarrassing risk.
    We went through all that. Yet it was a very jolly conversation.
    That’s long-duration friendship for you I guess.

    Like

  33. Croda used it for virtue signalling
    “We already have sustainability initiatives at sites across the world, including a wind turbine at our Hull site
    which generated 40% of the site’s electricity in 2018”
    seems to be a 2 MW turbine
    Maybe 30% Cap factor
    So call that 600KW average output
    ie one 2 thousandth of a normal gas power station

    The maths on the web page says
    https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/wind-power/repower-signs-industrial-deal/#gref
    “The turbine produces approximately 17 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy a day against an average business use of 30 MWh per day, any excess capacity is exported to the grid.”
    OK 17/(24hr x 2MW) = 35.4% cap factor
    I believe that is over optimistic and in reality 30% is more likely

    Like

  34. Mark I just looked into the Trash .. they do seem to be genuine clever botposts
    The Spam box still has 3 genuine comments from 3 days ago ..are those people banned ?

    Like

  36. Whenever the topic of colostomy bags is mentioned, my mind turns automatically to Billy Connolly’s stage performance with incontinence trousers. I know it’s wrong, but I cannot help myself. If ever there was a piece of anti-woke humour, that was it. Even without seeing it, just the memory of it brings a smile. I should be ashamed, but I’m not.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. Stew, thanks for looking. I have deleted hundreds of dodgy posts that were in spam. The three genuine ones there now are duplicates of posts that I have already released. Frustrated commenters posted them twice. At this stage I have not deleted the duplicate posts that remain in spam for now.

    Liked by 1 person

  38. “‘Grotesque greed’: immoral fossil fuel profits must be taxed, says UN chief
    António Guterres urges governments to introduce windfall levies and use money to support vulnerable people”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/03/greed-of-fossil-fuel-companies-is-grotesque-says-un-secretary-general

    “The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described the record profits of oil and gas companies as immoral and urged governments to introduce a windfall tax, using the money to help those in the most need.

    Speaking in New York on Wednesday, Guterres said the “grotesque greed” of the fossil fuel companies and their financial backers had led to the combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year hitting almost $100bn (£82bn).

    “It is immoral for oil and gas companies to be making record profits from this energy crisis on the backs of the poorest people and communities, at a massive cost to the climate,” he said.

    “I urge all governments to tax these excessive profits, and use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.”

    Earlier this week, BP was the latest fossil fuel giant to announce huge gains, revealing it had tripled its profits to nearly £7bn in the second quarter of the year amid high oil prices during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Guterres said such profits were unacceptable as people around the world faced financial ruin….”.

    But he says nothing about the immorality and grotesque greed of renewables companies both hoovering up subsidies and enjoying windfall profits and delaying triggering contracts for difference while they profit greatly from market prices instead, all on the backs of the poorest peoples and communities. Why not? Why the double standards?

    Like

  39. [Prolly OT. I haven’t found a climate link yet.]

    Sue Limb has written some great sitcoms. (Gloomsbury is my favourite.) Her latest is called Mucking In. It’s about a couple who run an organic farm in the Cotswolds.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019b3s

    As it happens, Limb actually lives on an organic farm in the Cotswolds. It’s a mile from Nanny Farmer’s Bottom, is owned by The National Trust and is run by Limb’s partner, Steve Redman, who, late last year, was found guilty of ‘failing to apply ear tags to sheep, not reporting animal movements and deaths, failing to properly dispose of animal carcasses and falsifying the birth records of 12 cattle’. That last offence was outright fraud, and officials had warned Redman about the other, perhaps lesser offences ‘on a number of occasions over many years’, but all he got was costs and a suspended 6-month sentence.

    Limb’s response?

    The new sitcom on Radio 4, Mucking In, obvz.

    Here’s the first episode:

    Secrets, Lies and Pointless Piles of Paperwork

    On Dangerfield Farm, the annual organic inspection is Ben and Cicely’s nightmare. Not just because every aspect of Ben’s management will be probed, but also because Cicely has forgotten to keep the Visitors’ Book up to date and has to forge it at the last minute.

    A farm inspector is said to look like a psychopathic mass murderer with mad, staring eyes, a turkey neck, horribly small hands, a strange, harsh, dalek-like voice and nasty little glasses. ‘Chilling, really. I honestly thought – really! – when I first saw him: Josef Goebbels.’

    Right. Nasty pointless paperwork policed by nasty little Nazis with nasty little hands, nasty little glasses and so on.

    I couldn’t spot anything in the episode about simple fraud or preventing the spread of nasty little livestock diseases on a farm that receives more than £20k a year in subsidies, which subsidies obvz require Pointless Piles of Paperwork.

    Relevance to climate change?

    Erm…

    Redman buried some of the dead organic sheep under a pile of rotting organic potatoes, so there’s bound to be an organic Only Connect link out there somewhere.

    Laterz, perhaps.

    Like

  40. Perhaps Guterres should have read this before pontificating?

    “Subsidised Renewables Revolt: Entrenched Energy Poverty Source of Next Revolution”

    https://stopthesethings.com/2022/08/03/subsidised-renewables-revolt-entrenched-energy-poverty-source-of-next-revolution/

    “…falling consumption is the direct result of the extremely high climate policy costs of adopting thermodynamically inferior renewable generation.

    The Emissions Trading Scheme, for example, has cost consumers some €78 billion in the period 2013 to 2021, and continues to add about €17 billion a year to bills.

    Subsidies to renewable energy have cost EU consumers about €770 billion in the period 2008 to 2021, and continue to add about €69 billion a year to bills.

    Further analysis reveals that electricity generation productivity has collapsed, with system load factor falling from an adequate 56% in 1990 to a worryingly inefficient and expensive 37% in 2020.

    The EU’s own data shows that energy prices have been consistently above the non-EU G20 average, with household electricity prices for example being 80% higher and industrial electricity prices being 30% higher, a difference that is largely due to policy. Similar effects are found in relation to both natural gas and transport fuel prices.

    In spite of this punishingly expensive support for renewables the EU member states have gained only a marginal share of the global market for renewable energy manufacturing, which is now dominated by Asia, and particularly China, where, in a bitter irony, manufacturing costs are lower because the energy supply in that region is principally derived from low-cost fossil fuels….”.

    Like

  41. Now it’s Aberdeen University’s turn to be called out:

    “Beware being triggered by the monsters in ancient Beowulf poem, university warns students.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/beware-being-triggered-by-the-monsters-in-ancient-beowulf-poem-university-warns-students/ar-AA10gRRy?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=9680f502a4e840e98fe5c2ade738dd44

    The professors are warning students that the poem contains examples of ‘animal cruelty’ and ‘ableism’, though they are also keen to warn that ‘there will also be monsters’.

    But it isn’t just Beowulf that has been singled out for the snowflake treatment. A more general note has been issued:

    “Aberdeen’s cautionary note covering this text and others pre-warns students about “blasphemy, defecation, psychological violence, pain, alcohol abuse, symbols of evil, black magic” in the literature of the Middle Ages, as well as reference to “death, blood, eating disorders”.

    Eating disorders! Now that is going too far. Actually, those of you who read my latest article will know that the greatest horror to be revealed here is that there are professors at Aberdeen University who use terms such as ‘pre-warn’. I find that very triggering.

    Like

  42. John, had to look up definition of ‘abilism’, and was immediately reminded by “she who must be listened to” of St. Gawain and the Green Knight, who, if we remember correctly ended up running around with no head. I’m sure that if St Gawain was on the syllabus, Aberdeen would have to go overboard with its warnings to innocent student buttercups.

    Like

  43. Alan,

    I’m sure that the Green Knight story would be very triggering for the decapitated — or as we must say now, the differently headed.

    Like

  44. Terrifying:

    “Twelve angry children: young jurors call adults to account for climate crisis in The Trials
    Dawn King’s new play at the Donmar imagines a reckoning for environmental chaos, presided over by the kids who inherit the mess. We join the writer and cast, including stars of Heartstopper, in rehearsal”

    https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/aug/04/climate-crisis-the-trials-dawn-king-play

    Still, the irony of the opening words is pretty overwhelming:

    “In 2019, the playwright Dawn King was booking flights to New York for a writing residency. It was the day of the UK’s first large-scale School Strikes for Climate, a movement launched by Greta Thunberg in Sweden. Checking her news feeds, King – who had meant to join the protests – realised she had clean forgotten. She winces at the memory.

    “I thought, ‘Wow, you think you’re so green, such a liberal, but you’re not helping, are you? In the future you’ll be judged as harshly as everyone else. What are you actually doing?’”…”.

    Like

  46. The usual apocalyptic stuff from the Guardian:
    “Revealed: how climate breakdown is supercharging toll of extreme weather”
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/04/climate-breakdown-supercharging-extreme-weather
    It’s basically a compilation of attribution studies:
    “The question the world’s scientists are tackling is to what extent human-caused global heating is to blame for a particular extreme weather event as opposed to natural variability in weather patterns.
    Scientists calculate this by using weather records and computer models to compare two worlds. One is the world we are in, heated by our carbon emissions. The other is the world before the mass burning of fossil fuels and rising temperatures. Researchers assess how frequent a specific extreme weather event is in both worlds. If it is more intense or more frequent in our heated world, then the footprint of global heating is clear.”

    They essentially compare computer simulations of extreme events with and without anthropogenic forcing. While I can imagine it may be possible to calibrate and verify a computer model with weather data for the “world” with anthropogenic forcing it is not possible to calibrate the model for the condition without anthropogenic forcing. There are no data for that “world”. So they are having to make assumptions about the computer model parameters without being able to verify that the assumptions are correct..

    This also caught my eye:
    “Global heating has been hurting us for far longer than commonly assumed, with traces of its influence as far back as the heatwaves and droughts that triggered the infamous Dust Bowl in the US in the mid-1930s.”
    So now those pesky deniers will no longer be able claim that the extreme high temperatures and drought in the 1930s demonstrate that current conditions are not exceptional.

    Like

  47. potentilla,

    “Global heating has been hurting us for far longer than commonly assumed, with traces of its influence as far back as the heatwaves and droughts that triggered the infamous Dust Bowl in the US in the mid-1930s.”

    I don’t think we pesky deniers can be prevented from pointing to such things. The USA has still seen nothing to compare to the extraordinary weather of the late 1920s and 1930s. Given how much CO2 and other GHGs have been pumped into the atmosphere since then. Today’s climate should, according to the theory, be much more extreme, but despite the best efforts to present it that way, it isn’t.

    And how far back will they go? Can they trace its influence in the UK heatwave summer of 1911? In the droughts and floods in the UK in the 19th century? If they go too far down that road, they undermine their case completely.

    Like

  49. Paul Homewood has a piece up today about how the Met Office, after a few wet summers, predicted in 2013 that wet summers would become the norm in the UK for the next 10-20 years:

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/08/05/flashback-met-office-predict-wet-uk-summers/

    He links to an article about this in the Huffington Post, but I thought – in view of its near-hysteria regarding this year’s hot and dry summer in part of England, that I would see how the Guardian reported it at the time. Here’s what I found (from 19th June 2013):

    “”Met Office meeting: UK’s spell of awful summers is set to continue
    Forecast that Britain could be in middle of 10-20 year ‘cycle’ of wet summers delivered following gathering at Met Office”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/18/climate-uk-weather-summer-rain

    “Don’t worry, summer is on its way – but you might have to wait until 2023.

    As the prospect of another gloomy Glastonbury and wet Wimbledon looms, leading climate scientists have warned that the UK could be set for a further five to 10 years of washout summers.

    The grim conclusion was delivered after an unprecedented gathering of scientists and meteorologists at the Met Office in Exeter to debate the range of possible causes for Europe’s “unusual seasonal weather” over recent years, a sequence that has lasted since 2007.

    Many will have hoped for news of sunnier times ahead. But after experts brainstormed through the day they delivered the shock finding that the UK could be in the middle of a 10-20 year “cycle” of wet summers. The last six out of seven summers in the UK have seen below-average temperatures and sunshine, and above-average rainfall….

    …The scientists must now address what “dynamical drivers” are causing this cycle, Belcher said. The meeting debated a range of possible interconnected reasons for the unusual weather of recent years, including this year’s cold spring and the freezing winter of 2010/11. The most likely cause for the wet summers, he said, was the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, or AMO, a natural pattern of long-term changes to ocean currents.

    Other candidate causes that could be “loading the dice”, as Belcher described it, include a shift in the jet stream, solar variability and fast-retreating Arctic sea ice. Aggravating all of these factors could be the influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere…”.

    In fairness, the article is hedged about with lots of caveats and conditional clauses, but it’s still rather amusing. I’m guessing that having now told us that climate change means we’re all going to fry and run out of water, things might go back to being wet and cool for a few summers….

    This article from 3 days later offers up a few giggles:

    “40 consequences of 10 wet summers: what will a decade of rain do to us?
    Forecasters have warned that we may need to get used to washout summers, perhaps for the next 10 years. From wildlife to camping to fashion, what will this do to us a nation?”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/22/40-consequences-10-wet-summers

    Among those consequences are things like:

    “Thought you’d need drought-resistant Mediterranean plants in your plot? Think again. Gardening expert Alys Fowler says there is nothing to fear from unpredictable weather if we grow as wide a variety of plants and vegetables as possible, and perhaps switch from tomatoes, aubergines and bell peppers to tougher veggies such as globe and jerusalem artichokes or rhubarb. Flower-wise, it’s back to the English cottage garden with delphiniums and geraniums.”

    And:

    “Damp summers mean an increase in vegetation growth – so for those who like a tidy lawn, the mower is going to be in constant use, according to Matthew Oates from the National Trust. Nettles, brambles and other “thuggish” vegetation will grow rampantly, to the detriment of shorter, more delicate grasses. There will be more weeds and slugs, who love damp weather, but pesticide sprays and weedkiller will be washed off more easily by the continuous rain – so it’ll be harder work for gardeners all round.”

    And:

    “Delicate, warmth-loving winged insects such as butterflies, bees and hoverflies hate the rain because it damages their wings, so they will be less widespread across the country. Instead, they will retreat to safer colonies, such as those in large nature reserves. The animals and birds that feed on them, from bats to swifts and swallows, will also be affected by this loss, says Oates.”

    And:

    “Endless winters and washout summers have already taken their toll on the fashion houses’ beloved “seasons”. As a result, brands are increasingly going seasonless, says Greene, instead stocking key wardrobe pieces all year round.”

    And (I particularly like this one):

    “More hosepipe bans
    Yes, really. As water stocks are replenished in winter rather than summer, a summer of rain may have little effect on a hosepipe ban, according to hosepipeban.org.uk. Summer rains are less useful because a large percentage of it evaporates or is used by vegetation.”

    And so much more!

    Like

  50. What’s really curious also is how quickly people forget recent weather, and how the climate change narrative at the likes of the BBC and the Guardian changes seamlessly to blame whatever unusual weather we might have from time to time on “climate change”. Here’s the BBC, from just over a decade ago:

    “Summer ‘wettest in 100 years’, Met Office figures show”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19427139

    “This summer is set to be the second wettest in the UK since records began – and the wettest summer in 100 years – provisional Met Office figures suggest.

    The wettest summer – defined as June, July and August – since national records began was in 1912.

    Figures up until 29 August show that 366.8 mm of rain fell across the UK this summer, compared with 384.4 mm rainfall in 1912.

    The April to June period was also the wettest recorded in the UK.

    The figures are provisional as there are still two days remaining in August, but the BBC Weather Centre said the rainfall was not expected to exceed the total amount in 1912. Records began in 1910.

    BBC weather presenter Laura Tobin said this summer had been so wet because a jet stream – a fast moving band of air high in atmosphere – from America, which should be sitting across Scotland and the north of England, was much further south this year.

    “It meant June was the wettest on record – most places had over one-and-a-half times more rain than they should have.

    “July was also one of the wettest months ever, with some areas like Dorset breaking records. August has been about average,” she said….”.

    I suppose to give them their due, they didn’t blame it on “climate change”, but then I suppose it didn’t really fit the narrative.

    Like

  51. PJW put up a new video about Spain and Germany making new anti-AC and anti-heating laws
    … https://youtu.be/l3NS9DM8Nw8

    His blurb points out Big Brother doesn’t didn’t like that
    “Demonetized – for talking about air conditioning (obviously!) ”

    BTW YouTube has placed a Covid warning below the video
    Yet PJW doesn’t mention Covid, in the video

    Like

  55. “BBC weather presenter Laura Tobin said this summer had been so wet because a jet stream – a fast moving band of air high in atmosphere – from America”

    well to fair to Laura the jet stream was never mentioned much back then, in the mists of time.

    Like

  56. Commonwealth Games viewer
    Anyway, the Scots lass was going on about sports people for climate change and puts up two young women of colour.
    1 from Papua New Guinea* and 1 from Zambia.
    They both bang on about rising water levels co2 levels and other such crap. It transpires that they are both teachers of young children and it seems the continuously spout this drivel to the children in their care.
    Nobody asked them how they got from PNG and Zambia to Birmingham, probably on airplanes powered with unicorn juice.

    There area few complaint tweets at 3:47pm Friday
    2 praise tweet too https://twitter.com/christill/status/1555580986552885253
    Hazel Irvine interviewed two female athletes from Fiji and Zambia about climate change.
    *so not PNG

    ” both bang on about rising water levels” … not possible, cos Zambia is a land locked country

    BTW BBCsport tweeted a video
    #BBCFootball Jurgen Klopp has compared fixture congestion to climate change

    Like

  58. I’ll do a transcript.. Its a carefully crafted BBC NewsPR Nudgevert,
    complete with video montages, drone shots and plinky plonk brainwashing background music.
    It started just before the 1h50min mark https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0019vg5/commonwealth-games-day-8-bbc-one-13451800-beach-volleyball-lawn-bowls-badminton-diving
    Hazel Irvine anchoring in the studio
    It’s massive so the transcript is here
    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2790773

    Like

  59. An XR oldie (August 2021):

    The flautist’s tuneless noodlings remind me of a 1990s comedy sketch. I don’t think it’s Little Britain’s Ray McCooney or The Fast Show’s occasional pan pipes thing.

    It’s stuck in my head: der duh der der duh de-duuuuur. Earworm hell. Can anyone put me out of my confused misery, please?

    Like

  60. Were they playing musical chairs? No idea what the flautist was playing – tuneless is the word!

    Like

  62. stewgreen, they live in a world that I don’t recognise. In the world I inhabit, we’re bombarded morning, noon and night by the media with climate alarmism, and while it (the daily propaganda) is getting worse, it’s been going on for decades, not just the last three years. As for those who dare to question aspects of the narrative (deniers, in some people’s world) being allowed air-time, who do they think they’re kidding?

    Liked by 1 person

  63. Mark, a pink oboe would surely have suited XR’s brand better than a flute.

    Like

  64. UEA Ecology Professor attributes swarms of spider crabs infesting shallow waters off a Cornish beach to shed their shells to warming waters (caused by guess what?). Does he give a measure of this warming? Does he heck?

    Like

  66. Well I never: spider crabs or crab spiders. There’s a difference? Well I’ll only eat one of them. The Guardian doesn’t seem to care at all.

    Like

  67. 8:42pm Countryfile
    The Climate Change bit
    “Here’ a buried Roman fort called Magna .. do you know the peat bog here is drying up ?”
    .. So hang on the Roman’s didn’t build on a peat bog
    The peat bog came later that’s why Roman artefacts are discovered in it.

    I just checked Hadrian’s wall recent rainfall .. a lot of days with rain .. It’s not the dry southeast of England

    (Magnis or Magna or Magnae Carvetiorum was a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall in northern Britain. Its ruins are now known as Carvoran Roman Fort and are located near Carvoran )

    BBC Charlotte “Climate change here could have a real impact on our past !”

    10 mins later As the credits rolled they were playing a trailer for the three part series “Big Oil vs The World ” a series which propagates a myth that big oil is against mad global warming policies

    Like

  69. This morning on my Apple News app I read an item about crabs infesting beaches in Cornwall. Seemed remarkably similar to last weeks BBC news story but was attributed to Sky News with no mention of BBC.
    Let’s see: Crabs venomous check
    Response to warm waters/climate change check
    Mention of previous shark attack check

    So who’s story is it?

    Like

  70. Alan,

    You might find that it is all from the same original copy, as provided by Reuters or similar. A lot of these news outlets don’t write their own stuff.

    Like

  71. In Newsbank, the Mirror was the first newspaper.or news agency to cover this year’s Cornish crab spiderspider crab swarms. Tuesday 2nd Aug. Nothing very scary. Some ‘locals’ (prolly grockles) were said to be disgusted by the crabs and climate change got a brief mention but the story was mostly about the the wonders of nature. (On the same day the Beeb put Katie Maggs’s video on its website. The Mirror might have been, er, mirroring that.)

    The leg-biting ‘just off Penzance’ blue shark (real, though it happened in deep water about 15 miles from Penzance) and the ‘harmless to humans’ crab venom (totally fake) invaded the Cornish crab swarm arena three days later in two very similar stories, a new one in the Mirror (different authors from the first) and one in the Telegraph. One of those stories copied the other or they both copied a story that’s not in Newsbank.

    Lots more papers then parroted those two stories’ sensationalism and falsehoods on the 6th (Times, Sun, Indie, Graun and Daily Star), with the Star adding a new factoid that I don’t think anyone else has recycled yet: the supposedly venomous spider crabs are called ‘Godfather’ crabs because they ‘originate from Mafia territory in Sicily’.

    Prolly thinking of crab spiders again.

