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

386 Comments

  2. As a regular critic of the nonsense spouted in the Guardian, I must say I give them full marks for allowing this piece of common sense to appear there, despite running completely counter to everything the Guardian has preached for years:

    “Will Germany’s energy policy lead to economic failure?
    Hans-Werner Sinn
    Despite ambitious green goals, the country’s over-reliance on Russian gas has forced it back to coal and expensive imports”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/25/germany-energy-policy-economic-failure-green-russian-gas

    I recommend reading it in full (I do hope all Guardian readers do, and having done so, have a good think about it). It contains some cracking lines that certainly wouldn’t be out of place on any sceptic website, e.g.:

    Substituting renewables for fossil fuels is not the solution many believe it is. Weather-dependent fuels such as wind and solar are simply too unpredictable to power modern economies reliably, meaning that “adjustable” energy sources – coal, gas, and nuclear – remain essential to buffer the volatility by fluctuating inversely to wind and solar power. In a case of prolonged “dark doldrums”, when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, these sources will even have to meet all energy demand on their own.

    The embrace of electric (rather than gas-powered) transport, heating, and home appliances will exacerbate this problem by generating even greater electricity demand, which requires the stock of adjustable energy plants to grow in proportion. For Germany, which is eschewing coal and nuclear, this means gas power plants. But gas is already in short supply, so another solution must be found.

    One might argue that this is what batteries are for: collecting energy when it is available, and storing it until it is needed. But while batteries in, say, electric cars will one day be able to smooth out short-term fluctuations in energy access, we are not there yet – not even close. Even with more advanced battery technologies, a day or two without wind or sunshine would bring electric transport to a standstill. Electric cars exacerbate the seasonal buffering problem. How long, then, before we have batteries that can make up for seasonal fluctuations in renewable supplies, storing enough electricity – generated from summer sun and autumn storms – to get not only our vehicles, but our entire economies through the winter?

    Like

  3. Mark – re the Guardian & Germany’s “Energiewende”
    they & the other MSM have gone quite on this over the last few years.
    it was top story for many years, how UK should follow them to renewable nirvana.

    but now the “black swan” event has even got some Guardian writers facing reality.

    Like

  4. “Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion punishes the poorest”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion-punishes-the-poorest/

    Imagine if Jeremy Hunt announced a new 60p income tax band that was payable only by people who earn less than £20,000 a year. Or if he reversed council tax so that Band A homes paid three times as much tax as Band G homes, rather than the other way round. There would be more than outrage, perhaps riots. Why, then, do things work so differently with green taxes?

    Today, Sadiq Khan has announced that London’s ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) will be extended to cover the entire city, rather than just the area inside the north and south circular roads as at present. It will mean drivers of non-compliant vehicles having to pay a daily charge of £12.50 to use the roads. Yet where is the opposition? The Labour party normally never fails to accuse Tory chancellors of taxing the poor while leaving the rich alone.

    Everyone likes clean air, but the Ulez charge isn’t directly linked to how much pollution is spewing out of the rear end of your vehicle. The charge applies to any petrol car which doesn’t meet Euro 4 standards (which is most vehicles registered before 2005) and any diesel car which fails to meet Euro 6 standards (which is most vehicles registered before 2015). Cars which do meet the higher standards pay nothing…

    …The daily Ulez charge is essentially a tax on older vehicles. It is particularly punishing for tradespeople who rely on older diesel vehicles and who cannot change to other forms of transport. Plumbers cannot take their blowtorches, plus bags of other kit, on the tube. Meanwhile, the oafs who rev up around Kensington every summer in brand new supercars, are excused from having to pay anything.

    If it is about pollution, then why does the charge not fall on all petrol and diesel cars, and be made proportional to how much they are driven? Obviously, a Euro 6 diesel which is driven around all day will emit vastly more pollution than a Euro 5 diesel used once a day to take an elderly person to the shops…

    Like

  5. Wind Turbines are decaying faster than expected
    at the leading edge of the blades
    cos that’s travelling at 180mph, so dust and hailstones have major affect.
    That’s from a 3 year old Discovery TV video, that YouTube just pushed at me, 8 mins
    .. https://youtu.be/og2H7ZxkiMA

    Like

  6. In the comments
    “I worked in an area a few years ago that a lot wind turbines and to my surprise I learned that they actually require a lot of expensive maintenance. During winter windstorms when they need the power most, they actually have to shut them off.”

    Like

  7. It was still and cloudy here for most of the day and I see that wind is providing a little over 1% of our electricity as I type.
    Forecast looks much the same for the next few days…..Guten Tag Herr Dunkelflaute??

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Irony remains alive and well:

    “Prince William and Kate to visit US for climate change prize”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63760468

    In their first international trip since becoming Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Catherine will visit the US this week for an environmental prize.

    The royal couple will show their support for finding ways to tackle climate change, at the second annual Earthshot Prize awards in Boston.

    Billie Eilish, Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe x Halle are among the performers taking part.

    Environmental campaigner Sir David Attenborough will also be contributing.

    Like

  9. Just got the power cords running out of my window
    to the Indian takeaway next door and the sunbed centre on the other side.
    Why ?
    Cos when the National Grid switch off bonus hours happen
    I can plug both shops into my meter and I’ll just be paying the normal rate for leccy
    but both shops will be getting £20 an hour, for helping reducing grid demand

    You see Mickey Mouse subsidy programmes can be GAMED

    Like

  10. We’re currently importing twice as much electricity as is being supplied by renewables. Gas alone is supplying 8 x as much as renewables.

    Like

  11. A minister says something the BBC disapproves of, so the BBC speed-dials Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth:

    “Onshore wind: Grant Shapps criticised for ‘nonsense’ claims”

    Shapps says that the new turbines are too big for British roads. Mostly true. The problem is getting them around corners.

    Business Secretary Grant Shapps has been criticised after claiming wind turbines are now “so big” they cannot be built on land.

    Friends of the Earth said this was “nonsense”, while Greenpeace said onshore wind was “thriving”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63795274

    Like

  12. Two activists* glued themselves to the railing of a conductor’s platform at a Beethoven concert in Hamburg last week. The crowd started booing, one of the activists started ranting (and railing, obvz) about the end of the world – then all of a sudden it was all over.

    Did the fat lady sing? No. It turned out that the railing to which she and her companion were attached wasn’t bolted to the podium. It just slotted into two holes. So someone simply unslotted it and carried it into the wings, dragging the protesters along behind it. They were on the stage for less than a minute.

    Still glued to the railing, they were left in a corridor as the concert got under way. Here they are waiting to be provided with insincere pizzas by the management:

    ===
    *Marlene Limburg and Stefan Mueller. They are part of Letzte Generation (Last Generation), so called because its members are all ‘unfreiwillige Zölibatäre’ – young people who fear that they’ll never have sex.

    Bonus pic:

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiRuPAwX0AQtuA-?format=jpg&name=360×360

    Liked by 1 person

  14. “Thurrock council ignored bankruptcy warnings and took ‘unprecedented risks’
    Documents show Thurrock failed to act despite being cautioned about scale and risky nature of investments”

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/30/thurrock-council-repeatedly-ignored-warnings-of-risks-to-public-money

    I wonder why the headline doesn’t mention the main dodgy investment? Instead it starts with a concentration on the fact that the Council in question is a Tory one (despite that not being the most relevant fact here):

    The Tory-led Thurrock council, which is on the brink of bankruptcy after losing hundreds of millions of pounds on failed commercial investments, repeatedly ignored warnings from financial experts over the “unprecedented risks” it was taking with public money, it has emerged.

    You have to read quite a way through the article before you reach the elephant in the room:

    According to the BIJ, Sean Clark, the corporate director of resources at Thurrock council, was the senior official behind a string of business deals in which it borrowed £1bn – several times its annual spending on local services – to invest in bonds linked to solar energy and other businesses.

    They included £655m invested in a solar farms company, Toucan Holdings 1, which went into administration this month, and £94m in Just Loans Group plc, a business lender which went bust in June. These two deals alone have left the council exposed to potential losses of up to £250m.

    Like

  15. Extraordinary! Do they want to cripple their country’s economy?

    “Up to 3,000 ‘peak polluters’ given last chance to close by Dutch government
    State attempts to push through plans to shut hundreds of farms to cut nitrogen oxide emissions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/30/peak-polluters-last-chance-close-dutch-government

    The Dutch government is offering to buy out up to 3,000 “peak polluter” farms and major industrial polluters in an attempt to reduce ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.

    The nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal, said farmers would be offered more than 100% of the value of their farms to quit. For the first time, the government has said that forced buyouts will follow next year if the voluntary measures fail.

    The group of 2,000 to 3,000 “peak polluters” – who are “mostly farmers”, an agriculture ministry spokesperson told the Guardian – will be offered a final set of choices: innovate to drastically reduce emissions, transition to a new kind of business, extend in ways that reduce their impact, relocate or “voluntarily stop”.

    “For agricultural entrepreneurs, there will be a stopping scheme that will be as attractive as possible,” said Van der Wal in a series of parliamentary briefings. “For industrial peak polluters, we will get to work with a tailor-made approach and in tightening permits. After a year, we will see if this has achieved enough.”

    Like

  16. “Atlantic Hurricane Season Below Average in Latest Blow for Net Zero Alarmists”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/11/30/atlantic-hurricane-season-below-average-in-latest-blow-for-net-zero-alarmists/

    The 2022 North Atlantic hurricane season is drawing to a close, and all the evidence shows it is below average in the number of storms and overall ferocity. Unsurprisingly, the climate catastrophists have again been proved wrong in their forecasts. In May, the U.K. Met Office said the season was “most likely” to be above average. “What is interesting this year is that the forecasts issued by many different agencies are all indicating an above-average season. As they are all pointing in the same direction, this gives us a higher degree of confidence,” noted Julian Heming, said to be the Met Office’s expert on tropical cyclones…

    …The latest hurricane news caps a bad year for climate catastrophists. When it comes to making generalisations from single events, those who live by the sword, die by it as well. Arctic sea ice has shown impressive recent growth, with suggestions that the Greenland ice sheet might even have grown in the year to August 2022. Coral at the Great Barrier Reef is back in record amounts, while a little extra summer warmth in the Arctic has led to more food being available for all forms of life including growing numbers of seals and polar bears. The wildfire season is ending in the western United States, and it has been one of the quietest for years. If you like a little cold in your weather mix, you would have welcomed the news that in 2020-21 the South Pole recorded its coldest six month winter since records began. And the latest news from Antarctica is also on the chilly side, with the South Pole and the eastern station at Vostok recording their coldest November for 35 years.

    How much of this have you seen reported in the green agenda-driven mainstream media?..

    Like

  17. I was on the verge of writing an article about this, but Paul Homewood has beaten me to it, and done a good job too:

    “Netherlands To Close 3000 Farms To Comply With EU Climate Rules”

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/11/29/netherlands-to-close-3000-farms-to-comply-with-eu-climate-rules/

    The whole thing is beyond ridiculous. Paul concludes with a question I find myself increasingly asking:

    Why do western governments hate their own people so much?

    Like

  18. “World Cup: Shuttle flights cast doubts on carbon-neutral pledge”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-63796634

    In the run-up to the World Cup, Qatar pledged to make this the first carbon-neutral event in the tournament’s history. But climate advocates raised serious doubts about its sustainability claims. So, is Qatar living up to its promise?

    Due to an acute shortage of hotel rooms in Qatar, tens of thousands of visitors are staying in neighbouring Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates.

    A shuttle flight service has been set up to take fans to football matches, with an estimated 500 daily flights in and out of Qatar’s capital, Doha. Of those, Dubai in the UAE is operating nearly 120 flights every day.

    The environmental cost of transporting fans to the host nation by plane has come under scrutiny.

    The Paris-based carbon accounting firm Greenly estimates the shuttle flights have resulted in between 6,000 and 8,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions every day since the tournament started.

    The immense volume of shuttle flights undermines the organiser’s pledge to minimise flying during the tournament, Khaled Diab, of advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, says.

    I wonder how many BBC employees have been on those flights, and how many flights each?

    Like

  19. We skeptics must be the wrong ones
    cos there are large numbers of people against us
    And they can’t be all CRAZY or CHEATS .. can they ?

    @DavidRVetter
    Bio : Climate writer; currently @UniofOxfor @TheSmithSchool
    Forbes Sustainability Senior Contributor.
    Insta: @ davidrvetter | DaveVetter on Mastodon dot green Oxford, UKforbes.com/sites/davidrve…

    Tweeted Dec 1

    I don’t have empirical data on this,
    but for the first time,
    Twitter appears to be “recommending”
    exclusively *far-right, white nationalist* accounts followed by my mutuals.
    These include Farage, Dan Wootton, Toby Young and Douglas Murray.
    Twitter did not previously do this – ever

    Sure Twitter might be not hiding non-lefties like it often used to
    His labels there are just nasty smear and don’t apply to those people.

    He replied to himself

    Quick note for the bootlickers replying “it’s just a difference of opinion”.
    Lies, brain-dead bigotry and dissimulation ≠ an opinion

    Again that is nasty smear
    As usual Projection is a Libmob characteristic
    ..those smears DO often apply to them.

    @JeffersonDean9 replied to him
    Well you’re a climate writer so you know all about lies and bootlickin

    I search under : @DavidRVetter and liar
    Results showed he often calls people that
    and that recently he’s campaigning against Steve Milloy

    Nigel Williams @ChapeauToYou replied
    Then debate him and reveal his lies.
    You won’t because in reality you are the liars.

    Like

  20. “#ClimateScam: denialism claims flooding Twitter have scientists worried
    Many researchers are fleeing the platform, unnerved by the surge in climate misinformation since Musk’s chaotic takeover”

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/02/climate-change-denialism-flooding-twitter-scientists

    While false claims about the climate crisis have been deployed for decades by the fossil fuel industry and various conservative figures, there is some evidence there has been a rise in polarization over climate on social media over the past two years. A recent study by researchers in the UK and Italy found there was a four-fold increase in “contrarian” rightwing climate conversations on Twitter during the UN Cop26 climate talks last year, compared to the same summit held in 2015.

    The increase in minority voices on climate, who make claims such as that people favoring climate action are somehow hypocrites or that reducing emissions is pointless or expensive, is being fueled by well-known rightwing politicians in the US and Europe turning their fire on climate activists who have become more prominent in recent years, the researchers said.

    Hmm. People favouring climate action often are hypocrites. Reducing emissions in developed countries is expensive, and it certainly is pointless if the rest of the world increases emissions. How is that “misinformation”?

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Dave Vetter @davidrvetter
    Nov 24 tweet Replying to @TiceRichard
    “We don’t have any shale gas.”

    That’s a Vetter lie/disinformation

    Like

  23. Dame Vivienne Westwood gives us numerical and other facts about COP 27:

    Like

  24. H/T Scotland Against Spin.

    A Welsh Government planning document:

    “Planning Implications of Renewable and Low Carbon Energy
    February 2011”

    …3.2.4 As the strength of the wind varies considerably, so does the turbine power output. A measure of the performance of a turbine at a given site, usually stated as an average over the course of a year, is the Capacity Factor. A typical value for a good UK site is around 0.3, which means the turbines are producing 30% of their theoretical maximum. Intermittency can have an impact on the national grid system in that a degree of short term reserve i.e. back-up generation is needed due to the unpredictability of wind output. The variability of wind output also creates an issue for the UK’s overall generation capacity. Current analysis indicates that intermittency should be manageable in the period up to 2020, but could potentially become a problem after this date due to closures of old gas and coal power plants and any
    further increase in the deployment of intermittent renewable electricity supplies.
    Grid connection
    3.2.5 The costs involved in routing power transmission cables from a wind farm to a suitable grid connection point can be considerable and distance is therefore a critical factor. A 2009 study by BWEA Cymru reports that the current availability of suitable grid connection points in certain parts of Wales can act as a barrier to the growth of wind power, but that a study has now been undertaken in conjunction with the National Grid to assess the high level constraints to grid infrastructure. It also states that further studies are planned to assess grid routing issues and environmental impacts…
    …3.4.2 It is important to note that landscape and visual impacts can be caused not only by the building of the wind turbines themselves but by the ancillary infrastructure particularly new or widened access roads, areas of concrete hardstanding, control buildings and substations and any required grid connections (if these are to be routed above ground)…
    …3.4.4 Little can be done to mitigate the landscape and visual impacts of large-scale wind turbines (both individually and as larger groups), and micro turbines once they have been erected. It is therefore essential that appropriate care is taken in the siting and design of the layout of the turbines/wind farm – good design is the best form of mitigation. Wind turbines should be sited and designed so that adverse effects on
    landscape and visual amenity are minimised, and the special qualities of designated areas are protected. Equally important is the design of associated structures such as tracks, power lines and ancillary buildings which can also result in significant impacts on the landscape, particularly in open moorland settings. A Design and Access Statement can explain how landscape and visual considerations have been taken into account in the design of the scheme…

    And much more in similar vein. Unfortunately, neither the Scottish government, nor most Westminster MPs, seem to have received the memo.

    Like

  25. Green events are being pushed at me more often
    The church is well in on it.
    Church bookshop is basically a green bookshop now
    with slogans on posters.

    Fri, December 2, 7:00pm – 9:30pm Grimsby Minster
    Event: https://facebook.com/events/s/our-place-our-planet-an-evenin/2301636836652631/
    Our Place, Our Planet – Spoken word and Poetry event hosted in association with Hammond House Publishing
    Live performances from Green Dreaming – lively three piece band inspired by nature and the environment
    North East Lincolnshire creatives take to the stage beneath Gaia to share their words inspired by the world in which we live – our place and our planet.
    With guest musicians whose music explores nature and environment.

    Like

  26. A good news story, relating to a climate-concerned student, for a change:

    “Bristol student plogger aims to clean 30 cities in 30 days”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-63822524

    A student who set up a litter-picking community is planning to tour 30 cities in 30 days across the UK in a fight against climate change.

    Vivek Gurav has been collecting rubbish and has picked up 5,000kg of waste while out running in Bristol, an activity known as ‘plogging’.

    Mr Gurav, 26, said: “I want to set-up a UK-wide plogging community like I did back in India.”

    I remain bemused as to what it has to do with climate change, and it’s all the odder that someone concerned about climate change should fly (presumably regularly) between India and the UK. Nevertheless, his activity is laudable, and is to be commended. Well done that man.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Another for the ongoing list of stories confirming that irony is alive and well:

    “Just Stop Oil activists occupy beds in Harrods in protest against fuel poverty
    Protesters take to luxury beds and sofas in London store to call for action on ‘sky-rocketing’ energy bills”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/03/just-stop-oil-activists-occupy-beds-in-harrods-in-protest-against-fuel-poverty

    <Just Stop Oil activists tucked themselves into a Harrods display bed as part of a national day of action on fuel poverty in the UK on Saturday.

    Footage of the “warm up” demonstrations also showed security guards confronting protesters lying on sofas inside the shop in Knightsbridge, London.

    The eco-activists want action over “sky-rocketing” energy bills and were joined by other grassroots movements including Don’t Pay UK and Fuel Poverty Action…

    …“Austerity is a political choice and the cost of living crisis is an unprovoked attack on ordinary people…

    Then why are you campaigning for it?

    Like

  28. Well done, Vivek Gurav, but you’ve got a lot of plogging to do before you’ll surpass David Sedaris, Britain’s greatest ever immigrant litter-picker. He has been collecting litter in Britain while walking along rural roads for almost a decade. (Also, he’s quite funny.)

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/david-sedaris-was-right-litter-is-a-class-issue/

    https://archive.org/details/davidsedariswtfpodcast

    Sedaris doesn’t plog, he collects litter while walking, so you could certainly catch up with him, Vivek. I wouldn’t, though. Just let Sedaris keep doing do his weird but wonderful thing and you keep doing yours.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. Thursdays BBC local NewsPR show
    had a #PRasNews item about the cable connection to Denmark being completed
    The narrative was that the cable is for sharing GREEN electricity
    That when there’s no wind in the UK, Danish windfarms will be sending leccy.
    In reality, it’s a grid to grid connection.
    Sure sometimes there will be wind in Denmark, but at others we could ultimately be getting leccy derived from German coal plants

    #1 the cable takes another year to set up and test
    #2 National Grid enthusiastically tweeted a prog link
    but the prog is only archived for 24 hours
    So that link is dead now.

    Like

  30. Despite all the virtue signalling about net zero and cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, the US is getting into bed with Venezuela to import more oil. From the Toronto Globe and Mail (paywalled)
    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-desperate-for-oil-joe-biden-throws-venezuelas-nicolas-maduro-a/
    “Desperate for oil, Joe Biden throws Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro a lifeline.”
    “………After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the U.S. State Department abandoned all pretenses of seeking to oust Mr. Maduro as President Joe Biden began cozying up to the leaders of petrostates around the world to boost oil output amid soaring gasoline prices.

    Thus began behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Biden administration and Mr. Maduro’s government, leading to the Nov. 26 announcement that U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. will be allowed to resume oil production in Venezuela through a joint venture with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Chevron said it will begin shipping Venezuelan oil to the United States by the end of December.

    The amount of Venezuelan crude that initially enters the U.S. market will not be enough to affect gas prices. But the Biden administration’s stealth rehabilitation of Mr. Maduro’s government suggests the Chevron deal may only be the first of many more such announcements.
    Domestic politics in the United States have all but made it impossible for a Democrat such as Mr. Biden to be seen as encouraging new fossil fuel projects in North America, which explains why he has spent this year looking abroad for new supplies of oil. It should not be lost on Canadians that the U.S. President, who cancelled a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, has been willing to court dictators such as Mr. Maduro and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to do so.”

    Liked by 1 person

  31. The article below is little more than a puff [piece for renewable energy in general, and for an Italian company in particular, claiming it is the key to getting energy prices down, despite all the evidence to the contrary:

    “Cutting energy prices will take years – power boss”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63834755

    Still, they get one thing right:

    However, that shift to renewables also has risks.

    In July, the International Energy Agency said that China’s dominance of solar and wind turbine production creates “potential challenges that governments need to address”.

    Mr Starace said the West has been over-reliant on China for renewables and other goods.

    Like

  32. From a post on WUWT:
    “At the end of June, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition gave the green light to restart 27 coal-fired power plants until March 2024. That is quite a turnaround for a country that shunned all fossil fuels for the last three decades, shutting down its nuclear plants after the Fukushima incident as well as its coal and natural gas plants for their high carbon footprints.”
    To me it’s a surprise that they have 27 coal plants which can be restarted. Obviously they haven’t sold off major components of their their old plants, or even demolished them.

    Like

  33. Mikehig, Unlike the UK, where politicians of all colours delight in being photographed blowing them up, thereby demonstrating that their words about energy security are just that – words.

    Like

  35. Mark – thanks for the link – “It “will take years” to get energy prices back to pre-Ukraine war levels, the boss of one of the world’s biggest energy firms has told the BBC.”

    the headline statement has been on BBC rolling news all day without naming “one of the world’s biggest energy firms”

    excerpts from your/BBC love in link –
    “Enel’s Francesco Starace said bringing prices down depends on new sources of energy such as renewables and heat pumps.” – BBC Tick

    “But Enel is planning to leave many of those countries as it focuses on renewable energy and becoming carbon neutral by 2040. It also wants to cut its huge debts of around $63bn (£52bn).” – BBC Tick (saving the planet comes before money considerations)

    then from – “Megan Richards, a former director of energy policy at the European Commission.
    “A lot of work has been done” to replace Russian energy, she added, before warning: “I think Europe will not be completely domestically independent for a very, very long time, if ever” even though “renewables will increase dramatically”.

    madness abounds.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. “Cold snap poses first test of Britain’s efforts to prevent winter power cuts
    Alex Lawson
    Energy correspondent
    A mild start to winter is about to come to shivering halt, putting extra strain on the country’s power supplies”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/05/cold-snap-poses-first-test-of-britains-efforts-to-prevent-winter-power-cuts

    As the first big snowfall of winter threatens to drop this week, it’s not only the forecasters and road gritters who will be twitchy: Britain’s energy executives and policymakers are on tenterhooks.

    Many Britons who have held off putting on the heating, afraid of the bulging bills that could follow, may be forced to nudge the thermostat up, putting a strain on the country’s power supplies. National Grid has warned that a confluence of scenarios including a cold snap and a cut-off of Russian gas to Europe could lead to power cuts. Is this the first piece of that grim jigsaw?..