    Like

  72. 6:14pm TV Climate debate @GBNEWS @MichelleDewbs show
    David Kurten vs alarmist Jo Phillips (ex staffer of Paddy Ashdown)

    “We are in a Climate Catastrophe”
    “but EVERY leading *scientific body in the world* says we are facing a Climate Emergency, the ozone layer has got holes in it …
    glaciers are melting, ice shelves are melting, we are seeing huge changes that can’t be put down to ,
    and we don’t have energy independence cos we import so much gas ”
    .. * no they don’t ..that is a PR word .. and she just mixed Climate and Ozone hole

    Kurten “we don’t have energy independence cos since 2014 the gov has closed 11 of the 14 coal power stations”

    Phillips “Are you a scientist !”
    DK “Yes I am”
    Phillips “You are beginning to sound like a flat Earther”

    DK “sure CO2 has increased for 3 to 4 molecules, sure temps have increased from 14 to 14.7 over the last 250 years
    but the basis we were coming out of the Medieval ice age and before that temps were much warmer”
    Phillips “I find this verging on the DANGEROUS this sort of theory, we are in a Climate Crisis and we will get to the point where we can’t do anything about it !”

    viewer “but scientists who don’t conform are censored”
    Phillips “The BBC in particular has attempted balance,
    so I don’t think those views are censored, saying they are is going down the route of BONKERS CONSPIRACY THEORY”

    Kurten “In the 80s BBC had Attenborough and David Bellamy
    when Bellamy came out saying CO2 is not a problem, they censored him”

    @MichelleDewbs then pointed out that Phillips calling Kurten a FlatEarther is a kind of censorship

    Liked by 1 person

  73. “Climate change: Alps glaciers melting faster as heatwaves hit”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-62466095

    “Melting glaciers in the Alps are on track for their highest mass losses in at least 60 years, according to data seen by Reuters.

    The area saw two early summer heatwaves and little snowfall last winter.

    Zermatt, a Swiss mountain village which usually sees July temperatures in the twenties, has had recent highs of 30C (86F).”

    Having spent time climbing in the Alps, this is a situation of interest to me, and I readily accept that this year is unusual. However, what sort of terrible news is it that Zermatt in July normally sees temperatures in the twenties (would that be 21C or 29C?) but this year has seen them reach highs of 30C (recent highs – July or August?). Also – “data seen by Reuters” (but presumably not by the BBC) is hearsay at this stage, not really news. Plus “highest mass losses in at least 60 years” suggests that mass losses were probably higher in the middle of the 20th century. As scare stories go it’s pretty limp, really.

    Like

  74. Is Matt becoming a sceptic?

    “US climate bill success masks scale of warming challenge”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62464546

    “…Taken together with measures to penalise methane leaks and $20bn to cut emissions in agriculture, the whole package will likely cut US emissions by 40% below 2005 levels, according to analysis.

    This is well below the 50-52% cut promised by President Biden just last year, but the fact that the US will be able to go a long way towards meeting that target is being seen as a victory, at least by American observers.

    That promise was part of the pledges for 2030 from around the globe that experts at Climate Action Tracker suggested would put the world on course of 2.4C of warming this century.

    On the surface, if the US is not able to make its full 50-52% promised cut, then getting below 2.4C looks tough.

    It’s worth repeating that this is well above the threshold of 1.5C of warming – compared with pre-industrial levels – that scientists say is critical to avoid very dangerous impacts….

    …But will the new act spur greater efforts from other countries?

    So far the reaction has been muted. Observers say it is progress, but it comes after decades of failure to put legislation on the books.

    The bill will also do little to repair relations with China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter.

    China broke off discussions with the US on climate issues last week in retaliation for the visit to Taiwan of the House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    Climate was one of the few areas where relations between the superpowers remained positive.

    Without a level of trust and agreement between the two, the Paris climate agreement would never have been born.

    At last year’s COP26 gathering in Glasgow, co-operation between the two helped the talks achieve some progress.

    All that now lies in ruins – and the knock-on effects are not likely to be positive…

    …Other major emitters like India and Brazil will likely focus on the fact that the emissions reductions contained in the bill fall well short of what President Biden has publicly promised.

    And many developing nations are wondering where the cash is that they have been repeatedly promised to tackle rising temperatures.

    “Although the US bill provides $370bn in climate spending, those of us in the Global South are wondering why the US and other rich countries have failed to keep their own promise to collectively provide $100bn of climate finance to poor and vulnerable countries by 2020,” said Mohamed Adow, the director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, who welcomed the progress the bill represents.

    With just a couple of months to go before the next major climate conference, COP27 in Egypt, the omens for progress are strikingly poor, despite the US bill.

    The war in Ukraine and global worries over inflation and fuel supplies next winter are dominating public concerns, despite the heatwaves and droughts that are currently stalking the world.”

    It sounds as though even Matt has his doubts that this will achieve much, if anything, with regard to global climate. Or, to be fair, perhaps this is just balanced reporting.

    Like

  75. Meanwhile, as for energy security in the UK….

    “UK braces for even higher bills as Norway threatens electricity export cut
    Water levels in southern Norway so low domestic consumers may be prioritised over international customers”

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/08/uk-braces-for-even-higher-bills-as-norway-threatens-electricity-export-cut

    “British consumers could face even higher bills and potential energy shortages this winter after Norway threatened to ration electricity exports.

    The UK receives hydroelectric power from Norway through a subsea interconnector cable running beneath the North Sea.

    However, water levels in southern Norway have been so low this year that the country’s government could put its own consumers ahead of international customers.

    Residents of the country’s capital, Oslo, have been asked to take shorter showers and turn off the tap when brushing their teeth as its reservoirs have been depleted by the dry weather experienced across Europe.

    The oil and energy minister, Terje Aasland, told the Norwegian parliament on Monday that refilling dams will be prioritised over power production when levels fall below the seasonal average.

    The move is a blow to the UK, as well as countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, which rely on cheap Norwegian hydropower. A 450-mile interconnector joins Blyth, Northumberland, to Kvilldal power station.

    The €1.6bn (£1.35bn) North Sea Link cable, which was switched on last October, is able to channel up to 1.4 gigawatts of electricity between the two countries when demand is high in the UK and there is low domestic wind generation. This is enough to power about 5% of British homes.

    Aasland said that electricity production in southern Norway was down 18% on last year and production in south-west Norway last week was the lowest seen this year so far….”.

    Like

  76. “There is No Food Crisis – If Only We Stopped Burning it as ‘Green’ Biofuel”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/08/08/there-is-no-food-crisis-if-only-we-stopped-burning-it-as-green-biofuel/

    “We’ve all been bombarded daily with horror stories about how food prices are being forced up and hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest risk starvation because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prevented exports of grain and sunflower oil.

    Well, let me give you some figures our politicians and the mainstream media don’t want to mention. They don’t mention these figures because these figures undermine the disastrous global-warming, climate-catastrophist, Net-Zero policies being forced on us by our rulers.

    The U.S. produces abut 384 million metric tonnes of corn each year and around 50 million tonnes of wheat. Ukraine produces about 38 million tonnes of corn each year and around 33 million tonnes of wheat. Around 20 million tonnes of Ukraine’s wheat is exported each year.

    Conclusion 1: The U.S. produces an awful lot more food than Ukraine.

    But let’s look at how all the USA’s corn and wheat is actually used. Over a third of the USA’s corn – that’s more than 128 million tonnes of the USA’s corn production – is used to make biofuels rather than being used for human consumption.

    It’s more difficult to find out how much of the U.S.’s 38 million tonnes of wheat is used for biofuels, but it may be as much as a quarter. However, we do know that in the European Union, 12 million tonnes of grain, including wheat and maize, is turned into ethanol – around 7% of the bloc’s production. It’s estimated that this is enough food to feed around 150 million people if it wasn’t being used for transport fuel.

    Also just in the EU, 3.5 million tonnes of palm oil is used to make biodiesel. That’s almost the amount of sunflower oil coming out of Ukraine and Russia combined.

    Conclusion 2: We’re burning food rather than using it to feed people.

    You may have noticed that last year the petrol you buy changed from something called ‘E5’ to ‘E10’. E5 petrol is petrol containing 5% biofuel and E10 is, of course, petrol containing 10% biofuel.

    According to calculations done by scientists at Princeton University, if the U.S. and Europe were to decrease their use of ethanol made from grain by 50% – that would mean just moving back from E10 petrol to E5 petrol – they would effectively have sufficient extra crops to replace all of Ukraine’s exports of grain.”

    Liked by 1 person

  77. “Britain’s water shortages have nothing to do with climate change
    Scaremongering about droughts lets the government and the water firms off the hook.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/08/britains-water-shortages-have-nothing-to-do-with-climate-change/

    “…But we don’t really face a drought at all in Britain. As Future Cities Project director Austin Williams has pointed out, the Environment Agency itself, in announcing the National Drought Group, admitted that ‘nowhere in England is currently considered to be “in drought”’.

    If there is a water crisis right now, then it is a crisis of water management. The Environment Agency claims that ‘most water companies are maintaining good reservoir storage for summer demand’. But this is questionable. Britain has consistently failed to invest in the new reservoirs we need. Indeed, in June 2021 councillors in Hampshire gave the go-ahead for Portsmouth Water to build a new water reservoir at Havant Thicket, for £120million. But this will be the first new reservoir in the south of England since 1973.

    It is not just reservoirs that have been neglected, either. In recent years, the regulator, Ofwat, together with the Environment Agency, fined Southern Water shareholders a total of £216million after the company failed to invest properly in wastewater treatment. It was also made to pay £90million for illegally discharging sewage into rivers and the sea, on nearly 7,000 occasions.

    Just as the water companies are telling ordinary folk that every drop of water counts, water firms are collectively losing 2.4 billion litres of water per day from leaks. Meanwhile, as companies urge their customers to forgo the paddling pool this summer, top executives bask in the heat around their 40-foot swimming pools. No doubt they are protected – by well-watered, high-growing shrubs – from the gaze of Britain’s nosey parkers, whom they otherwise wish to encourage.

    On top of all this, the water industry is plagued by financial problems. In 2021, its net debt amounted to £56 billion. Southern Water was headed for bankruptcy until the Australian bank Macquarie rescued it. Thames Water, owned by a consortium led by Macquarie, is the UK’s largest water and sewerage company and is one of the sector’s most indebted firms. In 2012, the China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s sovereign wealth fund, bought nearly nine per cent of the consortium for an undisclosed sum.

    Yet despite all the industry’s problems, the government and the water companies have directed their efforts towards reducing the public’s demand for water, whether through fines, tips or so-called smart meters, which are supposed to make us feel guilty about every drop we use. What we really need is more and better water infrastructure – from reservoirs to sewage works to new and clever piping. Water is a vital resource. And with the right infrastructure, it is literally impossible to run out of it.

    A sensible programme of investment could solve any of the problems thrown up by low rainfall or other shortages. An advanced industrialised country should not tolerate restrictions on our use of water. But the cosy set-up between a crony-capitalist industry and an environmentalist government means that securing our water supply won’t happen anytime soon.”

    Liked by 1 person

  78. Phillips did say she thought “some Climate coverage has been rather alarmist and that doesn’t help”
    “I don think there has NOT been censorship against people who can back up their view with science

    @MichelleDewbs “about Covid do you think non-approved view people were censored”
    Phillips “NO !”
    Phillips doesn’t seem to be aware that Facebook and twitter slap warning over people’s posts

    Like

  79. “Supermarket food could soon carry eco-labels, says study”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62460551

    “Supermarket shoppers could soon be checking the environmental impact of food before putting it in their trolleys, thanks to new research.

    Reliable information of this kind hasn’t been available.

    That’s because UK manufacturers only have to list their main ingredients, and that’s by percentage, not amount.

    Scientists have overcome the problem by using public databases to estimate the composition of thousands of food products and their impact.

    Many consumers want to know how their weekly food shop affects the planet, even though rising prices will likely be a more immediate concern for most.

    Prof Peter Scarborough from Oxford University told BBC News he hopes that the research leads to an eco-labelling system for customers, but he believes that the bigger impact would come if the food industry uses it to cut its environmental footprint.”

    Look at the example of foods set out in the table within the article. The irony is that this is completely contrary to the constant campaigning against junk foods. Some of the foods with the best eco-scores are fizzy drinks, yorkshire pudding, sausage rolls and ready meals. And while fresh salad and dips do well, deli meat and cheese, nuts and dried fruit score badly. I wonder when somebody in a position of influence will notice.

    Like

  80. Like

  81. Like

  82. According to SkS a few days ago…

    …John Cook’s most popular Cranky Uncle cartoon is the one about boiling frogs.

    And yet the boiling frogs thing is a long-debunked myth.

    Comments?

    Like

  83. Vinny,

    Firstly, the boiling frog is indeed an urban myth. Callous scientists have performed the experiment and they all jumped out.

    Secondly, the cognitive bias that Cook refers to as the ‘anecdote fallacy’ is one of those that the IPCC realised they needed to turn to their advantage. Knowing that people are unduly influenced by what is immediately apparent to them, they realised that all extreme weather events could be used to give immediacy to climate change. Hence, “I see Kentucky flooded today so there must be climate change”. It’s proper name is the availability heuristic and the trick has worked rather well for them. Still, I like to call them Cranky IPCC.

    Like

  84. Emma Thompson has been on an another eschatonanist holiday, this time in Venice.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/02/emma-thompson-greenwashing-climate-catastrophe-activism-fossil-fuel-advertising-sponsorship

    Why, it seems only yesterday that she flew to eco-holibobs in Greenland, Canada, California, Costa Rica, Alaska, Peru, Kiribati, Piccadilly Circus and Hampstead.

    Keep up the good work, Emma! And ignore people who call you an ignorant, hypocritical and hyperprivileged narcissist. Mwaaah! Mwaaah!

    (I like ‘Cranky IPCC’, John.)

    Liked by 1 person

  85. The article informs me that Emma Thompson is an actor and activist. Is she one of those ‘bad actors’ that the Institute for Strategic Dialogue was warning me about? She certainly seems to be fully signed up to the ‘it had nothing to do with me, the oil companies filled up my SUV whilst I wasn’t looking’ alibi. That sounds like bad acting to me.

    Like

  86. TalkTV now Climate Change debate call in
    with Brian Catt @catandman
    Physicist, Engineer, Tech Business (rtd)
    “I was censored by the IET , I was supposed to give an IET lecture, but the Twitterati threated to picket the lecture so the IET cancelled it ‘

    Like

  88. Continuing the spider crab discussion:

    “Call to report sightings of spider crabs off Cornwall”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-62476959

    “Matt Slater, marine conservation officer at Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said: “I’ve spent my whole career trying to get people to appreciate amazing marine animals like spider crabs.

    “Reports of them being venomous are simply untrue and could damage their reputation.

    “Please go out, enjoy our coastline responsibly and admire these sensational spider crab displays should you be so lucky to see one.”

    There have been sightings of the gatherings in popular tourists spots including Newquay, St Ives, Falmouth and St Austell in recent weeks.”

    So, a corrective there. Whether their appearance in large numbers is good news or bad news depends on whether you’re the BBC or a marine conservation officer:

    “Marine biologists believe the increase is a direct result of climate change prompting warming sea temperatures.

    Matt Slater, marine conservation officer at the trust, said: “We hope that these mass sightings are a sign that spider crab populations are healthy.

    “Our seas are full of surprises and there’s still so much we don’t know about them.””

    Like

  89. connected to this is how big tech gaslights us
    by rigging the comment systems
    On Twitter Facebook and YouTube the order of comments is no longer in order of Likes, but some weird algorithm that hides some comments and elevates others.

    Like

  90. Marine biologists believe the increase is a direct result of climate change prompting warming sea temperatures.

    ?My 1996 Collins Pocket Guide “Sea Shore” describes the (common) spider crab as “common off the W and SW coasts of Britain, also S North Sea, S to Mediterranean and Cape Verde Isles.”

    The great spider crab, meanwhile, ranges north to Spitzbergen and Iceland. So presumably an abundance of this species would be owing to climate change of another sort.

    Like

  91. We don’t have Australian yellow brown grass here
    and there’ been dew Monday quite heavy dew, Tuesday dew, Wedneday dew
    The weeds got a headstart when the rain came after the last heatwave.
    The south facing lawn has yellow patches
    same for verges where dandelion are powering up.
    but the orchard grass which had been left half an inch long is still all green

    Difference is the daytime breezes are about half that of during the heatwave
    Next weeks rain i now predicted to start on Monday afternoon, so the prediction ha been getting earlier.

    Oh another thing is the weather forecast turning out quite wrong
    eg last Thursday right until the moment they said i would be cloudy and 21C
    but the un broke through early on and it was always like 25
    Right now the sun is strong, but the breeze is stronger than they said

    Like

  92. What agendas is Everbrite’s email pushing
    #1 The ever present ” Black History Every Month: Events That Inspire Action, Education & Connection”

    #2 Online book presentation “The Sustainable City” second edition
    by Columbia Global Centers| Beijing 哥伦比亚大学全球中心|北京

    1 lead author and then 4 Chinese co-authors !
    Steven Cohen Director of the Earth Institute’s Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management at Columbia University.

    so that is 2 out of the 11 items in the Everbrite email that are clear Guardianland

    Like

  93. Don’t know if this is true but one of the more interesting factoids about the spider crabs is that they have come to shallower waters to shed their exoskeletons en-masse. Crabs on the margins of the crab concentrations retain their exoskeletons and protect their soft-shelled brethren in the centre.
    If this is true it is interesting to speculate just how this behaviour evolved, and do some well-minded crabs stay behind to guard the original peripheral guardian crabs once they have toughened up?

    Like

  94. Snopes put out a Fact dated Aug 2nd about Weather Map colours

    I know that,
    cos Twitter forced a box marked “What’s Happening YESTERDAY”
    that is PR for a “Twitter Event”
    Yet that is a lie, the thing has nothing to do with yesterday
    When you are on the page the first story is marked July 28th
    The Snopes one is marked Aug 2nd (that’s their tweet date , July 29th is the date on the Snopes story)

    See my Twitter thread to get to the screenshots & links
    … https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1557356191432548354

    Like

  95. Speaking of Emma Thompson, the Oscar-winning #badactor (and #crisisactor?), here’s some more news about shambolic solar power in Clyde River, the tiny settlement at 70’N on Baffin Island that Thompson visited six Augusts ago to celebrate the installation of a few Greenpeace-donated solar panels, panels that were repeatedly vandalized in the next couple of years and prolly no longer exist.

    Last year the local council tried to get new solar panels installed on the same building. It didn’t go well.

    https://clyderiver.ca/programs-initiatives/solar-panels

    Once the funding was approved and Contribution Agreement signed. Green Sun Rising Inc. in Windsor, Ontario shipped the panels to Clyde River, Nunavut by sealift and brought in employee to install the panels. For some reason, Hamlet [Council]’s Heavy Equipment Operator threw away the panels thinking boxes were ready to be thrown away. Billy and Brett at Green Sun Rising Inc. went to the dump site to look for panels but they were already taken.

    If we can’t find the panels, Municipality of Clyde River will need to purchase new panels at a cost of $20,000 and install them in April 2022 when the sun rises in the north again. The sun sets in November 2021 and will not rise again until January 2022.

    Ho hum. That’s Clyde River solar for you.

    I do hope that Dame Emma hadn’t booked a flight to celebrate the installation of the (cough!) accidentally dumped panels.

    Like

  96. Alan, K, your thoughts would be appreciated:

    “Warning as heatwave could spark cliff falls on England’s south coast
    Public urged to take precautions after second large landslide along Jurassic region in two weeks”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/10/warning-heatwave-cliff-fall-england-south-coast

    “Experts are urging the public to be hypervigilant on south coast beaches as this week’s heatwave could trigger cliff collapses.

    One geologist said the area seemed the most vulnerable and beachgoers should take heed of official guidance.

    A collapse of Sidmouth cliff in Devon on Monday was the second large landslide along the Jurassic coast in two weeks.”

    Monday’s collapse didn’t occur in a heat wave, of course. However,

    “There had been “limited research” into thermal impact into landsliding but there was some evidence suggesting an association. The more clay-like components of sediments shrink through losing moisture during these hot, dry periods, while other rocks expand in the heat, Banks said.

    The south coast seemed more vulnerable, “which could be partly because of weak rocks and the covering of superficial deposits is not so thick”.

    “This week, at Sidmouth, we had a formation called the Sidmouth mudstone formation, a fairly fine-growing soil, or weak rock, which overlays sandstone, again quite weak,” she said.

    The cliff fall was led by processes from the top of the cliff. “That suggests the material at the top, this Sidmouth mudstone formation, is weathered, and its erosion is enabled perhaps as a consequence of some slight movement, maybe because of a change in moisture content,” she added.

    If the current heatwave was followed by intense, heavy rainfall, that could also weaken the cliffs, with potential for further rock falls, she said.

    The BGS is researching the impact of hot, dry weather on landslides in the context of climate change, she said. Most research had focused on heavy rainfall and flooding, which had a greater impact in terms of life and infrastructure.”

    Plausible, certainly. However, I wonder if funding has been made available for this research (that might not otherwise have been made available) by linking it to “climate change”?

    Like

  97. I don’t have any real insights. I would have thought that excess water ingress would promote cliff falls rather than droughts . Certainly if clay rocks (not clays) are involved then these would have to be partially weathered before variations in water content would be responsible for changing susceptibility to collapse.

    So I have no special knowledge, and I suspect other people don’t either. It will be evident in many cases (but not all) that cliffs will be susceptible to collapse but predicting exactly when such falls might occur is, I suspect, a task beyond us.

    My recommendation would be never to venture beneath cliffs, unless immediately after a cliff fall. I have not followed this advice and many times have used my little geological hammer upon the cliffs provoking their anger and revenge.

    Liked by 2 people

  98. 9:30am R4 last episode of The Climate Tipping Points
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00181m0
    “Justin Rowlatt discovers how global warming may trigger irreversible changes to our planet.
    But faced with disaster, could humanity itself be on the cusp of its own tipping point?”

    The thing is this 5 part series was on 6 weeks ago at lunchtime, so this is a very early repetition.

    Like

  100. 4:30pm and 9pm R4 Sciency Show
    “Scientists studying changing polar temperatures find signs that our climate models might need adjusting”
    … I thought the science was settled ../sarc

    Like

  101. 9:30pm GBnews is having a Climate debate
    one guest is shouty Orla Cocklan, and another alarmist Economist Laurie Laybourn vs non-Alarmist @AdrianHayes
    viewers have another opinion

    Like

  102. Actually I missed the bit at the start when Adrian said he is a CC true believer
    citing “when I went to the Arctic the ice was 1m thick and it used to be 5m”
    That’s cherrypicking BS

    but at least he balanced in the other enviro issues

    Like

  104. Oh the horror! Climate change causes Northern Mexico to cease beer production because of water shortages. Much was exported into the USA who will now suffer horrendously. Corona (formerly my favourite tipple) will become rare. What is next, tequila scarcities?

    Like

  105. Mark,

    Excluding powering trains? What’s that about? It’s not as if the solar farm is physically connected to the grid specifically for Network Rail’s benefit. When the sun goes down in Norfolk the lights are not going to go out in the Newcastle depot.

    The whole idea of Network Rail getting its power from Norfolk is an accountancy contrivance and I would have thought a good accountant would have been able to get the trains “hooked up”.

    Liked by 2 people

  106. @UniversityLeeds’s @PriestleyCentre tweeted
    “Not one, but TWO climate experts feature in the latest episode of Inside Science on @BBCRadio4
    – Dr Anna Hogg talks about Arctic warming (00:30)
    – Professor Dominick Spracklen reveals the role that woodland plays in cooling (21:02).”

    🎧 https://bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019z2y

    Like

  108. “Handcranked generator to be used by Network Rail”

    article says
    “power its railways stations, offices and depots
    EXCLUDING powering trains”

    so just 15% of its OFFICE buildings energy,
    A 50MW solar park generates say 5MW on average
    ie £200 worth an hour

    that’ £5,000/day ..£1.75m year ie £35m worth over 20 years
    Is that smaller that total build/running costs

    Like

  109. American beer (= lager) does travel.
    “Corona is a brand of beer produced by Mexican brewery Cervecería Modelo and owned by Belgian company AB InBev. It is the top-selling brand of imported beer”

    Like

  116. BBC IPlayer – Nova Jones
    Series 1: 1. Friends of Nova
    Pop sensation Nova learns the meaning of friendship from her dear pal… whatshisname? Eco-minded McLaren prevents environmental disaster as Nova’s unwanted gifts pollute a planet.

    Like

  117. You know those climate activist athletes platformed by the BBC
    If any of them were British and they mock Climate Sceptics they could have their funding withdrawn
    ““Athletes may be ineligible for funding if they are derogatory about a person’s disability, gender, pregnancy or maternity, race, sexuality, marital status, **beliefs** or age.”
    Louis Smith was banned for two months after a leaked video showed him laughing as his friend shouted “Allahu akbar”
    and tht was seen as mocking Muslim beliefs
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/50179aa8-1b1e-11ed-98b9-ae8775f5f43c?shareToken=6544e10589f95e373a86a2cf59c723ba

    Like

  119. Richard Tice of TalkTV tweets
    @SkyNews @BBCNews will you have physicist and electrical engineer @catandman Brian Catt on to discuss the other side of climate debate?
    If not, what are you afraid of ?

    libmob angrily shout in the replies that Catt should be banned for not siding with their dogma

    Like

  120. what’s a hashtag for tracking recycling centre fires ?
    I tried #RecyclingFire ..ah #WasteFire is used

    “Firefighters are continuing to tackle blazes which broke out at two recycling centres in Scunthorpe
    At its height late on Saturday, about 40 firefighters attended a blaze at the Northern Waste site in Park Farm Road.
    Meanwhile, fire also broke out at the Winterton Road recycling site on Sunday.”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-62546931

    Like

  123. A 10-year-old wooden bridge carrying a two-lane tarmaced road has collapsed in Norway. Global baking and the climate catastrophe have’t been blamed yet but I bet they will be tomorrow.

    Here’s Google’s Street View of the architect’s wet dream as it was in August 2018:

    https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@61.3125304,10.3010175,3a,75y,142.8h,77.48t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sl5WkyFICiNoG0kWdZhda2A!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dl5WkyFICiNoG0kWdZhda2A%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D157.32947%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

    Lovely! I bet it won some prizes.

    Like

  124. Today’s Catastrophe porn was “ooh dry ground will flood rather than absorbed the rain
    look here’s an experiment from Dr Robert T ReadingUni”
    … https://twitter.com/UniofReading/status/1557350976725581824
    Yeh 44,000 Likes and the thing is fake fake fake

    I know cos I actually tried to replicate it
    I tried it with clear empty mousse pot filled with water
    It behaved as he said it would
    However as soon as I used a knife to puncture the bottom
    that broke THE VACUUM
    and the water went into the soil straight away

    Alarmist didn’t like me challenging, yet they were unable to quote a flood example from today
    The main one put up his reply, then ran away by blocking me
    so preventing me calling out his reply

    There is a problem with Dr Roberts tweet too
    He says he’s talking about parched ground
    however he’s done that thing of leaping a step further
    He labelled his pic “grass after a heatwave ”
    Look parched grass is possible to find in the UK
    However in areas like mine last weeks heatwave didn’t cause parching
    There had been rain the week before it and we have morning mists with dew
    Yet we are in an areas the EA chose to proclaim a drought in

    Like

  125. Tretten bridge crossing Gudbrandsdalslågen
    It follows a similar event in 2016 when the Perkolo Bridge collapsed, also a timber structure.

    Norwegian newspaper
    – I never in my wildest imagination thought it would happen again, says truck driver Arild Magne Båtberget. He broke his back when Perkolo bridge collapsed in 2016.
    On Monday Tretten bridge also collapsed.

    Norway has a total of nine bridges with the same construction as the glulam (Laminated Beam) bridge Perkolo bridge, which collapsed at Sjoa in February 2016. One of them is Tretten bridge.
    This means that 2 out of 9 bridges with that construction have now collapsed, within 7 years.
    Maybe good to inform about where the last seven are located…?

    What about the milk tower? an 18-storey building with glulam construction, can this collapse?

    Like

  127. big headlines but little substance

    Cornwall floods
    – a cafe with 1cm of water
    – a roundabout flooded
    “He said the water came in (to the garage forecourt) suddenly as the rain started but then fully drained away about 10 minutes later and the sun came out.

    Like

  128. I wonder if this “ground as dry as concrete” narrative might be even more misleading than I think
    .. like what’s it like 1 foot or 2 feet down ?

    It’s only the top that’s dry
    I could be wrong

    Like

  132. Stew, I haven’t found people blaming the bridge collapse(s) on the climate catastrophe yet but it’s only a matter of time. As glulam has been puffed as a solution to global baking they might even say that if we don’t build more climate-collapsed bridges then we’re all going to die.

    Liked by 1 person

  133. In parts of Scotland a week’s rainfall has fallen in just 24hrs.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62558667

    How desperate do you have to be to think this is newsworthy? Let’s take Perth, for example. At this time of year there are roughly 10 rainy days per month. Which means that a week’s worth of rain usually falls within a little more than two of its days. This time it only took one day. Whoopy bloody doo! Next they will be getting locals to proclaim that they haven’t seen puddles like this since the weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

  134. I should also point out the language used. The rain did not fall — it hit. As in ‘Scotland was hit’. Is this an example of the BBC’s new style guide to reflect the severity of climate change? So now it is to be ‘heating’ rather than ‘warming’ and ‘rainhit’ rather than ‘rainfall’.

    Liked by 2 people

  136. Jit,

    Yes, it’s probably a once in a fortnight event. Which makes it unprecedented by BBC logic.

    Like

  137. Jordan Peterson in the Telegraph yesterday, as linked by Johnbillscott at Notalot:

    There is simply no pathway forward to the green and equitable utopia that necessitates the further impoverishment of the already poor, the compulsion of the working class, or the sacrifice of economic security and opportunity on the food, energy and housing front. There is simply no pathway forward to the global utopia you hypothetically value that is dependent on force. And even if there was, what gives you the right to enforce your demands? On other sovereign citizens, equal in value to you?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/15/peddlers-environmental-doom-have-shown-true-totalitarian-colours/

    Like

  138. Mark
    Ed Milligan’s says “ This is not, as some would claim, the first net-zero crisis. It is just the latest fossil-fuel crisis. ”
    Would have thought the green blob would be very happy with high oil and gas prices. It should drive development of renewables without the need for subsidies. And if those hydrocarbon assets really become stranded as they hope, the prices will be even higher.

    Liked by 1 person

  139. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62051070

    Worth a read to see how crazy things have become. An environmental media scholar explains how places like Sardinia and Majorca are environmentally friendly locations for filming because they force film crews to use sustainable practices. Yes, but how do they and all their kit get there from Hollywood or wherever?

    Like

  140. What’s all this rubbish about thunderstorms and flooding? Here in deepest Norfolk we had perhaps 5minutes of near isolated raindrops (that didn’t totally wet my patio). Even Norwich (8 kilometres away) got at least one drenching. All we have are menacing black clouds that tantalise. It’s not fair, our lawns deserve better.

    Like

  142. Might have known. By tempting the Rain Goddess at 10.19am I caused the heavens to open almost immediately and it’s still raining.

    Liked by 1 person

  144. Iain Martin in The Times yesterday (paywalled). Having agreed that energy bailouts for ordinary bill-payers are needed …

    But amid the clamour there is a game of distraction and blame-dodging going on. The main parties, all of them, and every arm of the state have a shared interest in avoiding a proper accounting for what went wrong. They all designed and cheered on Britain’s too aggressive race to net zero. With voters angry as the bills land, no one wants to admit their culpability.

    Since the 2008 Climate Change Act, successive governments, urged on by the opposition — and the SNP and the Lib Dems — bet the house on getting to net zero quicker than anyone else. They gambled on Britain becoming a global leader in killing off carbon use and howled down anyone expressing concerns. And look where it has landed us.

    — https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/net-zero-groupthink-got-us-into-this-mess-2hps23d5d

    “Britain’s too aggressive race to net zero.” Hmm. It could be said more strongly than that. Like by Jit the other day. But the blame-dodging bit hits home.

    Liked by 1 person

  148. Thanks Mark. Chilling indeed. A paragraph [his square brackets] (my bendy brackets):

    (Gina) McCarthy (National Climate Advisor) says denialism has moved on. ‘Now it’s not so much denying the problem [of climate change]’, she says; rather, it’s ‘seeding doubt about the costs associated with [green energy] and whether they work or not’. So we’ve gone from science denialism to… what? Political denialism? Policy denialism? Fossil-fuel companies are using ‘dark money’ to ‘fool’ the public about ‘the benefits of clean energy’, she says. And apparently, ‘seeding doubt’ about clean energy is ‘equally dangerous to [climate-change] denial’. Asked if such doubts pose a threat to public health, in that they might hamper officialdom’s plans to go green, McCarthy said: ‘Absolutely.’ The solution to such health-harming scepticism? ‘We need the tech companies to really jump in’, she said. That is, the social-media giants must do more to thwart the policy deniers.

    This next was a bit of an open goal:

    Welcome to the era of Gina McCarthyism

    Tee hee. But this is er, no laughing matter. Of course, it’s a policy that has been enforced on our BBC for some years now. One would imagine that it will come under increasing pressure and eventually crack. Dieter Helm was on R4 a few days ago and mentioned that renewables are intermittent. The presenter let it go. Progress of sorts, I thought.

    Like

  149. 8am local news ‘Hull MP published blog post praising Hull hydrogen project’
    They never mention him normally
    they only promote the Labour MPs

    Like

  150. 8am “a green energy company in Saltend near Hull will help the Humber region become carbon neutral
    That is the view of the Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart
    The company Equinor will have a hydrogen production facility that will help decarbonise other industries
    Stuart says that expertise will be valuable worldwide
    clip “what I hope we will be able to do ..
    not only do we in the UK lean in tackling climate issues and emissions wood, but we also build an industrial capability in in in the UK from which we can export that expertise all the way around the world”
    .. Next renting costs
    … Next NHS bosses say that people will get ill from not being able to afford heat and electricity

    at 9am they’d polished the script
    “The next phase for a green energy company east of Hull will bring more *highly skilled well-paid jobs* to the area
    (* clear PR phrases)
    That’s what Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart’s saying
    Equinor at Saltend will have a hydrogen production facility, that will help to decarbonise other industries
    Graham Stuart says that the site will be good for the environment and future prospects in the area.
    clip of GS “In the longer term, not only retain the existing jobs and industries
    (false The South Ferriby cement works has already closed and they built a terminal at Hull to import cement from Spain instead)
    but if we can deliver and create the world’s first true net zero industrial cluster, then you’ll see a lot of other businesses wanting to come into the area as well”

    … next NHS leaders in the area are calling on the government to do more to tackle rising energy bills”
    Doh forcing mad green projects is the main reason why energy bills are rising !

    Liked by 1 person

  151. What I call the “Pioneer Fallacy” is when UK politicians spout lines saying that throwing taxpayer money at something will help the UK lead the world.
    In reality other countries are not usually dumb enough to do the same
    they sit back and wait for the UK projects make all the mistakes
    then they leapfrog them

    Here Stuart’s “leading the world” talk is pure PR waffle
    Isn’t it strange that UK taxpayers are throwing grants & subsidies at Equinor to do Carbon Capture & storage with hydrogen projects
    at the SAME TIME as Equinor are getting $$ from US taxpayers for the same thing ?

    “Shell, Equinor team up to apply for federal hydrogen and carbon capture funding”
    https://www.gasworld.com/ccus-and-hydrogen-hub-planned-by-us-energy-steel-sector/2023614.article

    Liked by 1 person

  152. I see true believers stretching their words all the time
    eg “no rain as such ”
    Still we irrigate….no rain as such in E Yorkshire…. #agriculture #farming #potatoes #drought

    The day before she tweeted a pic of her rain gauge 2.5mm ..that is not nothing
    The local WOW site 3 miles away at Thixendale recorded 3mm

    Like

  155. GBnews Hustings hosted by Alastair Stewart
    \\One of the biggest rounds of applause of the night goes to the former mine engineer who delivers a 30 second elevator pitch for fracking.
    Thunderous reception. //

    Like

  156. why are the Economist PAYING Twitter to put this advert tweet in front of me ?

    Like

  158. 11am R4 show about water indutsry ends with a lot of preaching about Net Zero
    ..oh it’s Dieter Helm – Professor of Economic Policy – University of Oxford

    Like

  159. I haven’t watched the short video which accompanies this piece, so have to suspend judgement.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-latin-america-62497711

    However, given the narrative that follows, it is difficult to accept that the dramatic headline is justified

    Headline:

    “Climate change forces indigenous islanders in Panama to relocate”

    Narrative within the article:

    “The Panama government estimates all islands of the Guna people could be under water by 2050, based on forecasts by an independent group of scientists, although others think the islands may not all be submerged until the end of the century.”

    Like

  161. I used to teach in Panama, one my students was Kuna (that is the first time I’ve seen it written Guna)
    I have been to most places but not those islands
    Tourists do to go down to Colon and then down the coast to the islands, but I am not a seaside person.

    Like

  162. Hull saga
    Why does the government give local council’s grants to build cycle lanes ?
    It’s to reduce CO2
    #1 Hull Labour rushed to install cycle lanes in tie to get the grants
    #2 Thus dual carriageways became crammed single track
    #3 Thus Labour started a consultation, but were forced out of office
    #4 Liberals got in and announced the results are in and £4m will be spent moving the cycle ways up onto the pavement to restore the dual carriageway.

    Seems to me the construction and reconstruction projects will use so much CO2
    they will vastly increase CO2 compared to a few people switching some journeys from car to bike.

    Liked by 1 person

  164. @Digg So Lewisham and Greenwich National Health Service Trust don’t just pick the cheapest bidder
    but take into account whether the supplier is Stonewall compliant.

    Does the rest of the NHS take care to get taxpayers the minimum priced contract ?
    Apparently not.
    a Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust spokesman
    said: “Under national guidance, NHS trusts are required to apply 10 per cent social value weighting for tenders.
    This includes environmental, economic and social issues and is one of a number of things we consider when procuring services.”

    Like

  165. Why would a corp spout Green BS ?
    Cos it can buy them an NHS contract
    cos NHS does NOT buy from cheapest quote !

    “Under national guidance, NHS trusts are required to apply 10% SOCIAL VALUE weighting for tenders.
    This includes *environmental*/economic/social issues
    and is one of a number of things we consider when procuring services”
    ..Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust spokesman

    Like

  166. “Sex, drugs and … sustainability? Music festivals struggle to go green
    One major music festival invited EU climate boss Frans Timmermans to speak — but activists point to greenwashing and a lack of transparency.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/sex-drugs-sustainability-music-festival-green-environment/

    “European music festivals have been attempting to jump on the climate bandwagon — with one mega event this summer even inviting EU green deal chief Frans Timmermans to speak.

    But while the musical jamborees trumpet their climate credentials and court EU policymakers, activists and scholars accuse some festivals of greenwashing and a lack of transparency over their sustainability data.

    From England’s Glastonbury to Belgium’s Tomorrowland to Spain’s Primavera Sound, festivals have outlined the measures they are taking to combat climate change and become more sustainable. But whether reality matches the promoters’ rhetoric often remains unclear, as hundreds of thousands of people fly across the Continent to enjoy days of consumption and excess.

    It’s time for music festivals to shed the risk of greenwashing, stop “showing off initiatives” and start “enforcing them,” said Dogan Gursoy, professor at Washington State University and author of a book on the climate impacts of festival tourism.

    While Timmermans dialed in remotely in late July to Tomorrowland’s Love Tomorrow sustainability conference, a side event at the festival, the enormous transport carbon footprint remains music festivals’ biggest climate problem.

    “A lot of festivals emphasize waste reduction, but if you look at the overall picture of carbon emissions, it is dominated by travel. Audience festival travel emits 11 times more climate pollution than waste does,” said Kimberly Nicholas, professor and sustainability scientist at Sweden’s Lund University. …”.

    Like

  168. Personally I don’t care, but it’s amusing and worrying in pretty much equal measure to see the green curtain-twitchers watching just about everybody and everything:

    “Prince William charity uses bank that is one of world’s biggest fossil fuel backers
    Royal Foundation also places investments in trust that owns shares in firms that buy palm oil, investigation reveals”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/19/prince-william-charity-royal-foundation-bank-jp-morgan-fossil-fuel-backers

    Like

  169. Energy costs
    #1 Isn’t it getting to the point where businesses like pubs will find a diesel generator is cheaper than their electric bill ?

    #2 It does annoy me when people look at spot market prices
    Such market prices are not necessarily the same ones your own suppliers pay
    Especially if they own their own gas fields.
    I see no reason to spread panic , like the BBC does.
    For many places in the world you can still get heat by collecting wood and coal.

    #3 We give away rubbish, yet it has value as mist of it can be recycled into electricity in safe incinerators.

    Like

  171. “Wind farm deals secured for three sites off Shetland”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-62632865

    It’s posted by the BBC as good news, though they do at least have the grace to report on this:

    “…However, the Shetland Fishermen’s Association has criticised the projects, claiming they could damage known haddock nursery grounds and saithe spawning sites.

    The association’s executive officer Daniel Lawson said: “It is clear to everyone that more renewable energy is needed, however fish is a low carbon source of nutritious protein food – displacing legitimate fishing activity is environmental madness.

    “These and other wind farm developments will have an impact on ecosystems and therefore on fish stocks and fisheries in the area.

    “Unlike the offshore windfarm sector, fishing relies entirely on the good state of marine ecosystems for its survival.””.

    Arather important piece of information is missing from the BBC report, but it helps to provide context. At least Shetland News gives us the information:

    “…covering just over 560km2. The total area offered up to the east of Shetland was 751km2.”

    https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2022/08/22/three-offshore-wind-developers-picked-for-sites-east-of-shetland/

    Like

  172. Indeed, Shetland News offers up an alternative version regarding the supposed Nirvana of offshore renewable energy:

    https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2022/08/22/research-needed-before-offshore-wind-farms-east-of-shetland-are-built-fishing-industry-warns/

    “SHETLAND Fishermen’s Association (SFA) has again called for “urgent research” into offshore wind development’s impact on the industry after developers were announced for three sites to the east of the isles.

    SFA executive officer Daniel Lawson said the areas in question overlapped with known haddock nursery grounds and saithe spawning sites, two of the Shetland fishing fleet’s valuable and popular whitefish catches….

    …The local fishermen’s association has repeated its concern over the impact of development east of Shetland, and responding to the news Lawson said the industry should not be displaced.

    “The impact of these projects on nursery grounds and spawning sites is unknown, and research is urgently needed before productive and pristine fishing grounds are destroyed in this offshore windrush,” he said.

    “It is clear to everyone that more renewable energy is needed, however fish is a low carbon source of nutritious protein food – displacing legitimate fishing activity is environmental madness.

    “These and other wind farm developments will have an impact on ecosystems and therefore on fish stocks and fisheries in the area.

    “Unlike the offshore windfarm sector, fishing relies entirely on the good state of marine ecosystems for its survival.

    “The Scottish Government is effectively privatising areas of seabed which are critical to our local economy here in Shetland, for the benefit of Irish, Norwegian and French/Spanish multinationals.”

    Lawson added that it was imperative for the impact of any projects that do proceed to be minimised, especially through joined up cable corridors to protect inshore fisheries and mandatory tension leg mooring systems so that turbine anchor lines take up less space….”.

    Like

  173. I might well be adding 2 + 2 and making 5 here.

    “Bus fire forces partial closure of M74 motorway near Glasgow”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-62632864

    It’s the spare nature of the BBC report that makes me suspicious:

    “Emergency crews have been called out after a bus caught fire on the M74 south of Glasgow.

    The incident forced the partial closure of the motorway northbound between junctions 3 and 3A at about 10:35. It fully reopened at about 13:45.

    The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said three fire engines had been dispatched to extinguish the blaze.

    There have been no reported casualties from the incident.”

    And that’s it. So I looked elsewhere, and found this:

    “First Bus provides update on bus which caught fire on M74 motorway”

    https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottish-news/20683838.first-bus-provides-update-bus-caught-fire-m74-motorway/

    “FIRST Bus has provided an update on an incident which saw one of their vehicles burst into flames on a motorway.

    We told earlier how a bus had become engulfed in flames on the M74 Junction 3 near Carmyle this morning.

    Emergency services rushed to the scene at 10.35am and the road was restricted while firefighters battled the blaze.”

    So now we know it’s a First Bus vehicle. What do we know about First Bus? Well, there’s this:

    “First Bus celebrates completion of UK’s largest rapid EV charging hub at flagship Glasgow depot”

    https://www.firstbus.co.uk/news-and-service-updates/news/first-bus-celebrates-completion-uks-largest-rapid-ev-charging-hub

    “Glasgow is now home to the UK’s largest electric vehicle (EV) rapid-charging centre as First Bus completes the major transformation of its flagship Caledonia depot.

    Scottish Transport Minister, Jenny Gilruth, visited the site today (25th May) to mark the completion of works, which will allow 150 EVs to be charged at the depot at one time – a feat that the Minister hailed as ‘a game changer’.

    Caledonia depot, located in Glasgow’s southside, has had 160 state-of-the art, rapid-charging points installed over the last nine months, supporting First Bus’s ambition to be emission-free by 2035.