    …But while temperatures have been unseasonably warm, wind speeds have been more concerning. Last week dunkelflaute (German for a “dark lull”) conditions – with barely any wind or solar power available to generate electricity on grey, still days – left gas as a key power source.

    National Grid data showed the fossil fuel was responsible for as much as 60% of Great Britain’s electricity generation for much of last week, far higher than its average of about 40% at this time of year, while wind was only 7%. The conditions were concerning enough for National Grid to flirt with using its demand flexibility service, which incentivises businesses and consumers to shift their power usage, although ultimately it stopped short. Freezing conditions predicted in Europe for mid-December are also driving sentiment.

    Who’d have thought it was a bad idea to rely on renewable energy for our electricity supplies at a time of year when it’s cold, dark, and often windless if an anticyclone settles over the country?

    Like

  40. “New Cumbrian coalmine would prove UK hypocrisy, say experts around world
    Activists and experts say green light for coal would show UK’s ‘posturing, double standards and broken promises’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/06/new-cumbrian-coalmine-would-prove-uk-hypocrisy-say-experts-around-world

    It must be great to pontificate from a well-paid and secure job, and in the process seek to deny 500 well-paid jobs (plus many more that would be supported indirectly) to an area of high unemployment and social deprivation during a cost-of-living crisis.

    Are any of these people complaining about Chinese, Indian or Indonesian coal mines?

    Like

  41. Mark – from your link.
    I looked to see who the “Activists and experts” were.
    from the Guardian post –

    Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations’

    Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser in Bill Clinton’s White House, now an analyst in Washington DC.

    One who was closely involved in Cop27 said: “We are past the point where we should be keeping coal open. We saw at Cop the erosion of the authority of the UK and EU and US because of ‘do as we say not do as we do’. This will only undermine attempts to speed the transition away from coal.”

    Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network International, a leading NGO voice.

    Lorraine Chiponda, of the Africa Climate Movement, said: “Investing in new coal projects is a mockery to African communities that have suffered at the frontlines of climate disasters in Africa.

    Andrés Goméz, of the Censat Agua Viva (Friends of the Earth Colombia) activist group, said: “While countries in the global south like Colombia are making ambitious just-transition plans phasing out fossil fuels, the UK is letting everyone down by doing in the direction of more fossil fuels.”

    Omar Elmawi, of the Kenyan organisation Muslims for Human Rights, said: “Granting a new coal mining permit is not just hypocritical but sends the wrong message to the entire world”

    Steve Maël Dize, of the Care For Environment/CAN group in Cameroon

    so just “Activists” unless I missed the “experts” among the above list.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. Quick question…..how do you find if there might be an old post on something? While I like the rather quixotic nature of some thread titles, their subject matter is not always obvious so scanning back may not find a thread – and takes time!
    Is the search button the only option or am I missing something obvious?

    Like

  43. Mike, I have found the search button to be quite effective. A tag or keyword cloud might be a useful addition to the sidebar, but that would probably require somebody (YT probably) to go back in time and retrospectively apply tags/keywords to about a thousand old posts.

    I usually use the search button and then ctrl-f within the post itself to search for relevant text. Of course this is not infallible, and there are many ways some subjects might have been covered.

    Like

  45. Hot off the press – a decision I wasn’t expecting:

    “First UK coal mine in decades approved”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63892381

    Michael Gove has approved the first new UK coal mine in 30 years despite concern about its climate impacts among Conservative MPs and experts.

    The proposed mine in Cumbria would dig up coking coal for steel production in the UK across the world.

    Critics say the mine would undermine climate targets and demand for coking coal is declining.

    But supporters claim the mine, near Whitehaven, will create jobs and reduce the need to import coal.

    The fate of the West Cumbria Mining project had been hanging in the balance for two years after the local county council initially approved the mine in 2020.

    How long before someone goes to Court to try to overturn the decision?

    Meanwhile, cue the usual suspects on BBC speed dial:

    Friends of the Earth said the decision was a “misguided and deeply damaging mistake that flies in the face of all the evidence”.

    “The mine isn’t needed, will add to global climate emissions, and won’t replace Russian coal,” said Friends of the Earth campaigner, Tony Bosworth.

    Also:

    The Liberal Democrats said the decision left the government’s environmental credentials “in tatters”.

    “Rishi Sunak’s government is trashing our country’s reputation as a world lead in cutting emissions,” said the party’s environment spokesperson, Tim Farron.

    That would be the Liberal Democrats whose disastrous time in charge of energy policy during the coalition government with the Conservatives guaranteed that we are well off the pace in creating new – reliable – nuclear energy.

    Liked by 1 person

  46. Thanks Mark – this was what I thought of as the “National Suicide” test. If they said no to this, then there was absolutely no hope for the UK. As it is, the “no brainer” affirmative answer has resulted in howls of protest. Whether the howlers will make enough noise to cancel this project remains to be seen, but any fury they show now will reduce the enthusiasm for any further sensible infrastructure projects. [That aim may be among the whiners’ calculations.]

    Liked by 1 person

  47. Jit,

    Here’s the Guardian’s hilarious take on that story:

    “UK’s first new coalmine for 30 years gets go-ahead in Cumbria
    Michael Gove greenlights £165m project that will produce estimated 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/07/uk-first-new-coalmine-for-30-years-gets-go-ahead-in-cumbria

    The vast majority of the coal produced will be for export, as most UK steel producers have rejected the use of the coal, which is high in sulphur and surplus to their needs.

    Where these exports will go is uncertain…

    How do you know that the vast majority will be exported if there’s no certainty about where exports will go?

    Like

  48. If the coal is high in sulphur, then why do the wannabe miners want to mine it, and why do they think it will make good coke?

    Liked by 1 person

  49. Mark – saw it on BBC news, for once they explained clearly it was for coking coal used in steel production.

    ps – was going to bang on about Ed Davies, but found a few interesting quotes from Wiki on him –

    “Davey focused on increasing competition in the energy market by removing barriers to entry for smaller companies, and streamlining the customer switching process.[7] He also approved the construction of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.[8]”

    “In April 2014, Davey called for the G7 to begin reduction of dependency on Russian energy following the Revolution of Dignity and commencement of the Russo-Ukrainian War.[80] Davey argued the benefits of investment in onshore wind energy from companies such as Siemens was a key part of the push to reduce dependence on Russian energy,[81] while “more diversified supplies of gas” including from the US and domestic shale gas would also help.[82] In May 2014 at a meeting in Rome, G7 energy ministers including Davey agreed formally to a process for reducing dependency on Russian energy; “Putin has crossed a line”, Davey declared.[83]”

    hmm

    Liked by 1 person

  50. People here are posting in various threads about the Cumbria mine.
    I’ll post in open mic

    Here’s the Facebook post of the local BBC
    Comments are overwhelming supportive of the mine

    Like

  51. from that Guardian link –

    “Philip Dunne MP, the chair of the environmental audit committee, said: “Coal is the most polluting energy source, and is not consistent with the government’s net zero ambitions. It is not clear-cut to suggest that having a coalmine producing coking coal for steelmaking on our doorstep will reduce steelmakers’ demand for imported coal.

    “On the contrary, when our committee heard from steelmakers earlier this year, they argued that they have survived long enough without UK domestic coking coal and that any purchase of coking coal from a potential site in Cumbria would be a commercial decision.”

    so, are UK steelmakers saying, if we can get it & ship it cheaper from overseas that’s what they will do?

    as usual no direct link to the quote.

    ps – from the post – Nicholas Stern the acclaimed economist who has worked on the climate, development and public policy, said the mine would be damaging to the UK, and the world.

    Like

  52. Well, that didn’t take long. I asked the question only yesterday evening:

    “Could Cumbria coal mine be stopped despite government green light?
    Mine could affect Britain’s climate commitments, which some believe could help get decision struck down”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/08/government-approves-cumbria-coalmine-legal-challenge

    The government has given the green light to a new coalmine in Cumbria, the first in the UK for more than 30 years, but already moves have begun to challenge the decision before construction work can start.

    Climate campaigners are examining the decision with a view to a legal challenge, based on the UK’s national and international legally binding climate commitments.

    The Guardian understands that lawyers working for NGOs will be looking for grounds to bring a high court claim against the planning permission. If such a claim were to succeed, the court could strike down the government’s decision and send it back to ministers to redetermine.

    By the way, appalling anti-mine bias on evidence on Radio 4 10pm news yesterday evening. Local mayor, Mike Starkie, was being interviewed, and making a strong case in favour of the mine, and making the point about the local support for it. He was obviously off-message, and the interviewer harangued and interrupted him relentlessly. Interestingly, Starkie’s vote share increased at the last mayoral election.

    Like

  54. “Massive Reduction in Cyclonic Storm Energy Across Northern Hemisphere in 2022”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/12/08/massive-reduction-in-cyclonic-storm-energy-across-northern-hemisphere-in-2022/

    More details are emerging about an astonishing drop in cyclonic storm energy across the northern hemisphere during 2022. The latest calculations from Colorado State University show a 33% below-trend fall in its Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index, which reflects frequency, intensity and duration of all hurricane and tropical cyclone data. Curiously, this crucial fact seems to have gone missing in much of the mainstream media’s half-hearted commentary on a ‘below average’ North Atlantic hurricane season. Describing what it calls a “unique” and “near average” season, BBC Weather Simon King failed to even mention the enormous drop in cyclonic energy. In September, the BBC “Reality Check” was running the party line that evidence showed hurricanes were “getting more powerful”.

    Like

  55. to answer my own question above – are UK steelmakers saying, if we can get it & ship it cheaper from overseas that’s what they will do?
    I took to google (and ignored the Guardian hits)

    1st – https://www.newscientist.com/article/2350696-what-will-be-the-climate-impact-of-a-new-coal-mine-in-the-uk/
    snippet – “The UK produces around 7.4 million tonnes of steel every year using coking coal, mainly from two companies: British Steel and Tata. British Steel has said it will not use coal from the Cumbria project because its sulphur content will be too high, while Tata has said it may use some coal from the mine, but ultimately plans to shift to greener production methods over the next decade.
    In fact, it is estimated that only between 10 and 20 per cent of the coal extracted from Woodhouse Colliery will be used for steelmaking in the UK.”

    with a nice message below the article – “Sign up to our free Fix the Planet newsletter to get a dose of climate optimism delivered straight to your inbox, every Thursday”

    next – https://ieefa.org/resources/uks-new-mine-approval-comes-steelmakers-are-accelerating-shift-away-coking-coal

    snippet – “The UK government’s decision to approve a new coking coal mine in Cumbria comes at the end of a year that has seen the European steel technology transition away from coal accelerate.”

    not answered my question, but not knowing enough about steel production I detect BS.

    Liked by 1 person

  56. Well said Ben Pile, once of this parish:

    Like

  57. National Grid “live” from iamkate’s website (though I’m not sue how solar can be providing any electricity more than 2 hours after darkness fell across the land):

    Price: £503.98 per Mwh.

    Coal: 2.9%
    Gas: 53.4%
    Solar: 1.7%
    Wind: 8.6%
    Hydro: 1.2%
    Nuclear: 12%
    Biomass: 5.3%

    Demand: 43.5 Gw. Generation: 37.9Gw.

    Shortfall: 5.6 Gw, hence 9.5% is being supplied via the interconnectors and 3.3% from pumped storage.

    Like

  58. A new book from Mike Hulme is scheduled for publication in May next year:

    https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=climate-change-isnt-everything–9781509556151

    The changing climate poses serious dangers to human and non-human life alike, though perhaps the most urgent danger is one we hear very little about: the rise of climatism. Any and all social, political and ecological phenomena facing the world today – from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the management of wildfires – quickly become climatized, explained with reference to ‘a change in the climate’. With complex political and ethical challenges so narrowly framed, arresting climate change becomes the supreme political challenge of our time and everything else becomes subservient to this one goal.

    In this far-sighted analysis, Mike Hulme reveals how climatism has taken hold in recent years, becoming so pervasive and embedded in public life that it is increasingly hard to identify without being written off as a climate denier. He confronts this dangerously myopic view that reduces the condition of the world to the fate of global temperature or the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to the detriment of paying serious attention to issues as varied as poverty, liberty, biodiversity loss, inequality, and diplomacy. We must not live as though climate alone determines our present and our future.

    Will ATTP and his minders greet the book by writing Hulme off as a climate denier (again)? Of course they will. ATTP will do his usual ‘he is a denier but on the other hand I don’t mean to say that he is a denier, but he is a denier, although I don’t mean to say that, but he is’ shtick; Willard will say that Hulme is a denier then ban everyone else who tries to use that term.

    Like

  61. Something just came up to do with Truss’s PM “pension”

    We have to deal with the REAL WORLD
    Now does the libmob establishment deal with the REAL WORLD ?
    .. No we know with green issues libmob are in STORYTELLING land

    And with Liz Truss their STORY is that after 45 days as PM
    she will walk away with an ongoing salary and pension
    It’s just routine for Labour MPs and media to assert that
    .. but I just had cause to check that
    On Oct 21 FullFact ran a piece

    There is no special pension for PMs now, they just get salary payments added to the pot like all other MPs

    And what libmob call an extra £115K PM salary for life… isn’t
    Rather £115K is the limit to expenses each year they can claim for expenses related to their former role
    So Mrs May only claimed £58K last year

    However both Tony Blair and John Major do appear to be gaming the system each year
    i guess they are running ex PM projects each year and thus submitting receipts that say they have spent £115K
    They are not getting £115K in their own salary , but some of it could going into their mates’ salaries

    Like

  62. Stew – thanks for the PM “pension” FullFact tweet link.

    one comment below the tweet says –
    “birdman2 Replying to @FullFact
    In 2020/21, which is the most recent year we have accounts for, Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all claimed more than £110,000, while Theresa May claimed about £58,000.
    3:10 pm · 21 Oct 2022”

    so it’s not just Major & Blair taking advantage of a nice little earner it seems (from taxpayers money).

    ps – if “birdman2” is correct

    Like

  64. Early evening update on the UK National Grid, electricity demand and supply and price:

    Price currently £625 per Mwh.

    Demand: 41.6 Gw, supply 34.5 Gw.

    Supply comes from:

    Coal: 3.1%
    Gas: 57.5%
    Solar: 0
    Wind: 2.4%
    Hydro: 0.9%
    Nuclear: 13.8%
    Biomass:
    3.5%
    Pumped storage: 1.7%
    “Other”: 2%
    Interconnectors: 15.2%

    Doubling wind and solar capacity will help in this situation? Get real.

    Like

  65. “British Museum hints at ‘complete reimagination’ and a net zero carbon future
    Chair of the museum, George Osborne, says it no longer wants to be a ‘destination for climate protest’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/dec/11/british-museum-hints-at-complete-reimagination-and-a-net-zero-carbon-future

    …“Our goal is to be a net zero carbon museum,” said Osborne, “no longer a destination for climate protest but instead an example of climate solution”.

    If that’s the future, however, it hasn’t arrived yet. On Sunday, the museum’s Great Court was once again the scene of a protest by climate campaigners, the latest in a long succession of actions calling on the institution to drop its longtime sponsor BP. Activists from the group BP or not BP? chanted and held banners that read “Drop BP”.

    “This must be the last BP-sponsored exhibition at the British Museum,” said Lydia, a spokesperson for the group. “I’m taking part in this action because there is no place for fossil fuels in our arts and culture sector. The British Museum must drop BP now.”

    How, then, to interpret Osborne’s comments? Could the BM finally be ready to ditch BP? Certainly the museum has been unusually quiet about the future of the partnership. The energy giant has been a leading sponsor since 1996, with the most recent five-year arrangement having been extended for a year because of Covid.

    That deal was announced more than a year ahead. But with two months to go until the existing contract expires at the conclusion of the BP-supported Hieroglyphics exhibition in February – which has been particularly controversial given BP’s work in Egypt – neither side has yet said anything about whether the partnership will continue….

    Like

  66. “UK power prices hit record high amid cold snap and lack of wind power
    Severely cold weather has come with low wind speeds, creating perfect storm to drive wholesale costs up”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/11/uk-power-prices-hit-record-high-amid-cold-snap-and-lack-of-wind-power

    UK power prices have hit record levels as an icy cold snap and a fall in supplies of electricity generated by wind power have combined to push up wholesale costs.

    The day-ahead price for power for delivery on Monday reached a record £675 a megawatt-hour on the Epex Spot SE exchange. The price for power at 5-6pm, typically around the time of peak power demand each day, passed an all-time high of £2,586 a megawatt-hour.

    Prices are surging as the weather forces Britons to increase their heating use, pushing up demand for energy, despite high bills.

    Snow and ice have caused disruption as the cold weather looks set to continue into this week, with snow forecast for parts of east and south-east England, as well as Scotland.

    The cold snap, which is expected to last for at least a week, comes as wind speeds reduced sharply, hitting power suppliers.

    Live data from the National Grid’s Electricity System Operator showed that wind power was providing just 3% of Great Britain’s electricity generation on Sunday. Gas-fired power stations provided 59%, while nuclear power and electricity imports both accounted for about 15%…

    The weather has contributed to our problems, but I noticed the BBC weather people going out of their way to say that weather like this in December is not unusual. They are correct. And so the mess we find ourselves in was entirely predictable (and indeed was predicted by sceptics). To blame high wholesale costs on the weather strikes me as disingenuous. The people who are to blame are those in charge who sold us a lie, namely the claim that more and more renewable power will deliver us cheap, reliable and secure energy supplies. Patently it won’t, certainly not in winter when need is greatest.

    Like

  67. Mark – from your “Billionaire-Funded Green ‘Churnalism’” link, I find this bit relevant to UK

    “A recent article in the Washingtonian highlighted the work of Professor Ed Maibach in creating a propaganda strategy aimed at U.S. weathercasters. Over a decade, it is reported, he has produced a “weather underground” said to be “a coast-to-coast network of TV weathercasters who believe that educating their audiences about global warming is as crucial as telling them when to bring an umbrella”.

    The magazine notes that local news consumers across the country don’t know that behind that telegenic meteorologist is a social scientist and a team of academic researchers, data crunchers and ex-weathercasters, i.e., the staff of Climate Matters. “To a lot of our viewers, it’s lost on them how much Climate [Matters] really is doing,” says Kaitlyn McGrath, a meteorologist at WUSA9. “But it is so far from lost on us.”

    Like

  69. dfhunter,

    That wouldn’t surprise me. In the UK, I lost count this autumn how often the weather forecasters on BBC radio reminded us how hot it was this summer!

    Like

  70. Like

  71. With demand nudging 46 GW and our own generation only providing 40 GW they are pulling 6 GW through the interconnectors. “Fragile” is the word that comes to mind.

    Liked by 1 person

  72. An activist argues that Gridwatch is wrong and undercounts wind
    cos the https://dashboard.nationalgrideso.com/
    National Grid ESO’s Carbon Intensity Dashboard always gives a higher tally for wind
    He is warring with Latimer Alder

    LA points out that that tally for wind is given to two decimal places of a MW
    and that can’t be possible when you are aggregating data
    So that is a maths error.

    So which source is adding or emitting data ?
    I dunno
    Of course home solar and home wind is probably omitted cos how can the grid measure that ?
    Wonder if ESO is including power delivered from a windfarms own battery bank
    or miscounting leccy windfarms draw OUT of the grid to keep their blades running.

    Like

  73. OK the activist points out that when you mouse over the Gridwatch coal meter it says
    “Wind power contributes about another 30% from embedded wind power.. that shows only as a drop in demand”

    – That means their tally for actual leccy USE is an underestimate too

    Like

  74. The wholly political charity Plan B Earth announced today that its boss, Tim Crosland, has formally renounced his status as a barrister – but was Crosland ever a proper barrister? He has been describing himself as an ex-barrister for nearly two years and before that he was what’s called an unregistered barrister, someone who has some of the right qualifications but not the full monty.

    What’s more, Crosland was found guilty of contempt of court in 2020 and is currently under investigation by the Bar Standards Board.

    So should today’s Plan B Earth headline…

    URL:planb.earth/barrister-renounces-status-over-courts-support-for-climate-genocide/

    …have been not ‘Barrister renounces status over “court’s support for climate genocide”‘ but ‘Dodgy half-barrister jumps ship before being pushed the whole way’?

    The jury’s still out. Too early to tell. (Unless you’re Crosland, natch.)

    Liked by 1 person

  75. “Climate change theme for first minister’s Christmas card”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-63943762

    A drawing by a Glasgow schoolgirl which calls for action on climate change has been selected for the first minister’s official Christmas card.

    Nine-year-old Evita Ye’s design features a colourful snow globe and the words: “The future is in our hands”.

    It reflects campaigning the children at Sunnyside Primary in Craigend have been doing on the climate crisis.

    Or, as sceptics might say, brainwashing. It’s also a bit ironic to be talking about a climate crisis this Christmas, as Scotland (and the rest of the UK) freezes.

    Like

  76. Not about climate per se but marking an interesting milestone and two strong opinions, the second from a paid-up sceptic aka lukewarmer.

    Like

  77. Given the obsession with net zero, and the failure of net zero energy policies (as evidenced in spades this winter), many people (myself potentially included) might be keen on nuclear fusion coming to the rescue, even if it is probably decades away from achieving enough to do us a lot of good.

    Today’s news (and hype) might seem like very good news if I didn’t have a nagging feeling that I’ve heard it all before.

    The Guardian today:

    “The carbon-free energy of the future: this fusion breakthrough changes everything”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/13/carbon-free-energy-fusion-reaction-scientists

    This is a moment that scientists have dreamed of for well over half a century. The US’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) has smashed the longest-standing goal in the quest for carbon-free energy from fusion, the nuclear process that powers stars.

    Researchers from NIF used the world’s most energetic laser to fire 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy into a millimetre-sized capsule of hydrogen fuel. Reaching temperatures many times those found in the sun’s core and pressures 300bn times those normally experienced on Earth, a wave of nuclear reactions ripped through the fusion fuel, releasing 3.15 MJ of fusion energy – 1.1 MJ more than was put in – over a few tens of nanoseconds.

    Now this is not exciting because of the absolute energy released — that was small, only enough to boil two or three kettles. And it’s not even exciting because of any new physics: fusion experts have long argued that you just need a hammer of a certain size to make the thing “go”, and NIF has obliged by upping the input laser energy considerably. (That said, the physical precision behind this machine is astonishing: as little as a 0.1% error in the timing of the laser energy can degrade the conditions needed for fusion by as much as 50%.)

    No, this is exciting because it’s the first scientific proof that fusion can produce more energy out than is put in, also known as “net energy gain”.

    The Guardian on 13th February 2014:

    “Sustainable nuclear fusion breakthrough raises hopes for ultimate green energy
    This article is more than 8 years old
    Scientists have moved a step closer to achieving sustainable nuclear fusion and almost limitless clean energy”

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/12/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-green-energy-source

    US researchers have achieved a world first in an ambitious experiment that aims to recreate the conditions at the heart of the sun and pave the way for nuclear fusion reactors.

    The scientists generated more energy from fusion reactions than they put into the nuclear fuel, in a small but crucial step along the road to harnessing fusion power.

    Like

  78. Here’s something interesting. Mark Jacobson has issued a rebuttal of some expert testimony by Judith Curry.

    Click to access 22-11-28-MZJ-Rebuttal-Montana.pdf

    Like

  79. Mike – liked this bit from the rebuttal –
    “Thus, Prof. Curry’s claim is not only wrong, but it is also not based on any type of scientific
    analysis. The scientifically accepted way of carrying out an of whether analysis future grid can
    stay stable at low cost upon a transition to renewable energy is through computer modeling (Breyer
    et al., 2022). Prof. Curry does not perform any modeling nor does she report results from any
    modeling analysis for Montana where 100% renewable energy in the future has been examined.”

    so we have real data from now, but no worries, my super computer model analysis says future grid will be OK
    will be interesting how Judith responds

    Liked by 2 people

  80. Lots of downbeat articles in response to the publicity shot for nuclear fusion the other day:

    “Nuclear fusion reactor ‘breakthrough’ is significant, but light-years away from being useful”

    https://www.livescience.com/fusion-ignition-scientists-skeptical-explained

    “There is no “breakthrough”: NIF fusion power still consumes 130 times more energy than it creates”

    https://bigthink.com/the-future/fusion-power-nif-hype-lose-energy/

    “Scientists have made a breakthrough in fusion — but don’t get carried away”

    https://nypost.com/2022/12/13/scientists-have-made-a-breakthrough-in-fusion-but-dont-get-carried-away/

    “David Whitehouse: Will nuclear fusion power save us?”

    https://www.netzerowatch.com/will-nuclear-fusion-power-save-us/

    “Hold the Nuclear Fusion Hype”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hold-the-nuclear-fusion-hype-lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory-energy-research-jennifer-granholm-11670961420

    “World’s biggest nuclear fusion project faces delays as component cracks”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-25/world-s-best-shot-at-fusion-power-shows-cracks-in-silver-lining

    Like

  81. Mark – saw the BBC news coverage on “Nuclear fusion reactor ‘breakthrough’” and thought the same as your comment quotes above.
    I got the impression it was another “we don’t need fossil fuels” driven news item.

    liked this partial quote from your NYPost link –

    “finally, there’s the moonshot fallacy, a trope used for every aspirational goal. But the global energy challenge is not the same as putting a dozen humans on the moon, it’s the equivalent of putting all of humanity on the moon. In no small irony, humanity today still gets roughly 300% more energy from burning wood than from either solar and wind combined, or from nuclear fission. The world gets over 80% of its energy from burning hydrocarbons. Odds are that’s where we’ll see more useful revolutions in energy tech in the foreseeable future.”

    Liked by 1 person

  82. just found this from 2019 – https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/mutant-weather/#6433
    “Mutant Weather –
    ep1 – Mutant Inferno – A warmer planet is creating drier conditions and increasing lightening activity – this means more fuel and ignition – causing catastrophic wildfires and other anomalies like firenadoes. The trend is showing more megafires and a longer fire season, in some cases making wildfires a year-round concern. Large wildfires are also burning in unusual places such as the Arctic Circle. This episode follows recent megastorm events in California and Alberta, Canada. Part 1 of 10.”

    ep2 – Mutant Megastorms
    ep3 – Mutant something – the link is missing – i’ll guess rain.
    ep4 – Mutant Melt
    and so on – by now you get the drift
    ep11 – mutant Cold – the warming planet is heating more rapidly in the north, heating up the mass of artis air called the polar vortex. a warmer polar vortex is in turn weakening the jet stream which normally serves to contain the jet stream. but now the wobbly jet stream is allowing frigid artic temperatures to travel south bringing with it things like epic blizzards, bomb cyclones and frost quakes”

    can’t find a vid link, but not really needed from the above series title – “Mutant Weather”

    Like

  83. “Nicola Sturgeon’s officials knew wind statistic was wrong a month prior to admission by ministers
    Civil servants working for Nicola Sturgeon’s own policy unit on the Scottish Government’s independence prospectus knew a dodgy wind statistic was being used “without much evidence” more than a month before ministers admitted it was wrong.”

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/nicola-sturgeons-officials-knew-wind-statistic-was-wrong-a-month-prior-to-admission-by-ministers-3954346

    Behind a paywall, unfortunately. However, visit the newspapers section of the BBC’s website (Scotland part) and the front page of the Scotsman is visible this morning.

    Like

  84. Wayback’s earliest save of Insulate Britain’s front page is from 14th July 2021:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210714020514/https://www.insulatebritain.com/

    It had the fake Einstein quote that is still on IB’s front page more than 17 months later.

    Those with the privilege to know, have a duty to act.

    Surely that deserves some sort of prize? Fake quotes are everywhere but this is a prominent activist group that has had obvious crap on its front page since before the group got active (first demo: Sep 2021).

    Is there a Johann Hari/David Rose Award? If so, this must be a serious contender.

    Like

  85. “‘Wind Challenger’: World’s first partially wind-powered bulk carrier ship
    At No. 19 on IE’s 22 best innovations of 2022, we sail greener with the first coal carrier powered by hard sail wind power propulsion technology.”

    https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/22-best-innovations-2022-wind-challenger

    The world’s first partially wind-powered bulk carrier ship, Shofu Maru, sailed on its maiden voyage this year, Interesting Engineering (IE) reported on October 28.

    It wasn’t just any cargo ship but a carrier that set new goals for greener sails in the shipping industry.

    The Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) delivered the 100,422 dwt (dead-weight tonnage) bulk carrier, the first coal carrier to be powered by such a hard sail wind power propulsion technology on On October 7, 2022.

    “Wind Challenger is the project [that] converts wind energy directly to a vessel propulsion force through an extensive use of the latest technologies,” Ms. Fumie Matsumoto, media relations officer at MOL, told IE on Thursday.

    “It is respected for revolutionary technology contributing to reduce GHG emissions and realize a low-carbon and decarbonized society,” she added.

    The ship’s special hard sail will cut greenhouse gas emissions by about five percent.

    It is the first coal carrier to use the ‘Wind Challenger’ component of the hard sail wind power propulsion system, according to the company.

    Shofu Maru, hailed as the “first of its kind,” heralds the return of wind energy as a practical source of energy and ushers in a new era in contemporary transportation.

    It features an extendable fiberglass sail that can be stretched to a height of 55 meters and can carry 80,000 tonnes of coal…

    The article is less than a week old – I checked to ensure it isn’t an April fool. I’m inclined to agree with the comments at Wind Energy’s Absurd (where I stumbled on this):

    A wind powered ship transporting coal?
    A joke surely. It cannot be true or can it?
    Are we in a parallel universe?
    Is it April Fools Day?
    The lunatics are in charge of the asylum!
    It’s like a slow boat to Clown World.

    Like

  86. Sunday A Point Of View ..gaslighting us
    by saying “Snow will only be seen on Christmas cards”

    claiming snow used to come EVERY year
    and now doesn’t
    That’s false there always years where there was hardly ever any snow ..and then years when it was on the ground for a month

    As meteorologists tell us that the chance of snow is decreasing year on year, Sara Wheeler reflects on a future where younger generations may never get to experience snow – and what that means for a season so ingrained in our lives and culture.

    ‘Winter is deeply embedded in the English language – the white stuff of metaphor’, she writes.

    ‘But if climate change blanches the seasons, one wonders what the as yet unborn writers will reach for when they try to put the unsayable into words.’
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g3b1

    Like

  88. It’s what the BBC omits from its report as much as what it chooses to dwell on, that tells us about its biased agenda:

    “Student, 23, charged after eggs thrown at King Charles in York”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64032088

    A man has been charged after eggs were allegedly thrown at the King and the Queen Consort during a visit to York.

    University of York student Patrick Thelwell, 23, will appear at York Magistrates’ Court on 20 January charged with a public order offence following the incident in November.

    A figure in the crowd appeared to throw four eggs as the royal couple arrived to unveil a statue in honour of the late Queen at York Minster.

    All of the eggs missed…

    Nothing is reported regarding his background or motivation, even though both are well known:

    “Why did climate activist Patrick Thelwell throw eggs at King Charles?”

    https://groundreport.in/who-is-climate-activist-patrick-thelwell/

    “Patrick Thelwell Gardening

    Gardener and Green Party candidate in York”

    https://patrickthelwell.co.uk/

    Like

  90. Is anyone surprised?

    “Met Office forecasts 2023 will be hotter than 2022”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64032458

    It’s front-page news on the BBC website, naturally, even though it’s only a forecast, and given how useless the Met Office is at forecasting these days, there has to be a good chance they’re wrong. Meanwhile:

    “Brits face rolling power cuts and blackouts as officials blame ‘work-from-home’ Met Office for forecast failure”

    https://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/environment/brits-face-rolling-power-cuts-and-blackouts-as-officials-blame-workfromhome-met-office-for-forecast-failure/news-story/41d66f71aa4c14feb6508865b4eae48b

    Brits are facing rolling power cuts with the Met Office blamed for failing to give enough warning about the current subzero weather.

    Insiders believe if experts had predicted the freezing temperatures early enough, officials could have stocked up with gas to meet demand, The Sun reports.

    Instead, Brits could be hit with rolling power cuts as National Grid struggles to cope, the Mail on Sunday reports.

    Like

  91. The science is never settled:

    “Trees store ‘twice as much carbon’ as once thought”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64028694

    …Prof Disney says the new findings show that, for every square kilometre of woodland lost, “we potentially lose almost twice the carbon sink capacity we thought”.

    “This has serious implications for our understanding of the benefits of protecting trees in terms of climate change,” he explains.

    He adds that the complex structure of mature trees means they play a role that is very difficult to replace by simply planting more trees…

    It’s a real shame, then, that so many trees have been felled to make way for wind farms.

    Like

  92. Mark, I just caught the tail end of this story on the radio. I would be very surprised if the finding that trees store twice as much carbon as previously thought turns out to be true. Foresters have been estimating the volume of standing trees for a long time. Cutting said trees down gives a very good estimate of dry mass and quantity of carbon. Are these new guys really saying “No, all these foresters around the world have no idea what they are doing, and get the number wrong by a factor of 2”?

    In any case, there is no need to invoke carbon storage to promote woodland conservation. Biodiversity alone is plenty of reason for that.

    Liked by 1 person

  93. “Deutsche Bank: “A Certain Degree of Eco-Dictatorship Will Be Necessary””

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/12/20/deutsche-bank-a-certain-degree-of-eco-dictatorship-will-be-necessary/

    …If we really want to achieve climate neutrality, we need to change our behaviour in all these areas of life. This is simply because there are
    no adequate cost-effective technologies yet to allow us to maintain our living standards in a carbon-neutral way. That means that carbon prices will have to rise considerably in order to nudge people to change their behaviour. Another (or perhaps supplementary) option is to tighten regulatory law considerably. I know that “eco-dictatorship” is a nasty word. But we may have to ask ourselves the question whether and to what extent we may be willing to accept some kind of eco-dictatorship (in the form of regulatory law) in order to move towards climate neutrality.

    When he says we have to “ask ourselves… whether and to what extent we may be willing to accept some kind of eco-dictatorship” I don’t think he has a Net Zero referendum in mind. Rather, by ‘ourselves’ he means the EU’s ruling class. It has to ask itself whether it’s willing to pass laws forcing the EU’s population to modify its behaviour to meet the 2050 ‘climate neutrality’ target, regardless of whether it has a democratic mandate to do so or not.

    I suppose we should be grateful that at least Heyman hasn’t tried to sugar coat this. It should be clear what “eco-dictatorship” means, even to those most reluctant to accept that Net Zero zealots have little love for democracy.

    Liked by 1 person

  95. A very sad story, but “climate crisis”?!!! Really? The Nile has always flooded; it’s the Nile floods that enabled the Egyptian civilisation to flourish thousands of years ago. So we have a history of flooding going back thousands of years, and this year’s floods are “the worst flooding in more than 50 years” according to the BBC.

    “South Sudan floods: Fleeing Nile waters to a minefield”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-64032266

    (The caption accompanying the headline on the Science & Environment section of the BBC website says “Photos of people displaced by war bearing the brunt of a climate crisis along South Sudan’s River Nile.”).

    Like

  96. Another report based on modelling and projections, I assume (haven’t yet read it, I confess):

    “Emperor penguin at risk of extinction, along with two-thirds of native Antarctic species, research shows
    International study projects up to 80% of emperor penguin colonies will be ‘quasi-extinct’ by 2100”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/23/two-thirds-of-antarcticas-native-species-under-threat-of-extinction-from-global-heating-research-shows

    Two-thirds of Antarctica’s native species, including emperor penguins, are under threat of extinction or major population declines by 2100 under current trajectories of global heating, according to new research that outlines priorities for protecting the continent’s biodiversity.

    A quick glance at the introduction suggests that as so often the perceived threat is to habitat at least as much as from temperature rise, and it does acknowledge that in the Antarctic warming is currently paused:

    Although Antarctica is relatively free from many of the environmental threats that beset the rest of the world, e.g., deforestation to generate land for agriculture, threats to Antarctic biodiversity are intensifying at an unprecedented rate [10]. The Antarctic Peninsula was one of the most rapidly warming regions globally in the second half of the 20th century [7]. This trend has recently paused [11], but many locations have still experienced short-term extreme events, such as heat waves with record high air temperatures (18.3°C; [12], or +40°C above average; [13]), and recent studies report evidence of a strong warming trend re-establishing (e.g., on the South Orkney Islands; [14]). Scientific activities and associated infrastructure are expanding [15] and annual tourist numbers have increased more than 8-fold since the 1990s, to nearly 75,000 in 2019/2020 [16,17], although then experiencing a temporary hiatus as a result of the global Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic [18]. The current suite of Antarctic protected areas does not represent the continent’s full range of biodiversity and some are experiencing anthropogenic pressures [19–22]. Although Antarctica’s geographic isolation and extreme climate have historically afforded some protection to the continent, the combination of increasing human activity and warming is also lowering the barriers to the arrival and establishment of non-native species [23–25].

    It can be found here, for those interested:

    https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921

    Like

  97. The BBC says that the cold blast currently hitting the USA has been linked to “at least 12 deaths”.

    Only 12? If this had been a heatwave they would have looked at excess all-cause morbidity and attributed every single one. I’ll guess that the actual number of deaths caused by the cold will never be calculated and never reported.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64083129

    Liked by 2 people

  98. The local council have a team dedicated to promoting local tourism business
    but of course they have been captured by GreenPR
    Here them promoting giving away taxpayers money to posh people tocharge their EVs
    “The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) 📢
    Is a voucher-based scheme that provides eligible applicants with support towards the upfront costs of the purchase and installation of electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints.

    Then they’re promoting their Green Tourism Toolkit

    Like

  100. An unlikely like from Andrew Revkin:

    Like

  102. Great I’m getting Drax adverts between tweets now

    Like

  104. “Offshore wind farms’ energy output to increase”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq2d9j0412o

    Alterations to the turbines allowing for the increased capacity were classed as “non material changes” to the original planning application, the company said.

    “In fact, offshore, using fewer, larger turbines results in environmental benefits overall, including over the lifetime of the project,” Mr Anderson said.

    Which reads to me like an admission that wind farms using lots of smaller turbines are environmentally damaging.

    Like

  106. Mark – thanks for that cheery link.

    over the years they seem to only focus on “glass half empty” theme.
    very unhealthy (could lead to Depression for them & readers, why I gave up reading it 10yrs ago).

    I remember this from – George Monbiot January 16, 2009 (thought it was in the guardian, but can’t find it)
    https://www.permaculturenews.org/2009/01/16/skating-on-thin-ice/

    worth a reread IMHO, he ends with –
    “The thought that I might never skate outdoors again feels like a bereavement. I pray for another cold snap, even though I know it will bring all the nincompoops in Britain out of their holes, yapping about a new ice age.”

    sadly, some parents know how bereavement feels.

    Liked by 1 person

  108. Greens hide : Tony Heller video
    “New video : The War On Information
    Climate alarmists are very upset about free speech on Twitter.
    They don’t like their #ClimateScam being exposed.”

    Liked by 1 person

  110. I’m shocked, I tell you – shocked:

    “BP criticised over plan to spend billions more on fossil fuels than green energy
    Company’s oil and gas investments for 2023 will be as much as double those on renewables”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/27/bp-plan-spend-billions-fossil-fuels-green-energy-oil-gas-renewables

    It’s worth a read to understand the full extent of the derangement of the critics. Given the ongoing need for fossil fuels, as evidenced by recent events, and their ongoing profitability (despite the best efforts of many politicians and campaigners) for BP to behave other than they are doing would be highly irresponsible IMO.

    Like

  112. Just been down Twitter rabbit hole
    A character calling himself Jon Burke FRSA came up
    strident dogmatic Green campaigner
    Who is he ?
    Turns out that he was a Hackney Labour councillor for years
    He pushed through Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
    There’s court judgment ssying it was illegal
    So he got involved in confrontation with opposers of LTNs
    Tweeted crazy stuff at them 30 Nov 2020
    And was then moved on by Labour

    Like

  114. “UK wildlife ‘devastated by litany of weather extremes’ in 2022
    National Trust’s annual audit reveals a dire year for animals from toads and bats to birds and butterflies”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/28/uk-wildlife-devastated-by-litany-of-weather-extremes-in-2022

    The National Trust, which produces an annual Christmas audit of how the year’s weather has affected nature, said the climate emergency meant that what in 2002 felt like extreme events were going to become the new norm, creating major challenges for many species.

    The charity’s climate crisis adviser, Keith Jones, said: “This year’s weather has been challenging for nature. Drought, high temperatures, back-to-back storms, unseasonal heat, a cold snap and floods means nature, like us, is having to cope with a new litany of weather extremes.

    The Guardian links to the National Trust website, but not to the annual Christmas audit, which I can’t find. I did find the Annual Report & Accounts, which has a big section on climate change. It says its plans are based on working to a high emissions scenario (RCP8.5 or 4.3C of warming) so we know that they’re an alarmist organisation whose output should be treated as propaganda.

    Like

  115. “Terrawatch: the rise and bigger rise of Mediterranean sea levels
    Study shows sea level rise on Amalfi coast over last 20 years is twice that on Costa del Sol”

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/28/terrawatch-the-rise-and-bigger-rise-of-mediterranean-sea-levels

    For once this isn’t a particularly alarmist article, and indeed, it’s difficult to see anything to worry about, or anything pointing at accelerating sea level rise thanks to “climate change”. It’s actually pleasantly objective and interesting, for a change:

    Their findings, which are published in JGR Oceans, show that the Adriatic, Aegean and Levantine seas have risen by 8cm over two decades, while the Cretan passage in the eastern Mediterranean has risen by half this amount.

    They suspect that this uneven pattern is due to changes in water density and circulation patterns in the Mediterranean. This has implications for coastal engineering.

    Like

  116. “No Rise in Temperature or Rainfall in Bangladesh for 100 Years, in Spite of Climate Alarmists Pointing to Bangladesh as Canary in the Coalmine”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/12/28/no-rise-in-temperature-or-rainfall-in-bangladesh-for-100-years-in-spite-of-climate-alarmists-pointing-to-bangladesh-as-canary-in-the-coalmine/

    …As countries become more prosperous, they can become more resilient in the face of what nature has always thrown at them. This appears to have happened in the case of Bangladesh, where the number of fatalities from flooding has significantly declined over the last 50 years. Surely, this is the good news story that should be spread in mainstream media, and probably would be if the climate change narrative was not embedded in every part of the discourse.

    As we have reported throughout the year, it has been a disastrous period for climate alarmists preaching their gospel of doom to inflict a controlling Net Zero political agenda across the world. Global warming ran out of steam years ago, and no amount of ‘adjusting’ of surface temperature databases can hide that fact. Weather events are cyclical, and attributing any one event to human activity is model-driven junk science. Summer Arctic sea ice stopped declining over a decade ago, but David Attenborough still says it could all be gone by 2035. Polar bears, penguins and coral – all doing nicely thank you. More prosperous and healthier societies are learning to protect themselves against the ravages of Mother Nature. Small increases in carbon dioxide, otherwise known as plant food, continue to green up the planet, leading to higher food yields, reduced famine and healthier eco systems….

    Like

  118. A peek into the mind of an activist climate scientist.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/29/i-am-an-optimistic-person-the-scientist-who-studies-climate-catastrophes

    Except she isn’t really a climate scientist as she has a PhD in The Philosophy of Science. Nevertheless she leads the “world’s only rapid reaction force of climate scientists. They target extreme weather across the world almost as it happens, reach out to local people on the ground, and carry out deep, rigorous statistical analysis”. Apparently “the world’s first climate attribution unit”.

    She claims she is optimistic but her catastrophe bias shows despite her supposed deep and rigorous statistical analysis: “Friederike Otto paused to look at the monument to the city’s great fire more than 350 years earlier. “The heat was intense, the humidity was so low and there were these winds. You could almost feel if there was one spark now, London will burn again,” she said.”

    Talking presumably about the Sahel: “The droughts in west Africa, for example, were not very extreme but the population is so dependent on regular rain, which only very rarely happens, that any change is catastrophic.” Any drought is certainly a catastrophe for subsistence farmers but now it appears every drought has been co-opted to support the climate catastrophe narrative. Even though regular rain “only very rarely happens.”

    The closing statement is astonishing:
    “My team could then focus on the really complex interplay between the social drivers of things like population vulnerability and the climate system, as well as working much more on finding out where we have levers to really bring change.”

    So it’s not really about the science of climate attribution then. What has population vulnerability got to do with climate science unless it’s to magnify the “levers to really bring change”?

    Like

  121. Tip : Every day next week 9am Radio4 Climate Activism series
    Doesn’t look impartial at all
    Monday R4 9am Rethink Climate
    Episode 1 of 5 of Pledges and progress
    Amol Rajan and guests examine the pledges that have been made on climate change and how far we have gone towards meeting them.
    What has worked to reduce greenhouse gasses and what’s not working, including the role of COP.
    Is the commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees the right one?

    With
    – Miss @GraihaghJackson “BBC Science and Climate Broadcaster,”‘The Climate Question’ podcast
    – Professor Saleemul Huq “Climate revolutionary .. helped to force wealthy countries to pay for the losses and damages from climate change”
    – Mikaela Loach “Pronouns she/they 🇯🇲 climate justice activist, medic .. free the Egyptian prisoner”
    – Emeritus Professor Bill McGuire (Vulcanologist & Socialist)
    – Sarah Bell of Google’s The 11th Hour Project
    “program director for the Food & Agriculture program studied English* literature and French”
    (*The charity’s website wrongly spells it with a small “e”)

    Producers Nick Holland & Marianna Brain
    Editor Lizzi Watson
    Production Coordinators Siobhan Reed, Helena Warwick-Cross and Sophie Hill
    (Very female team .. see how there is only one white man gets on air)

    Like

  122. 1 Pledges and progress
    explores the tension between climate-change aspirations and achievements
    2 Behaviour and communication
    What lifestyle habits are we prepared to give up to stop climate change?
    3 Green economy, money and prosperity
    explores what moving to a green economy may mean for the way we live and work
    4 Green technology and innovation
    To what extent can technology mitigate the effects climate change?
    5 Leadership
    Are people with power doing enough to solve the climate crisis?

    Liked by 1 person

  123. Mark: I didn’t know Friederike Otto had been previously featured on Cliscep. I should have expected it given her striped blazer, leggings and pink sparkly Converse trainers and, of course, being one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, 2021.

    The post by John is very informative together with excellent comments. Thanks for the link.

    Liked by 1 person

  124. The daily Radio4 climate sermon show doesn’t start until Monday
    but 12pm now R4 have another 30 min Greenblob advert
    about community heating schemes.
    I do support genuinely having less waste
    however such collective schemes often work out badly in practice
    vs individuals taking responsibility.
    eg all over the old Soviet block people have community heating schemes , but in practice you see them with their windows open in winter, cos that makes no difference to their heating bills

    Money Box : Heating the homes of the future
    How innovative projects are changing the way people heat their homes to bring bills down.
    – Swaffham Prior village heat network.
    – @energy_house2 Salford Uni project : 2 Barrett homes inside a lab to test climate stuff
    – Gateshead council warm mine water scheme “for council buildings, local college, The Sage as well as hundreds of homes.

    Like

  125. ITV local newsPR
    “And in our look back of the year
    a guy saying take Climate serriously “Areas that had floods and heatwaves in 2022 will have them again” this is the new normal

    I looked him up “Keith Jones, the National Trust’s Climate Change advisor”
    He was all over other media clips saying the same thing ..same headset, same webcam background.

    WE had a winter of 53, we had a summer of 1976, they were not the new normal .. you dramaqueen.

    Like

  126. stewgreen,

    I seem to remember you introducing the brilliant term “drama green”.

    Like

  127. Not sure if this link will work, but if it does, you can watch Keith Jones here:

    https://www.climate-change.tv/11111

    He seems to have attended COP 21.