    The depot will not only support First Bus’s growing electric fleet in Glasgow, it will also help other organisations operating in the city to decarbonise their own fleets. With a first-of-its-kind innovation for the transport sector, First Bus is trialling the use of its charging infrastructure to third-party businesses during the day when its buses are out on service.”

    And this:

    “First Bus to invest £35m in electric buses with ScotZEB funding”

    http://www.transportengineer.org.uk/transport-engineer-news/first-bus-to-invest-35m-in-electric-buses-with-scotzeb-funding/244780/

    “First Glasgow and First Aberdeen have been awarded a combined £18.6m in ScotZEB funding and will deliver 74 new electric vehicles across both cities. In addition, First Bus will invest a further £16.4m to further increase its zero-emission fleet.

    This new committed investment will see First Glasgow adding 50 electric buses to the 126 electric buses that are currently being delivered to its Caledonia depot, taking the total number of First Bus electric vehicles operating in Glasgow city to 200, accounting for over 40% of the total buses operating out of the two First Glasgow city depots.”

    Of course, it might well be an ICE bus. And there was a time when I would have trusted the BBC not to hide any inconvenient facts (but no longer). However, the brevity of the BBC report and the fact that the bus company is pushing down the electric route, does make me wonder….

    Liked by 1 person

  174. 22:16pm GBnews is mocking Prince Charles for his Green Political speech to China
    buzzword filled “Green Transition”
    ..item ended now

    Like

  175. Jit – thanks for the “Watt-Logic” link, had a read.

    from the post, the standout advice/comment for me were –
    “The Government and National Grid ESO should also develop plans to call on the public to shift demand in times of system stress for example through appeals to change the timing of the evening meal, turn down electric heating for a period of time, turn off all non-essential lights and appliances and so on. Similar appeals have been used with some success in Texas and elsewhere this summer
    Claims that everything is fine are all very well, but concrete action will be more compelling, and a good deal more useful should capacity shortages occur.”

    ohh, maybe I should get a few throwaway Barbies in for the winter 🙂

    ends with –
    “Longer term, we need a return to energy realism. Not all generation is equally useful, and simply building ever more wind capacity will do nothing to address security of supply issues arising from low-wind weather conditions, particularly as electrification of heating and transport will boost demand. These are painful lessons – it’s important we learn them.”

    no sh*t Sherlok 😦

    Like

  176. FIRST Bus has provided an update on an incident which saw one of their vehicles burst into flames on a motorway.
    “The driver evacuated the vehicle safely and there were no passengers on board at the time.

    Nothing more on any First Bus Twitter accounts ..tried 4

    Like

  178. dfhunter, sorry your comment went in to spam. I’ve released it now. Thank you for your persistence in the face of this occasional irritating glitch.

    Like

  179. Richard and stew,

    As I said, I may be adding 2 + 2 and making 5, but I suspect not. I’ve had another look this morning, and can find nothing in the media anywhere as to what type of bus it was, nor regarding the cause of the fire. The (brief) article about it on the Scotland section of the BBC website hasn’t been updated (and I strongly suspect it won’t be now). That’s it folks, move along, nothing to see here.

    In my humble opinion (assuming that’s what’s happened here) failing to report on an important aspect of a story is as misleading as not reporting on the story at all, indeed it’s possibly worse.

    Still, at this stage, we just don’t know what type of bus it was. I fear we’ll never find out, and it would be nice to know, even if I’m wrong, even if only to restore a small amount of my battered trust in the BBC and most of the MSM.

    Like

  182. Looks like a diesel. On the BBC report you cited the still seems to show fire at the back of the bus. A battery pack fire would show the rear half of the roof doing a firework display, as the one in Paris (a different model, but still). However, I stand to be corrected!

    Liked by 1 person

  184. We’ll have to wait and see for an update (if we ever get one – no fresh news on the internet yet, so far as I can see). Still pictures do seem to show that the main part of the conflagration was at the rear of the bus. No doubt that’s where the diesel fuel tank would be – is it also where the batteries would be on an electric version?

    Like

  186. Another story for the “is it 1st April?” pile:

    “Wind turbine blades could be recycled into gummy bears, scientists say
    Researchers design composite resin for blades that can be broken down to make new products including sweets”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/23/wind-turbine-blades-could-recycled-gummy-bears-scientists

    Still, they do mention a rarely-discussed but important and inconvenient truth:

    “However, turbine blades, usually made of fibreglass, can be as long as half a football field and cause problems with disposal, with many discarded in landfills when they reach the end of their use cycle.”

    Liked by 1 person

  188. Mark H,
    Thanks for that link to “The Mis-Representation of the Minor Greenhouse Gasses: CO2 – CH4 – N20”.
    Lots of good points there but there’s one that is overlooked. The article states that methane is a much more powerful GHG than CO2 but fails to qualify that by adding “in dry, laboratory conditions”.
    In the real atmosphere the high levels of water vapour will virtually swamp any effect from methane since the absoprtion spectra overlap.

    Liked by 1 person

  189. What would we do without the BBC? I imagine anyone over the age of 5 could work out the things they advise, without needing to be told:

    “Heatwave: How to keep your home cool”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62209480

    It seems a strange time to post such an article, as summer comes to an end, temperatures start to slip away, and much of the country is worrying instead about how to afford to stay warm this coming winter. In our household, we’re certainly not thinking about trying to stay cool – our big dilemma is how long we can go before turning the heating back on. And we recently filled up our log store.

    Like

  190. Sponsored content at Politico from the World Bioenergy Association. In one short piece of information, however, it sums up (admittedly unwittingly) the vital need for the madness to stop (just not in the way that they want):

    “The backslide on renewables Europe can’t afford
    Woody biomass provides more renewable energy for Europe than wind, solar and hydro combined. Parliament must reject proposals that would reduce its use.”

    https://www.politico.eu/sponsored-content/the-backslide-on-renewables-europe-cant-afford/

    “Biomass is the only renewable technology that is reliable, dispatchable and flexible. This means that supplies can be stepped up and down as needed to meet energy demands, which enables more intermittent renewables like wind and solar to be deployed with confidence. It provides the same grid-balancing service as fossil fuels, but without releasing carbon that has been stored in the Earth for millennia.”

    No, it releases “carbon” that has been stored in trees for decades instead. It’s nonsense to suggest that this is “renewable”, and nonsense to boast of the success of “renewable” energy” when more than half of claimed “renewable” energy is not from wind and solar. It’s nonsense to delude ourselves that renewables are cheap, when after costing so much money they are nowhere near solving the problems they cause and when they massage their inadequate figures by including biomass as a “renewable” energy source.

    Interesting that a special pleading article at Politico has revealed so many inconvenient truths.

    Like

  191. R4 now Heat networks and communal heating don’t benefit from the gas price caps
    so users will get 400% price rises.

    Charles Lawton and Stephen Knight “These green schemes need SUBSIDIES from government”

    I wonder if some run on other fuels eg waste and wood/biomass

    Like

  192. The way things are going, it looks like we’re going to find out what lies in the hearts of men and women.

    Like

  193. Oceanic methane release is in the news again:

    “Report of an ancient methane release raises questions for our climate future”

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/weather/topstories/report-of-an-ancient-methane-release-raises-questions-for-our-climate-future/ar-AA112x40?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=aed5063d9b3a4c4bab8f0ccb9a9faf24

    First, the good news:

    “Several scientists who reviewed the study said they weren’t ready to raise new major alarms about the planet’s ample stores of subsea methane in the form of so-called hydrates. While most experts agree that this methane could cause tremendous warming if it somehow hits the atmosphere, many think that the gas would be unleashed only slowly as the planet warms, and that the ocean itself would protect us by absorbing most methane before it can escape to the air.”

    Now the bad news:

    “Still, the new findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscore how little we still know about how the planet will respond to our uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions — and how unpredictable that response may be.”

    So the take-away is this: Scientists say don’t worry, but they could be wrong. So we should worry.

    The odd thing, however, is that when scientists say to worry, no one thinks they could be wrong. That’s the good old precautionary principle.

    Liked by 1 person

  195. John. I recall reading quite a few years ago a report of an attempt to harvest subsea methane which was not successful. Previous surveys had reported “wall-to-wall” clathrates, yet when they started drilling they discovered that methane was not uniformly present and in many areas it was completely missing (even though the areas had continuous seismic returns that had been interpreted as the top of the methane clathrate layer).

    I suspect those pushing the marine methane holocaust conveniently ignore this finding.

    Liked by 1 person

  197. Yes, John, I was at the “words fail me” too stage, when I heard it on the radio and when I read this report on the BBC website. Particularly interesting, I think, are the words of Ioen Wells, BBC political correspondent:

    “Boris Johnson referenced how President Putin is effectively using the energy crisis as an indirect weapon of war – to “torment households.”

    His message to the public that they must “endure” that pressure is striking.

    It sounds like an admission that we are vulnerable to such indirect “weapons of war” because we have not yet secured our own energy independence through homegrown supplies.

    If we had done that, we would not be as exposed to international price shocks.”

    I suspect, however, that we here differ from the BBC and many within politics as to how we should have gone about securing our own energy independence through homegrown supplies….

    Liked by 1 person

  199. Undoubtedly China is experiencing unusual heat and drought conditions, as reported in the Guardian:

    “China issues alert as drought and heatwave put crops at risk
    Local authorities told to take measures and ‘use every unit of water carefully’ in effort to save autumn harvest”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/24/china-issues-alert-drought-heatwave-put-crops-at-risk

    “A drought in China is threatening food production, prompting the government to order local authorities to take all available measures to ensure crops survive the hottest summer on record.

    On Tuesday, four government departments issued an urgent joint emergency notice, warning that the autumn harvest was under “severe threat”. It urged local authorities to ensure “every unit of water … be used carefully”, and called for methods included staggered irrigation, the diversion of new water sources, and cloud seeding.

    A record-breaking heatwave combined with a months-long drought during the usual flood season has wreaked havoc across China’s usually water-rich south. It has dried up parts of the Yangtze River and dozens of tributaries, drastically affecting hydropower capacity and causing rolling blackouts and power rationing as demand for electricity spikes. There is now concern about future food supply.”

    As for record-breaking heat, it depends how far back records go. As for the drought, sadly this is, admittedly not normal, but far from unprecedented. E.g.:

    “The severe drought of 1876–1878 in North China and possible causes”

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03127-8

    “An extreme drought occurred from 1876 to 1878 in most regions of northern China, leading to a series of social impacts, including harvest failures, price inflation, and population migration. Most regions of the Northern Hemisphere concurrently experienced extreme drought. Here, we use reconstructed high-resolution hydroclimatic (Palmer Drought Severity Index/precipitation) datasets and investigate the seasonal–annual hydroclimatic spatial patterns and drought intensity in North China from 1876 to 1878. Furthermore, we select combined sea surface temperature (SST) modes with positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)/Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño conditions from the 1200-year control run simulations of HadCM3 to determine the possible causes of this severe drought. The extent and intensity of the selected SST modes are similar to those in the Pacific and Indian oceans during the 1876–1878 period from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) dataset. The results show that the large-scale drought of 1876–1878 is mainly driven by El Niño and a positive PDO, while the effect of IOD is not significant. El Niño may trigger the circumglobal teleconnection of the Northern Hemisphere. And, the meridional disturbance of the eastward Rossby wave train at mid-latitudes may change the intensity of the troughs and ridges and further block water vapor transport from ocean to land.”

    And:

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/5-droughts-that-changed-human-history/

    “While China has weathered numerous severe droughts throughout its history, perhaps none was as consequential as the 1928-1930 drought, which some experts have called “the most disastrous event in the 20th century in China.” The drought led to a widespread famine, claiming the lives of anywhere between three million and 10 million people.”

    Like

  200. On the BBC on Ukraine today, this showed a major concession to reality.

    Ukraine war: The war is static, but ousting Russia is a seismic task

    Six months into the war, Ukraine is presented with some uncomfortable realities.

    After weeks of talking about it, Ukraine’s planned counter-offensive in the south, on the occupied city of Kherson, has yet to materialise.

    The counter-offensive against the Russians in Kherson has been the big hope, for the UK and US (not necessarily Ukraine’s generals), but it looks like it is a non-event.

    This is the first time I’ve seen this spelled out on the Beeb. Just as Ioen Wells spoke in a justly critical tone on the energy front.

    Like

  201. I can’t speak for this, but others who know more than me might like to comment?

    “Wind turbines emit highly dangerous climate-destroying gas, with Germany the worst polluter in Europe
    A favorite “green solution” is emitting the worst climate-killing chemical known to man”

    https://rmx.news/article/wind-turbines-emit-highly-dangerous-climate-destroying-gas-with-germany-the-worst-polluter-in-europe/

    “While Germany races to build wind farms, there is cause for concern, with a chemical identified as the strongest greenhouse gas in the world being emitted from wind turbines.

    In fact, measurements of the air over Germany have already identified the country as the worst offender in Europe when it comes to the highly dangerous substance sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). The chemical is used in the manufacturing of wind turbines and escapes into the environment. With Germany the leader in wind turbine use in Europe, scientists say this is the major factor behind the exceptionally high levels of SF6 readings in Germany.

    According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SF6 is a climate killer. In fact, it is 26,087 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide.

    Sulfur hexafluoride is a gas that industrial companies consider to be the perfect insulator, and while banned by many other manufacturing sectors, it is still widely used in wind turbines, mainly in electronic switchgears, i.e., the “nodes” in which the electrical energy is distributed. When there is little space to work with, such inside wind turbines, the gas provides excellent insulation while allowing extra space for vital machinery and parts.

    Once this substance enters the atmosphere, it takes more than 3,000 years for SF6 to decompose again and become inert, according to a report from German media outlet Taggeschau.

    It has been known for decades how dangerous the substance is. As early as 1997, the Kyoto Protocol stipulated that emissions of SF6 must be limited. Although it has been phased out, it is still permitted in electronic switchgear, and there are no legal restrictions for its usage in this area. Industry instead made a voluntary commitment to reduce its usage, to use it in closed systems, and to recycle and neutralize it at the end of its practical use. The 1998 commitment also stipulated that companies would record and report how much they use and recycle.

    However, this is clearly not happening. In fact, Germany is violating this stipulation on a massive scale, and the atmospheric data proves it. According to Taggeschau, scientists report that there is that SF6 levels are 50 percent higher than the current emission data provided by industry would suggest. This shows strong evidence that Germany is emitting more sulfur hexafluoride than is being reported….”

    If true (a big if, perhaps) the irony would be immense (and more than a little annoying).

    Like

  202. Eg this a month ago. I noticed this because it was retweeted by Jonathan Jones.

    I knew the moment I saw that that I didn’t believe that it really was ‘underway’.

    As we’ve said a lot, sceptics are bound to disagree. But my scepticism here has been borne out.

    The biggest issue for me is the blood of Ukrainians being shed because of the West’s illusions. Note how Johnson, master of illusion, goes straight from that (very real) sacrifice to the need for all of us to suffer in the energy space.

    “Ukrainian military says almost 9,000 members have been killed” it says in the report I linked to above but some are putting full Ukrainian casualties (dead and wounded) at more like 80,000. They’re also the people who have been saying for weeks that the Kherson offensive was highly unlikely to amount to anything.

    Horrible.

    Like

  203. Reply from my friend in Panama City

    The science of climate change is one thing but i think the answers to why these kinds of articles are so prevalent are found more in politics and pychology. .

    Seems the same as NBC, CNN, and Canada’s CBC. Fear sells, that’s for sure.
    Your friend is right, it seems, as Panamanians aren’t responding so dramatically, as the article would imply, they should be.
    I mean it is happening but hasn’t these kinds of things always happened?

    He digresses
    Back in 2000 I was visiting lanse aux meadows in newfoundland, the Viking settlement. I was lucky to meet the head archaeologist as i was walking around there.
    We talked for about half an hour on the top of a big hill. She said she was looking for campfire residue and bones as they have reason to believe this used to be a beach perhaps a few thousand years back.
    I asked how is this possible if we are up on a big hill.
    She explained that just as water rises and falls and is constantly changing , land or earth is not exactly permanent.
    It is fluid and moves around over time-geological time.
    That was me not really thinking asking how come the water got down there, but land rises.
    All of our physical existence is impermanent anyway with or without man’s intervention.
    i wonder if it is just the same as these Kuna islands.
    Perhaps these land masses or these parts of the earth are just sinking.

    Like

  205. Speaking to the Spectator, Mr Sunak insisted he did not want to blame individuals but said he believes a series of mistakes were made by ministers during the pandemic.

    He said ministers were not given enough information to scrutinise analysis produced by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) – a group of independent experts advising the government.

    “We shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did,” he is quoted as saying.

    Mr Sunak says ministers should have talked more about what he described as the “trade-offs” of lockdowns, such as NHS backlogs and the impact on children’s education.

    “The script was not to ever acknowledge them. The script was: oh there’s no trade-off, because doing this for our health is good for the economy.”

    — https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62664537

    My bold. Any lessons for climate here I wonder?

    Liked by 1 person

  206. Richard, the lesson I am taking from it is that no-one will disagree with government policy until their career is over, as Sunak’s appears to be (is Truss going to appoint him to a senior job?). If anyone in cabinet disagrees about Net Zero, we won’t hear about that until they resign later. Then when everything has properly collapsed they will emerge from the rubble saying “I did warn them this was going to happen, but they wouldn’t allow any discussion about it. Oh well.”

    The post-match analysis on Truss-Sunak may end up being that the MPs did not have a very good gauge of their members’ opinions. If members vote for Truss, as seems likely, it is curious that all those MPs went back to their constituency and formed the opinion that the members actually wanted Sunak.

    Liked by 2 people

  207. Multiple points taken Jit. (They’re very good ones but I have precious little time.)

    I was thinking though of this on the proper role of science:

    Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

    From the WCD Declaration the other day. We need much more science in assessing policies, far less wonky model-based science (aka fake science) feeding into that.

    Like

  208. stewgreen, thanks for the continuing interest in this story. I did a bit of digging in case there was an article in it, but concluded that there isn’t. However, what I did discover is that:

    1. The islands are made of coral and are extremely low-lying;
    2. They are massively crowded, hugely over-populated;
    3. To deal with the over-crowding, islanders have been breaking up the underwater coral reef and using it (with other material) to expand the size of the islands;
    4. This has had the effect of destroying natural protection against storm surges.
    5. The above is indisputable (it is all reported in many reputable places), as is the fact that sea-levels are rising. However, before labelling these people as climate refugees it seems to me that you would have to establish that the sea-level rise is accelerating, that storm surges are getting worse (rather than that their effects are getting worse because the islanders destroyed the coral defences), and that they aren’t having to move because of over-population. Needless to say the simplistic BBC climate-change narrative didn’t mention any of these complexities.

    Liked by 1 person

  209. “How much longer can we tolerate this price-gouging racket of an energy sector?
    Damian Carrington”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/25/oil-gas-racket-energy-sector

    I got quite excited there for a moment. Damian’s seen the light, I thought. An article exposing the avaricious, inefficient, damaging, subsidy-sucking, price-inflating, blackout-inducing renewables sector.

    But of course not. Worth a read, if only to realise the full scale of what we’re up against.

    Like

  211. Mark: Damian Carrington should be happy that there is an oil-gas racket and hydrocarbon prices are so high. In British Columbia we have a carbon tax to push prices even higher to encourage consumers to seek alternatives. Why are the greens whinging about high prices for hydrocarbons when it is what they wanted all along?

    Liked by 1 person

  212. With seemingly everyone else in the U.K. out on strike has Cliscep followed suit? Nothing new since yesterday. Am experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

    Like

  213. Alan, stand by. I’m trying to pen a screed about the large blue. If I don’t finish it in the next twenty minutes, it will have to be much later…

    Like

  214. Leeds ITV local newsPR
    Whole show is PR for the Leeds Festival
    They just started about festival waste and then went into big PR item about Green measures
    PR for the Big Green Coach company
    John Grant their favourite Climate Alarmist is speaking now

    Like

  215. Will it now finally dawn on the climate concerned that much of the rest of the world doesn’t care about GHG emissions?

    “Climate change: Russia burns off gas as Europe’s energy bills rocket”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62652133

    “As Europe’s energy costs skyrocket, Russia is burning off large amounts of natural gas, according to analysis shared with BBC News.

    They say the plant, near the border with Finland, is burning an estimated $10m (£8.4m) worth of gas every day.

    Experts say the gas would previously have been exported to Germany.

    Germany’s ambassador to the UK told BBC News that Russia was burning the gas because “they couldn’t sell it elsewhere”.

    Scientists are concerned about the large volumes of carbon dioxide and soot it is creating, which could exacerbate the melting of Arctic ice.

    The analysis by Rystad Energy indicates that around 4.34 million cubic metres of gas are being burned by the flare every day.

    It is coming from a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Portovaya, north-west of St Petersburg…”.

    Like

  217. #Green Islam gets an entire BBC World Service prog
    On 7 times over the weekend
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct423p
    “Zubeida also visits Europe’s first eco-Mosque in Cambridge, England, a beacon of modern Islamic environmentalism,
    and eavesdrops on British Muslim schoolgirls learning to interpret their faith and the natural world.”

    (Yes that is the same mosque that was BBC Gardener’s world tonight, in an 8 minute item that only featured females all BAME except the 2 white designer)

    Rest of the radio blurb
    There are hundreds of verses in the Quran calling on Muslims to protect the environment. Islam teaches that everyone is a custodian of nature and should treat the natural environment with respect and care. Sustainability has been part of the faith from the beginning.
    How are ordinary Muslims around the globe responding to that call?

    Reporter Zubeida Malik hears about the experiences of a local imam from Indonesia trying to persuade his community to help redress the effects of climate change
    and she looks at how religious leaders in Zanzibar successfully persuaded fishermen to change their age-old customs.

    03.06.2022 a item from DW Germany
    “Can a ‘green Islam’ save Indonesia from climate collapse?”
    https://www.dw.com/en/can-a-green-islam-save-indonesia-from-climate-collapse/a-62025251

    Like

  218. It goes against the narrative, so I give credit to the Guardian for publishing it:

    “Solar power payback takes much longer than you think”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/26/solar-power-payback-takes-much-longer-than-you-think

    “Your article suggests that a 4 kilowatt (kW) solar panel system can save its owners £980 a year at 28p per kilowatt hour (kWh) and £1,575 at the 45p per kWh that is coming soon (Solar panels: how to fix your energy bills while the sun shines, 20 August). This estimate overlooks the important fact that most electricity is produced in summer, and all of it in daylight, while most consumption is in winter and at night.

    Our 4kW system has produced about 4,000kWh a year for the last 10 years. Although that is equivalent to our annual consumption we only consume about 30% of what we produce, despite having a household of three stay-at-home pensioners and electric cooking and water heating.

    An average day in summer produces 15-20kWh. In winter it is a fraction of that: the total for the whole of January is about 100kWh. This means that interseasonal storage or huge overcapacity would be required to go off grid; batteries at this scale will not be either environmentally or economically appropriate to achieving self-sufficiency.

    I have a log of production and consumption in five-minute intervals for one year, and using that data I calculate that with a battery system I could consume an additional 30% of our production. A larger system (8kWh storage) would not save proportionately more than a smaller (3kWh) system, because a large battery will not be fully charged on most days in the winter.

    At foreseeable electricity prices a 4kW system with or without a small battery may pay for itself within its lifetime, but not within the five to seven years suggested – although higher feed-in tariffs that reflect the value of the electricity exported would substantially reduce payback times.
    Harry Noyes
    Alfold, Surrey”

    The third paragraph of the letter is the crux of the matter.

    Liked by 1 person

  219. Notable things in the Euronews article
    .. https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/08/26/energy-bills-are-soaring-in-europe-what-are-countries-doing-to-help-you-pay-them?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1661514146

    The Netherlands
    ⚡️Lowering VAT on energy from 21% to 9%
    and cutting duty on petrol and diesel by 21%, a cap which will remain in place until the end of the year.

    UK pay grant to all, extra for benefit claimers , extra for disabled, extra for pensioners
    So in total upto £1500

    Most countries either throw payments at the publics or cap the price like France/Spain
    many reduce energy VAT

    Spain, Italy taxing oil corps ..it fails to say UK is doing same
    Spain : ⛽️Enforces a one-year long cap on gas prices, ensuring they remain lower than an average of €50 per megawatt-hour.

    Greece : direct subsidies

    Bulgaria : Grant plus
    Since July, the government is also offering a discount of 0.25 levs (€0.13) per litre of petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas and methane until the end of the year and it’s scrapping excise duties on natural gas, electricity and methane.

    More fool corps that invested in the UK
    where the Green energy policies made prices go crazy

    Like

  220. A while ago I mentioned that the Guardian CO2 tracker seemed to have peaked at 419.1 ppm and was headed downwards. Alan kindly explained that this happens every year during the northern hemisphere summer. I spotted that it kept going down, to 413.7ppm the other day. That seems to be that. Maybe summer is over in the northern hemisphere. Today the Guardian is showing it at 413.8ppm. I will try to remember to provide an update as the coming northern winter is ending.

    Like

  221. Two guys we’ve heard of interacting on Twitter in a way that looks valuable.

    Shellenberger then corrects the 2016 to 2017. But basic accountabilty says it matters.

    Liked by 1 person

  222. I used to get my firewood from Mr Saudi, occasionally he’d try to jack up the price
    but then my neighbour Mr America would chop down more wood and the market price would fall.

    Then 2 years ago Mr America changed his mind and started signalling that he wouldn’t be increasing production anymore
    So these days we have to pay the big new prices Mr Saudi demands.

    Like

  223. Radio 4 9am they had Dale Vince on with a magic solution.
    “Instead of trying to cap the retail price Britain should cap the price North Sea gas producers get so they get a 2% of profit
    and since Britain gets 50% of its gas from the North Sea that would also cause our import price to fall to that level”

    Dale’s plan isn’t without merit
    but #1 the idea our import price will fall greatly is wishful thinking

    #2 Why should North Sea gas producers just make a 2% profit ?
    what about all the years they made big losses
    Dale says that also the corps should be compelled to keep this years production at the same at last years
    ..how would that work out ?
    ..it might costs big money to that if there was an accident or natural complication.

    Like

  224. “@DaleVince of @ecotricity on #BBCBH argues,
    ‘Britain makes 50% of the gas it needs in its North Sea.
    We allow global commodity markets to set the price, which had gone up 5-10 fold
    … So we should have a price cap on North Sea gas
    … which would collapse its price’    “

    Like

  225. OK so why would ITV make Pakistani floods #1 ?

    There is a line
    The death toll prompted the country’s climate minister to label the season as “a serious climate catastrophe”.
    .. Of course he did
    He’s not going to say “don’t look at me not doing enough flood prevention measures”

    “climate catastrophe” is a meme that fits right in with libmob so of course media will seek then amplify that angle
    ITV put up about 2 or 3 Youtube clips per day this Pakistan was one SELECTED by them to be put on YouTube
    Title: Pakistan floods death toll tops 1,000 as minister declares ‘serious climate catastrophe’
    .. https://youtu.be/lGGOif3rn4o
    ITV doesn’t allow comments on any of its videos

    Like

  227. If there was any doubt about the quasi spiritual/religious cult of climate change, the Guardian finally lays it to rest. This was in reference to some tree leaves in the UK turning orange in late summer. A normal stress response following the summer drought:

    “And the beauty of a false autumn, specifically, has an emotional effect, a deep uncanniness, something mysteriously suggestive of evil or danger; in that idea of evil is also an assertion of moral failure.
    Cultures across the world contain rites for the propitiation of the weather; a sense of responsibility for the natural world – and the belief that it will punish us if we fail it – is as old as humanity.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/28/the-guardian-view-on-this-false-autumn-an-uncanny-beauty

    Liked by 1 person

  228. Emily Maitlis – ex BBC
    “Populism, she argued in a clearly cathartic appearance before the Edinburgh TV festival, was tying the media up in knots. Politicians were acting in ways that are “deeply and clearly deleterious to basic democratic government”, trampling over constitutional norms, making “things that would once have shocked us now seem commonplace”. But journalists still clung to an old idea of impartiality and balance – that both sides must get an equal say, and let the viewer decide – which is effectively now being weaponised against them. To have a pro-Brexit economist debate a pro-remain one on air was not “balance”, she said, if economists generally were so overwhelmingly against leaving that it took hours of ringing round to find one lone maverick in favour. Broadcasters now reject such false equivalence on topics where scientific consensus is overwhelming, from climate change to vaccination, so why not in economics?”

    Like

  230. dfhunter, Maitlis argues that

    “Politicians were acting in ways that are “deeply and clearly deleterious to basic democratic government”, trampling over constitutional norms, making “things that would once have shocked us now seem commonplace”.”

    Yes indeed, but not in the way that she thinks. I was in favour of Brexit, but not to the extent that I would have foamed at the mouth had the UK voted to stay, in the way that some remainers were foaming at the mouth about the Brexit vote. What turned me into a full-blown “remain over my dead body” person was the rejection of a democratic vote by the elites, because they were sure that they knew best. I am not generally in favour referenda, but I don’t see what the point of having referenda is when the elite think they can ignore the results if they go the “wrong” way.

    One problem with Maitlis’ rejection of balanced debates where we (the elites) “know” that one side is right and the other is wrong, is that nobody is entitled to display such arrogance in a democratic society. The other problem is the regularity with which hindsight is demonstrating that the expert/elite view is wrong.

    Maitlis is turning logic on its head. As with energy, the likes of her are living in a through the looking-glass world, where everything is upside down or the wrong way round.

    Like

  231. “Irish farmers say they will be forced to cull cows to meet climate targets
    Government plan to cut agriculture emissions by 25% by 2030 will drive many farms into bankruptcy, say critics”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/29/irish-farmers-cull-cows-meet-climate-targets

    Instead of cutting emissions, Ireland has continued increasing them and the biggest contributor is agriculture. Ireland’s 135,000 farms produce 37.5% of national emissions, the highest proportion in the European Union, and most of that comes from methane associated with belching by ruminant animals.

    Under a new government plan, agriculture must reduce emissions by 25% by 2030. Other sectors face even higher targets – transport must reduce emissions by 50%, commercial and public buildings by 40% – but the loudest protests have come from farmers.

    Cutting emissions by a quarter will drive many farms into bankruptcy and could force the culling of hundreds of thousands of cows, they say. “The mood is hugely frustrated,” said Pat McCormack, head of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association. “It’s very hard to quantify but there will be increased costs and reduced output.”

    Farmers and their allies have accused the coalition government, which includes the Green party, of scapegoating rural Ireland and leaving farmers little option but to cull herds. So far there have been no Dutch-style protests.

    Until recently, the government had encouraged dairy farmers to expand to exploit the end of EU milk quotas. Farmers invested in new equipment and the dairy herd grew by almost half in the past decade. Irish butter, cheese and other produce – 90% is exported – filled supermarket shelves around the world.

    As I commented in a different context elsewhere at Cliscep, farcical doesn’t even begin to describe it. Tragedy, perhaps?

    Like

  234. Maitlis is doing the Fallacy of Argument from Authority
    The small boy , has valid opinions about the Emperor’s suit
    and he pays for it.

    If an economist had come to Emily in 2007 and predicted a crash
    she would’ve told him to eff off.

    Like

  235. Metal detecting camera
    just thinking about those guy who find rings on the beach
    what you need is a camera that just picks up metal
    I guess the EMF frequency for metal mean the detector needs to be very close
    but you could mount the it in a drone and fly low
    I guess the processing takes a lot of time
    Those ground penetrating radar trolley don’t have an instant screen readout.

    Like

  236. @itvnews Aug 23
    A UK-built satellite will measure the Earth’s biomass in a bid to help protect the planet’s forests.
    The mission will essentially take a scan of *the lungs of the Earth,*
    penetrating through forest canopies and building a 3D image of them.

    *the lungs of the Earth* is a PR phrase
    CO2 is sequestered in the marshes and the sea …will they be measured.

    Like

  237. “Scientists call on colleagues to protest climate crisis with civil disobedience
    An article in the Nature Climate Change journal argues that non-violent direct action taken by experts is effective”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/29/scientists-call-on-colleagues-to-protest-climate-crisis-with-civil-disobedience

    Scientists should commit acts of civil disobedience to show the public how seriously they regard the threat posed by the climate crisis, a group of leading scientists has argued.

    “Civil disobedience by scientists has the potential to cut through the myriad complexities and confusion surrounding the climate crisis,” the researchers wrote in an article, published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.

    “When those with expertise and knowledge are willing to convey their concerns in a more uncompromising manner … this affords them particular effectiveness as a communicative act. This is the insight of Greta Thunberg when she calls on us to ‘act as you would in a crisis’.”

    In recent months, scientists have shown themselves increasingly willing to take part in direct actions to bring attention to the climate crisis. A “scientists rebellion” mobilised more than 1,000 scientists in 25 countries in April, while in the UK a number of scientists were arrested for gluing scientific papers – and their hands – on to the glass facade of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

    The article was jointly written by five climate scientists: Stuart Capstick, Aaron Thierry, Emily Cox, Steve Westlake and Julia K. Steinberger. A sixth byline was taken by Oscar Berglund, a political scientist at the University of Bristol who studies civil disobedience and social movements.

    A note appended to the article disclosed that all the authors “have participated in, and offered support to, groups carrying out civil disobedience to press for climate action”.

    What was that Emily Maitlis said about not needing balance when the experts are right (I paraphrase)?

    Like

  238. “Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’
    Loss will contribute a minimum rise of 27cm regardless of what climate action is taken, scientists discover”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/29/major-sea-level-rise-caused-by-melting-of-greenland-ice-cap-is-now-inevitable-27cm-climate

    Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were to end overnight.

    The research shows the global heating to date will cause an absolute minimum sea-level rise of 27cm (10.6in) from Greenland alone as 110tn tonnes of ice melt. With continued carbon emissions, the melting of other ice caps and thermal expansion of the ocean, a multi-metre sea-level rise appears likely.

    Does that mean it’s time to give up and accept the inevitable? Of course not…

    And what about the timescale behind this scary headline?

    “The minimum of 27cm is the sea-level rise deficit that we have accrued to date and it’s going to get paid out, no matter what we do going forward,” said Dr William Colgan, also at Geus. “Whether it’s coming in 100 years or 150 years, it’s coming. And the sea-level rise we are committed to is growing at present, because of the climate trajectory we’re on.”

    Like

  239. “Weather tracker: Atlantic hurricane season may finally be starting to stir
    Nicholas Lee (Metdesk)
    Lack of activity has confounded forecasts so far but a cluster of thunderstorms could change that”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/29/weather-tracker-atlantic-hurricane-season-finally-starting-stir

    The Atlantic hurricane season has so far confounded forecasts of an active year, with only three named storms so far, none of which were hurricane strength. In fact, until now this August joins 1997 and 1961 in having no named storms.

    However, there are three months left of the season and activity is starting to stir in the tropics. A cluster of thunderstorms in the central Atlantic has the potential to organise sufficiently to become the first named storm since Colin in early July. Should this occur, it may move westwards and approach the Leeward Islands, bringing the threat of heavy rainfall towards the end of this week, but there is little suggestion it will develop into a significant storm at this stage.

    Like

  241. Where are all these heatwave dead ?

    Where are all of these places flooded cos the rain came down onto hard baked ground ?
    I don’t know of any

    Medialand just run with narratives
    and get away with it

    Like

  243. Top story in The Times this morning:

    Tories rush to drill for more oil in North Sea – Liz Truss will give licences the green light

    Liz Truss will approve a series of oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea in one of her first acts as prime minister as part of a long-term plan to ensure Britain’s energy security.

    Senior allies of the Tory leadership frontrunner have been putting together her response to the energy crisis, with average annual household bills due to rise to £3,549 from October.

    Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, have been meeting oil and gas companies to negotiate a deal to secure energy supplies this winter. The pair have a two-pronged approach that involves securing more gas from Norway while maximising domestic production.

    There is a scramble across Europe for dwindling supplies. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said yesterday that the bloc was preparing to reform the continent’s electricity market.

    Kwarteng, who is likely to be made chancellor if Truss becomes prime minister, has led the drive over the past year to increase North Sea drilling. Rees-Mogg is being tipped for the position of business secretary after he was entrusted with helping to develop Truss’s policy on energy. Rees-Mogg held another meeting yesterday with senior executives at Total and Shell.

    The North Sea still contains gas and oil equivalent to about 15 billion barrels, according to the latest estimates from Offshore Energies UK, based on figures from the North Sea Transition Authority. Britain’s total energy consumption equates to about a billion barrels of oil a year.

    Truss has faced criticism for delaying her announcement on energy until after the leadership election. “Rest assured there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes,” one ally said.

    I was hoping for a “No Daleks” article by this time but of course there was this:

    The exploration licences are unlikely to bring prices down in the immediate future and green campaigners argue that the oil and gas produced in Britain will be sold on the global market, offering little benefit to domestic consumers. In February the independent Climate Change Committee sent a letter to Kwarteng, saying that there should be a “presumption against exploration”. Since then Britain has experienced a temperature of 40C for the first time.

    All the same, good use of the new Tory broom.

    Like

  244. It seems that Ms Truss’ grasp of economics is as good as her understanding of geography. There are two points here:

    One is that any company that is thinking of investing in the expensive remnants of North Sea oil will want to be sure that they get a return on their investment, which at the very least means that the commitment to Nett Carbon Zero needs to be scared.

    The other is that the UK, and the rest of Europe, can have as much oil and gas as they need. All they have to do is grovel a bit, and be willing to pay for it in roubles.

    Like

  245. Bill:

    the commitment to Nett Carbon Zero needs to be scared

    Don’t quite know how to parse that.

    I should perhaps make clear that I agree with Paul Goodman in yesterday’s paper: Truss has little hope of surviving the storm. Because of the many conflicting demands on the new PM.

    What I liked here was the difference of emphasis in the report, the relative silence devoted to what I’m calling the Daleks. Ultimately only their much-deserved obscurity will allow the UK to radically change.

    Like

  247. Bill: Scrapped is good. So is ignored. There’s no mention of Net Zero in this Times piece. We may be about to enjoy a period of strenuous attempts not to mention it from those with the daunting task of keeping the UK afloat in the near- and medium-term.

    Hypocritical, given all their votes and soundbites since 29th October 2008? Yep. But country-saving hypocrisy may not be so bad.

    Liked by 1 person

  249. Here’s the tweet from ITV local NewsPR syndicated-features reporter

    @NickSmithITV ·
    Should we get used to eating more wonky veg?
    The @NFUtweets* & @CLAtweets*
    are calling on supermarkets to accept more “non-standard” produce
    after a growing season hit by drought. **
    Catch my report on @itvanglia @itvcalendar @ITVCentral @itvmeridian @itvtynetees & @itvwestcountry …

    * So we can see the item is PR for @NFUtweets* & @CLAtweets
    ** ” hit by drought.” was used to introduce the phrase “The Climate Emergency” twice
    and started banging on about that

    #AgendaPushing

    Like

  250. “Persil advert banned for misleading green claims”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62726666

    Unilever’s advert for one of its laundry detergents, Persil, has been banned for being misleading about its environmental benefits.

    The television advert said Persil was “kinder to our planet”, and featured children picking up litter on a beach.

    The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the advert’s claim was unsubstantiated.

    Unilever, which owns brands including Hellmann’s and Dove, said it is “disappointed” with the result.

    It follows a crackdown by the ASA on “greenwashing” – claims made by firms branding products as eco-friendly, green or sustainable.

    Will they now do the same with regard to all those energy retailers claiming to supply 100% renewable electricity?

    Like

  251. Vinny, there is no topic, so you can’t be off topic. However, your comment is too cryptic for me. Care to expand on it?

    Like

  252. Jit, I had one too many fruit juices last night and ended up playing Forge of Empires, a game that’s too boring to play when sober. Polishing your bush is something that people outside the game do to make people inside the game happy. (Probably. I’m not wholly sure that the bush-polishers are real people. They might be generated by the game.) Anyway… Sorry about the comment. Massively OT for this blog, mo? Plus very silly.

    Like

  253. Vinny, as said, nothing is OT here. I’ve never played Forge of Empires, so am unsure what actually goes on. I am however playing Elden Ring, which in some eyes marks me out as a child.

    Like

  254. Fundamentals
    That there is a real world where 2+2= 4
    .. but there are also the bubbleworlds where 2+2=5
    That is the world of the Climate activist
    We see in a lot of their cultish arguments, they are 150% that there is a Climate Emergency yet their debate is low on proper evidence and high on shouting

    Today that came up in the case of Avi Yemini being banned from New Zealand
    He has a scoop an Interpol NZ email that how they colluded to ban him from the country
    Today I saw activists shouting they had a GOTCHA
    ..the email has to be fake cos they can’t find it on the internet

    The activist were 150% certain Yemini’s email is fake, their tweet were loud and neering

    Yet Yemini from the tart said it was an internal Interpol intranet email
    and sure enough similar addresses do exists
    Here’ a climbdown by an activist but see his emphatic old ending
    .. https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/x0i56s/bfd_cam_slater_and_the_platform_being_lazy_liars/

    Like

  255. @BBCMoreOrLess long Twitter thread .. https://twitter.com/BBCMoreOrLess/status/1564967993452494849
    Nationalising Energy corps is not magical idea
    cos when you break down the costs underlying the price cap currently in force,
    only about 1.8% of our bills go to profits made by energy suppliers.
    Ofgem actually caps the proportion that suppliers can earn at just above this mark.
    (OK profit on a £2000 is £36 and on a doubled bill would be £72
    but cutting that cuts very little )

    They then try to play down the cot of green Levies
    “These policy costs will account for about 4% of our bills from October. Right now it’s about 8%, ”
    ( I would include a wider measure including everything eg the infrastructure, the way wind/solar get priority market access)

    can the gov take the money off the actual drillers/traders ?
    Nope cos they are mostly offshore

    Like

  256. BBC looking to do a Climate Special ?
    To ask floods question to Hannah Cloke , Professor @UniofReading, @UniRdg_water
    Co-Director | floods, heatwaves, natural hazards | hydrology | climate impact | ensemble forecasts | disaster risk
    I’m the editor of @BBCMoreOrLess could you follow me. I want to ask you a floods question.”

    To : Simon Cook ❄️🏔💧🧊@glacio_cook Research & teaching @geog_uod in Glaciology, Geohazards, Geomorphology, Climate Change, Sustainability
    “Could you follow me? I want to ask about a potential item”

    To : Guy SchumannGuy Schumann @guy_schumann R&D scientist at @RssHydro , fellow @BristolUni & @INSTAAR . Expertise in flood modeling and EO data of floods. Assist disaster response & flood risk.
    ” I’m interested in doing something about the Pakistan Floods. Is it possible to quantify them using satellite imagery?”

    Like

  257. itv local newsPR huge opening item
    about the opening of Hornsea2 windfarm
    “A Green Revolution”
    the hyperbole about the size
    ..enough to power 1.3 million homes
    Without explaining its not that much power
    maybe 1% of UK demand

    David Patrick Hewell of Orsted got a huge say
    “oh this project is 1.3GW
    Hornsea3 will be 2.8GW”

    Next item ‘planning permission for new caravan park at Adelthorpe refused’
    They never mentioned sea level rise, nor that area probably used to be sea marsh.

    Like

  258. BBC local NewsPR same but different
    – The Orsted boss Dave Clark
    – Melanie Onn the Renewables UK spokesman
    then “give us your views”

    Like

  259. “Carbon capture is not a solution to net zero emissions plans, report says
    The technology, put forward as part of the UK’s net zero strategy, could extend the life of fossil fuel infrastructure”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/01/carbon-capture-is-not-a-solution-to-net-zero-emissions-plans-report-says

    Carbon capture and storage schemes, a key plank of many governments’ net zero plans, “is not a climate solution”, the author of a major new report on the technology has said.

    Researchers for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found underperforming carbon capture projects considerably outnumbered successful ones by large margins.

    Of the 13 projects examined for the study – accounting for about 55% of the world’s current operational capacity – seven underperformed, two failed and one was mothballed, the report found.

    “Many international bodies and national government are relying on carbon capture in the fossil fuel sector to get to net zero, and it simply won’t work,” Bruce Robertson, the author of the IEEFA report, said.

    Despite being a technology still in development, carbon capture and storage has been put forward as a key element in the UK’s plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

    Of course, the agenda is to stop fossil fuel use, rather than to control CO2 emissions:

    The risk is that CCS technology will be used to extend the life of fossil fuel infrastructure long past the cut off point for maintaining atmospheric carbon at less than catastrophic levels, the report suggested.