    Keith Jones explains that the National Trust is the guardian keeper of 29,000 buildings in the UK who are also at the forefront at dealing with changing climate and their impact on historic buildings. He tells us that these buildings of which 28,000 are homes, are hundreds if not thousands of years old and were built for a certain climate centuries ago which having to adapt to changing rainfall patterns, temperatures and humidity. Jones’s believes there needs to be more investment in looking after older buildings because in 2050 80% of buildings will have already been built, and it is better to adapt and look after the housing stock we have that to build new. He explains that old buildings already have an embedded carbon stock that needs protecting

    Like

  130. Back to that ex Hackney Councillor guy
    It seems the pushback against their *imposition* of LTNs and “15 Minute cities” is big
    There is a protest day on Jan 7th
    seems Piers Corbyn’s team are some part
    The Green thinking councillors seem to typically decide the LTN and 15 Min Cities are necessary are they push them through without any public vote and throw negative consultations away

    tweets from another account https://www.twitter.com/No2totltns/status/1608082956777660419

    They name top councillors Mike Hakata, Peray Ahmet as being the new Green Stasi

    Like

  131. Given all the hype about recent Californian droughts being linked to climate change, this is interesting:

    “Weather tracker: San Francisco has second rainiest day on record
    Matt Hills (Metdesk)
    Floods hit California as ‘atmospheric river’ conveyor belt of tropical air moves through – with another such event forecast for this week”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/02/weather-tracker-san-francisco-hit-by-second-rainiest-day-on-record

    California ended 2022 with a heavy rainfall event that brought flooding to San Francisco and surrounding areas, resulting in landslides, inundated roads and evacuation orders. The second highest daily rainfall total on record fell on New Year’s Eve in downtown San Francisco (with records extending back to 1949), with 5.46in recorded. This is more than 25% of the annual average rainfall, and only 0.08in short of the all-time record set in November 1994.

    Recent heavy rains have been part of an atmospheric river event – where a conveyor belt of warm, moist tropical air is able to interact with and feed into mid-latitude storm systems, greatly enhancing rainfall potential.

    Due to an anomalously dry start to 2022, San Francisco had experienced about 20% of normal rainfall totals through early October. Prior to this latest event, rainfall totals since October were close to average, meaning that – despite the wet end to December – San Francisco ended 2022 with only approximately two-thirds of the annual average rainfall.

    After a brief lull in the heavy rainfall to start this week, a new atmospheric river is expected to hit California from Wednesday onwards, with further heavy rain, strong winds and mountain snow expected. About 3in of rain is forecast with the next storm system for lowland areas around San Francisco Bay, with totals exceeding 6in in the coastal mountains to the north and south.

    I also read that the Californian snowpack is at its deepest level for 10 years:

    “California’s Statewide Snowpack Piles Up After December Storms
    The latest statewide snowpack figures show a dramatic turnaround from this time last year.”

    https://www.nbclosangeles.com/weather-news/california-snow-snowpack-storms-drought-rain/3054040/

    I think it’s called weather.

    Like

  132. BBC R4 will promote Amazon’s new ecodrama tonight

    “Veteran director John Strickland talks about filming The Rig
    , a new 6-part big budget Amazon Prime eco-thriller set on an oil rig cut off from all communication in the North Sea.
    A ensemble cast of familiar faces from Line of Duty, Game of Thrones and Schitt’s Creek contend with a mysterious deep-sea entity.”

    Like

  133. “Climate crisis prompts RHS to plan for sending rhododendrons north
    Plants are thought more likely to thrive at Harlow Carr in Yorkshire than at their current home at Wisley in Surrey”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/04/climate-crisis-prompts-rhs-to-plan-for-sending-rhododendrons-north

    The climate crisis has prompted the Royal Horticultural Society to plan a move of its important collection of rhododendrons from its flagship Wisley garden in Surrey to Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire, the Guardian can reveal.

    It follows similar decisions to move Wisley’s national collections of rhubarb and gooseberries to the Bridgewater garden in Salford.

    On one level the move is pragmatic in that all the plants are expected to do better in the north of England because of a changing climate.

    Dry springs and warmer temperatures generally have meant rhododendrons have been struggling in some parts of southern England. “They’re surviving but they’re not really thriving,” said Paul Cook, Harlow Carr’s curator.

    Which is interesting, especially if one visits the rhododendron section of the RHS website:

    https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/rhododendron/growing-guide

    Choose a site with dappled shade in sheltered conditions. Avoid deep shade beneath other trees. Most rhododendrons will tolerate a more open site if sheltered from cold, drying winds. Dwarf alpine species will tolerate full sun provided the soil does not dry out. Avoid frost pockets and sites exposed to early morning sun…

    …Windy, cold or wet weather can cause leaf scorch and flowers can be damaged by rain and frost.

    This is also of interest on a much larger scale:

    “Concerning the Origin and Distribution of Rhododendrons”

    https://www.rhododendron.org/v47n3p139.htm

    Like

  134. “Wind generated a record amount of electricity in 2022”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64179918

    Fair enough, but instead of a hype article, some reality might be in order. No mention of the 2021 wind drought and the inherent unreliability of wind. We aretold that:

    On a single day in November, more than 70% of electricity was produced by wind, or around 20GW. That’s enough power to heat about 1700 homes for a year.

    That record was again broken on 30 December when 20.918GW was generated by wind turbines.

    But no mention is made that when it was cold and dark in early-mid December, wind was worse than useless, i.e. when we needed it most, it failed.

    Conflating wind and nuclear, in a desperate attempt to make it look as though we don’t need fossil fuels, when the reality is that gas generated 11.7% more electricity in the UK than did wind. Ending with:

    Energy supplies and pricing were significantly affected in 2022 by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which led to imposing sanctions on Russia which has been an important supplier of gas to Europe.

    Nations including Germany, Spain and Italy and the US responded by increasing their renewable capacity.

    No mention of those countries (especially Germany) turning to coal.

    Like

  135. “Plans for industrial batteries in Swardeston raise fire safety fears”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-64177386

    Proposals for industrial batteries to be placed in a field on the outskirts of a village have raised concerns about fire safety.

    The facility, which is planned for a 35-acre field in Swardeston, Norfolk, would store energy from wind turbines to power homes at times of high demand.

    But Swardeston Parish Council said it had “grave concerns” about the use of lithium ion batteries at the site….

    …the site is currently undeveloped greenfield land…

    Like

  136. WordPress conversations mode is still playing up.

    Parliament is full of greens
    It’s a greenhouse
    it cultivates vegetables.

    Like

  137. Here’s the latest post from a globetrotting gibberish merchant who claimed to have been an XR biggie for a while and [perhaps] once compared himself to The Unabomber [I can’t refind that claim, so please treat it as gibberish]:

    https://ecorevoltblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/02/my-anti-genomics-guerrilla-ontology/

    And here’s one from someone who starts by complaining about journalists using clichés about eco-activists then tries to overthrow those supposed clichés by supporting such clichés by going on and on about the wonderful virtues of eco-activists who play guitars while squatting in trees, etc:

    https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2022/12/20/against-the-misrepresentation-of-climate-activism-in-lutzerath-aka-the-zad-rhineland/

    I thought the second one was a spoof at first, but it’s not.

    ===
    Totally OT: My ancient Tesla – no relation – borehole pump is prolly effed. I’ve been without tapwater for nearly three weeks. Does anyone here have any expertise in replacing borehole pumps? Can you just pull one up and replace it with a similarly specced one-phase pump just by connecting it to the three wires that were connected to the old one?

    Like

  138. Mark there is a rhododendron forest near here.
    As in many UK places they are being removed
    cos its an invasive species from the Himalyas.

    We’ve not seen any snowdrops nor daffodils here yet
    We are supposed to be in a winter heatwave but that only lasted for half a day ..that was Thursday until 11:30am ..then it went back to the cold winds

    Like

  139. stewgreen, no sign of snowdrops here, nor of daffodils appearing above ground – both common sights by the end of the first week in January in many years in the past.

    Like

  140. One astounding thing about the BBC Green bubbleworld is that their tweets usually get very little interaction replies and Likes
    Even big greens don’t have a huge impact
    compared to tweets from pop stars etc.

    However I see this anti Greta thread got 122K Likes ..that’s a lot
    .. a dew don’t understand that Sandford Police is a parody account
    about the police force in the film HotFuzz
    where the whole village of Sandford is involved in a crazy conspiracy of killing people
    cos it’s for the “Greater Good” (thus the joke “Greta Good” )

    Like

  143. Sri Lanka collapsed cos nutters pushed the country into organic farming and against fossil fuels
    Last week BBC Woman’s Hour lauded the woman behind it, without mentioning the chaos she caused.
    They promoted the item in about 6 tweets

    Like

  145. There is a new BBC article about Community Repair Spaces
    It’s absolutely loaded with the BBC’s own political agenda pushing .. cos that is what they like to do
    It’s the normal BLACK, GREEN, FEMALE
    Instead of being about a normal Men’s Shed ..they have found a place where they can use a black women photo for the link pictures
    and the article is tagged “climate”
    plus uses the phrase “Climate Crisis”
    Title : Repairing broken gadgets for a greener future
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-63737951

    Like

  146. The Daily Telegraph splashes with comments made by the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell that central banks risk undermining their independence by wading into social issues and seeking to tackle climate change. Elsewhere on the page, ministers say striking paramedics will “put lives at risk” as 999 callers walk out on Wednesday alongside ambulance workers for the first time.

    That’s the BBC’s sole reference (in its summary of today’s newspapers) that I’ve been able to find to that story on its website. Several articles, however, in its Canada and USA section about the Golden Globes. Keep the peasants drugged with celebrity news, I suppose, rather than analyse anything that goes against the agenda.

    Like

  148. BBC is a Green PR operation
    I glance and I see things
    Join Onto CEO & Co-founder Rob Jolly on @BBCRadio4
    #GapFinders (12 Jan) at 12:00pm!

    He’ll discuss finding a gap in the #EV sector for an all-inclusive subscription service,
    what he did differently from other #start-ups & his motivations.

    Like

  149. Ha R4 has another go at promoting the recent Amol show
    “What personal lifestyle habits are we prepared to give up to stop global warming ?”

    Only 1 reply
    “its a scam you know and we know you know #globalwarming “

    Like

  150. “UAE to launch Cop28 presidency with oil boss tipped for leading role
    Sultan Al Jaber, chief of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, expected to be named president of global climate talks”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/11/uae-to-launch-cop28-presidency-with-oil-boss-tipped-for-leading-role

    The United Arab Emirates will launch its presidency of global climate talks on Thursday, with the head of its national oil company likely to be given the leading role.

    Sultan Al Jaber has served as climate envoy to the country, and is chief of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the world’s twelfth-largest oil company by production, and is hotly tipped to take on the pivotal role of president of the talks…

    …At Cop27, held in Egypt last November, there were scores of oil and gas lobbyists from UAE, and Gulf states with strong oil and gas interests were thought to have been among the blockers preventing stronger language on phasing down fossil fuels.

    One veteran of the talks, who could not be named, said: “[Al Jaber] is straddling two worlds. One of climate negotiations where we have to make a giant leap in emissions reductions and financing the move away from fossil fuel emissions; second, as head of Adnoc. UAE wants to be seen to be leading on food, technology, adaptation and potentially innovative finance but how can they carry that off while being fossil fuel polluters?”

    Some civil society activists have called for Al Jaber to give up his fossil fuel roles to take on the Cop28 presidency.

    Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network International, said: “[If Al Jaber is appointed president of Cop28, it will be] imperative for the world to be reassured that he will step down from his role as the CEO of Adnoc. He cannot preside over a process that is tasked to address the climate crisis with such a conflict of interest, heading an industry that is responsible for the crisis itself.”

    She warned: “If he does not step down as CEO, it will be tantamount to a full-scale capture of the UN climate talks by a petrostate national oil company and its associated fossil fuel lobbyists. Cop26 in Glasgow had 500 fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, the Cop in Egypt saw a 25% increase in their presence, Cop28 now seems to be open season for vested interests who will no doubt use the climate talks to continue to undermine any progress on climate action. As civil society we [will] demand that Al Jaber does the right thing and either stand aside or step down.”…

    Like

  151. 9pm BBC doc about fraudulent Pakistan Dubai firm led by Arif Naqvi

    In his profile it says
    “Naqvi is a founding commissioner of the Business &
    *Sustainable Development* Commission (BSDC), alongside Paul Polman and Mo Ibrahim.
    Fraud being a sustainable business ?

    Gates Foundation put money into his main firm , but then whistleblower tipped them off
    when they brought in accountants tge firm collapsed

    Like

  152. They had a Clean Energy section
    did it disappear or was it floated off as Themos ?

    As of September 2017, the firm had invested over US$1 billion in energy, including a partnership with ENGIE to develop a wind power platform in India.
    In January 2017, Abraaj acquired a majority stake in Jhimpir Power, to construct a 50 MW wind project in the Jhimpir wind corridor in Southeast Pakistan.
    In 2015, the firm announced a partnership with Aditya Birla Group to build a 1GW scale solar energy platform in India

    Like

  155. Follow the money……
    “Last year HSBC said it would phase out funding coal. The bank has now loaned $340mn to an energy company which is bulldozing a German village to expand a massive coalmine.” (From the Spectator)

    Liked by 2 people

  156. “Private jet emissions quadrupled during Davos 2022
    Climate campaigners accuse leaders of hypocrisy as flights emit as much CO2 in a week as 350,000 cars”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/13/private-jet-emissions-quadrupled-davos-2022

    Private jet emissions quadrupled as 1,040 planes flew in and out of airports serving Davos during the 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting.

    Climate campaigners accused the rich and powerful of hypocrisy in flying in on private jets to a conference discussing climate breakdown.

    The Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft calculated that during the meeting last year, CO2 emissions from private jets were four times greater than in an average week.

    The number of private jet flights to and from airports serving the Swiss ski resort where the conference is held were twice as high during the 2022 meeting compared with a typical week, emitting as much CO2 as 350,000 average cars over that period.

    World leaders and business chiefs are again expected to arrive in Davos on private jets next week, causing another spike in emissions.

    Liked by 1 person

  158. Skidmore comes up with a shed more crap

    @TiceRichard is discussing this on @TalkTV @Iromg show
    And promises a lot more about crazy Skidmore on his Sunday show

    Meanwhile Carbon Pants find the BBC have done their PR work for them
    … https://twitter.com/CarbonBrief/status/1613842239402254336

    Like

  160. Commenter
    Chris Skidmore like many/most MPs has never had a proper job.
    School, uni, political gofer, MP.
    Basically were being run by a bunch of ex students with no experience of real life still following their student ideas like zero carbon

    Like

  162. Local Radio are quick to publicise GREEN PR
    “after 11:30am we’ll talking to Tony from a Hull firm
    that is asking children to design the style of their *New Electric delivery van*
    There is a £1000 for the school and £100 for the child”

    Basically BBC read the local paper
    “Historic Hull firm FR Scott is going green and has added a brand-new electric van to its fleet.”
    https://hullwhatson.com/historic-hull-firm-goes-green-and-supports-local-sport-children/

    Like

  164. Stew – loved your “Carbon Pants” ref in 10:39 AM comment. made me chuckle 🙂

    as usual I tried to “like” to no avail 😦

    Like

  166. Local news covered laws banning disposable plastic cutlery at UK takeaways
    by 8am they added a clip of a local Greenpeace person

    The UK is the world’s second-biggest producer of plastic waste per person, behind only the US,

    OK that comes from a Greenpeace report 2 years ago
    They say “The vast majority of it is food and drink packaging”

    #1 I don’t believe the statistic is report ..it is too lucky to be true so seems like a PR claim

    #2 Plastic waste is not a problem as all can be safely converted into energy in high temperature incinerators
    The problem is people throwing it all over the nature.
    And that happens less in UK than many other countries.

    Like

  167. “Sunak under fire over second jet flight for UK trip in a week
    Prime minister flew to Scotland with RAF plane days after he flew by jet from London to Leeds”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/13/sunak-under-fire-over-second-jet-flight-for-uk-trip-in-a-week

    Rishi Sunak has been accused of wasting taxpayers’ money and making a mockery of the government’s strategy for tackling the climate crisis, after chartering a second private jet for a UK trip within a week.

    The prime minister took a roughly 90-minute ride in an RAF plane to Scotland for a two-day visit, where he held a meeting with the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and announced the opening of two new freeports.

    Both leaders met in Inverness, before Sunak headed to nearby Port of Cromarty Firth to mark the announcement about plans for a green freeport there. He headed back to Downing Street on Friday afternoon.

    The round-trip, coming days after Sunak took another RAF flight 200 miles on a 14-seater plane to Leeds, led Labour to accuse him of developing “an expensive habit of swanning around on private jets courtesy of the taxpayer”.

    I continue to support the criticism of Sunak for hypocrisy, for supporting net zero while ignoring any restrictions on his own behaviour. However, it’s interesting that not one bit of the criticism appears to extend to Sturgeon (she who flew rather pointlessly to COP27 in Egypt at the taxpayers’ expense). When I saw that she and Sunak were meeting in Inverness I did wonder why they didn’t meet in Edinburgh, given that Sturgeon is based there, and there’s a very good east coast rail line between Edinburgh and London. But this report gives the truth away – both Sunak and Sturgeon wanted to pose at the Cromarty Firth while they made their green port announcement. Politicians of all and any stripes will happily emit CO2 – or in this case unnecessarily meet at an inconvenient location – if there’s a photo op in it for them. There really should be stricter rules on what is government business and how it is carried out, and what constitutes political business paid for by the taxpayer.

    Like

  168. 10:05am Peter Cardwell show on TalkTV
    Andrew Montford vs Chaitanya Kumar from the New Economics Foundation @chaitanyakumar

    immediately followed by wacky government energy saving add
    “just 30 seconds and you’ll be saving money”

    No one on Twitter supported Kumar, 30+ were againnst him

    Like

  169. Lets see how FooC is cherrypicking to spin our picture of the world

    Alastair Leitheadin Portugal : writes about his experiences of trying to live an off-grid lifestyle

    David Adams : Florida escaped much of the worst of the recent freeze in the US, he reflects on
    could be a canary in the coal mine for *climate change*
    (Yeh just like the coming snow on Wednesday is)

    Like

  170. Here’s a recent hour-long interview with Dr Gail Bradbrook:

    https://www.stitcher.com/show/accidental-gods/episode/being-the-change-journeys-in-service-to-life-with-gail-bradbrook-210682559

    The interviewer introduced Bradbrook as ‘one of our world’s deepest thinkers’, then started the podcast with a brief, unexplained comment that was presumably about Bradbrook’s tax return (‘sounds like hell’), then this:

    2022 was us understanding that the world really is changing, and it feels to me as if 2023 is the year we sit down and go, okay, nothing is as it was. Let’s see how we can make it different. So I have a question for this year, which is: what makes your heart sing and where does that lead you?

    Bradbrook’s answer: psychedelic drugs. She went on and on about them. E.g.:

    And I don’t know if people know, but you take it [Amanita muscaria] through your vagina, with a broom handle, and then you fly! And that’s where the witches flying comes from. Not that I’ve done that with a broom handle or necessarily recommend that.

    Good. You don’t necessarily recommend that.

    And you didn’t use a broom handle.

    There’s hope for you yet, Dr Gail.

    Like

  172. “Concern over North Sea plan as Norwegian oil and gas imports top £40bn”

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23250492.concern-north-sea-plan-norwegian-oil-gas-imports-top-40bn/

    BRITAIN spent £40 billion buying half of the UK’s oil and gas supplies from Norway in the first ten months of last year, according to official import figures obtained by The Herald on Sunday.

    The huge sum raises questions over the Scottish Government’s draft energy strategy to accelerate the end of North Sea production which industry experts fear would put tens of thousands of jobs at risk. They warn the consequence of the policy could result in continuing to spend substantial amounts of money supporting the sector in Norway and in other countries, while advocating ending the domestic industry.

    On Tuesday the Scottish Government published its new draft energy strategy which raises the possibility of having a “presumption against new exploration” while ramping up renewables in a bid to meet climate change targets.

    Like

  173. I posted about Liam Dutton plugging his new Weird Weather book aimed at kids
    the alarmist guy posted back
    “GOTCHA ! you said the Channel4 weatherman said that extreme weather is only caused by Climate Change,
    yet here’s him clear statement in the prog where he says we’ve always had weird weather has always happened it’s just that Climate Change is sometimes making it stronger”

    Well I had been cycling when I heard the prog and stopped listening when he laid on the propaganda thick ..So I had to double check

    Well the first half of the item was as I had said
    The guy had 3 clear parts where he insinuated weird weather was due to Climate Change
    And yes in the second part of the interview he did row back and do the caveat that the “gotcha” guy quoted back at me .

    I wonder if that is a PR technique ?
    They make strong overblown claims to brainwash the public
    .. but then later on you make a row back statement to make it seem like they are reasonable people.

    Like

  174. “Energy boss warns higher bills are here to stay”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64270157

    It’s rather a meandering piece, but I thought this was significant:

    Anders Opedal told the BBC the transition from fossil fuels towards less damaging sources of energy meant costs would remain high…

    …Mr Opedal said there is “a kind of re-wiring of the whole energy system in Europe particularly after the gas from Russia was taken away”. He said huge investment in renewables was needed, including using more hydrogen for example.

    “This will require a lot of investment and these investments need to be paid for, so I would assume that the energy bills may slightly be higher than in the past but not as volatile and high as we have today,” Mr Opedal said.

    Looking ahead, he said “we need to treat energy as something that is not abundant”.

    “I think we have had a lot of cheaper energy in the past and we probably wasted some of it, so we need to make sure we’re making the right investments now [and] everyone [should] use as little energy as possible.”…

    Like

  175. They do things differently in the EU:

    “Lützerath: German police oust climate activists after clashes near coal mine”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64285787

    German police say they have removed almost all climate activists from a German village that will be destroyed to allow the expansion of a coal mine.

    Hundreds of officers cleared around 300 activists from Lützerath in an operation that began on Wednesday.

    Police say they removed activists waiting in treehouses, a day after clashes broke out between both sides.

    Two people were still holding out in an underground tunnel at the site in western Germany, police added.

    “There are no further activists in the village of Lützerath,” police said, adding that the buildings at the site had been cleared by Friday.

    Police said that 35 “tree structures” and almost 30 wooden constructions had also been cleared away….

    …A police spokesman said around 70 officers had been injured since they began removing people from the site on Wednesday, with many of those officers injured during Saturday’s clashes.

    Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined the protest and denounced “police violence” in removing climate activists from the site….

    Similar behaviour in France towards gilets jaune. Compare and contrast the kid gloves treatment for JSO, XR et al in the UK.

    Like

  176. Lützerath müdbath:

    Gandalf (or was it Hallam?) toppled the cop a second time a minute or two later.

    Like

  179. “John Kerry backs UAE appointment of oil chief to oversee UN climate talks
    US climate envoy says pick is a ‘terrific choice’ but activists equate pick to asking ‘arms dealers to lead peace talks’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/16/cop28-john-kerry-backs-uae-appointment-oil-chief

    Different opinions are available:

    “Let’s face reality. Fossil fuel interests have destroyed the Cops – we need something new
    Bill McGuire
    It beggars belief that the UN thought it a good idea to allow an authoritarian petro-state to host an already compromised Cop28”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/16/fossil-fuel-destroyed-cops-un-compromised-cop28

    Like

  180. “The Gift of the Gabbard”

    https://www.netzerowatch.com/the-gift-of-the-gabbard/

    With market prices for electricity so high, I’ve been keen to see what effect it has had on the bottom lines of windfarms, particularly the ones who are in the Renewables Obligation scheme, and therefore get a generous subsidy on top of the money extracted from hard-up consumers. The December 2022 year ends will be the first to show the effect of a full year of the energy crisis, but a recent set of accounts, covering the year to March 2022 allows us to see what half a year of sky high prices has done for the bottom line.

    At 500MW, Greater Gabbard is a mid-sized offshore unit. Commissioned in 2012, it has been entirely uneconomic, making an underlying loss averaging £70 million each year. However, thanks to generous subsidies, of an average of £170 million per year, it has been able to hand back a handsome profit to its shareholders. They would have been looking for cumulative operating profits to surpass the billion pound mark this year.

    However, thanks to the surge in electricity prices, the financial performance of the windfarm has been transformed. The underlying losses have been turned around to a profit of £74 million, so with the subsidy on top, the shareholders are a quarter of a billion pounds to the good. Next year’s results could therefore easily be a profit of £350 million.

    I’m sure the owners are very grateful to consumers of electricity across the country.

    Like

  181. Stop press – it’s worse than we thought!

    “Atmospheric dust may have hidden true extent of global heating
    Material from dry landscapes has surged since the 1800s, possibly helping to cool the planet for decades”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/17/atmospheric-dust-cooling-climate-change

    Dust that billows up from desert storms and arid landscapes has helped cool the planet for the past several decades, and its presence in the atmosphere may have obscured the true extent of global heating caused by fossil fuel emissions.

    Atmospheric dust has increased by about 55% since the mid-1800s, an analysis suggests. And that increasing dust may have hidden up to 8% of warming from carbon emissions.

    The analysis by atmospheric scientists and climate researchers in the US and Europe attempts to tally the varied, complex ways in which dust has affected global climate patterns, concluding that overall, it has worked to somewhat counteract the warming effects of greenhouse gasses. The study, published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, warns that current climate models fail to take into account the effect of atmospheric dust.

    “We’ve been predicting for a long time that we’re headed toward a bad place when it comes to greenhouse warming,” said Jasper Kok, an atmospheric physicist at UCLA who led the research. “What this research shows is that so far, we’ve had the emergency brake on.”…

    …More data and research is needed to better understand these dust patterns, Winckler said, and better predict how they will change in coming years.

    But if dust in the atmosphere is decreasing, the warming effects of greenhouse gases could speed up.

    “We could start to experience faster and faster warming because of this,” Kok said. “And maybe we’re waking up to that reality too late.”

    Like

  182. Thanks Mark. Excuse me if I don’t believe Mr. Kok. At all. Does the analysis take into account the stabilisation of arid areas caused by the CO2 fertilisation effect of drought-stressed plants?

    Meanwhile, this from UnHerd TV is worth a watch. Thought provoking.

    Liked by 1 person

  183. “Is this the end of Made in Europe?
    From glass-makers to paper producers, European industries face a struggle to survive. What if they don’t make it?”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/end-made-in-europe-manufacturing-industry-struggle/

    …The cost of energy — driven to record levels in 2022 by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its shut-off of vital gas pipelines — has become too much for many manufacturing firms to remain competitive if they stay in Europe. At the same time, a vast package of American subsidies for green industry has shocked and angered EU officials, who see the U.S. — a supposed ally — tempting businesses to relocate across the Atlantic.

    The energy crisis is particularly acute for sectors like glass, chemicals, metals, fertilizer, pulp and paper, ceramics and cement, which require the most energy to fuel their industrial production — and between them employ 8 million people. But facing ever-growing economic competition from both China and now an increasingly protectionist United States, European leaders openly warn of a contagion of “deindustrialization” affecting all manufacturing across the continent….

    Like

  184. Thanks again Mark. If only someone had foreseen that Net Zero policies would inevitably lead to the deindustrialisation of Europe!

    Like

  185. “ooh don’t LIKE the tweets from Peter in Sweden he’s Fa, Fa Far Right !”

    Yet when it comes to this tweet bashing Greta, 52,000 people Liked it
    (He’s not Far Right that is a smear the lefties use)

    Like

  186. He follows that up with a blogpost about how British Labour front group HnH created a faked screenshot of him apparently saying Nazi things
    and then says people are taking that at face value and putting it in reports.
    Some of the lines from his post https://petersweden.substack.com/p/debunking-the-lies-imanuelsen
    A new hit piece against myself has just dropped from a very influential think tank funded by among others George Soros’ foundation. and Bill Gates’ foundation. It is called “Institute for Strategic Dialogue” (ISD for short).

    This is a report that is made to try and bring about MORE censorship regarding so called “climate change disinformation”, pressuring Big Tech to implement even more censorship of people that have dissident views… Also on their list are well known people like John Stossel and Michael Shellenberger, listing us as “super spreaders”

    .. They are acting like pure Communists attempting to shut down people that they dislike.

    Funnily enough, in their report they claim that me comparing climate change fanaticism to Communism, is actually a “dog-whistle to antisemitic tropes

    … I have NEVER denied the Holocaust and anyone claiming that I have, are nothing but LIARS.
    I believe, and have always believed, that the Holocaust happened and was a horrible atrocity that must never be allowed to happen again.

    The main source they use against me is the British far-left extremist group “Hope Not Hate”.
    They wrote a hit piece against me many years ago containing nothing but lies and libel.
    They even claimed I was “British” which is laughable
    .. They published my address, a family dog was then poisoned
    .
    This new report contains a line
    : “those opposed to climate action are increasingly in dialogue with extremist an conspiracist groups“

    He says they are going to Big Tech saying ban people who fit this definition

    Like

  187. This org @exponentialroad
    Bio : “For innovators, transformers and disruptors taking action in line with 1.5°C, with the mission to halve emissions before 2030 through exponential climate action”
    Is paying $$$$ to put this promoted tweet on my Twitter feed

    Like

  189. Make of this what you will:

    “Greta Thunberg: German police deny protest detainment was staged”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64321652

    German police have denied being “extras for Greta Thunberg” after false claims that her detainment at a protest in western Germany was staged.

    A viral post falsely claimed the climate activist being held by police was “all set up for the cameras”.

    Ms Thunberg and other activists were seeking to stop the abandoned village of Lützerath from being demolished for the expansion of a coal mine.

    The video of her being removed by police has gained millions of views.

    “We would never give ourselves to make such recordings,” a spokesperson for local police told the BBC, denying allegations that Ms Thunberg’s detainment was fake.

    But it is important that the police enable reporting and guarantee the protection of media workers, they added.

    The viral video shows the climate campaigner flanked by police officers on either side.

    Meanwhile a few photographers can be seen snapping photos and moving around her, as Ms Thunberg smiles.

    Several other police officers who were also standing nearby appear to be waiting with her before walking her away from the scene.

    Some online have jumped onto these moments of officers and Ms Thunberg waiting around, to falsely claim that it is part of a staged photo opportunity.

    However the interior ministry of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia told the BBC that the police officers and Ms Thunberg were waiting for logistical reasons.

    The BBC might well be correct to accept the explanation proffered by the interior ministry of the German state in question, but I think they are wrong to accept the explanation without question and to label the post claiming otherwise as “false”. The BBC has chosen to accept the word of one group of people, without themselves knowing the truth. I don’t know whether it was a staged publicity shot or not, but it looks from the video as though it might be. Who knows? Neither me, nor the BBC. I regard the BBC effort to be false fact-checking, and I don’t think it warranted being a story on the front page of its website.

    Liked by 1 person

  190. Jit (on 17th):

    Matthew Crawford is well worth a listen, thanks. Here’s the blurb for a talk he gave in London for UnHerd last week:

    A mood of apocalypse is in the air these days, on all points of the political compass. The more we indulge it, the more we feel superior to the normies who don’t know what time it is. In such times of doom-savoring, here is another possibility: maybe hope may be understood, not as self-deception on the part of the weak and befuddled, but as a form of spiritedness, the nerve of action that makes people strong.

    — Gratitude in a time of apocalypse

    Good cheer isn’t pointless, one might say.

    Like

  191. Here’s an open letter* from Roger Hallam, who isn’t enjoying his current** stay in prison. He’s on remand in Wandsworth. I have edited the letter for brevity and clarity (most of the edits are honest, honest).

    English Gulag

    Wandsworth, London, December 2022

    About nine weeks ago, I did a 20-minute speech about how climate change is destroying sovereign states, creating billions of refugees, shitting on our children’s inheritance, and wiping out what’s left of the natural world. I was arrested for saying that the worst episode of suffering and injustice in human history more than justifies nonviolent disruption under English Common Law. Five minutes in court. The magistrate put me on remand.

    In the prison cell, the heating is on full blast and my Romanian cellmate and I are down to our underpants.

    A while later, the heating stops and I can’t close the window. It’s -7 outside. I put my hands down my trousers between writing paragraphs.

    Really hot then really cold. Freak weather? No, it’s problems with the prison’s central heating system, stupid.

    But that’s just me in prison. In the wider world, there’s something called weather-blocking and when all the summer ice is melted (imminent, according to peer-reviewed papers) freak weather will be a real thing and it’ll get 1000 times worse. Billions will starve.

    This country is a gulag. A million times a day people give each other that look of “This place is so fucked”. It’s just that we in prison are on the worst wing. But your cell doors are locked too. It’s just that your cells are bigger than ours.

    The rumours are coming down the line. Except they’re not rumours, they’re facts. As they discovered in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, they are going to have us die unless we stop them. The atmosphere is a gas chamber. It literally is a gas chamber. Except this gas chamber covers the whole world and there’s no escape. A few years back when I wanted to say this in public, my PR advisor threatened to resign if I did so. The most important truths can never be allowed to be spoken.

    A few years ago, when I started my research at King’s College London, my supervisor told me I was the best PhD candidate he’d ever had. A few weeks later, he was already getting annoyed with me. He said if I continued to speak the truth, I would make myself “irrelevant”. (He didn’t say exactly that. They never do, do they? But that’s what he meant.)

    Three years later, I started Extinction Rebellion. The biggest global climate influencer of 2019. 200,000 people joined in six months.

    So listen to me. This is important. Truth is the most beautiful thing in this world. It’s irrelevant whether it’s “irrelevant”. Acting the truth every day. That’s what we exist to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.

    ===
    *Sources:

    https://juststopoil.org/2023/01/12/english-gulag-a-delayed-christmas-message-from-roger-hallam/

    **In a 2019 YouTube video…

    …Hallam said that prison was ‘no big deal’ and ‘not anything to worry about’ and urged his young followers to get busy with illegal protests.

    The wise one must be getting old.

    Like

  192. ITV local newsPR
    One item was PRasNews on steroids
    It was a 3 minute advert, for an ITV prog tonight
    “Your Car: Time To Switch”
    which will be a 30 min advert for electric cars.

    Like

  193. “Starmer: UK car industry ‘needs to be saved'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64337107

    Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says a strategic plan is needed to save the UK car industry, after the collapse of Britishvolt, the country’s biggest project to build electric car batteries.

    Sir Keir said a five or ten-year plan was needed “and not the sort of instability we’ve had the last year”.

    He was speaking to the BBC at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.

    Here’s an idea. Stop forcing car-makers to stop selling electric cars which most people don’t want, while preventing them from selling ICE vehicles which people do want. Earlier this week my wife and I started going round car salerooms with a view to buying another car, as our current diesel heads towards 100,000 miles. The salesmen all try to push EVs at you. They seem resigned to the push-back. When I pointed out that EVs don’t suit our lifestyle, they rapidly gave up on pushing them – it seems it’s a common response from customers. I also mentioned that we’re thinking about buying a new diesel shortly before the 2030 ban comes in to force. “Yes”, said the salesman I mentioned that to – “lots of people are telling me that.”

    Liked by 1 person

  195. Lincolnshire businessman says Smart Meter ripped him off by £8K worth of gas
    That became £4000 cos of the government cap
    Turned put the Smart Meter had an error so was billing him masses for gas at night. even though he used very little
    Now they paid him back

    The meter sent BG his day time use
    but at night time instead of sending the night rate consumption it send zero
    So their system then estimated night time consumption at a massive rate
    giving him £8,000 per month bills
    Crowther Upholstery of Nettleham, Lincolnshire
    starts 1h38m40s https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0dt9jdb

    Like

  196. On Twitter search I spot 4 or 5 people saying
    that even though off over night, their smart meter says theyve used £4 o £5 in gas

    One guy says his mates meter just bills him £10/month no matter how much he uses.

    Like

  198. An interesting thread:

    Like

  199. “National Grid puts coal plants on standby to supply electricity”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64367504

    Three UK coal plants have been ordered to begin warming up in case they are needed as the cold snap continues.

    National Grid ESO said it had asked power station operator Drax to prepare two coal-fired units and EDF to warm up its West Burton plant.

    A scheme that offers discounts for households who cut peak-time energy use is also set to be triggered.

    National Grid ESO said the measures were “precautionary” and it did not mean electricity supplies were at risk.

    The company said that it expected electricity supply margins to be “tighter than normal” on Monday evening.

    However, it added that “people should not be worried” by the measures.

    “These are precautionary measures to maintain the buffer of spare capacity we need,” it said.

    The cold weather means demand for energy rises as more people heat their homes, but a lack of wind has reduced the amount of renewable energy available.

    A similar request to warm up coal plants was made in December last year, although in the event they were not used.

    Which is all rather odd, since the cold snap appears to be coming to an end, and wind speeds are finally picking up. As I write, wind is providing 13.3% of electricity to the National Grid. Mind you, that’s still less than the 15% we re currently importing.

    Like

  202. Media seem to do have been doing massive PR for Tuesday’s ELECTRICITY RATIONING teatime.

    Radio Lincs this morning ‘isn’t it great I am an Octopus customer with a smart meter and I’ve signed up to the scheme
    whereby if I reduce my teatime electricity consumption below my normal ..I get paid’

    I switched over and simultaneously RadioHumberside were doing the same green biz PR but on stilts

    ” Here we are at the Hull University eco-project the GreenHouse
    I’m with Mr X from Nigeria”
    The BBC reporter then fed him leading questions so she could get him to big-up Climate Change
    Presenter “so you would sign up to this scheme ?”
    X “yes of course ..blah blah”

    presenter ” Now here’s Miss Y from Pakistan.
    Are you worried about the floods in Pakistan and Climate Change ?”
    Pakistani “Yeh, Climate Change, I’m worried about the floods and we have load shedding and power cuts “

    The BBC reporter failed to ask what is causing power cuts in Pakistan.

    Like

  205. “Celebrities call on UK banks to stop financing new oil, gas and coalfields
    Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Mark Rylance add their voices to Richard Curtis’s Make My Money Matter campaign”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/25/stephen-fry-emma-thompson-mark-rylance-uk-banks-to-stop-financing-new-oil-gas-and-coal-expansion

    It must be nice to be comfortably well off and fawned over by the media, giving you the power to campaign against working class jobs during a cost-of-living “crisis”.

    Like

  206. Mark, they are not just campaigning against jobs, but also in a very real sense against cheap food. Without oil, there is no cheap food for the plebs who worship these wealthy thesps.

    There is no excuse for Fry, who as we know is a smart cookie. The other two I dunno.

    Like

  208. Humber region hydrogen & CCS consultations
    Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut at preliminary planning enquiries cos developers use your points to defend themselves later at the proper planning consultation.
    So instead you save your points for the proper consultation.

    Local newspaper advertisement h2h Saltend final public consultation by equinor
    ” innovative new low carbon hydrogen facility”
    from the 23rd of January to the 24th of February

    OK 6 weeks ago I tried to attend the Centrica public consultation that was about the pipeline that will come from saltend through the villages and to the steelworks at Scunthorpe then Keadby power station then Drax power station.
    however the PowerPoints screwed up and we couldn’t see it and I missed the repeat one

    Like

  209. I search twitter on Humber hydrogen project and the Likes are absolutely minimal
    this week and over the last year
    typical tweets got 4 , or 7 likes

    Yet when I look at the Scunthorpe regional weekly newspaper ..the 4 page business section is usually about 3.5 pages about such big green projects
    So the Green PR effort is massive

    Like

  210. “UK car production collapses to lowest for 66 years”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64399748

    The number of new cars made in the UK fell sharply again last year, sinking to its lowest level since 1956.

    The drop marks a 10% fall from 2021, which itself was a historic low.

    A continuing global shortage in semiconductor chips hit production lines, industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said.

    But car makers are concerned the UK has not yet got a strategy to make the country competitive as a destination for manufacturing investment.

    The government said it was “determined” to ensure the country remains a top global location for car manufacturing.

    The SMMT said the UK produced 775,014 cars last year. In 2019, before the Covid pandemic, the UK had made 1.3 million vehicles.

    Manufacturers hope that they will hit one million vehicles again in 2025, but getting to pre-pandemic levels would require major investment and new car makers to come to the UK.

    No doubt there is a modest amount of truth in the excuse-making. However, the article completely fails to recognise the elephant in the room – namely that a major problem for car manufacturers is that government policy is forcing them to stop making ICE cars that people want, and instead they have to make EVs that, by and large, people don’t want. Instead the article acts as a puff piece, claiming the answer is ore investment in EV and battery technology. Perhaps they should talk to new car salesmen, a very dispirited bunch. They might learn something.

    Like

  211. “UK climate minister received donations from fuel and aviation companies
    Exclusive: Graham Stuart received £12,000 towards campaign from fuel distributor and aviation consultant”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/26/uk-climate-minister-received-donations-fuel-aviation-companies

    I firmly disapprove of all political donations to MPs, but I’m far from convinced this is a “gotcha” story justifying it’s front and centre billing. To start with, we are told this:

    The UK climate minister – who recently stated not all fossil fuels were the “spawn of the devil” – received campaign donations from one of the largest fuel distributors in the UK as well as an aviation consultant and recruiter, it has emerged.

    Graham Stuart, Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness, was appointed climate minister by Rishi Sunak in September. He has responsibility for net zero strategy and low carbon generation, and is the Commons lead for clean heat.

    Stuart has confounded some during his short tenure as climate minister with claims that a fresh round of oil and gas licensing are “good for the environment” and more recently stating not all fossil fuels should be “viewed as the spawn of the devil”.

    Now it has emerged that, in 2019, Stuart received a £10,000 donation towards his re-election campaign from JR Rix & Sons, a Hull-based business primarily involved in the distribution and sale of fuel, including heating oil, diesel and petrol.

    Among JR Rix & Sons’ group of companies is Rix Petroleum, as well as Rix Heating, which specialises in the supply and maintenance of oil tanks and boilers, Rix Shipping, which operates a fleet of oil tankers, and Maritime Bunkering, one of the largest suppliers of marine fuels on the Humber estuary.

    But then we also learn:

    In addition to the fossil fuel-focused subsidiaries, Rix said it is also involved in the maintenance of offshore windfarms and carbon measurement, and is developing capabilities in low-energy lighting, solar and electric vehicle charging.

    Funny the Guardian doesn’t mention that in its headline.

    Like

  212. I wondered if I was mishearing when on the BBC 1o’clock News today an item about the conversion of a large part of the Brunt Ice Shelf into a floating mega-iceberg in Antarctica was followed by a blunt statement that this has nothing to do with global warming. What’s going on?

    Like

  213. No Alan, you didn’t mis-hear. As I mentioned on Jit’s relevant post the article on the BBC website also makes the point that it’s nothing to do with global warming. In fact, it went further, and said that a giant calving such as the one that has just taken place was overdue.

    Perhaps the BBC is finally learning that we sceptics are watching them and will challenge them if they post inaccurate rubbish? Or is a review by the Government due? Who knows.

    Like

  214. What a surprise:

    “Government green heating scheme off to slow start”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64414493

    A major new grant scheme to replace gas boilers in England and Wales has got off to a slow start, government figures released on Thursday show.

    Under The Boiler Upgrade Scheme households can apply for vouchers to help them switch to a heat pump.

    The government aims to give out 30,000 vouchers annually but only managed 9,888 between the scheme’s launch in May and the end of the year.

    The government told the BBC it was on track to meet its targets.

    Switching to heat pumps helps lower heating emissions and therefore will help the UK meet its climate targets.

    Since May last year households across England and Wales have been able to apply for a £5,000 voucher to replace their boiler with a more environmentally-friendly heating system.

    The government set aside £450m for this scheme, and said it would fund 90,000 pumps over three years.

    Based on new figures released on Thursday, at the current rate, by March 2025 when the scheme is due to end only 42,000 vouchers would be issued.

    When will they realise? The public isn’t interested. The public knows that – by and large – ICE cars are better for them personally than EVs and they prefer their gas central heating to heat pumps. In both cases, even grants to soften the pain of a lot of expense don’t move the needle.

    Like

  216. “In stark contrast: the warming of Europe’s ski resorts – photo essay
    Comparison of satellite images from start of 2023 and those from last winter shows unprecedented lack of snow”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/26/warming-europe-ski-resorts-photo-essay-satellite-images-winter-lack-of-snow

    All perfectly valid – no complaints, except that it seems a little disingenuous not to mention that the news is now hopelessly date, loads of snow having fallen on the Alps since then:

    “SUPERB CONDITIONS IN THE ALPS AS MORE SNOW FALLS
    24TH JANUARY 2023”

    https://planetski.eu/2023/01/24/great-conditions-as-more-snow-falls/

    Some PlanetSKI readers have been sending us their experiences and photos from out in the moutains after the recent fresh snow.

    “I am still skiing untracked and deep powder in Val Frejus in the Haute Maurienne in France,” said regular reader, AJ.

    “The last 10-days have been some of the best powder skiing I have done in years.”

    And today we also learn this:

    “Alps Were Up to 7°C Warmer in the Recent Past, Dramatic New Evidence Shows”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/26/alps-were-up-to-7c-warmer-in-the-recent-past-dramatic-new-evidence-shows/

    Important evidence has emerged showing summer temperatures in the high Alps were up to 7°C higher between 4,000 BC and around AD 700. Archaeologists in the Austrian Alps have uncovered remarkable remains that suggest European bison were able to feed at much higher altitudes than today, a process, they note, that could only happen if the average summer temperature was at least 3-6°C higher. Even more remarkable is the discovery of pollens on animal remains that indicate a climate approximately 4-7°C warmer….

    I don’t suppose we’ll see that story at the Guardian any time soon…

    Liked by 1 person

  217. nice post from NALOPNT –
    “It offers support to journalists to ‘forge a path towards an all-newsroom approach to climate reporting’.”
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/01/26/meet-the-organisation-behind-the-medias-climate-hysteria/

    Seems the post link is from July 2021.
    After a quick read, you get how they have/are influencing every news/UN story on weather/climate.
    the obvious stand out advise quote for me was – “It supercharges normal weather patterns, like steroids.”

    wonder who may have used this type of language lately –
    “Pakistan floods are ‘a monsoon on steroids’, warns UN chief Antonio Guterres Published 30 August 2022”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-62722117

    Liked by 1 person

  218. correction to the date above – seems to be 2022 at least.

    wish I could cut & paste the “Examples in the news” bit – can’t stop laughing 🙂

    Like

  220. “Short-finned pilot whale first of kind in British waters”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64422703

    A whale found stranded on a Welsh beach more than a decade ago has been identified as the first of its kind ever found in British waters.

    Short-finned pilot whales are usually found in tropical to warm temperate seas and not in northern Europe.

    Researchers say it adds to growing evidence of aquatic mammals being affected by climate change.

    No evidence, other than the presence of the whale, is offered to back up that statement.

    Like

  221. Reading this report makes me think the UN Rapporteur in question has a large axe to grind, but it must leave the Guardian heavily conflicted!

    “Reliance on hi-tech solutions to climate crisis perpetuates racism, says UN official
    Rapporteur Tendayi Achiume says projects are at expense of marginalised groups and Indigenous peoples”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/27/reliance-on-high-tech-solutions-to-climate-crisis-perpetuates-racism-says-un-official

    …Green solutions including electric cars, renewable energy and the rewilding of vast tracts of land are being implemented at the expense of racially and ethnically marginalised groups and Indigenous peoples, Tendayi Achiume told the Guardian in an interview….

    …The rush towards sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, including electric cars and renewable energy, was creating what Achiume described as “green sacrifice zones”, where already marginalised groups were exposed to environmental harms from the extraction of the very minerals needed for green tech.

    The transition to electric cars, for example, implied a one-to-one substitution of vehicles “without accounting for the environmental impact of electric vehicles, and where the minerals and all of the materials that are required to produce electric vehicles are coming from,” she told the Guardian….

    Like

  222. “Italy signs $8B gas deal with Libya
    European countries have sought to replace Russian gas with energy supplies from North Africa and other sources.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-signs-8b-gas-deal-with-libya/

    Also:

    …Earlier this week, Meloni visited Algeria, Italy’s main gas supplier, where Eni and Algerian state-owned energy firm Sonatrach signed a new collaboration agreement aimed at shoring up energy security and boosting efforts to cut carbon emissions. Algeria last year became one of Italy’s top strategic partners after it replaced Russia as the European country’s largest energy provider.

    Like

  223. “US lawmakers press to remove oil boss from leading COP28 climate talks
    Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber’s role as CEO of national oil company ‘risks jeopardizing climate progress from successive U.N. Climate Conferences,’ said the letter.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/us-lawmakers-press-to-remove-oil-boss-from-leading-cop28-climate-talks/

    A group of U.S. lawmakers wants the Biden administration to ask the United Arab Emirates to remove the oil company chief the country chose to lead the next U.N. climate talks — or at a minimum “seek assurances” that the UAE will promote an ambitious COP28 summit.