    Liked by 1 person

  260. Wildlife photographer of the year: just some pretty pictures, or a chance to make some climate propaganda? The latter, it seems. Once again the BBC reporter is from the “Climate and Science” division. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62724822

    First up, a bonobo and a baby mongoose, and a discussion about whether the bonobo had taken the mongoose as a pet, or as a keep-fresh snack.

    Then a right whale eyeballing the photographer. So far so good.

    Next, some perch and algae…

    The cloud-like excessive algal growth, a result of climate change and warming waters, can cause a problem for aquatic life when it uses up oxygen and blocks out sunlight.

    Whether the growth is excessive or not, it is a very casual and sweeping statement to pin it on climate change. The presence of a healthy number of perch indicates a reasonable oxygen level. Try taking a photo like that in the Norfolk Broads.

    Next, a man standing in front of two houses on stilts. The new one has shorter stilts.

    Dutch photographer Jasper Doest captured Lubinda Lubinda, station manager for the Zambezi River Authority, in front of his new house (right) which he did not need to built as high as his last one due to lower water levels. Climate change and deforestation have resulted in the Zambezi flood plain experiencing more droughts.

    Discussing the image, Dr Natalie Cooper said: “We can talk about climate change until we’re blue in the face but until you see the reality of the issue on the screen in front of you, it’s hard to connect with that subject.”

    At least deforestation gets a mention, but this is another sweeping statement. There are natural cycles in climate outside of humanity’s contribution via CO2.

    Next, a cute looking polar bear in an abandoned village.

    More than 20 polar bears took over Kolyuchin Island, Russia which has been abandoned since 1992, in search of food. With climate change reducing sea ice, polar bears are finding hunting more difficult, pushing them closer to human settlements to scavenge. A low-noise drone was used to capture the striking image.

    A series of assertions there. After thirty years, do you really think the polar bears would not consider the abandoned buildings their own?

    After a photo of tree frogs, the last snap is of a stag in a snowstorm. Thankfully no mention of how the chances of getting such photos in the UK are decreasing because of climate change.

    Liked by 2 people

  261. It’s been a long time since Prof Ken Rice commented on this blog. The last time, I believe, was when he (and his sidekick Willard) came on to tell us all to stop complaining about Climategate since there was no point in discussing it any further. That hasn’t stopped him continuing to do so at great length on his own website, however:

    https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2022/08/27/the-importance-of-science-communication/

    He is right, of course, about further discussion being pointless – at least if the tediousness of his latest discussion is anything to go by. Lots of talk of ‘disingenuous’ contributions from the sceptical. Lots of talk of Dunning-Kruger. I was tempted to introduce the view that the DK effect does not exist and was simply an artefact of incorrect statistical analysis:

    https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/04/08/the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-autocorrelation/

    There are plenty of people who comment on ATTP who are clever enough to recognise the importance of the above. However, recognising and acknowledging are two quite different things.

    Like

  263. I think stew may already have mentioned this:

    “East Yorkshire climate change consultation launched”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-62740624

    People living and working in East Yorkshire are being asked to contribute to the local authority’s response to climate change.

    Drop-in sessions in September will allow attendees to get a first look at East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s (ERYC) draft Climate Change Strategy.

    Residents will also be offered the chance to consider their own impact on the climate, ERYC says.

    I wonder what they would do if the public response was overwhelmingly negative about the Council wasting its time on having a Climate Change Strategy? My money would be on them pressing ahead regardless.

    Like

  264. John, I haven’t lurked at aTTP’s place for quite a while, so I followed your link there. Then I realised why I don’t go there any more. Dull doesn’t begin to describe it. At least we enjoy ourselves here. By the way, did you notice something about his latest piece being sponsored content?

    Like

  265. I wrote two days ago about a front-page (lead) story in The Times:

    There’s no mention of Net Zero in this Times piece. We may be about to enjoy a period of strenuous attempts not to mention it from those with the daunting task of keeping the UK afloat in the near- and medium-term.

    The same is true for this one, also the lead story by this afternoon:

    Boris Johnson criticised Liz Truss’s stance on fracking as he committed £700 million to build a nuclear power plant in Suffolk.

    The prime minister said “we must pull our national finger out and get on with Sizewell C” as he attacked previous governments (the Conservative Party has been in power for 12 years) for myopia and short-termism in failing to back nuclear power.

    — https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/goal-is-eight-new-nuclear-power-plants-6666fb3x5

    Even though Boris is (not unexpectedly) putting the boot in to the Prime Minister in waiting, and he’s attacking her for putting her trust in fracking, he doesn’t once use the term Net Zero. It has become PR poison, at least for some audiences in September 2022. Well that’s my take. And that is an opportunity for any climate realist.

    Like

  266. about 4 days ago EarthX-TV took over over Channel 79 (used to be That’s TV
    Seems to be wall to wall Climate propaganda
    .. Ofcom allows that ?

    Like

  268. Is open Mic full ? I get a posting error
    about 4 days ago EarthX-TV took over over Channel 79 (used to be That’s TV )
    Seems to be wall to wall Climate propaganda
    .. Ofcom allows that ?

    Like

  269. From today’s Grauniad: ‘But he [BoJo] disparaged fracking, which Truss has pledged to lift a ban on, and hydrocarbons, another energy source his likely successor wants to exploit through further drilling in the North Sea.’

    Like

  273. Science Festival schedule
    of course as I flick through it’s filled with woke-supremacist anti-science stuff

    eg 1 Woman, immigrant, entrepreneur.. that’s not science

    eg2 Creating climate fiction

    Climate fiction or ‘cli-fi’ refers to novels and movies that deal with human-induced climate change.
    Often set in near future, dystopian worlds, this genre of fiction paints a picture of rising sea levels, extreme weather, hunger, pollution and disease outbreaks. A world not too dissimilar from our current reality.

    Like most speculative fiction, many of the novels are informed by science, and play an important role in raising awareness of our future living with climate change.
    Join a panel of specialists, including Bill McGuire from University College London, who’ll delve into some of the most popular cli-fi, *assessing the science behind their stories.*
    (That’s shoehorning a science angle)

    Like

  275. Dilbert cartoonist and humourist Scott Adams is more of Alex Epstein fan than I had realised, based on this yesterday. The thread he points is a really worthwhile outline of Epstein’s new book.

    Like

  276. Boris Johnson: “offshore wind is now nine times cheaper than gas because of the insanity of what Putin has done”

    is this true ? and even if true, 9 times !!!

    Like

  277. Dfhunter, no it’s not true, but it’s a lie that is being pushed relentlessly by those in favour of net zero and renewable energy.

    They rely on the strike price agreed during the latest round of CfD bargaining in order to make this claim. However, as we know, not one of these “contracts” is anywhere near implementation, and those agreed at higher prices are being deferred by the energy companies, so as to allow them to charge market rates instead.

    The audited accounts of energy companies demonstrate that they will lose a lot of money at £48 per MWh.

    Finally, even if that price did represent their actual costs of production (it doesn’t), it ignores all the extra costs to the grid associated with the extra infrastructure required to accommodate them and to deal with their intermittency problem.

    Like

  279. Richard

    While Alex Epstein is correct in that fossil fuels are the most advantageous form of energy we can access, there is a problem with them. To put it bluntly, if we continue to extract them at the present rate, they won’t last very long at affordable prices.
    I’ve recently found this blog post which goes into great detail about the history and future projections of the oil fields in Alberta:

    https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/02/10/a-case-study-of-fossil-fuel-depletion/

    Liked by 1 person

  280. Bear in mine the BishopHill tweet above about the true expensive cost of leccy from the new Hornsea2 windfarm

    BBCRadio Humberside at 9:10am just ran a fantastic PR piece for the new Hornsea2 windfarm
    Kofi’s Friday’s show Good Thing is supposed to be only reserved for POSITIVE stories
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0crzwgy
    Listeners were not made aware of the fact Orsted have locked it into super high prices this year
    And listen how the BBC presenter loves windfarms.

    Kofi said “This is a really good one ! … energy …
    Hopefully this one a little more positive
    cos the world’s biggest windfarm is now fully operational off the East Yorkshire coast . Hornsea2
    Patrick Harnett is the VP for programmes UK for Orsted” (same guy local ITV newsPR platformed)

    PH “lots of green renewable energy” (PRspeak not truth)
    “a city the size of Manchester” (misleading claim 1.3GW output will not power Manchester)

    Kofi “Can it help drive prices down ?”
    PH “ABSOLUTELY
    .. the more renewable energy we on the grid the less gas, less gas we need to import …
    that mean prices WILL come down”
    “this is a huge amount of extra power on the grid” (It’s not huge it’s 1.6% approx)

    Kofi “Do you get much resistance from people when you say you are building more turbines ?
    … when I see the turbine lights I think they are beautiful” (famous impartial BBC)
    “It’s a sign of progress it’s a sign of a greener future” (More famous impartial BBC)

    PH “Wind farms are more beautiful than power stations”
    Kofi “Yeh !”
    PH … “These turbines are 89Km away so not visible from land
    … they really do produce a HUGE amount of power … blah blah ” (one huge wind turbine produces the fraction of a normal gas turbine)
    “One single 6 second turn is enough to power a home for one day or 75 miles in an electric car”
    (Peugeot’s 208 Diesel did 75 miles on 2 litres on a road test .. you might use 4l)

    13m Kofi “Honestly , that’s incredible those stats ! One turbine and look at all it does”
    “Think how many of these turbines are off our East Yorkshire coast !
    Mindblowing ! it’s a beautiful thing”

    Item ends with Kofi playing “Dreams can come true” ..and him singing along.

    Traditionally connecting a turbine to the grid makes the grid electricity MORE expensive
    cos all extra costs the turbine creates.

    * See how listeners were not made aware of the fact Orsted have locked it into super high prices this year *

    Liked by 1 person

  282. Bill: Thanks for that link. It looks both thorough in its analysis of Alberta and humble about the future global implications:

    Every year, it seems that Alberta oil-and-gas wells drain about 14% of their remaining ‘reserve’. If that doesn’t seem fast to you, think about the millions of years it took to build each formation of oil. Think of the billions of organisms that lived and died to create it. Industrial humans can suck up roughly one sixth of that reservoir in a single year. We are a force of nature.

    And at the end:

    In a sense, the analysis that I’ve done here is the easy part. Yes, it took me a few months to crunch the numbers for Alberta’s exploitation of oil and gas. But at least conceptually, the science of fossil-fuel depletion is grade-school simple. Humans are exploiting a non-renewable stock of energy. It won’t last forever. End of story.

    The more difficult part is understanding how fossil-fuel depletion will affect society in the long run. Of course, for individual countries, trade can solve the problem. (The United States didn’t collapse after its oil production peaked in 1970. It just imported more oil.) But on the global scale, trade won’t work. So what then?

    The short answer is that nobody knows. Visions for a fossil-fuel descent range from catastrophic collapse to an ecotopian paradise (and everything in between).

    He then fails to mention nuclear power, which became a possibility almost 80 years ago.

    I haven’t read Epstein’s latest book but he’s bound to address the medium- and long-term challenges of fossil fuel depletion. And, whatever he says, he doesn’t know either.

    But he is being sensible about the current situation, given the need for the poor to power their way into something much better, which will also allow them to contribute to the positive new technologies that we have no real idea about.

    Like

  283. Science fest talk ; Origins of extinction
    sounds more pragmatic than XR might you her job title “Sadiah Qureshi is a historian of science, race and empire”
    Over 90 percent of all things that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct. You’re lucky to still be here! We are so familiar with extinction that it is hard to imagine a world where nothing was believed to be extinct. Yet, the idea of extinction is a relatively modern concept.
    Sadiah Qureshi is a historian of science, race and empire. In her History of Science Section Presidential Address, she will take us on a whistle-stop tour of the history of ideas behind extinction.
    From the fossilised elephant-like beasts that helped establish the very idea in the eighteenth century, to attempts to make extinction a thing of the past through resurrecting lost species, she asks: how can we save our species?

    FFS look at the crazy XR people who hosted a talk with her
    She herself does speak logically on her theme than extinction is a very natural process
    .. https://youtu.be/ueiCUCrbyrU?t=636
    She says she covers up cos she is a Muslim

    Like

  284. “£32m pledged to help farmers plant trees in Wales”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-62758870

    A total of £32m has been pledged for farmers and landowners to plant 86 million trees in Wales by 2030.

    Climate Change Minister Julie James said the money would help combat climate change and create “green jobs”.

    The cash is part of plans for Welsh farmers to cover 10% of their land with trees to qualify for future public funds.

    A union said the policy should not affect farmers’ ability to produce food.

    Ministers believe 43,000 hectares (106,255 acres) of new woods are needed by the end of the decade so Wales can reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

    Ms James said: “Planting more trees will play a fundamental role in helping Wales to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change….”

    That last sentence is truly remarkable. Does the Welsh climate change minister really believe that planting some trees in Wales will play a fundamental role in helping Wales to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change? If so, she’s in the wrong job. The climate doesn’t base its behaviour in parts of the world on the GHGs emitted in that part of the world. It’s a worldwide thing, which is why all these petty little schemes (though costing rather more than petty little amounts) are ultimately pointless and a waste of money, since most of the rest of the world is increasing its emissions.

    Like

  285. “Atlantic hurricane season starts late as Danielle becomes first named tempest
    Hurricane is about 885 miles west of Azores in mid-Atlantic in what has so far been an unusually quiet season for storms”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/02/hurricane-danielle-2022-season-starts-late-atlantic

    Tropical storm Danielle has strengthened into the first hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic Ocean season, the US national hurricane center said on Friday.

    The hurricane, now about 885 miles west of the Azores in the mid-Atlantic, is packing maximum sustained winds of 75mph (120km/h) and was forecast to meander over the open sea during the next couple of days, the Miami-based federal weather forecasting center noted.

    This was the first time since 1941 that the Atlantic region has gone from 3 July to the end of August with no named storm, Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

    Like

  286. Stew, thanks for BH/Times link above on Hornsea Two.

    partial Times quote I could get for free –
    “The Hornsea Two wind farm, capable of supplying 1.4 million homes, is fully operational, Orsted said yesterday. The Danish energy group said that the project 55 miles off the coast of Yorkshire would “provide low-cost, clean energy for millions of homes”.

    well I suppose since the “supplying 1.3 million homes” has already gone up to “supplying 1.4 million homes”, they could be supplying millions soon, as we all cut back on energy use & huddle around a candle at night.

    Like

  287. Science fest lecture blurb
    “The human brain is sometimes referred to as the most powerful and efficient supercomputer.
    However over its lifetime, it only uses an average of 25 watts in energy. *
    A laptop uses the equivalent of that in a day.
    So how are our brains so energy efficient? ”

    Their is something wrong with their maths/English They compare AVERAGE lifetime use
    with overall daily use which would be in watts/hour
    I guess this means a laptop uses 25W per hour for 10 hours =250Wh
    and they think the human brain uses that over 80 years
    Since the brain generates masses of heat that seems like a massive underestimate
    It could be per year or per month.

    Like

  291. Catching up with some of the legal debates arising from the Trump years, suddenly there was this:

    But it wasn’t Thunberg I thought of but the man chosen to handle the $70 billion for Biden and cronies.

    October 26, 2016

    A University of Colorado professor who’s been criticized for his writings about climate change has been caught up in WikiLeaks’ dump of emails involving John Podesta, campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton.

    Roger Pielke Jr., who has been a faculty member on the Boulder campus since 2001, was the subject of a July 2014 email about an essay he wrote on climate change for the website FiveThirtyEight.
    …
    The email was sent by Judd Legum, the editor of ThinkProgress, a site that’s part of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the advocacy arm of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, which was founded by Podesta in 2003.

    In his email to billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, Legum described how he believed Climate Progress, the environmental arm of ThinkProgress, got Pielke to stop writing about climate change for FiveThirtyEight.

    “I think it’s fair say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538,” Legum wrote.

    Legum did not respond to interview requests on Wednesday.

    The email was one of tens of thousands of messages from Podesta’s hacked Gmail account released by WikiLeaks this month.

    The group took issue with Pielke’s piece titled “Disasters Cost More Than Ever —- But Not Because of Climate Change,” in which he questioned the link between rising natural disaster costs and climate change.

    Pielke argued that the cost of disasters is increasing because the world is getting wealthier, not because there are more — or more intense — floods, droughts, hurricanes or tornadoes.

    “We’re seeing ever-larger losses simply because we had more to lose — when an earthquake or flood occurs, more stuff gets damaged,” he wrote.

    Pielke, who has written extensively about climate-change economics, is a polarizing figure among climate change scientists and activists.
    …
    Shortly after Pielke’s FiveThirtyEight piece was published, ThinkProgress wrote a story quoting climate scientists who said Pielke’s claims were misleading. FiveThirtyEight published a rebuttal to Pielke’s piece.

    The criticism of Pielke’s piece continued, with stories about Pielke and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver appearing in Salon, Slate and the Huffington Post.

    “Silver is still backing the wrong horse, and the sooner he dumps Pielke, the better,” David Auerbach wrote for Slate.

    Shortly thereafter, Pielke stopped writing for FiveThirtyEight. In the email released by WikiLeaks, Legum gave ThinkProgress credit for that.

    — WikiLeaks exposes liberal group’s efforts to thwart climate writings of CU’s Roger Pielke Jr.

    And now Legum’s boss gets to dole out $70 billion for the Biden regime.

    The extreme climate events debate in a nutshell?

    Like

  293. Oh the Science Festival is low on proper science
    Fake science like Green-science and BAME-agendas make up half the schedule

    They have a special sustainability page
    https://britishsciencefestival.org/our-sustainability-policy/

    For 2022, we have partnered with De Montfort University, a University with a strong record of incorporating sustainability in every aspect of their structure, which is consistently consistently ranked as one of the greenest universities in the UK.
    Together, we took a pledge for British Science Festival 2022 to reduce our environmental footprint and amplify our social impact.
    You can see below the actions we’ve taken and the progress we’re making.

    Like

  294. De Montfort University proudly states on its website that each year it takes 2,700 students from 130 countries, so it sounds as though most of them will fly there, many being long-haul flights. Very green!

    Liked by 1 person

  297. “‘Reliability gaps’ in Australia’s electricity supply loom without investment in new technologies, report states
    Australian Energy Market Operator warns that without investment in new-generation electricity storage and transmission, demand will outstrip supply”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/31/reliability-gaps-in-electricity-supply-loom-without-investment-in-new-technologies-report-states

    Australia’s main electricity markets face potential supply gaps from next year unless new-generation storage and transmission projects were advanced in time to compensate for closing coal plants and anticipated rising power demand.

    The so-called “reliability gaps” would emerge in South Australia from the 2023-24 financial year and in Victoria in the following year, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) stated in its annual electricity statement of opportunities (Esoo).

    Using a slightly more lenient reliability measure, NSW faced a possible gap in 2025-26, Victoria again in 2028-29, Queensland in 2029-30 and SA again in 2031-32.

    As homes and businesses dumped gas in favour of electricity and took up electric vehicles, power demand would expand by about 15% over the next decade. That rise would come even as solar panels roughly doubled their contribution, meeting as much as half of household demand by 2031-2, up from 23% now, the report predicted.

    Aemo’s CEO, Daniel Westerman, said the forecasts were intended to inform the different participants in the national electricity market (NEM) and reiterate “the urgent need” to ensure the capacity came online when it was required.

    “In the next decade, Australia will experience our first cluster of coal-generation retirements, at least five power stations totalling 8.3 gigawatts, equal to approximately 14% of the NEM’s total capacity,” Westerman said.

    “Without further investments, this will reduce generation supply and challenge the transmission network’s capability to meet reliability standards and power system security needs,” he said.

    Fortunately, there was “a strong pipeline” of new wind and solar plants, storage to soak up their output, and transmission lines to deliver the power to where it’s needed. “If completed as scheduled, reliability risks for all regions are forecast to be within the relevant reliability standards until 2028-29 when further coal-fired power station retirements are expected,” Aemo said.

    Fortunately those new wind turbines will generate electricity all the time and totally reliably and predictably. Won’t they?

    Like

  298. Twitter pushes stuff at me on the Right of my screen
    It says follow David Rose, follow “Saudi Green Initiative”
    Only thing is the note says they are being paid to PROMOTE Saudi Green Initiative

    Who to follow
    Saudi Green Initiative @Gi_Saudi
    *Promoted*

    David Rose @DavidRoseUK

    Like

  300. GBnews Lembit Opik
    “The Greens got us into the energy crisis
    and the result is that in Germany is burning more trees
    .. Greens are causing the forests to be destroyed”

    Like

  301. “Conservative-run council loses power after £1bn spree on green energy”

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/council-loses-power-after-1bn-spree-on-green-energy-dzmhltsgb

    Ministers have stripped a council of control of its finances amid “serious concerns” about financial mismanagement after it invested nearly a billion pounds of public money in green energy schemes.

    Conservative-run Thurrock council in Essex borrowed £815 million from the Treasury and other councils over seven years – nearly four times its annual spending on services – to invest in renewable energy projects, including more than 50 solar farms…

    …The decision to strip the council of its powers was made by Greg Clark, the levelling up secretary, who has responsibility for local government matters. It follows an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which said last month that £138 million of public money was unaccounted for.

    It also reported that consultants hired by the council had discovered that the solar farms were not worth enough for Thurrock to recoup the money it had invested, with the shortfall being as much as £200 million, the equivalent of more than £3,000 for every home in the borough….

    Like

  302. “Under Liz Truss, we’ll be careering into petrolhead politics while the world burns
    John Harris
    It’s a monstrous thought, but politicians who disparage net zero as a ‘new religion’ and wind power as ‘medieval’ are tipped for cabinet posts”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/04/liz-truss-petrolhead-politics-world-burns

    It might be a monstrous thought to you, John, but some of us are hoping for a return to common sense and sanity.

    It’s worth a read to see what we’re up against.

    Like

  303. People who PAY for green policy, should be able to have a SAY
    So there should be free and fair debate especially on publicly funded forum like the BBC

    BBC employees should not take public money, and then block members of the public from debate
    merely cos they pose polite questions.