    In a letter to Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry, 27 members of the House and Senate called for him to “urge” the UAE to withdraw the appointment of UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to lead the COP28 discussions, which start November 30 in Dubai. The company is one of the world’s largest oil producers.

    “The appointment of an oil company executive to head COP 28 poses a risk to the negotiation process as well as the whole conference itself,” said the note, which was shared exclusively with POLITICO.

    “To help ensure that COP 28 is a serious and productive climate summit, we believe the United States should urge the United Arab Emirates to name a different lead for COP 28 or, at a minimum, seek assurances that it will promote an ambitious COP 28 aligned with the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit,” the lawmakers added….

    Ironically, perhaps:

    …Kerry — along with other climate diplomats, including the EU’s Frans Timmermans — has repeatedly defended Al Jaber’s appointment in recent weeks, calling him a “terrific choice” in an interview with the Associated Press. Kerry also said ADNOC understood the need to shift its business away from fossil fuels. Kerry’s office was not immediately available to comment on the letter…

    Like

  227. “ULEZ expansion: Pressure mounts on London mayor to reconsider plans”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64373344

    London’s mayor faces growing pressure from councils to reconsider the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expansion.

    Eleven of the 19 outer London councils have expressed their apprehension, with some considering legal action.

    The seven-month timescale of implementation, the limited scrappage scheme and poor public transport links are some of their misgivings….

    Like

  228. “Warning that increasingly large offshore wind turbines risk getting too big for their foundations”

    https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/warning-that-increasingly-large-offshore-wind-turbines-risk-getting-too-big-for-their-foundations-10-11-2021/

    Increasingly large offshore wind turbines may not be adequately supported by their foundations, University of Nottingham assistant professor Luke Prendergast has warned.

    Engineers currently rely on design codes borrowed from the oil and gas industry to determine the geometry and material properties of foundations.

    However platforms designed for the oil and gas industry are very different structures to offshore wind turbines.

    “The only thing they have in common with offshore wind turbines is that they are offshore structures but aside from that they are apples and elephants in terms of the types of structure they are,” Prendergast explained.

    “The biggest concern for offshore wind turbines is lateral loading and overturning moments – so the forces that try and topple the structure over – as opposed to the vertical deadweight forces that need to be designed against for oil and gas platforms.”..

    …Typically monopiles had diameters of between 4m to 6m but they are now being fabricated with diameters approaching 10m, and this means that the behaviour of these systems is very different to what the design codes predict.

    Prendergast explained: “As these structures get larger they actually mobilise a different form of resistance from the ground. They physically become a different type of system. The models themselves are not accounting for any of this additional resistance that mobilises in the ground.”

    In addition to this, many sites near the shore have already been developed so new installations are taking place further from the coast, in more uncertain geological conditions, increasing the technical challenges and uncertainty in behaviour.

    This presents a few issues. Firstly, the soil conditions are unknown so advanced testing is needed.

    “That testing becomes more problematic in deep waters – it’s physically more challenging to do so the certainty around the data you’re extracting becomes more questionable,” Prendergast says. “There’s a general propagation of uncertainty with moving into these new realms.”…

    Like

  229. The 9:45am Radio4 : Advertise your Book For A Week Show
    The blurb refuses to say it’s a vegan anti-meat book
    Instead it gives blah blah blah including
    “The Meat Paradox ..the escalation of the climate emergency – and by how we choose to respond ..”

    Like

  231. Fake News awards
    https://www.corbettreport.com/fakenews6/

    The Climate section starts at 8m30s
    The BBC was shortlisted for its Extreme Weather show, but lost cos it’s own complaints unit actually owned up to some of the errors in the show.

    AP won for its story about how they take money from libmob to print Climate Alarmism
    They spun it as a positive.

    Like

  233. Oh well – that’s that, then:

    “Earth is on track to exceed 1.5C warming in the next decade, study using AI finds”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/30/climate-crisis-global-heating-artificial-intelligence

    The world is on the brink of breaching a critical climate threshold, according to a new study published on Monday, signifying time is running exceedingly short to spare the world the most catastrophic effects of global heating.

    Using artificial intelligence to predict warming timelines, researchers at Stanford University and Colorado State University found that 1.5C of warming over industrial levels will probably be crossed in the next decade. The study also shows the Earth is on track to exceed 2C warming, which international scientists identified as a tipping point, with a 50% chance the grave benchmark would be met by mid-century….

    …Utilizing a neural network, or a type of AI that recognizes relationships in vast sets of data, the scientists trained the system to analyze a wide array of global climate model simulations and then asked it to determine timelines for given temperature thresholds.

    The model found a nearly 70% chance that the two-degree threshold would be crossed between 2044 and 2065, even if emissions rapidly decline….

    Might as well stop the COPs, then – they just seem a bit pointless, really.

    Like

  234. Before the UK’s Brexit referendum, when Cameron tried to achieve some minor renegotiations, he was met with a big fat no. EU principles were unchanging and unbending. They were its foundation, and couldn’t be messed with. Then we had covid, and free movement of people went rapidly by the board. Now we have Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (aka green protectionism) and guess what?

    “EU plans to loosen state aid rules to boost renewables investment
    Proposed use of tax credits follows pressure to respond to Biden’s $369bn green subsidy scheme in US”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/30/eu-plans-to-loosen-state-aid-rules-renewables-investment-tax-credits-biden-green-subsidy

    The EU is stepping up its green subsidy race with the US through plans to loosen state aid rules on tax credits for renewable energy projects.

    European policymakers have been under pressure to respond to the US president Joe Biden’s $369bn (£298bn) Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to encourage renewables investment in everything from electric cars to wind turbines.

    The European Commission plans to loosen state aid rules to enable investment into production facilities in green industries, according to draft plans.

    Like

  235. GBnews have a debate about 20mph urban speed limits
    video https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1620159640678932496
    To add balance they’ve asked Just Stop Oil’s main spokesperson Alex De Koning
    He just introduced himself as “I’m a climate scientist”
    It actually doesn’t matter if a person has an academic record, it’s what evidence and logic they present that counts
    but is he much of a scientist, he’s only 24 and was until recently always described as a student ?

    Newcastle University events list says 23rd Feb
    “Alex De Koning (doctoral student, Newcastle University) will speak on ’Green Hydrogen’.”

    Has he published any papers ?
    Nope he did reach the lowest level . At a conference where scientists presented big papers he was whats called a “poster presenter” (also green hydrogen)
    That means that you don’t speak but rather your project is put on a wall in the form of a poster with 10 or 20 similar posters.

    Of course the guy basically as hyperbolic “Oh we have a climate crisis, people don’t need cars”

    Like

  238. BBC local news leads with a report from One Home
    @OurOneHome is a one woman NGO (I suspect)

    OMG the soft cliffs of the East Yorkshire coast are continuing to erode like they’ve done for thousands of years

    That’s cos they are ancient seabed, left from when the ocean was higher.
    It will eventually stop cos there’s a limit line when you get back to original hard rock,
    and in some places that’s already happened.

    The org hasn’t even tweeted its own report.

    Someone calls her a grifter, a reply points out that once the BBC paid her to do a report.
    BBC news has a very close relationship with Green PR.
    .. https://www.twitter.com/gonzondeck/status/1593308984039063552

    Like

  240. Mark: that article misses a key point wrt France when it says;
    “Supporters of heat pumps often point to France as an example to the UK. It sold 394,000 heat pumps in 2020, compared with just 37,000 sold in the UK. Yet France is hardly a Net Zero success story. With 31million households, France will take nearly 79 years to rid itself of gas boilers at its current rate of heat-pump installation. That would mean missing every single Net Zero target it has set itself.”
    This quote from the further link explains:
    “”In France,” he adds, “you had acceptance of electricity as an energy carrier for heating; for other countries, that was never the case.””
    That implies that a good part of the market is replacing direct resistance heating rather than gas boilers.

    Liked by 2 people

  241. Does anyone know why the Twitter account* of Gianluca Grimalda** has been deleted? I think it was deleted last week.

    Has he been sent back to Coventry*** by powers unknown or did he delete it himself?

    If the latter, why?

    ===
    *@GGrimalda

    **Grimalda is the globetrottinng experimental economist who complained about the insincerity of the free pizzas supplied to him and others during a Scientist Rebellion protest in a Porsche showroom.

    ***In the Noughties, Grimalda chaired the Coventry branch of a govt-funded, anti-govt, anti-globalisation, anti-borders NGO called World Development Movement (currently known as Global Justice Now) and stood as a Green Party candidate in local elections there.

    Like

  244. with a Twitter account you can quit your account
    BUT there is a cooling off period .. so some people who are a bit under fire sometimes do that
    only to resurrect their account a few days late.

    Like

  247. Stage #1 “Everyone will live 15 minutes from the countryside”

    Stage #2 “Of course we are building on this countryside, if we build near the edge of thecity
    that will mean those in the centre live more than 15 mins from the countryside”

    Like

  248. No apparent irony intended by the Guardian:

    “Rail route of the month: a steam-hauled climb through Germany’s Harz mountains”

    https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/feb/01/rail-route-of-the-month-germany-harz-mountains-brocken-steam-train

    …On a bleak off-season day, there are few takers for the 10.33am from Nordhausen. There’s an anxious moment as departure time approaches when several engineers gather around the steam engine. Is there a problem? After much clanging of oily spanners, the train chugs out of Nordhausen and climbs up towards the forested hills. Beyond Ilfeld, the hillsides tilt ever more sharply and, in the still air, steam drifts down over the claret-and-cream carriages….

    …Now this narrow-gauge network is valued as a premier-league tourist attraction and there is talk of extending the network west across the former inner-German border. “It’s not just for tourists though,” adds the driver. “With year-round services, we are a lifeline for remote communities in the hills.”…

    …Note that while all trains to and from the Brocken summit are steam-hauled, services on other routes may be operated by diesel railcars….

    Like

  250. Vinny:

    Does anyone know why the Twitter account* of Gianluca Grimalda** has been deleted? I think it was deleted last week.

    Has he been sent back to Coventry*** by powers unknown or did he delete it himself?

    If the latter, why?

    The account has been deleted – either by him or by someone with his password, at least.

    Compare the suspended account of an old sceptic friend, Shub.

    As to why, you’d have to ask Grimalda.

    Like

  251. Richard: ‘As to why, you’d have to ask Grimalda.’

    That could be tricky. Grimalda has probably gone to Papua New Guinea again to play more mind gamesconduct further experimental economics research with impoverished locals. This Nov 2022 podcast is so shouty that the auto-transcript doesn’t always work but at 6m15s he said something like ‘Next year I have to go to Papua New Guinea’. (Auto-transcript: ‘pope 9 in guinea’.)

    I think he said that he’d be getting there on trains and ferries but he said the same thing about his last visit even though he also took several long flights.

    And ‘have to’? Can’t he find some impoverished playmates who live a bit closer than PNG?

    Liked by 1 person

  252. “European turbine orders ‘down 47%’
    Data from WindEurope blames inflation and national interventions in electricity markets in Europe”

    https://renews.biz/83533/european-turbine-orders-down-47/

    Investments in wind energy in Europe fell in 2022, with orders for new wind turbines down 47% on 2021, according to new WindEurope figures.

    The representative body said there was not a single investment in an offshore wind farm in 2022, which it put down to inflation, with costs rising at a higher rate than prospective revenues.

    Investors are also being turned away by unhelpful national interventions in electricity markets, it added.
    The EU must make Europe an attractive place for renewables investments again and forthcoming market design proposals must address this, WindEurope argued.

    The fall in investments and turbine orders is also compounding the problems faced by Europe’s wind energy supply chain, it added.

    WindEurope latest data found that the EU saw only 9GW worth of new turbine orders.

    This reflects a fall in new investments in wind energy that were announced last year and the first 11 months saw final investment decisions for only 12GW of new wind farms, it said…

    Liked by 1 person

  253. A tale of two Coffeys this morning. Not the drinkable kind; permanently-surprised Therese. First this from the front page of The Times:

    Next, this from the front page of i:

    Like

  255. “Why have there been no named winter storms this year?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64454569

    “By February, the UK would normally have had around three storms given names by the Met Office – just like Arwen, Barra and Callum. But so far this autumn and winter, there hasn’t been a single one.

    Weather patterns have been calmer across the Atlantic and towards northwest Europe. But why?”…

    …The UK’s lack of named storms this season is likely to be due to the position of the Polar jet stream, a ribbon of strong winds high in the atmosphere that create and drive weather systems across the Atlantic to northwest Europe….

    …The UK’s cold snap may be partially due to the fact that a naturally occurring climate pattern called La Nina – which means large-scale cooling in the Pacific – is in its third consecutive year. This is known as a “triple-dip”….

    The number of named storms annually have been declining since a peak of 2017-18, according to the table included within the article. But never fear. Climate change will bring extreme weather, even if just not right now…

    …Experts believe that rising global temperatures mean that La Nina and El Nino – the opposite of La Nina – events will become stronger by 2030….

    Like

  256. From the gCaptain maritime website:
    “ROME, Jan 31 (Reuters) – An Italian ice-breaker carrying scientists researching in the Antarctic has sailed further south than any ship has done before, the organizers of the voyage said on Tuesday, a further sign of how ice is retreating around the poles.
    The Laura Bassi vessel reached a point with the coordinates of 78° 44.280 S in the Bay of Whales in the Ross Sea, according to Italy’s National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics.
    The voyage was made possible by an unusual lack of ice in the area, it said. Satellite analysis last year showed that Antarctica’s coastal glaciers are shedding icebergs more rapidly than nature can replenish.
    “I am happy with setting a record, but at the same time I am sad to see that things are really changing here in Antarctica and in the world in general,” Franco Sedmak, the ship’s captain, told Italy’s ANSA news agency.
    A previous voyage with a different vessel to the same area in 2017 came up against impenetrable ice, he said.
    “I never thought that I would find such a melting of the ice after a few years to be able to go as far south as we managed this year, helped by pushing and being a bit daring.””

    The report does not give any context. The 1901/4 Discovery expedition reached 78 degrees & 36 minutes south. By my reckoning the Italians beat that by all of 8 miles and they were “pushing and being a bit daring” in a modern ice-breaker. The Discovery was a tiny wooden sailing ship with supplementary steam engines that were pretty weak. The crew were completely on their own with no means of summoning help if they got stuck, as happened to the Endurance 10 years or so later.
    Hard to reconcile that with “such a melting of the ice” today.
    I haven’t researched this but my impression from reading about those early polar expeditions is that the ice extent was similar to the present. The Weddell Sea was named after a brave sealing captain who sailed well into the area in the 18th century: it has more often been frozen.

    Liked by 1 person

  257. News from Global Warming smackhead-land

    Like

  258. I don’t know if you can read too much into dreams
    but I had this dream this morning
    In the situation I was also apparently asleep but there were two Global Warming PR people at the other side of the room.. And since I appeared to be asleep one says to the other “OK we’d better not release this info to the public, it just muddies the message ee are trying to give”.
    And I the dream character did actually hear them an sniggered back “yeh that’s just like you guys”

    Like

  259. Irony is alive and well:

    “World’s biggest investment fund warns directors to tackle climate crisis or face sack
    Norway’s sovereign wealth fund threatens to vote against boards on firms it holds investments with over lax climate and social targets”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/03/worlds-biggest-investment-fund-warns-directors-to-tackle-climate-crisis-or-face-sack

    Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s single largest investor, has warned company directors it will vote against their re-election to the board if they do not up their game on tackling the climate crisis, human rights abuses and boardroom diversity.

    Carine Smith Ihenacho, the chief governance and compliance officer of Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages more than 13tn Norwegian kroner (£1tn) on behalf of the Norwegian people, said the fund was preparing to vote against the re-election of at least 80 company boards for failing to set or hit environmental or social targets…

    …It comes as the prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre, bowed to public pressure to release more money from its oil profits to help support Ukraine. The country donated 10bn kroner in civilian and military aid last year.

    “We are in a situation where we have room for action due to extraordinary income from the petroleum sector,” he said. “We are now stepping up this aid. We will contribute even more to the repair and reconstruction of damaged infrastructure.”

    The fund, which holds the equivalent of about 2.4m kroner ($240,000 or £200,000) for each man, woman and child in Norway, invests parts of the large profits generated by the Norwegian petroleum sector, mainly from taxes of companies but also payment for licences to explore for oil as well as the State’s Direct Financial Interest and dividends from the partly state-owned energy giant Equinor….

    Like

  260. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/blackpool-hit-by-earthquake-as-residents-report-noise-like-train-caused-by-tremor/ar-AA176lbN

    Residents described “a noise like a train coming near” and “cabinets shaking” during the quake, according to the BGS.”
    “It comes less than a month after a magnitude 2.1 tremor was recorded in the Irish Sea, some 35km off the coast of Blackpool.”

    which turns into –
    “According to the BGS, the Blackpool area experienced some 135 tremors in 2019, when it was home to the UK’s only shale gas exploration site, Preston New Road.
    The site, run by Cuadrilla, was shut down in August that year and a moratorium placed on fracking. This was briefly lifted last year by Liz Truss in a manifesto-breaking move – after the area was hit by a 2.9 magnitude quake.”

    went looking for facts – http://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_uk_events.html

    mash up from the link –
    2023/01/20 02:02:23.9 53.872 -3.600 2 2.1 IRISH SEA 35KM WEST BLACKPOOL.

    Close enough to Fracking site to make a connection I suppose (not).

    ps – a lot of wind turbines in that area, wonder if installation & vibrations play a part?

    Liked by 1 person

  261. If you fund BBC local radio like RadioHumberside
    then you are fundinga constant stream of #GreenBlob PR stories
    and Labour #PRasNews too
    Our local station a few times per week has items that begin
    “Labour MP Diana Johnson says … ”

    Today’s greenPR item at 8am

    The Country Land and Business Association say they hope farmers in our region will be able to do more to help with the renewable energy sector
    They’ve been in discussion with Northern Powergrid to look at ways of putting more solar panels on farm roofs and and putting up some wind turbines.
    It’s hoped the energy produced could reduce bills for farmers and add extra electricity to the grid

    They like to craft and hone such news items
    so by the next hour it was this

    And we could see more wind turbines and solar panels popping up on farm buildings and in rural fields across our area
    The Country Land and Business Association say not only do farmers need cheaper forms of fuel, but they also want to help contribute towards renewable energy.
    They’ve been in talks with Northern Powergrid to see if it could work.
    James Savile is from the CLA
    Clip
    “The energy market in the UK has changed a lot, certainly in the last 18 months
    and the CLA and certainly farmer members believe that they have a part to play to be able to produce more Green electricity for the nation and for themselves”

    Like

  262. “Clue to rising sea levels lies in DNA of 4m-year-old octopus, scientists say”

    If true, this would be amazing science. I remain unconvinced, however. The explanation in the article falls short, IMO. However, I would be interested to learn what others think.

    Like

  264. Thanks, Richard. I hadn’t noticed that. No new tweets, so his temporary deletion remains a mystery.

    Liked by 1 person

  267. Climate Wiseman has had to explain, yet again, why truth is not always truth:

    A shorter interpretation is available here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64482961

    Only a suspended sentence, alas.

    Cos he’s a total spiv.

    But…

    At least he’s not his old self, which was a violent gangster called Man Man.

    So in that sense there is there is hope for us all. Truth can progress into further truth. Even if it can never quite explain how a gangster became a pandemic-solving bishop who turned out to be a total fake, is there not, in a very real sense, a question that we should all sit here and ponder?

    Like

  268. So we have a new department of Science, Innovation and Technology, broken out of the old BEIS.
    It is headed by Michelle Donelan. According to Wiki, she has a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and politics and, before the election of 2015, her career outside politics was in marketing, including a time working on Marie Claire magazine and for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). She holds the distinction of being the shortest-serving minister of all time, resigning 36 hours after being appointed by BJ during the meltdown days. She is about to take maternity leave.
    This is an area that Sunak has identified as crucial to our future, one of his main priorities…..
    My mind is totally boggled.

    Liked by 1 person

  270. The snake oil London Africa pastor
    for 6 years has refered to himself as the Climate pastor “Dr Climate Wiseman”
    but I can’t seem what climate claims he made to his vulberable congragation

    Like

  271. Stew, I spent ages googling Wiseman/Irungu/Mwangi a few years ago. ‘Climate’ seems to have been his baptismal first name. (Marriage registry.) I don’t think I found him mentioning climate change at all. IIRC, he was mostly interested in religion (or its trappings, anyway), self-promotion, scams, fast cars, German real estate and an app that supposedly helped you order everything from pizzas to private jets.

    More googling…

    Here’s a Wayback of his app’s page about private jets:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210725215729/https://taxidocity.com/fly

    Very Davos.

    And it sounds right up Prince Harry’s street. Perhaps he’ll use Taxidocity (wot?) the next time he has to fly to Sicily to take his shoes off and give a barefoot speech at a climate conference.

    Liked by 1 person

  272. “HS2 Ltd miscalculating impact on nature – Wildlife Trusts”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64558664

    The company building the controversial HS2 rail line has underestimated its impact on habitats and wildlife, according to a coalition of wildlife charities.

    A report by the Wildlife Trusts found that HS2 Ltd had missed trees, ponds and hedgerows off maps.

    It said the methodology used to calculate the impact on biodiversity of the project was “fundamentally flawed”.

    HS2 Ltd said the trusts’ report was “not reliable”.

    The trusts are calling for construction to be paused and for the government to require HS2 Ltd to re-evaluate the impact construction has on nature….

    Without looking at the report (and the BBC doesn’t provide a link) I can’t even begin to form a view on whether it’s correct, but my natural antipathy to HS2 (an expensive white elephant) means I wouldn’t be surprised to find there’s something in it. I now look forward to Wildlife Trusts’ report into the impact on habitats and wildlife of wind farms….I’m not holding my breath.

    Like

  273. And they say sceptics are crazy for “denying” man-made climate change:

    “A solution to the climate crisis: mining the moon, researchers say
    Astrophysicists propose geoengineering solution to climate warming, although skeptics still urge ‘massive’ fossil fuel cutbacks”

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/08/moon-dust-moonshot-geoengineering-climate-crisis

    Proponents of a “moonshot” idea to deal with global heating have been handed a new, very literal, interpretation by researchers who have proposed firing plumes of moon dust from a gun into space in order to deflect the sun’s rays away from Earth.

    The seemingly outlandish concept, outlined in a new research paper, would involve creating a “solar shield” in space by mining the moon of millions of tons of its dust and then “ballistically eject[ing]” it to a point in space about 1m miles from Earth, where the floating grains would partially block incoming sunlight.

    “A really exciting part of our study was the realization that the natural lunar dust grains are just the right size and composition for efficiently scattering sunlight away from Earth,” said Ben Bromley, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Utah, who led the research, published in Plos Climate.

    “Since it takes much less energy to launch these grains from the moon’s surface, as compared with an Earth launch, the ‘moonshot’ idea really stood out for us.”

    Bromley and two other researchers considered a variety of properties, including coal and sea salt, that could dim the sun by as much as 2% if fired into space. The team eventually settled on the dust found on the moon, although millions of tons would have to be mined, sifted and loaded into a ballistic device, such as an electromagnetic rail gun, and fired into space each year into order to maintain this solar shield.

    Getting this mining and projective equipment to the moon would be a “significant project”, Bromley conceded, and might also require the positioning of a new space station in an area called the L1 Lagrange point, found between Earth and the sun, in order to “redirect packets of dust on to orbits that could provide shade for as long as possible”….

    And it’s quite a few weeks yet to April 1st….

    Like

  274. Ah, how “liberal”:

    “UK urged to sack Tony Abbott as trade adviser for joining climate sceptic group
    Critics say former Australian PM’s membership of Global Warming Policy Foundation thinktank could affect trade deals”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/calls-for-uk-to-sack-tony-abbott-trade-adviser-climate-sceptic-thinktank-global-warming-policy-foundation

    …Campaigners have called for Abbott to be sacked as a trade adviser. Mel Evans, of Greenpeace UK, said: “Talking tough on climate action while filling your Board of Trade with people like Abbott is a dismal signal to the world about Britain’s climate leadership. Tony Abbott is free to continue his journey into unreality, but the government shouldn’t allow us to be dragged along behind him.”