    I just found out BBC employee Sangita Myska after I posed a perfectly polite question
    #1 She reacted by blocking me
    #2 Out of 20 replies Twitter only hid mine behind “show more replies”

    #3 The worst thing about them using blocking as a weapon
    is that you think you are EQUAL in debate
    You don’t get an alert ..you only find out weeks later by accident

    Like

  304. I shouldn’t post this (sins of the father, bla bla [edit: and because it’s so long]) but I can’t resist.

    The woman who stood in front of the Speaker’s Chair during XR’s recent Commons protest, Gully Bujak, is the daughter of the former £170k-a-year boss of a Montessori educational charity – former because he was sacked and, in 2018, sentenced to six years in prison for stealing more than £180k from the charity to ‘fund his luxury lifestyle’. (It must have been a very luxury lifestyle indeed if his £170k-a-year salary couldn’t pay for it.)

    The judge said:

    Mr Bujak has an extremely strong personality – I think for the first time in my career, I saw a defendant bullying counsel. The sustained high levels of aggression shown by Mr Bujak were quite extraordinary. Right thinking people will be astonished and appalled to discover what Mr Bujak did in taking advantage as the CEO.

    *

    His right-thinking daughter posted a self-congratulatory epistle about the Commons protest on Facebook.

    ‘What happened yesterday … was the closest thing to democracy that place has seen in a long time. The people of this country are being royally f[***]ed, and we have been for decades.’

    Part of her screed was about Andy Smith. She seemed to say that he was one of the main organizers of the protest – he ‘has done so much for this and so many other significant moments in our fight for survival’.

    Perhaps he was. He fits the bill. Smith, like Gully Bujak and many other XRers, is a serious globetrotter. He’s Emma Smart’s partner. They are the couple who dream of driving around the world and, before XR got in the way, had clocked up 81k miles touring Europe, Asia and Africa in a gas-guzzling Hilux.

    (Travellers love Hiluxes. Mine was stolen by them.)

    *

    Emma Smart is currently in prison for crimes against the planet, where, according to some of her supporters (including Mark Ruffalo), a week or two ago she was badly injured by prison officers while refusing to move to a different cell. This refusal was a protest about not being provided with ‘vegan food and medications’. Dunno if the medications had to be vegan as well as the food.

    *

    Gully Bujac’s criminal father is an ex-soldier (and ex-headmaster of a public school near Totnes). Another ex-soldier criminal was at last week’s XR protest in person: Donald Bell, a convicted heroin-dealer who apparently (Daily Mail) used to hide his wares under a blanket on his abused and disabled wife’s lap as he pushed her in a wheelchair around Cambridge when touting for business.

    But that was a long time ago and people can change. Perhaps Bell is a proper human being these days (though recent photos have him looking like the smuggest of smug gits).

    Like

  305. “Germany to delay phase-out of nuclear plants to shore up energy security
    Last two working plants were due to be mothballed, but will be used as emergency reserve into 2023 after Russia cuts off gas”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/05/germany-to-delay-phase-out-of-nuclear-plants-to-shore-up-energy-security

    …Many in the FDP hope that today’s announcement may lead to a complete rethink on the phase-out policy, arguing that nuclear power would help Germany achieve its zero-carbon emission goals sooner, as well as helping to secure long-term energy security. The Green party has rejected this position.

    “In the winter, our towns and cities will in part be darker because of the fact we have to save electricity. In this situation we should not forgo safer and climate-friendly ways of producing electricity such as nuclear power. This requires more than just extending their operation,” said finance minister Christian Lindner, who is head of the FDP.

    Already Germany had been forced to restart mothballed coal-fired power plants, considered the most environmentally damaging source of fuel, which Habeck has stressed was a temporary and painful but necessary measure. So far polls show that the majority of Germans are understanding of the need to at least temporarily revert to nuclear power, given the urgency of the situation, even if they don’t like it….

    Liked by 2 people

  306. Mark – at one time (maybe 10yrs ago) I thought Harris was the most sane/down to earth writer at the Guardian.
    have not read his posts for years – quote from your link –
    “The pandemic, it turns out, was merely one more crisis on the way to something completely convulsive: payback for our fragile dependence on fossil fuels, and a way of living that is no longer sustainable. With perfect timing, next weekend will see the return to London’s streets of Extinction Rebellion, whose protests will trigger the usual sneers from climate deniers while hammering home 2022’s awful sense of urgency.”

    what a knob – lost the plot it seems

    Like

  307. dfhunter,

    IMO John Harris is the embodiment of much that is wrong with the Guardian. I often speculate whether I left the Labour Party or whether the Labour Party left me, and I do the same with the Guardian, which used to be my newspaper of choice when I was younger. I’m a bit relieved to hear that you seem to think that John Harris’ writing has changed (for the worse). I think that the Guardian has changed more than I have, but that’s only my opinion. It’s nice to receive some indirect back-up for that belief.

    Liked by 1 person

  308. When you click on the link “‘We show a meal’s carbon footprint, not calories'” morphs into “Bristol venue adds carbon footprint to its menu”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-62723225

    A vegetarian restaurant is the first in Bristol to add carbon emissions to its menu.

    The Canteen hopes to reduce its carbon footprint by buying local ingredients and reducing food waste.

    In April, the government decided restaurants in England with more than 250 employees must display calorie information on their menus.

    Manager Liam Stocks said that “cleaning up the food chain” should take priority.

    The carbon footprint includes the distance at which ingredients travelled, seasonality of ingredients and emissions during production.

    Personally I think the display of calories is important. However, I do support the restaurant’s initiative. My wife and I try to buy local and to buy British wherever possible. Why buy food shipped from the other side of the planet when you can buy equally wholesome food locally or, in the case of seasonal products, wait a short while until you can buy a local equivalent? I tend not to buy apples at this time of year, while I wait for the home-grown ones to hit the shelves.

    Some “green” initiatives are expensive and do more harm than good. I don’t see any downside to this one.

    It may be my (inaccurate) perception, but it seems to me that some of those who bleat most about “saving the planet” (referring solely to climate change when they say this) are among the biggest globalists, in favour of massive international trade. Just as you can’t solve the trilemma of cheap, reliable, renewable energy, neither can you “save the planet” and believe that massive (and often pointless) international trade at the same time.

    Like

  310. Thanks Mark, that article raises some interesting points although I was surprised to see the claim that all of the nuclear plants benefit from the ROCs scheme, to the tune of £8 bn per year. Afaik, all of the operating plants predate the scheme by many years and the only one in construction – HPC – is on a CfD deal.

    In all of the caterwauling it does seem farcical for the government to be looking at ways to cut bills which are largely driven by the pricing structures imposed on the industry by government.
    The present system is a bit like a restaurant menu where, no matter that you ordered a burger and chips, you are charged for a plate of caviar!

    To my mind the first – obvious – step is to break the link between the cost of gas and the electricity price for all of the non-gas generators. A quick and dirty fix would be to declare force majeure and put those generators onto the rate they were paid over, say, two years of normal operation, plus a bit of escalation. That rate would include the ROCs uplift for those entitled to them.
    The gas generators could be paid that same rate, plus an uplift to cover the increase in the cost of gas since the “baseline” period.
    An added refinement: compel those producers who are side-stepping their CfD contracts to take them up.

    Then there’s the price of gas itself. As I’ve said before, why are we paying the “market price” for the gas we buy when most of that gas cannot be traded outside the UK? Again, a fair price could be agreed, based on pre-crisis levels. For leverage, non-compliant companies could be subject to far heavier windfall taxes.

    Obviously there are lots of holes in these simplistic plans but, to this bear of little brain, the concept looks much better than throwing massive subsidies at the present, deeply-flawed system.

    Like

  311. Mike, it’s interesting, I think, that Carbon Brief claims that green levies cost about £150 p.a. per household, and are coming down, a claim given lots of space by the Guardian and repeated endlessly by those in favour of renewables and net zero. And yet the Guardian article linked to above states:

    UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) estimates that if 100% of eligible UK wind and solar power projects were to participate in the contracts’ revamp the saving would be £12.8bn and £180 off bills.

    And that’s just in respect of a relatively modest (if not insignificant) aspect of the green levies. Something doesn’t add up, or somebody isn’t being entirely straight about the costs.

    Like

  312. “Dutch city of Haarlem may be world’s first to ban most meat ads”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62810867

    Haarlem in The Netherlands is set to ban most meat ads from public spaces because of the food’s climate impact.

    In what is thought to be the first such move by a city, it will enforce the ban from 2024.

    The motion drafted by GroenLinks – a green political party – has faced opposition from the meat sector and some who say it stifles free speech.

    The UN says livestock generate more than 14% of all man-made greenhouse gases, including methane.

    “Meat is very harmful to the environment. We cannot tell people that there is a climate crisis and encourage them to buy products that are part of it,” Ziggy Klazes, a councillor from GroenLinks who drafted the motion, told the Trouw newspaper.

    The government of the city of 160,000 says it has not yet been decided whether sustainably produced meat will be included in the ad ban.

    Like

  313. Heresy – it’s not a laughing matter…

    “PSG football coach faces backlash over ‘sand yacht’ response to private jet question”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62809829

    Top French football club Paris St-Germain has been criticised following a joke about the team using a private plane for a short journey.

    Head coach Christophe Galtier and star player Kylian Mbappé were asked about the French champions’ recent jet trip to the western city of Nantes.

    Mbappe laughed – and Galtier said the club was looking into the possibility of travelling by sand yacht, instead.

    French politicians urged the club to be more responsible over the environment.

    Like

  314. ITV local news syndicated item
    “False Autumn scary scary”
    each area used a clip of local scientists
    We got Cat Scott of Leeds uni @catzigle

    National Trust ..https://www.twitter.com/southeastNT/status/1565743755877122049

    Not much sign of it here .. few dry leaves on the plum tree
    The other trees seem all green

    Like

  315. “Scotland’s space sector commits to being ‘greener'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4gnwn44jwo

    Scotland’s space industry has committed to taking more actions to reduce its impact on the environment.

    The newly-published Space Sustainability: A Roadmap for Scotland, external sets out plans to use alternatives to toxic fuels and develop reusable rockets.

    The report said Scottish-based manufacturers were already working on “green propellants” for powering small rockets into space.

    It said Edinburgh-headquartered Skyrora and Forres-based Orbex were repurposing waste from biodiesel production and using non-recyclable plastics to make fuel.

    Like

  316. “African leaders criticise West for climate summit snub”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

    at 8.42am today:

    African leaders have criticised wealthy nations for failing to turn up at a climate change summit in the Netherlands.

    The only Western leader to appear in person was the Dutch host, Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

    The Senegalese President Macky Sall said he felt bitter that the world’s main polluters had failed to offer funds to help Africa adapt to global warming.

    The Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi said the continent contributed the least to climate change but suffered its worst consequences.

    The Horn of Africa is enduring its worst drought in four decades and several countries are on the brink of famine.

    The last sentence is very sad, but the way it’s inserted, without context or discussion, demonstrates once again the campaigning nature of the propaganda organisation that the BBC has become.

    Liked by 1 person

  319. I see I did have time to copy that over from BiasedBBC
    When I write something there and it has a green connection I usually copy it here and perhaps onto Notalot
    but sometimes I don’t have time.

    Like

  322. “Selling coal for domestic use in England
    Rules for coal merchants and retailers selling traditional house coal for use in domestic appliances in England.”

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/selling-coal-for-domestic-use-in-england

    All sales of traditional house coal will be banned in England from 1 May 2023….

    …You should tell your customers that traditional house coal will no longer be available from 1 May 2023.

    Like

  323. Like

  324. “Not easy being green: Rutte’s eco-friendly agenda falters amid Dutch farmer backlash
    Agriculture Minister Henk Staghouwer resigns after failing to get farmers on board with tough nitrogen reduction targets.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-farm-crisis-rocky-path-climate-transition-henk-staghouwer/

    The Dutch government is losing the battle to reduce its agricultural emissions, highlighting just how hard it is to square its green ambitions with their potential economic impacts.

    On Monday, the country’s Agriculture Minister Henk Staghouwer resigned just hours after agreeing with the European Commission to end an EU exemption that enabled Dutch farmers to continue spreading more manure on their fields than other EU countries….

    …The government’s plans have sparked protests from farmers since they were presented in June, with demonstrations only growing bigger.

    With the steep targets for cutting emissions — up to 95 percent in some areas — Dutch farmers feel they will be out of a job if the measures go through, with van Keimpema previously accusing the government of trying to “wipe us off the map.”

    Efforts by a government-appointed negotiator to come to an agreement have so far failed, with Staghouwer ultimately being pushed to the sidelines of the talks, according to Dutch media and Candel.

    Farmers’ organizations called for a new minister to be appointed “quickly,” at a time when steep fertilizer and gas prices are already putting a squeeze on global food production.

    Candel said the standoff could become a full-fledged crisis if the government fails to resolve it. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the coalition collapsed over this,” he said.

    Like

  325. R4 now claims about “so called 100% renewable energy”
    customer thinks none of her electricity comes from gas.

    “Oh your cynical husband is right, electrons are not directed to you
    You just get what’s on the grid”

    expert repeats this simplistic line “The costs of the marginal fuel sets the price, so that is what you pay”
    To me that is crap, a LIE
    Only some electricity is in the hourly bid, much of it isn’t.

    Like

  326. £2,500 cap applies to homes
    So surely all small biz are now putting there biz leccy on their home bill if they can get away with it

    Like

  328. From the Spectator website:
    “The EU Commission will recommend that member states cap the price of electricity generated by non-gas power producers at €200 a megawatt hour, the FT reported. The current ‘pay-as-clear’ rules mean the price for all generators is set by the most expensive energy needed to meet demand – and have seen day-ahead electricity prices rise as high as €600 per megawatt hour.”

    Hmmmm……I bet there’s a German word for “feeling slightly smug because I said this a few days ago”!!

    Like

  330. John, I see that the section of climate chaos relating to China is an earthquake. Are we back to climate change causing earthquakes again?

    Like

  331. Mark, if the earth didn’t move for you then perhaps the porn did not do its trick. You will note that I have cited a paper on my Pakistan floods thread that was co-written by two gentlemen called Wang and Dong. Maybe that will do the trick.

    Liked by 1 person

  333. Mark, Schadenfreude did cross my mind but, aiui, the meaning is more in the vein of “I told you so”.
    So it is probably more appropriate for something like Trump reminding the German leaders of his warnings and how they sniggered like schoolkids.
    The real worry is, of course, that their naive reliance on Russian gas has dragged the rest of Europe down with them. If this leads to widespread unemployment, inflation, etc well, we’ve seen that script before and it doesn’t end well

    Like

  334. Mike, I’ll give you what Wikipedia says:

    Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.

    It doesn’t quite cover it, but it’s close enough, and much more nuanced than “I told you so”. Either way, Trump can probably feel a degree of schadenfreude about the pickle the Germans are in now. Unfortunately, we are also in a pickle, because our politicians are as stupid as the German ones.

    Like

  335. Mike & Mark – “cap the price of electricity generated by non-gas power producers at €200 a megawatt hour”

    because i’m a bit thick, is this aimed at the renewable sector only?

    Like

  336. Mark – good for the “faith groups” chipping in on the state we are in (sarc)

    “Prof Elizabeth JZ Robinson, the director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: “Lower income households, who are already hardest hit by the cost of living crisis, are also most likely to be harmed by, and least able to adapt to, climate change.
    A just transition that focuses on investing in low-cost renewable energy and reliable and affordable public transport; insulating homes and implementing new building regulations that improve energy efficiency; and supporting nature-friendly farming, will benefit the UK and demonstrate its commitment to and leadership in tackling climate change.”

    so – “leadership in tackling climate change” is at the fore for her message, like so many it seems.

    Like

  337. dfhunter,

    The short answer is that I don’t know, but I suspect not. It refers only to non-gas sources, so that must include coal, and we know that Germany burns an awful lot of lignite!

    Like

  338. A just transition that focuses on investing in low-cost renewable energy and reliable and affordable public transport; insulating homes and implementing new building regulations that improve energy efficiency; and supporting nature-friendly farming, will benefit the UK and demonstrate its commitment to and leadership in tackling climate change.

    Yeeeucchh.

    A just transition? Net Zero takes us inevitably to a neo-feudalism where most of us are poorer.

    Investing in low-cost renewable energy? It won’t help to lower prices. Why no mention of nuclear?

    Reliable and affordable transport? For the serfs, thrust upon those who would prefer to own a car? Will the elites be taking the bus?

    Insulating homes? We’ve already established that it isn’t cost-effective, unless someone else is paying for it. New building codes is a good idea, unless it means new homes with those pokey little windows that let no light in.

    Nature friendly farming? Sure. As an ecologist I would be all in favour of it. But. It means productivity will decline, and we will have to import more of our food.

    Demonstrate our commitment to and leadership in tackling climate change? Who cares about that, exactly? It’s the ultimate virtue signal. “Look at us, we’re prepared to destroy our wealth on Gaia’s altar. Won’t you join us?”

    Sick.

    Liked by 1 person

  339. XR has been driving a 12-litre diesel coach around London as a jolly jape. The coach has been painted (presumably at great expense*) to look like a vehicle belonging to ‘HM Government’. On the sides, there are photos of Liz Truss, a red deer and a dish of baked beans, plus the words: ‘LET BRITAIN DECIDE!’, ‘”I PROMISE A CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY TO FIX CLIMATE & COSTS”‘ and ‘TOGETHER WE WILL RISE TO OUR GREATEST CHALLENGES’.

    Here’s part of XR’s explanation of its jolly expensive jape:

    Take a moment to imagine what it would be like if this was the commitment of our new PM. If you really could write something on a bus and it would come true.

    Our political systems are out of date and can’t cope with the crises we face, focused on divisive debates rather than coming together to solve real problems. It is clear that the collective intelligence and common sense of ordinary people can help us to face the real world far better than our lobbied, biased, corrupt politicians. So we wanted to help you to imagine that.

    Extinction Rebellion has always been willing to stake our faith in the integrity of everyday people over politicians and the benefits of sitting around a table over shouting across a room.

    And now the situation is urgent. Just a week ago a third of Pakistan was under water.

    Let me stop you there, jolly expensive populist japers of XR. No, a third of Pakistan wasn’t underwater. The most likely explanation of this oft-repeated claim is that it’s a misrepresentation of a plausible but as yet unproven claim that areas housing one third of Pakistan’s population had been flooded to some extent. Bad, if true, but not the same thing.

    According to disinfo/misinfo classification schemes favoured by the likes of Cook and Cranky Uncle Lew, saying that such claims are wrong or that XR’s jolly expensive populist misinformation jape with the coach is a CO2-spewing hypocrisy – that means that you are a climate denier.

    So I’m a climate denier. (I’m not.)

    *

    Speaking of Cranky Uncle Lew, yesterday on Twitter he plugged this Daily Kos blogpost:

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/6/2121070/-Science-Institutions-Are-Getting-Wise-to-Disinfo-and-Conspiracies-Deniers-Are-Not-Happy-About-It

    It’s mostly about two CliScep blogposts, one by Geoff Chambers, one by Tony Thomas. Written by Phil Newell, a ranting beardie who is Climate Nexus’s ‘associate director of science defense’.

    Newell said recently…

    …that Michael Shellenberger is a racist because he doesn’t like invented pronouns. (See ~28m in.)

    ===
    *XR used to put such costs online. Perhaps it still does. Can’t be arsed to check.

    **Orphaned footnote: RIP, Your Maj. Horrible news. And not only because Charles is now king. You were a goodun.

    Liked by 2 people

  340. “EU clubs together on energy and invites UK”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62822368

    There is, though, an aspect of energy and the EU that Prime Minister Truss won’t be able to ignore. And that’s to do with Northern Ireland.

    The island of Ireland has a single electricity market, interconnected to Great Britain, says Mary Starks, former director at GB energy regulator Ofgem, now energy specialist at Flint.

    But the Republic of Ireland is an EU member state, theoretically subject to EU common energy regulations.

    “So what this means for both Northern Ireland and the Republic will come into focus at some point,” says Ms Starks.

    And if wholesale energy prices are successfully reduced on one side of the Channel, but not the other?

    Ms Starks told me that normally, energy flows very freely across electricity and gas interconnectors, but if the EU, for example, managed to lower prices before the UK, then Brussels would “need to take steps to ensure its cheaper power and gas did not ‘leak’ to the UK”.

    While Ms Starks says it would be highly unlikely that the EU would shut the interconnectors unilaterally, there would have to be some sort of regulation of trading and flows, in order to prevent leakage.

    And that would necessitate dialogue.

    It would be disturbing if the EU or any of its member states tried to use the interconnectors and the energy crisis to blackmail the UK. It’s worth noting that right now, this week, the EU’s problems seem to be bigger than the UK’s, and significant electricity flows are moving through the interconnectors this week from the UK to the EU.

    Like

  341. Vinny Burgoo – thanks for the “Daily Kos blogpost” link.

    shows how “misinformation” from “right wing/bad actors” is our enemy in getting the public to believe our information.

    the woman giggles as she reels of her “right wing/bad actors” speel.

    Like

  342. ps – see John Cook & FLICC get a thumbs up at 25 mts in, by some guy that wants to shut up internet access to the evil deniers. the whole vid is chilling & the end bringing up lies & dark money.

    Like

  345. dfhunter, thanks for the thanks.

    I misremembered the Shellenberger bit. Phil Newell said that Michael Shellenberger is a racist not because he doesn’t like invented pronouns but because he has said that posting your chosen pronouns is woke-puffery equivalent to boasting about your support for renewables.

    Transcript of the recent Netroots Nation video, starting at ~27 min:

    Who is actually presenting this information?

    It’s jerks. It’s people who are just professionally gross.

    Newell provides only two examples of jerks who are just professionally gross.

    First, there’s Peter Imanuelsen, AKA Peter Sweden, a far-right Holocaust-denier. He gets about 40 words.

    Then:

    On the flip side, people like Michael Shellenberger, who are sort of professionally radical centrists, who say, ‘Oh, I’m an environmentalist but, like, those other environmentalists are always real wrong about stuff and they’re dumb and we need these other nuclear solutions’ and stuff like that… Um…

    You know, for a while his shtick was relying on media treating him like, ‘Oh, he’s liberal but he’s against renewables! Like, how crazy! How, you know, unorthodox!’ Increasingly, that’s not working for him. What is working is being racist.

    And so he has this taxonomy of woke religion, where he, um, says things like, you know, talking about renewables is good is the same as, you know, having your pronouns in your bio, or, uh, saying people who are homeless instead of, you know, calling for cops to beat homeless people more, which is sort of his, uh, his new thing.

    So that was one of the big findings that’s really concerning is that there is such a robust infrastructure for climate disinformation that other people who are professionally gross online are seeing that it is a place where they can recruit and they can find a new audience and at the same time the people whose job more or less is to spread climate disinformation because the algorithms at…

    Bla bla bla.