    There are fears that having someone who is sceptical about reaching net zero on the Board of Trade could affect the UK’s trade deals. Shaun Spiers, the executive director of Green Alliance, said: “Ninety per cent of the world’s GDP is generated in countries that are committed to net zero. That brings lots of trading opportunities for progressive UK businesses, who will be looking to the new Department for Business and Trade for support. Meanwhile, one of its key advisers is trying to undermine support for climate action. It’s not a good look.”

    The Board of Trade is headed by the trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, who has also previously questioned net zero.

    The Green MP, Caroline Lucas, said: “In May last year, the government claimed it was ‘leading the way on green trade’. How time flies, now that nine months later the trade department has a secretary of state who rejects net zero, and an adviser who openly supports climate denial. Our climate leadership on the world stage takes yet another pounding.

    “Fundamentally, all trade agreements must meet the UK’s own climate and biodiversity targets; be aligned with Paris agreement targets to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees; and deliver the sustainable development goals. If government figures can’t, or won’t, deliver those objectives, they should not be in post.”..

    Liked by 1 person

  275. Climate Cult infecting organizations

    #1 Church had a large pile of glossy brochures
    “Faith in a changing climate”

    #2 Local church shop is infected with Climate Change posters and books

    #3 Geology Society events
    “March Geology of Yorkshire’s natural resources and their contribution to the *energy transition* ”
    That is a full day conference with 11×20 min lectures
    mostly geothermal, some heatpump stuff

    “May webinar Marine litter are there solutions to this *global environmental challenge* ?”
    That’s not geology

    #3 Local Natural History Society
    Talk : How Climate Change Affects your plants and your garden

    Like

  277. Mark: Your link headline
    “UK urged to sack Tony Abbott as trade adviser for joining climate sceptic group”

    Interesting that the Guardian is using the term “sceptic ” rather than “denier”. Change in tone perhaps after all these years of misrepresentation?

    Liked by 1 person

  278. “England’s tallest wind turbine prepares to rise against the odds
    Renewable project on edge of Bristol has overcome planning hurdles and will empower local housing estate”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/09/england-tallest-wind-turbine-bristol

    A muddy, forgotten patch of land, sandwiched between a gas power station and a car breakage plant, will be home to England’s tallest wind turbine by the end of next week.

    The turbine, which will stand 150 meters tall from its base to the tip of its blade, is owned by a group of residents from nearby Lawrence Weston, a deprived housing estate on the fringes of Bristol, and some of the income it generates will be used to help the local community….

    At least it’s a brown-field site, but I do wonder how pleased the residents will be after living with it for a while.

    …Engineers from Ambition Community Energy, which will be managing the turbine on behalf of Ambition Lawrence Weston, are on-site to see a 121m crane assemble the four remaining sections of the turbine tower, which weigh 80 tonnes each. The base of the tower is secured on 22m deep concrete and steel reinforced foundations, which will anchor the turbine in the fiercest of storms.

    “There is a massive downforce [from the foundations] to make sure this thing doesn’t take off,” explains Charles Gamble, the community interest company’s electrical engineer, as he walks around the perimeter of the site. “In some freak storm, you’d have this enormous lever trying to push the entire turbine over but it won’t because it’s engineered by smart people.”…

    22m deep concrete and steel reinforced foundations. Green?

    Like

  279. “NatWest to end new business loans for oil and gas extraction
    Bank also plans to phase out similar lending for existing customers under its first climate transition plan”

    https://www.theguardian.com/global/2023/feb/09/natwest-to-end-new-business-loans-for-oil-and-gas-extraction

    NatWest has announced it will stop offering loans to new customers hoping to fund oil and gas exploration, extraction or production projects, as part of a wider climate transition plan due to be unveiled next week.

    The banks’s chief executive, Alison Rose, said similar steps would be taken to phase out the same funding for existing customers, meaning the bank would refuse to renew, refinance or extend loans for upstream gas projects from the start of 2026.

    “We want to ensure our capital is being used to support a transition while continuing to reduce the financing of harmful emissions,” Rose said.

    “I hope this sends a strong signal that we are serious about ending the most harmful activity while financing the transition,” she added.

    Rose made the announcement as she trailed the release of the bank’s first climate transition plan, which is due to be unveiled alongside the bank’s full-year results next Friday. The plan, which will be one of the first released by a UK bank, will give a sector-by-sector breakdown of how NatWest will halve the emissions created by the projects and companies it finances by 2030.

    Rose said that the bank – which is still 48% owned by the UK government – would be “prioritising sectors with high emissions rates or balance sheet exposure values”….

    Note well that last sentence. Given the size of the Government shareholding (on behalf of us, citizens and taxpayers) it’s difficult to imagine that this policy doesn’t have official government approval.

    Liked by 1 person

  281. stewgreen: ‘As with a lot of BBC “sciency” progs it’s been ladyfied’

    I’m not sure that ‘ladyfied’ is the right word there. Bateman is a serial flasher. Public nudity isn’t very ladylike (or indeed gentlemanlike) and Bateman has been at it for more than a decade.

    Here she is, for example, getting all nude in 2019 about Brexit, which she reckoned ‘leaves Britain naked’.

    URL – https://player.vimeo.com/video/314265471

    Standard BBC warning: the video reflects the language and attitudes of its time. Plus she’s starkers.

    Liked by 1 person

  284. BBC local Radio news gave space to local council grant give away scheme cos it labelled it as green

    “Digitalisation is critical – adapting to and harnessing new technologies enables businesses to grow and expand at pace.

    “And, or course, we are all working towards a greener, cleaner future so we’ve created another cash pot that businesses can tap into to make the transition that little bit easier.

    “Simple things for some small businesses can make a big difference, just replacing light bulbs with LEDs or buying the newest appliances can *slash energy bills* and reduce carbon emissions.”

    slash and burning the forests to make stuff
    Shop yourself green is a fallacy

    Like

  285. Local news p permission decision for Hornsea 4 windfarm is delayed until July
    on account of Orsted’s environmental assurances not being up to scratch

    Liked by 1 person

  286. “Slough raises concerns over ULEZ extension plans”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-64604507

    Fears have been raised about plans for the expansion of London’s controversial ultra low emission zone (ULEZ).

    Slough Borough Council is concerned about the impact of extending the measure across the capital’s boroughs which border Berkshire.

    The proposal is aimed at improving air quality by reducing the number of vehicles that do not meet emission standards.

    The council said it feared those on low incomes would be adversely affected.

    Vehicles that do not meet the emission standards face a daily charge of £12.50 when they enter the ULEZ.

    Concerns were raised this would impact those who cannot afford the fee or the swap to cleaner vehicles, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service….

    Once again “green” initiatives impact on poor people more than the rich. The miracle is that this time somebody seems to have noticed.

    Like

  287. Richard, Vinny,

    That nonexistent Grimalda Twitter account is spelled different.

    @ggrimalda vs @GGrimalda

    I’d like to note that Willis Eschenbach, Steve Mosher and FWIW Willard still have their accounts suspended.

    @WEschenbach
    @stevenmosher
    @nevaudit

    Like

  288. Mike D, Twitter accounts aren’t case-sensitive.

    Do you know why Steven Mosher got suspended?

    Like

  289. Vinny,

    Twitter handles are definitely case-sensitive. Email addresses are not, but I think they have to be typed in lower case.

    I asked Mosher on Facebook why his Twitter account was suspended and this was his case-insensitive response:

    “i offended bipoc”

    Apparently, BIPOC is an acronym for Black, Indigenous, People of Color.

    Liked by 1 person

  290. Mike D: ‘Twitter handles are definitely case-sensitive’

    They’re not, @dombroskimike, they really aren’t.

    Yours, @vInNybuRgoO

    Liked by 2 people

  291. “Alarming levels of PFAS in Norwegian Arctic ice pose new risk to wildlife
    Oxford University-led study detects 26 types of PFAS compounds in ice around Svalbard, threatening downstream ecosystems”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/11/pfas-norwegian-arctic-ice-wildlife-risk-stressor

    It sounds worrying, and no doubt it is. But I wonder why the Guardian doesn’t mention the fact that PFAS plays a role in renewable energy?

    E.g. here:

    “PFAS: Critical to Renewable Energy”

    https://www.americanchemistry.com/chemistry-in-america/chemistries/fluorotechnology-per-and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas/pfas-critical-to-renewable-energy

    Fluorotechnology (PFAS) plays a critical role in many alternative energy technologies, leading to reduced emissions and energy costs. Thanks to the insulation properties and the resistance to physical, thermal and chemical challenges of many Fluorotechnologies, products such as lithium batteries, wind turbines, fuel cells and photovoltaic solar panels can be built.

    Learn more at: https://www.americanchemistry.com/chemistry-in-america/chemistries/fluorotechnology-per-and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas/pfas-critical-to-renewable-energy…

    Or here:

    “Details of proposed European PFAS ban released”

    https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/details-of-proposed-european-pfas-ban-released

    …The purpose of the ban is to keep PFAS out of the environment. PFAS are used in tens of thousands of products, including mobile phones, wind turbines, cosmetics, solar panels, medical devices and raincoats….

    [My emphasis]

    Like

  292. 9pm Channel4 Guy Martin Asks how Are We Going to Keep The Lights on ?
    TV land is controlled by our WokeSupremacist and GreenSupremacist masters so Green hysteria is what I expect

    The show #GreatBritishPowerTrip opens with guy blowing up Eggborough coal power station
    While the commentary goes on about the end of dirty coal
    (that is narrative rather than true, cos coal could theoretically be clean and low CO2)
    Then he talks about his home
    Loaded with kit like a 20KVA generator , Air Source heat pump
    Talk about £176/year to boil a kettle 10 times/day
    Yeh we don’t boil it that many times probably 3
    (And I think he means a full full kettle each time)

    Then at Drax
    They just used a speeded up clip of a coal power station
    That makes the smoke look blacker

    Like

  293. Guy “This just shows that we can’t rely on solar and wind”
    He means the way you can turn Drax up when you want
    but wind and solar are not only uncontrollable they drop off at random moments .

    Now on to Drax Carbon Capture Storage scheme CCS
    They haven’t mentioned that no one in the world has made this economic so far

    Drax spends mega on PR
    but this prog isn’t a full advert of them

    Like

  294. Vinny,

    You’re right!

    I did a Google search for whether Twitter handles are case sensitive and found a tweet by an account @discord with 4.5M followers. It has examples that it says are usernames but are actually hashtags. That’s what I based my certainty on.😬 It was actually in a section talking about hashtags. The tweet was easier and faster to notice. I included it in a test tweet.

    Liked by 1 person

  295. Guy is now talking about powering his van HVO (H Veg Oil) instead of diesel
    costs 40p per litre more, it creates “90% less CO2”,
    … Em That’s not true.. it emits the same
    .. but you discount 90% claiming the growth of veg oil on the farm sucks CO2 OUT of the air

    Bit about repairing the grid cables

    Part 4 actual part where he blows up Eggborough
    Irony when Eggborough Power station was blown up on 1 August 2021
    that set the scene for high UK gas prices
    Crazy political stunts like UKgovt and Surgeon blowing up COAL power stations drive high gas prices
    World gas sellers kept higher prices
    cos they knew UK had less options
    Previously gas sellers knew we’d use coal if they didn’t give a lower gas price.

    Next episode about Solar/Wind is already up on website

    Liked by 1 person

  296. Stew – will see if Guy (a down to earth guy usually) joins the dots for himself, or just reads the script he’s given. my hopes are low on the former.

    Like

  297. I was pleasantly surprised by the Guy Martin programme. Early on he was emphatic that we need something to keep the lights on when wind and solar aren’t working. He was clearly sceptical about the wood-burning at Drax being “renewable” and about the practicality of scaling up their 1 ton/year CCS system to handle millions of tons. He also lambasted the mechanism whereby the price of gas sets the cost of power across the system (apart from CfDs, as we know).
    So far – better than expected.

    Like

  298. Gianluca Grimalda is indeed off to PNG again soon. A long thread about his planned trip:

    URL – https://twitter.com/GGrimalda/status/1625068134288818181

    Does GG deserve credit for going 2/3 of the way by rail, coach and ferry? I’m undecided…

    No, I’m not. I don’t think it he should go at all. From what I’ve read of his research, it wouldn’t even be worth the per capita CO2 emitted when on a packed coach from Nempnett Thrubwell to Nether Stowey.

    GG does seem to mean well and he says that he has doubts about whether what he’s doing is right, which earns brownie points, but then he chucks that all away by saying several times that he is a scientist, which he is not.

    He’s an experimental economist whose research involves mind gamessurveys that are seemingly designed to discredit capitalism. He could do that at home.

    Like

  300. Anyone noticed the East Palestine, Ohio disaster? Details are here
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ohios-apocalyptic-chemical-disaster-rages
    and of course everywhere on twitter. Deliberate burn off of toxic chemicals in a train derailment is killing pets, fish & livestock for miles around. Nothing in MSM, nothing from US government, nothing from environmentalists and very little from Ohio authorities. Lots of panic about weather balloons though.

    Liked by 1 person

  301. No, Geoff, I hadn’t seen anything about that at all. Whatever the reason, however, the sudden flurry of activity (and associated publicity) regarding strange objects in the skies above the USA has struck me as odd. They have probably been there for years. Why suddenly start shooting them down? And why not do it on the quiet, to avoid exacerbating still further the already fraught relations with China? Why the desire for massive publicity? I do try to avoid conspiracy theories, but I suspect the Biden administration is seeking to use the publicity to deflect from attention regarding something else (though what that something else might be, I don’t know).

    Liked by 1 person

  302. Correlation is not causation and all that, but there is a massive irony, apparently not spotted by the BBC in the placing of two adjacent articles on the “science & environment” section of its website:

    “Golden eagle found dead on south Scotland estate”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-64624395

    A golden eagle believed to be part of a project to boost numbers in southern Scotland has been found dead.

    The discovery was made by the gamekeeping team on the Queensberry Estate north of Dumfries on Saturday.

    The bird is understood to be part of the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project (SSGEP).

    Buccleuch – which runs the estate – said the bird had no obvious signs of injury and tests were being carried out to establish the cause of death….

    Next to this:

    “Scottish government approves forest wind farm”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c19zv0wlpemo

    The Scottish government has approved plans for a wind farm on forest land in south-west Scotland

    The golden eagle might not have been killed due to wind farms, but it is worth noting this:

    https://www.buccleuch.com/about-us/queensberry-estate/

    …The rugged landscape of the Queensberry Estate is the ideal location for windfarms and Buccleuch have helped facilitate these in the local area…

    Liked by 1 person

  303. If only we had such common sense and respect for the quality of life of residents in this country:

    “Poland’s wind sector runs into legal roadblock
    Industry says Warsaw’s new legislation undermines goal to boost onshore wind.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-bill-wind-power-renewables-legal-roadblock-coal/

    A long-awaited bill passed by the Polish parliament promises to make land available for the development of wind power — but a last-minute amendment will make it all but useless in practice, according to Poland’s wind power lobby.

    Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government has been under pressure to ramp up renewables and move away from coal- and lignite-fired power, which produce some 70 percent of electricity.

    But the new bill, passed on Wednesday, imposes a strict limit that the wind sector says will hamper development: Wind turbines must be 700 meters from residential housing.

    That stipulation — added in a hand-written amendment by PiS lawmaker Marek Suski — makes it nearly impossible to build onshore wind power, according to Janusz Gajewski, president of the Polish Wind Energy Association (PSEW), an industry lobby group. The government had previously floated a 500-meter limit…

    …The bill has dashed wind developers’ hopes of a change in policy from the ruling party, which has not been a champion on onshore wind development. In 2016, it passed a law forbidding the construction of wind farms within a distance of 10 times the height of a turbine from residential buildings.

    As technological and design advances made turbines ever taller, that excluded a vast majority of Poland’s fairly evenly populated territory from any new wind power projects.

    “We want to protect citizens who are afraid that [turbines] will be put in their gardens,” said Suski, the MP who submitted the amendment. “It will not be the case that people will live right under a windmill.”..

    Like

  304. Mark, interesting post about apple varieties. It’s a bottomless pit, but worthy of more attention when I have a mo.

    Like

  305. Geoff: Yup, I did notice – both about the derailment, leading to serious vinyl chloride pollution (and not just vinyl chloride), and about the US shooting down their own weather balloons (at least in one case, one gathers). But then I follow the best people on Twitter:

    I’d already decided from listening to Colonel Douglas Macgregor a week ago that the original Chinese balloon panic was a nothingburger. I think Macgregor is on the mark on Ukraine as well but that’s one of the difficult subjects you convincingly suggest are proving too hard for today’s media. Epstein’s list being another really important one.

    Like

  306. Tucker Carlson was scathing last night about the EPA’s lack of concern for real environmental harm in a Republican-voting area of the USA. And the same lack of care from other environmentalists, come to that. That follows on from his sobering The climate cult has grown stronger on Friday night. Two apparently opposite things that are true at the same time. Carlson clearly buys the similarity to false religion.

    Like

  307. Still nothing from the environmental press about what may be the biggest environmental disaster in the US since 3 Mile Island. I did find this on the Guardian’s environment pages though:

    A 16-year-old European hedgehog called Thorvald has been crowned the oldest in the world, smashing the previous record by seven years. Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen, from the University of Oxford said she was overwhelmed when she discovered how old he was. “I cried tears of joy that I was holding an individual that lived for 16 years. All my colleagues were laughing at me because they thought I was being so emotional,” she said. Unfortunately Thorvald died at Animal Protection Denmark’s wildlife rehabilitation centre in Silkeborg in 2016 after being set on by a dog… infection had also caused his penis to become extremely swollen. “It was the largest hedgehog penis I’ve ever seen,” said Rasmussen, who said that otherwise the hedgehog was generally healthy… More than half were killed when crossing roads, with deaths peaking in July when males and females are walking long distances trying to find mates.

    Dr Sophie is too polite today so, but she may have inadvertently discovered the secret of Thorvald’s longevity. At >5 times the average age of hedgehog retirement, he wasn’t that bothered about crossing roads to find a mate. Especially not with that whopper dragging on the tarmac.

    Liked by 1 person

  308. Geoff, thanks for that “East Palestine, Ohio disaster” link.

    as you, Mark & Richard note, the fact the MSM are fixated on “strange objects in the skies above the USA”, without this disaster getting any mention, is odd.

    Like

  311. Splash in today’s @TheSun
    – Fury as energy firm Utility Warehouse sends 100 reps on a luxury jolly to the Maldives while Brits fret about cost putting the heating on.
    https://thesun.co.uk/news/21376010/fury-energy-firm-flies-100-staff-maldives-heating/

    They are self employed sales reps getting a bonus for good sales
    but strange that energy corps are supposed to save CO2
    but then throw a load awy

    However don’t the accumulated holidays of normal people over 3 years amount to a similar amount ?

    Like

  312. “David Malpass: World Bank leader who was called climate denier quits”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64657711

    The president of the World Bank will step down from his post in June, leaving the organisation almost a year before his term was due to end.

    David Malpass announced his decision on social media, without providing a specific reason for his departure.

    The pick of former US President Donald Trump, he has been criticised as a climate change denier.

    Last year, the White House rebuked him after he said he did not know if fossil fuels were driving climate change.

    He later apologised for the remarks…

    …At an event in September, former US Vice President Al Gore called for his replacement, saying the bank was not doing enough to raise funding for climate issues and it was “ridiculous to have a climate denier as the head of the World Bank.”…

    Liked by 1 person

  315. Mark, thanks for both those last two: the optimistic view, with a number of positive data points, and the bad news on World Bank wokeness.

    Like

  316. Stew – interesting link – “Betts is getting ridiculed” – with this partial quote from Betts –
    “All major road-building projects in Wales are scrapped over environmental concerns
    GOOD!
    Can we do the same in England too?
    We don’t need any more roads. All they do is attract even more cars, bringing even more pollution, noise, danger and ugliness”

    thought we (UK) were trying to get more people to travel on public transport, including buses.
    they still need a road network.

    wonder where Betts lives?

    Like

  317. BBC Radio 4 have made & are promoting a Greta page which is nothing to do with a radio prog
    the BBC page is dated 03 February 2023
    Now it just happened to be released in the same week Greta is promoting her new book ?
    I maintain that the BBC has a close relationship with Green PR

    I detected there was a problem cos the BBC page is dated 03 February 2023
    And starts
    “The unlikely voice of a generation, teen activist Greta Thunberg talks to Amol Rajan ”
    There you go in black and white; the page talks about Greta as a teen activist, when in fact she is 20

    So what’s going on ?
    The audio page is not new material It’s BBC regurgitating old material as if it’s new
    .. the audio actually comes from an Oct 18th TV programme

    Liked by 1 person

  320. Bill B, thanks for the link. I just took a link and recommend it to others, as it’s short and succinct, but makes a vitally important point (which I know Jit also makes from time to time, but it’s useful to keep reminding ourselves of it).

    Like

  321. Bill & Mark – thanks for the link.

    from that post he links to – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/15/big-companies-arent-fully-honest-astronomical-costs-net-zero/

    not sure who Tim is slagging off from his post, but a fuller quote from above post should be –
    “One of the central premises of net zero is that the resulting job destruction in old industries such as car-making, but also oil and gas exploration, construction and farming, will be more than offset by the job creation in green industries such as renewable energy – but if the remarks of Ford Germany’s boss Martin Sander are anything to go by, that looks doubtful at best.”

    Like

  322. The climate crisis is here:

    “Spring of beautiful blossom expected in UK amid perfect conditions
    RHS gardeners say buds on trees suggest glorious spring blooms and season will potentially last longer”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/17/spring-beautiful-blossom-expected-uk-perfect-conditions

    The UK is expected to have a spring of beautiful blossom, after a heatwave followed by a cold early February set the trees up for peak condition blooms.

    Gardeners at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have been studying the buds on the trees in their gardens across the country. They say buds suggest trees will be floriferous with blossom this spring because of the perfect conditions last year for bud formation, and also because early flowering has been prevented by the cold this February.

    This means the blooming season will be potentially longer lasting. Hopefully the risk of them being “got at” by frost will lessen as the season progresses, and there will be more fruit as a direct result later in the year.

    Guy Barter, the chief horticulturist at the RHS, said: “Spring blossom is special each year but this year the light and heat of last summer has promoted a very promising crop of flower buds indeed. These buds had plenty of cold this winter, which they require (officially called the chill factor expressed in hours at about 6C) to ‘release’ them to flower once spring warms up.

    “Ornamental cherries, arguably the best of all flowering trees, tough out any spring frosts and are reliably glorious. Apples and other fruit blossom, however, are very vulnerable to late frosts. This cold February means fruit trees won’t flower early. This is good as it means they are more likely to escape any late spring frost that can prevent fruit forming.”…

    Liked by 1 person

  323. “They say buds suggest trees will be floriferous”
    What a lovely word, never heard it before, will use it on the wife and expect a slap.

    Liked by 1 person

  324. Is the tide turning? This is from one of our local websites, written by someone (who writes as a cat, but leave that to one side) who believes in the climate crisis, yet can still manage to write this:

    “Opinion: Is net zero just a load of hot air?”

    https://cumbriacrack.com/2023/02/18/opinion-is-net-zero-just-a-load-of-hot-air/

    Maybe worth a read. This is the conclusion:

    …Government needs to be pragmatic, not pander to those sections of the carbon neutral lobby who simply want to take advantage, and to encourage the little people to do more. It needs to recognise the very real fears about energy price increases after the price cap ends on April 1.

    And it needs to remember we are but a series of small islands, no longer a global superpower where our navy ruled the waves. Yes, we are great at innovation and can come up with some of the technological answers, and we have some of the best workers in the world, but we can’t continue to be at the bleeding edge when we are, economically, bleeding profusely.

    They can start by ditching the ideological clap trap and come into the real world outside Westminster village. A wood burner might be the height of chic in Kensington, but in the wilds of the Pennines it keeps us warm.

    Liked by 1 person

  326. “‘Greenwashing’ firms face steep new UK fines for misleading claims
    Legislation could see companies fined millions of pounds for making unproven environmental assertions to sell their products”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/19/greenwashing-firms-face-steep-new-uk-fines-for-misleading-claims

    …Green claims routinely used to sell products, from cars and plane tickets to soft drinks and cleaning fluids, now face much greater scrutiny under proposed new laws – and risk fines of up to tens of millions of pounds for claims found to be unsubstantiated and misleading.