    Is ranting beardie Phil Newell perhaps a bit envious of Michael Shellenberger? And not only because Shellenberger’s beard is in better shape?

    Liked by 1 person

  346. Fascinating and potentially very important news:

    “Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62797777

    The BBC categorises this as “health” news only. It doesn’t make the science & environment section of the website. Instead there the most recent news is:

    “Three ways climate change makes adventure tourism riskier”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-62850313

    The best chance of making it on to the science section of the BBC website is to be anything to do with climate change, however peripheral – this, despite the fact that the BBC also devotes a section of its website to “climate” where those stories tend to be replicated.

    If you’re interested, the three ways that climate change make adventure tourism riskier are Falling rocks and ice; Campsite wildfires; and Troubled waters.

    Like

  347. “Eight Year Trend in Global Cooling Shown by Satellite Record”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/09/10/eight-year-trend-in-global-cooling-shown-by-satellite-record/

    Global pause, plateau or cooling – or, if you are reading the political climate narrative in mainstream media: are we heading for almost immediate climate Thermogeddon? Earlier this year we published a graph showing satellite temperature measurements since the start of the latest pause up to March 2022. It indicated a global cooling trend of 0.14°C a century. Another five months on and the near eight-year pause continues, as does the almost unchanged cooling trend. Since the high point back in 1998, global warming has run out of steam. A pause from that date to about 2012 has now been followed by the latest eight year hiatus, with just a two-year period of mild warming in between.

    Not a lot of cooling, it might reasonably be noted, and we are still operating within a fair margin of error. But measuring climate change is about trends, not making fanciful one-off claims that human activity leads to Pakistan flooding during the monsoon season or causes heatwaves during the summer. The current temperature trend could be heading downwards, and if it continues, the scientific arguments for Net Zero simply disappear. …

    Like

  348. Hull Science Festival’s on today 11 lectures
    2 are sold out
    but “Green and Sustainable Computing” lecture has not sold out

    Interesting that the schedule doesn’t have more green and woke stuff

    Like

  349. A few days ago Cranky Uncle Lew tweeted about a 1944 American newspaper column that told you how to spot a fascist. His message: ‘worth reading…. weird how much of that resonates today. I wonder why?’

    It should have resonated with Lew because he exhibits some of the traits that were said to be characteristic of fascists (eg, ‘A Fascist expects to do the thinking for you’ and ‘A Fascist will not live in peace beside those who are unlike him… The Fascist must sway his neighbour’), but of course that’s not what he meant. He was probably thinking about Tories, Brexiteers and others in the cabal of fascists that he thinks is well on its way to establishing a dictatorship in the UK.

    To be clear: I don’t think that Lew is a fascist. Much of Cecil Brown’s column is very broad-brush. Most people could be made to fit some of its criteria – indeed the column itself could be said to be fascist because it ‘wants you to denounce in sweeping generalizations’.

    I just find it funny that a professor of psychology should (a) lack self-awareness and (b) be so unhinged when it comes to politics. (I used to keep Lew’s Twitter account in a bookmark folder called ‘Social science’ but he got so cranky after Brexit – ‘the most extremist right-wing project in Europe since WW II’ – that I moved him to one called ‘Ranting luvvies’.)

    Liked by 2 people

  350. We have a representative democracy in which every available representative (everyone with a chance of winning, at any rate) has signed up to the same project.* It doesn’t matter who we vote for, we get the same answer. Hardly any better than Russia.

    The last time we had direct democracy the people of the UK gave the “wrong” answer. If we were asked a question about Net Zero, I think there is a good chance we would give the “wrong” answer again. Hence our representatives will do what they want, to please one another, rather than give us a chance to tell them what to do. It’s a great system. I’m reminded of BEIS’s ludicrous response to the call for a referendum on Net Zero, which I snarked about here: https://cliscep.com/2021/11/30/you-want-a-referendum-on-net-zero-lol/

    *A few cracks showing lately, which I don’t remember being there in 2019.

    Liked by 2 people

  351. Early-ish this morning. Mist. Not a breath of wind. Good job we’re concentrating on building more renewables. With thanks to gridwatch.templar for the update.

    Like

  352. That looks like smear trickery
    “Oh there is this monster Peter Sweden
    ..and then there is Shellenberger”
    So that looks like doing guilt by association.

    BTW ” AKA Peter Sweden, a far-right Holocaust-denier”
    I am thinking that is all smear label anyway
    “Far right” is generally a smear word that means someone dares to challenge lefty dogma
    ” Holocaust-denier” .. I expect at the very least it’s more nuanced than that.

    I have seen tweets from him that say stuff like “white men : We fought the Nazis in WW2”

    Like

  353. Yes you wrote
    ” AKA Peter Sweden, a far-right Holocaust-denier”
    And I thought you can’t go repeating smear labels like that
    as if you assume they are true

    Peter Sweden has a blogpost tackling the Phil Newell article
    https://petersweden.substack.com/p/debunking-the-lies-imanuelsen
    “They further try and paint a picture of me as being some kind of “Nazi”, claiming that I have engaged in Holocaust denial among other things.
    This is categorically false and libel.
    This is being done to try and discredit me with lies and name calling”

    Like

  355. Climate Alarmism pollutes the media environment
    If I am attacked by it so often at the the random moments I turn on the radio
    it has to be pretty pervasive.

    Today Book show : Ian McEwan is discussing his new novel
    … “one of the main characters works at a Climate research institute in Berlin”
    .. a few mins later and McEwan is banging on “The current Climate Emergency ” etc.

    8:20pm Local radio networks have the Dotun Adebayo show
    A caller id saying how Charles is a man of the people cos he believes in the Climate Crisis.

    Like

  356. The media deception
    Photoshop : We’ve known for years every photo in news articles is photoshopped cos whatever the topic
    reality doesn’t provide the clean cut narratives the media crave

    I realise I see the same thing with words
    Wordoshop : gives us stories that “Trump told people to drink bleach etc” ..
    wheras his actual words were a million miles away

    Numboshop : “About one third of Pakistan’s districts have some bits with flooding some minor”
    becomes “A third of Pakistan is under water”

    Like

  357. The two Reach Group local newspapers have been heavily advertising the Laura Tobin Climate book
    with full page spreads
    The book is publihed under the Mirror brand ..So Reachplc are advertising their own book !

    Like

  358. I just looked at the previous week’ paper
    “Musician McFly’s Dougie Poynter tells Lisa Salmon he hopes his books about climate-changing whales and plastic pollution will make kids more eco-conscious.”
    full page

    Like

  359. stewgreen, you got me there. Far-right Holocaust-deniers do exist and I just assumed that Peter Sweden was one of them. I was more interested in why Newell called Shellenberger a racist.

    Then again, I’ve now done some googling and there’s quite a lot of evidence that Sweden is lying about those tweets being Photoshopped, not least that some of them were Waybacked. Eg:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20170718232704/https://twitter.com/PeterSweden7/status/762435842262446080

    Liked by 1 person

  361. “Why we should forget about the 1.5C global heating target
    Bill McGuire”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/12/global-heating-fighting-degree-target-2030

    Keeping the global average temperature rise (since pre-industrial times) below 1.5C is widely regarded as critical if we are to sidestep dangerous, all-pervasive climate change.

    This idea of a 1.5C temperature threshold is in the news again because just-published research has revealed that several catastrophic climate tipping points are in danger of being crossed at around this level of warming, including collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, which would lock in about 12 metres of sea-level rise.

    To have a fair chance of keeping this side of 1.5C, emissions have to fall by 45% in little more than 90 months, and I am on record as saying that this is practically impossible. But it’s worse than that. It is perfectly feasible that we will crash through the 1.5C guardrail even earlier.

    We might as well give up trying then, eh? After all, you think that it’s now too late?

    Oh no it isn’t….

    Maybe we are too fixated with this precise temperature rise. The fact is, while not exactly picked out of a hat, the 1.5C figure is an arbitrary one. The exact level of temperature rise at which climate change becomes dangerous is simply not known. Indeed, the 33 million people displaced from their homes in Pakistan might justifiably say we have reached it already. As for tipping points, any or all of those flagged in the new research could happen at some point below 1.5C, so we may have crossed one or more already – only time will tell. Just as easily, we might need a 1.6C, 1.7C or even higher rise before the first runaway impacts of global heating are encountered.

    The key point, then, is not the precise value of the global average temperature rise, but the simple fact that it is continuing to rise.

    So 1.5C is not so much critical as arbitrary? Hmm.

    The climate system is so sensitive to additional heating that every fraction of a degree rise counts, so that every 0.1C rise is just as important as every other.

    Really? That doesn’t sound very scientific. Surely some have argued that increasing temperature rises have a declining effect?

    Finally:

    The bottom line is that 1.5C is not sacred. Whether we crash through it or – by some miracle – stay below it, we cannot be certain what the consequences will be. The number has been a useful metric in the global heating story, marking a somewhat concrete focal point. But we mustn’t become obsessed with a single target figure. On the contrary, we need to knuckle down as much as we can to prevent every 0.1C rise, both below this figure and above, in order to rein in climate breakdown as best we can. You never know, we might just get lucky.

    Translation: The figure of 1.5C has been very useful as a device to scare people into doing what we want. But it hasn’t entirely worked. 1.5C is fast approaching, and we haven’t reached net zero yet. When the disasters and tipping points don’t occur, we need another story, another number. And of course we need to move on from talking about 1.5C, since we weren’t going to be held to that. Another number is now needed to scare you, but we also have to hold out hope to you. After all, what’s the point of trashing your national economy and your way of life unless salvation is in prospect?

    Like

  363. “Bureau of Meteorology declares third La Niña is officially under way for Australia
    East coast communities prepare for more rain and floods as they enter relatively rare third year of climate event”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/13/bureau-of-meteorology-to-declare-third-la-nina-is-under-way-for-australia

    Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has declared a La Niña event is under way in the Pacific, joining other international agencies to mark a weather pattern that typically elevates flood risks for much of the country.

    In its fortnightly update of Australia’s climate drivers, the bureau said key atmospheric and oceanic indicators of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (Enso) showed “an established La Niña”.

    “Tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures have been cooling since June and are now at La Niña thresholds,” the bureau said.

    The article ends

    Western Tasmania, along with the south-west corner of Western Australia and the Top End of Northern Territory, have been among the few regions of the country to report below-average rainfall so far in 2022.

    It’s all a bit ironic since it’s not long ago we were being warned that drought and fire were the new normal in Australia, thanks to “climate change” (aka it’s all our fault).

    Like

  364. “Solar farm near Bristol could power almost 14,500 homes”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-62900931

    There’s a misleading headline, if ever there was one. In the middle of winter, when demand is greatest, I don’t suppose it will be powering much of anything.

    By the by, I wonder if this development will dampen the ardour of greenies in the Bristol area for all things renewable? I have noticed, on my travels, that renewable energy projects tend to be situated nowhere near their greatest enthusiasts.

    Like

  365. “Rare ‘triple dip’ La Niña declared”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/62890361

    La Niña is a naturally occurring event, which results in the large scale cooling of ocean surface temperature.

    It is responsible for changing weather patterns around the world but one of its greatest impacts is to bring above average rainfall to parts of eastern, northern and central areas of Australia.

    Head of long-range forecasts at BOM, Dr Andrew Watkins, said that climate influences like La Niña and another called the Indian Ocean Dipole, “push Australia’s climate towards a wetter phase, and together have shaped our outlook for the coming months that shows more than 80% chance of above average rainfall for many parts of the eastern half of Australia”.

    Dr Watkins went on to say that, “with catchments already wet, the flood risk remains, particularly for eastern Australia.”

    I don’t think that was in the script.

    Like

  366. There have been occasional reports about how NE states in America have impeded supplies of fuels by blocking pipelines. That, not surprisingly, has made them heavily dependent on supplies by rail. Now there’s a railworkers strike due to start tomorrow, fuel inventories are at record lows and there’s no spare pipeline capacity. Will the lesson be learnt?
    https://gcaptain.com/rail-disruption-could-lead-to-energy-shortages-for-northeast-states/?subscriber=true&goal=0_f50174ef03-17ef38778f-170410014&mc_cid=17ef38778f&mc_eid=9275323244

    Like

  367. o/t for this site

    StewGreen – is “biasedbbc.tv” having problems with the site ?
    getting the error “biasedbbc.tv’s server IP address could not be found.”

    Like

  368. “More than 50 Just Stop Oil protesters in UK sent to jail on one day
    Campaigners who blockaded Staffordshire oil terminal remanded for refusing to comply with court proceedings”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/16/more-than-50-just-stop-oil-protesters-in-uk-sent-to-jail-on-one-day

    More than 50 protesters who are demanding urgent action to address the climate crisis were sent to jail on one day this week after refusing to comply with court proceedings.

    The campaigners, who were appearing before judges at two separate hearings in London and Birmingham, had broken an injunction to take part in a blockade of the Kingsbury oil terminal near Tamworth in Staffordshire on Wednesday.

    But when they appeared at the Queen Elizabeth court in Birmingham and the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Thursday, they refused to comply, standing on chairs, turning their backs to the judge and reading out prepared statements about the scale of the crisis.

    One of the defendants took off his shirt to reveal the words “Sham justice kills kids” written on his body, while another held up a copy of David Wallace-Wells’s book The Uninhabitable Earth and recommended it to the court.

    Many of the protesters made it clear they would continue to take action at the Kingsbury terminal if they were released on bail, despite an injunction prohibiting protests at the site still being in force.

    In response, 30 protesters in Birmingham and 21 in London were remanded in prison and are due to appear before the courts again next week, when activist group Just Stop Oil said they could face lengthy spells in prison.

    In total there are now 54 Just Stop Oil protesters in prison and since April, when the group began blocking oil terminals, there have been more than 1,350 arrests.

    Later in the piece, they say they don’t want people to feel sorry for them, but I do a bit. IMO they’re no different from brainwashed cult members.

    Like

  369. The BBC’s Reality Check Teamsters are at it again:

    “China, Europe, US drought: Is 2022 the driest year recorded?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/62751110

    The answer, it seems, is “no” (though of course nowhere can they actually bring themselves to admit that). An appropriate headline from a reality check team might be something like “2022 – dry, but not the driest year recorded”.

    They hide behind evasions, such as:

    We can see that most of Europe has experienced much drier weather this summer than the average for the period 2001 to 2016.

    And:

    This summer, China experienced an extended period of high temperatures that lasted more than two months, the longest since records began in the 1960s, according to China’s Meteorological Administration.

    And much of the article is instead given up to climate change propaganda, and predictions (sorry, should that be projections?) for the future, e.g.:

    Scientists say climate change means Europe will continue to experience more frequent and persistent droughts, and the dry conditions this year have affected agriculture, transport and energy generation.

    And (having admitted that "And nationwide, rainfall has steadily increased since 2012, China's annual climate change study says."):

    Seeing both extreme wet and dry conditions is a feature of climate change across the globe.

    And:

    Climate models predict that the region [part of the USA] will continue to have far less rainfall than average in the coming decades.

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  370. And we think the UK’s Climate Change Committee is disconnected from reality…

    “Australia should aim for net zero by 2040, new Climate Change Authority member says
    Exclusive: Prof Lesley Hughes, a climate specialist appointed this week, says current target is not good enough”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/17/australia-should-aim-for-net-zero-by-2040-new-climate-change-authority-member-says

    A new scientific member of the government’s revamped Climate Change Authority has said Australia should be aiming to reach net zero at least a decade earlier than 2050.

    Prof Lesley Hughes, a biologist and climate change specialist, said Australia’s current climate target for 2030 was “not good enough” but said the new government was showing a willingness to listen to the science.

    Hughes is one of three new female appointments announced by energy minister Chris Bowen earlier this week to address concerns the authority’s board was weighed too heavily towards business and fossil fuels.</blockquote>

    No chance of that (being weighed – surely they mean weighted? – towards business and fossil fuels) here!

    Like

  371. Mark, it’s actually worse than that. The headline of the article before you click on it (as you report it’s more nuanced after that) is:

    A disgraceful effort by a so-called “Reality Check” team.

    Like

  378. BBC-Yesterday channel is talking about an abandoned Herring factory in iceland
    “At the end of the 40’s “CLIMATE CAUSED the herring to move migration routes”
    ..one in the list of reasons why the factory closed.

    Like

  379. “Off-gridders take energy needs into their own hands”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62351448

    In a world where energy supplies can seem increasingly at risk, one couple living in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada, have taken matters into their own hands.

    Katie Erickson and Greg Mooney are building their dream home – and it’s off-grid.

    Their goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible and so have installed solar panels, batteries and a back-up generator….

    …During the winter, the pair rely on a small gas generator when there is too much cloud around….

    It’s as well they have that back-up generator (very green!). In BC in the mountains in winter I should have thought a low and weak sun, and solar panels covered in snow will be a bigger problem than too much cloud. By the way, winter in BC is very cold – the time when their energy needs are greatest is the time when their solar panels are useless.

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  380. Unintended consequences….
    From WUWT:
    “Abstract
    Sulfur in the form of sulfuric acid is a crucial part of our modern industrial society. It is required for the production of phosphorus fertiliser and manufacturing lightweight electric motors and high-performance lithium-ion batteries. Over 246 million tonnes of sulfuric acid are used annually. Rapid growth in the green economy and intensive agriculture could see demand increase to over 400 million tonnes by 2040. Today over 80% of the global sulfur supply comes from desulfurisation of fossil fuels to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas. Decarbonisation of the global economy to deal with climate change will greatly reduce the production of fossil fuels. This will create a shortfall in the annual supply of sulfuric acid of between 100 and 320 million tonnes by 2040, depending on how quickly decarbonisation occurs. Unless action is taken to reduce the need for sulfuric acid, a massive increase in environmentally damaging mining will be required to fill this resource demand.”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/09/19/sulfur-a-potential-resource-crisis-that-could-stifle-green-technology-and-threaten-food-security-as-the-world-decarbonizes/

    This prompts the thought….has anyone made an exhaustive list of all the products we get from oil and gas and then identified alternative sources for each and every one? There is a massive, interlinked web of product chains with oil and gas at the centre.
    In addition there are all the companies providing materials used in processing oil and gas which face a declining market, were we to actually start reducing FF consumption.
    I doubt whether many, if any, of the anti-FF protestors have the slightest inkling of this.

    Liked by 1 person

  381. Mike, one year the students who were taking my fossil fuels module were asked to examine how oil and gas were used as feedstocks for other products and to list them. They soon gave up, burdened by the enormous range and diversity they uncovered. I wish now I had also asked the additional question you now pose, to list alternatives. That year there were intense student debates between those wishing to ban fossil fuels and those knowing the true cost of doing so. Happy days!

    Liked by 1 person

  382. Alan, thinking a bit more, this issue is a strong line on which to counter-attack the anti-FF movement. Firstly, they are probably unaware of the vast number of products derived from oil and gas. Secondly, they won’t have a clue on how to replace them at scale.
    The section from that article on the uses of Sulphur illustrates the point:
    “Sulfur today is used as raw material for the production of paper, soaps, detergents, and industrial organic chemicals (Ober, 2002). However, its greatest significance today lies not in applications in where it is part of the final product, but in technologies where sulfuric acid is a key process or industrial chemical, used to decompose and dissolve a very wide range of different materials (Ober, 2002). Sulfuric acid is used to produce cellulosic fibres such as rayon or nylon, synthetic rubbers, drugs, nitrogenous and phosphorus fertilisers, pesticides, explosives, storage batteries, and acids in particular hydrofluoric acid, which is critical to the aluminium production, nuclear fuel processing, and semiconductor industries (Cheremisina et al., 2019; Yara, 2020). Sulfuric acid is also essential in the extraction, processing, and refining of a range of ferrous and nonferrous metals, that are used extensively in the tech-industry (Cheremisina et al., 2019).”

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  383. I’m not so sure Mike. This meme (hydrocarbons as feedstocks for innumerable products (many essential)) has been broadcast many times. There can be few who haven’t heard of it, yet it is one of those that is known but ignored as less important that warding off the climate catastrophe.

    Like

  385. Alan, it’s certainly a meme amongst the sceptic crew but, offhand, I don’t recall seeing or hearing it mentioned in any MSM broadcast – but that could just be my memory letting me down!
    I wonder what is taught in schools and colleges these days?
    I don’t think there’s much general awareness of the sources of the multitude of materials we take for granted these days. For example, the cutbacks and shutdowns in fertiliser production due to the gas supply crisis seemed to come as a surprise to many.

    Liked by 1 person

  386. Coincidentally this little vid popped up on a NALOPKT thread on this subject:

    I couldn’t see any info on who made it.

    Like

  387. ITV local newsPR
    #1 “There are FEARS CONTROVERSIAL fracking could start up again”
    FFS that is totally loaded wording
    then they went straight into long spiels from activists
    who made totally outrageous untrue claims
    eg “a fracking well takes 20 years to start’
    “Sally Simpson ITV at Great Misson
    iGas boss was then given a questioning

    one activist was called “Reverend Deborah Hodson”

    Like

  388. Activists bragging the media carry their PR
    There were multiple tweets.

    Like

  389. “UN chief: ‘Tax fossil fuel profits for climate damage'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62970887

    Windfall profits made by fossil fuel companies should be taxed to pay for climate damage, according to the UN Secretary General.

    Antonio Guterres told the General Assembly that polluters should pay for the impact of climate-related events.

    This question of who funds these losses has long dogged international negotiations.

    Poor countries say the rich should pay because of their historic carbon emissions.

    But richer nations reject any calls for compensation.

    Arguments over this question are likely to dominate discussions at the forthcoming COP27 summit in Egypt….

    …Central to that is the question of climate change, which the Secretary General believes to be the defining issue of our time. It is a case study in moral and economic justice, he says.

    Having recently seen the devastating flooding in Pakistan for himself, Mr Guterres is now doubling down on the need for the rich world to urgently address the demands of the poor.

    And there’s little doubt whom he believes is responsible for the world’s climate emergency.

    “The fossil fuel industry is feasting on hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and windfall profits while household budgets shrink and our planet burns,” he told the Assembly.

    “Today, I am calling on all developed economies to tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies. Those funds should be re-directed in two ways: to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis; and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices.”

    The question of who pays for the impact of climate change that poorer countries cannot adapt to has been a bone of contention between rich and poor for more than a decade….

    Like

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