    Under the digital markets, competition and consumer bill to be unveiled shortly, big companies face the threat of civil penalties of up to 10% of global turnover for breaches of consumer law. Individuals who breach these laws will face fines of up to £300,000. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said passing the new bill is a priority for the government.

    Lawyers said last week that new powers for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to impose direct civil penalties on companies will almost certainly cover misleading environmental claims, known as greenwashing…

    I wonder if it will apply to energy retailers who tell us that all the electricity they sell is generated from renewables?

    Like

  329. Ward got a full 30 mins again on The Richard Tice show
    Link to start of item ..https://youtu.be/VJ9tNs6S7Xw?t=4199

    Everyone on Twitter hated him ..cos he blustered, talks over people and deflects etc.
    In the studio Tice said he agreed the Swansea barrage should be built
    ..nutty
    I think Tice supports solar too
    but he is not a GW alarmist

    Like

  330. It will be behind a paywall, so I can’t (won’t) look further, but the front page of the Times today is referencing an article it has on page 16, with these words:

    “Rationing for climate”

    Second World War-style rationing of petrol, energy and meat could help to fight climate change by “rapidly” cutting carbon emissions, British scientists say.

    I assume it’s just we Brits who the British scientists want to be subject to rationing and to have our lifestyles made worse. Unless they suggest that the whole world undergoes such rationing, including especially those parts of the world where greenhouse gas emissions are going fastest, then they are simply wrong. Why the self-flagellation? What have we poor Brits done to deserve this? We’re even dropping rapidly down the list of all-time “carbon polluters” as the rest of the world (especially the developing world) goes full throttle on fossil fuels.

    Like

  332. Monday morning, the BBC local radio station has put out to 2 promo tweets about the item it had on promoting Green innovation Festival from the Green PR dept of Hull University
    “The Festival of Green innovation is March 1st @_aurainnovation”

    The 10am presenter decides to open by excited talk of the Hull wind turbine factory advertising for 300 new workers
    Siemens Gamesa is made up of the German corp buying the assets of the bankrupt Spanish wind industry maker.
    More wind turbine jobs in Hull, means more wind turbines, which means more costs on the grid compared to gas, means more costly electricity.

    Only the blades are made in Britain, the towers and everything else are imported.

    Like

  334. We mentioned Richard Betts being pleased about all new roads being stooped in Wales
    Someone tweeted this letter about it being a ridiculous action by the Welsh National Party

    Like

  335. The Guardian normally worries that Venice is flooding due to climate change This was a Guardian headline a little over 3 years ago (one of a great many along such lines):

    “Two people die as Venice floods at highest level in 50 years
    ‘This is result of climate change,’ says Venice mayor, who declares state of emergency”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/13/waves-in-st-marks-square-as-venice-flooded-highest-tide-in-50-years

    Yet this is today’s headline:

    “Venice canals start to run dry as low tide and lack of rain hit
    Gondolas unable to navigate some of its famous canals as Italy faces prospect of another drought”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/21/italy-faces-new-drought-alert-as-venice-canals-run-dry

    Flooding or drying out, never mind, it’s always the fault of climate change:

    Weeks of dry winter weather have raised concerns that Italy could face another drought after last summer’s emergency, with the Alps having received less than half of their normal snowfall, according to scientists and environmental groups.

    The warning comes as Venice, where flooding is normally the primary concern, faces unusually low tides that are making it impossible for gondolas, water taxis and ambulances to navigate some of its famous canals.

    The problems in Venice are being blamed on a combination of factors – the lack of rain, a high pressure system, a full moon and sea currents…

    Like

  337. Monday night BBC local newsPR
    “A look at the ‘revolutionary’ wind turbine that will light up Skegness Pier at night
    Ravi Rayarel, Founding Director of DSR Group, said
    Most local papers also do PRasNews for The Dalek shaped wind turbine
    The BBC loves it and tweeted 3 times

    We know such magic turbines designs are hype not truth
    Twitter hasn’t hear of this guy nor his company
    and Google barely

    Like

  339. Stew, thanks for that. Jit has also provided an alternative link, and Paul Homewood has the story too.

    Like

  340. Someone quotes what he said on TV

    “What it does, it actually sucks the wind into the centre part of the turbine and pushes it up into the generator of the turbine itself. So the wind speed that goes in is a little lower than the wind speed that comes out of the top of it, so it actually accelerates the wind.”

    Like

  341. https://news.sky.com/story/merseysides-mega-battery-is-switched-on-and-heres-how-it-will-save-billions-of-pounds-off-bills-and-huge-amounts-of-co2-12807985

    bottom line after the PR – “But none of these storage technologies is yet sufficiently mature to fill long winter spells of windless cloudy weather. To keep the lights on, some baseload of nuclear and reserve of gas power is likely to be needed for a few decades yet.”

    That link also links to – https://www.spreaker.com/show/climatecast
    wonder who presents that – “Broadcaster and journalist Tom Heap investigates the biggest environmental stories and issues with guests and Sky News correspondents.”

    thought I knew him from somewhere – “Thomas John Gillespie Heap[1] (born 3 January 1966)[inconsistent] is the Rural Affairs Correspondent of BBC News, and an English television and radio reporter and presenter best known for his contributions to the BBC One programme Countryfile, the same channel’s Panorama programme, and the BBC Radio 4 programme Costing the Earth.”

    busy life on the farm it seems for Tom.

    Liked by 1 person

  342. “Heat pumps: Lords slam ‘failing’ green heating scheme”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64710225

    The government’s flagship green heating scheme has been described as “seriously failing” by a Lords inquiry.

    The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants households £5,000 to help switch from a gas boiler to a low-carbon heat pump.

    On Wednesday, the Lords Net Zero Committee said grant take-up is so low the national target for green heating is “very unlikely to be met”.

    The government responded by saying it would launch a marketing campaign to make people more aware of the scheme.

    Heating in UK homes produces nearly 17% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, which are responsible for climate change.

    To meet the UK’s climate change targets, the government wants to install 600,000 low-carbon heat pumps annually within five years – currently only 50,000 are installed annually.

    The Boiler Upgrade Scheme was meant to kick-start the heat pump industry in England and Wales, and reduce the cost of installation for homeowners.

    But in her letter to the government, Baroness Parminter, chair of the Lords Committee, heavily criticised ministers for not doing more to raise awareness of the scheme – which is on track to issue just half of the allocated grants.

    She told the BBC: “The scheme isn’t working as well as it needs to. It is absolutely critical that the government boosts public awareness… we need to give people the confidence to know about why these changes are important.”…

    Perhaps Baroness Parminster and her colleagues in the House of Lords might consider the possibility that the scheme is failing, that uptake is low, because people are happy with their gas boilers and don’t want to replace them with heat pumps? The idea that people don’t know about all this is risible – the BBC bombards us with heat pumps propaganda on an almost daily basis.

    Disclosure – typo corrected.

    Like

  345. So it’s called “The Boiler Upgrade Scheme”, meaning they rip out your gas boiler & install a Heat Pump.
    I would call that “Trash your existing working Boiler & replace it with this state of the art unproven Upgrade Scheme, £5000 carrot, what’s not to like”

    the linked BBC article is a fun read – some snippets
    “Heat pumps use electricity to run and are three times more efficient than a gas boiler, so as we switch to renewable electricity homes will be cheaper to heat and produce less emissions.”

    “John Taylor, 71, another recipient of the BUS voucher, also said the government needed to make it clearer which installers to use: “I searched online and found cowboys out there. There is not a lot of guidance leading you to decent people – you are on your own.” – wonder how he knew they where cowboys?

    “Even with the grant, Mr Taylor and Mr Hibbs spent £8,500 and £6,000 respectively on their heat pumps.”

    “Countries like France and Germany have also pledged twice as much money to their low carbon heating schemes and offer larger grants for low-income households up to £9,700 to make heat pumps more affordable.” – with a pic of air con on houses in “France?”

    Liked by 1 person

  346. Given that in the UK, with current and historic prices, electricity is and has long been more than 3 times as expensive as gas, it’s difficult to see how something claimed to be three times more efficient than a gas boiler will make homes cheaper to heat. They won’t, it’ll cost a lot of money (via the installation costs, even with taxpayer handouts), and your home won’t be as warm as it was when you had a gas boiler. Unlike UK politicians, the British public en masse aren’t stupid, and they know this. That is why take-up is low.

    Like

  347. “Gas discovery worth £123m found in Surrey Hills”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-64718646

    A gas discovery worth an estimated £123m in the Surrey Hills has been hailed by exploration firm UK Oil & Gas (UKOG).

    The firm has been exploring the site at Dunsfold after the government overturned local opposition last year.

    UKOG said the location’s recoverable resources could help the UK’s future energy security.

    But opponents warned of a “detrimental impact” on the landscape and nearby Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

    The government approved an application to drill in June 2022 after being refused twice by Surrey County Council.

    Chancellor and South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt was among those who joined local figures in opposing the bid, citing environmental concerns….

    …Tom Fyans, CEO of countryside charity CPRE, said the plans “cannot go ahead”.

    “In light of the climate crisis and the urgent need to wean ourselves off our addiction to fossil fuels, these plans are breath-taking in their audacity,” he said.

    He said the people of Surrey would be “aghast” at the prospect of a “decade of industrial gas drilling” on the edge of an AONB….

    I am perplexed by the opposition to something that will offer a degree of energy security while having (I assume – the BBC certainly doesn’t discuss it) a marginal negative impact on the countryside, environment, wildlife, views and people’s lives compared to something like a wind farm, which does far less for energy security and causes harms regarding each of the issues I mention.

    “Industrial” gas drilling? Yes, fair enough. But people opposing it while approving of wind farms rarely refer to them as being industrial (even the use of the word “farm” is no doubt deliberate, trying to create the sense that they are bucolic and at home in the countryside). More double standards vividly on display.

    Like

  349. Geoff Chambers drew attention to this a while ago – after all, somebody had to, since the MSM were ignoring it. Well, it’s taken Trump to go to East Palestine, Ohio there for the Guardian to wake up. Here are a couple of different takes on the issue:

    “Fiddling while Ohio burns
    The Democratic elites aren’t even pretending to care about the East Palestine disaster.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/22/fiddling-while-ohio-burns/

    and

    “Trump’s environmental rollbacks in focus on visit to Ohio toxic train site
    Former president criticizes Biden administration’s response to train derailment in East Palestine as he visits town”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/22/donald-trump-toxic-train-derailment-east-palestine-ohio

    Like

  350. Exactly right Mark.

    These tweets I’m afraid aren’t very complimentary to Biden’s transportation man:

    That ClimateAudit fellow can be caustic some times.

    Like

  351. Mark – thanks for the “Guardian staff and agencies” link (a group bringing the true story to joe public, with no bias I’m sure).
    the usual twisting in knots to blame Trump somehow for this incident.
    Partial quotes –
    “Trump’s administration, which rolled back more than 100 environmental rules in total, watered down several regulations at the behest of the rail industry.
    He withdrew an Obama-era plan to require faster brakes on trains carrying highly flammable materials, shelved a rule that demanded at least two crew members on freight trains and dropped a ban on transporting liquified natural gas by rail, despite fears this could cause explosions.”

    then, further down –
    “The head of the National Transportation Safety Board – the lead agency investigating the crash – has said that the improved braking system wouldn’t have applied to the train that veered off its tracks in East Palestine, but environmental groups are pushing for the Biden administration to reinstate the rule anyway.”

    now “faster brakes” may work on a car/bus, but on a freight train of 150 cars in length!!!!

    Liked by 1 person

  352. Richard – thanks for the links.
    has “That ClimateAudit fellow” given up posting on the web site?

    Like

  353. ps – you prompted to me to have a look at Climate Audit “Recent Comments”

    found this one interesting – https://redgreenandblue.org/2022/04/14/nexus-russian-disinformation-climate-change-disinfo-thanks-delingpole-mcintyre-gateway-pundit/

    lead in comment from above – “Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, we’ve kept an eye out to see how climate disinformation channels have responded. By and large, it’s by blaming Biden”

    old news & probably covered before.

    Like

  354. pps – after digging deeper into – https://redgreenandblue.org/ – https://redgreenandblue.org/2023/02/23/learn-iras-homeowner-electrification-efficiency-incentives/
    gives a nice house map on the discount you can get in New York City.
    wonder who wrote the post – By Dana Nuccitelli Research Coordinator, Citizens Climate Lobby.
    ends with this helpful comment –
    “You may also be wondering, will heat pumps work in cold climates? Are electric cars and solar panels really so good for the environment and climate? Why do I keep hearing about electric stoves? And what if I electrify my home and then the power goes out?
    For answers to these questions and more details about the home technologies incentivized by the IRA — heat pump space and water heaters, electric stoves, home weatherization, electric vehicles, rooftop solar panels and batteries, electrical panel and wiring upgrades — check out the new training page and join us for a live training webinar on this topic on March 2, 2023.

    Dana Nuccitelli is an environmental scientist and climate journalist with a Master’s Degree in physics. He has written about climate change since 2010 for Skeptical Science, for The Guardian from 2013 to 2018, and since 2018 for Yale Climate Connections. In recognition of his climate journalism and education work, Dana won the prestigious SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in 2022 and National Center for Science Education Friend of the Planet Award in 2016.”

    good old Dana

    Like

  356. “The American Climate Migration has Already Begun”
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/23/us-climate-crisis-housing-migration-natural-disasters
    Except it must have already begun in the 1930s or hasn’t the author read Grapes of Wrath?

    “The warming of the planet is only part of the reason for this displacement. It’s true that as the Gulf of Mexico warms up and heat dries out western ecosystems, ordinary disasters become more severe. But again, that’s only part of the story. The other reason for all this climate chaos is that the US has spent much of the past century building millions of homes in the most vulnerable places, pushing into fire-prone mountain ranges and right up to the banks of rivers that were destined to flood. The developers and local officials who were responsible for all this construction were sometimes ignorant of the dangers, but other times they steamrolled ahead even while knowing the potential for ruin.
    All that construction has put millions of people in harm’s way, and the public and private entities who aid in disaster recovery can’t keep up. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) lacks the resources to help the communities hit by disasters achieve a long-term recovery, and the agency spends most of its money on building things back exactly the same as they once were, which locks in the potential for future disasters to ruin the same homes and displace the same people. ”

    It is obvious that continuing to build in hazardous areas is a major issue in the United States regardless of speculated climate change. As always, global warming is out front and centre despite the acknowledgement of the elephants in the floodplain.

    Liked by 1 person

  357. “This ‘climate-friendly’ fuel comes with an astronomical cancer risk
    Almost half of products cleared so far under a new US federal ‘biofuels’ program are not, in fact, biofuels”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/climate-friendly-us-program-plastics-fuel-cancer

    The Environmental Protection Agency recently gave a Chevron refinery the green light to create fuel from discarded plastics as part of a climate-friendly initiative to boost alternatives to petroleum. But, according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and the Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, one out of four people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.

    “That kind of risk is obscene,” said Linda Birnbaum, former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “You can’t let that get out.”

    That risk is 250,000 times greater than the level usually considered acceptable by the EPA division that approves new chemicals. Chevron hasn’t started making this jet fuel yet, the EPA said. When the company does, the cancer burden will disproportionately fall on people who have low incomes and are Black because of the population that lives within three miles of the refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi….

    Like

  358. “Joe Biden nominates former Mastercard boss Ajay Banga to lead World Bank
    US president puts forward choice to oversee new focus on climate crisis after resignation of Trump appointee David Malpass”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/23/joe-biden-nominates-ajay-banga-world-bank-president

    Joe Biden has nominated a former boss of Mastercard with decades of experience on Wall Street to lead the World Bank and oversee a shake-up at the development organisation to shift its focus to the climate crisis….

    Liked by 2 people

  359. “Far right trying to infiltrate UK’s low-traffic protests, campaigners warn
    Defenders of LTNs in Oxford report antisemitic and conspiracy-theory chanting at confrontations over traffic reduction measures”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/24/far-right-trying-to-infiltrate-low-traffic-protests-campaigners-warn

    Sadly, it’s the by now standard fare from the Guardian. Brendan O’Neill is on their case at Spiked:

    “It’s true – the climate fanatics are coming for your car
    It’s not a conspiracy theory to believe the green elites don’t give a toss about working people.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/23/its-true-the-climate-fanatics-are-coming-for-your-car/

    Liked by 1 person

  361. Friday ITV local newsPR had a report about disposable vapes being a litter problem
    That report was seemingly a syndicated item used to fill space, cos other areas did the item a week back.
    Half of the report was one NGO claiming the lithium batteries are recyclable.
    Em everything is recyclable if you chuck enough cash at it.
    Recycling big car batteries isn’t worth it, cos it costs a fortune.
    So I expect recycling tiny vape batteries is not economic either

    Like

  364. BBC local news the other day 22nd Feb
    The local BBC enviro reporter full of his buzzwards
    “rapidly changing climate” “rising sea levels ” etc.
    as he did a report”South Ferriby flood barrrier to be used for the first time”

    “South Ferriby flood gates shut as storm warning issued – Grimsby Live”

    The reporter never mentions that a few miles up the estuary a substantial new island Whitton Island has occurred due to land RISE in the estuary

    Like

  365. Philip is the wind guy
    What did you make of Labour’s Rachael Reeves on R4Today at 7:50am ?
    She said : onshore wind is the *cheapest power* (lie)
    & offshore wind planning permission taking 10 years
    FFS the seas are full of turbines

    The Labour MP was saying how they’d relax planning rules, so objections could be ignored.
    That’s BS cos Sunak had already announced he intends to

    She claimed there has been a 10 year moratorium on onhore wind farm construction
    Rubbish, people don’t build them cos they want bigger subsidies to.
    They do build offshore cos the subsidies are even bigger.
    Any anyway many ONSHORE have opened since 2013
    I went to the Wikipedia page .. someone has decided to not update it
    It lists in 2017 Frodsham Cheshire, opened .. 19 turbines at 2.65MW =50.35 MW
    also 2017 Goole Fields 2 East Riding of Yorkshire… 17 turbines at 2.05MW =34.85 MW
    I found another page listing more
    It lists Brechfa Forest West Wind Farm as opening 18/01/2018
    20 new farms in 2017
    That site doesn’t include Scottish farms
    The Wiki page does list 6 scottish farms since 2016
    just one in last 5 years Aikengall IIa East Lothian 81.7MW in 2021
    It’s planning perm dates from Oct 2016
    when Scots gov overruled the local council’s refusal of March 2015

    BBC’s Kate Lamble tweeted in Sept
    The government’s newly released growth plan appears to suggest they plan to relax planning rules for onshore wind farms which have been described as an effective moratorium on the technology.
    No new substantive onshore wind farm has received planning consent since 2015
    So she is wrong by a year in that special case

    Like

  366. Roger Pielke Jr accuses Inflation Reduction Act booster Jesse Jenkins of conflict of interest in Twiitter thread:

    Liked by 1 person

  367. Old news, but given how cold some USA states are now with little MSM coverage – The Guardian gets better/more desperate every day – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/21/us-winter-weather-storm-cold-snap

    “Explainer – Historic heat to extreme chill: why is the US experiencing a cold snap?
    Blistering cold events are becoming more stark and pose a threat not only to humans but to entire ecosystems”
    partial quotes –
    “The shock to the system so to speak – whether that’s human bodies or power grid – is going to be substantial because we haven’t seen this in a long time,” said climate scientist Daniel Swain, noting that, in general, numbing cold is becoming less common.”

    “All this, while many areas impacted by the surge were in the midst of having record-hot Decembers. “It will be more of a drastic change from what humans and other living things have been experiencing recently,” Alex Lamers, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said, adding that it “is unusual to see this magnitude of a temperature fall in such a short period of time”

    funny what “climate scientist Daniel Swain” notes is becoming less common –
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56058372

    Like

  368. Reality bites:

    “Green flights not in easy reach, warn scientists”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64788106

    You may be hoping that guilt-free flying is just around the corner, but scientists warn it is still a long way off.

    Plans for climate-friendly flying rest on creating greener jet fuels that have less impact on the environment.

    Switching to sustainable fuel is also key to the government’s aim to reach “jet zero” flying by 2050.

    But the Royal Society concludes there is currently no single, clear alternative to traditional fuel…

    …The authors of the Royal Society report looked at four options for greener fuels to replace the 12.3m tonnes of jet fuel used annually in the UK.

    It concluded that none could replace fossil jet fuel in the short term.

    Some airlines now use very small amounts of biofuel, largely made from crops. London Heathrow is the largest global user of biofuels but it accounts for just 0.5% of the airport’s fuel.

    To produce enough to supply the UK aviation industry would require half of Britain’s farming land, putting pressure on food supplies, the Royal Society says.

    Another option is fuel made from hydrogen produced with green electricity. However the UK currently does not generate enough renewable electricity to make enough green hydrogen.

    …Another major barrier is that existing plane engines cannot use hydrogen-based fuel.

    Ammonia and synthetic fuels are also under consideration, but they need even more green hydrogen and it is unclear if existing planes could use them.

    The authors say it remains unclear exactly how much each alternative fuel would reduce the climate impacts of flying.

    But they stress that in the long term a successful alternative fuel will probably be developed, but that airplanes and airports will need to be re-designed….

    Yes, the BBC used the American word “airplanes”. In UK English, it’s “aeroplane”. The BBC’s campaign to Americanise UK English continues unabated.

    Liked by 1 person

  369. “Campaigners fear government will drop onshore windfarm promise in England
    Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall leads letter to secretaries of state voicing concerns government will renege on promises to lift ban”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/28/fears-grow-government-will-renege-on-lifting-onshore-windfarm-ban-in-england

    Fears that the government is quietly planning to renege on promises to lift the ban on onshore windfarms in England have prompted a large group of green campaigners, business leaders and prominent figures to protest to ministers.

    Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the chef and environmental campaigner, has led a letter to secretaries of state, signed by conservation groups, academics and business people who are concerned that the pledges to free up planning restrictions are being quietly subverted….

    “Fears”? Many of us would be delighted. But the bit that caught my eye is the ongoing claim that people are overwhelmingly in favour of onshore wind power. Maybe they are in Brighton and Bristol, where there’s little danger of seeing a turbine or understanding the harm they cause to the environment and ecology.

    …Fearnley-Whittingstall said: “Poll after poll makes it clear there is an overwhelming public majority in favour of onshore wind, and communities are standing by with great wind-power projects that they know will help the environment and bring down their energy bills. Yet the government apparently just doesn’t get it. They are not only totally out of sync with the people on onshore wind, they are floundering on their own commitment to net zero.”…

    …Dale Vince, chief executive of renewable energy supplier Ecotricity, said the ban was “absurd and dishonest” as polls show most Tory voters support onshore windfarms. “We have a cost of living and energy bill crisis, not to mention a climate one – and onshore wind is the fastest, cleanest and cheapest form of energy we can build,” he said. “If it were unshackled we could reach 100% green on the grid in 10 years and with no public money. It’s dishonest because the Tories claim the ban is because onshore wind is unpopular. The truth is the country is united in support of onshore wind; recent polling shows even 80% of Tory voters support it.”

    Really?

    Like

  370. Mark, this is an issue from stem to stern as far as renewable generation is concerned. Even when organisations oppose solar or wind developments, they always preface their objection with “we are in favour of renewable energy.” The “but” is essentially NIMBY: we are in favour in general terms but don’t want it here.

    This is a short-sighted approach to say the least. Because if I object to a development in my back yard, propagandists can point to the almost ubiquitous support for such developments, and in effect tell me to suck it up.

    Anyone and any organisation who think they might oppose this sort of development at any stage should bear in mind that their support in general terms will have contributed to lost battles in other places.

    Liked by 2 people

  372. “Yes, the BBC used the American word “airplanes”. In UK English, it’s “aeroplane”. The BBC’s campaign to Americanise UK English continues unabated.”

    I’m afraid it is the new normalcy, Mark:

    Liked by 1 person

  374. Dougie, and that’s from Mr. Bloomberg, who also propagandizes for renewables via BloombergNEF, who as we have seen in these pages, are an entirely trustworthy outfit who never put their preferred spin on things.

    Like

  377. This is worrying. CoOntroversial is – and should be – the word:

    “Deflecting sun’s rays to cool overheating Earth needs study, scientists say
    More than 60 US scientists, including James Hansen, renowned former Nasa climate researcher, sign open letter”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/01/sun-rays-cool-overheating-earth-james-hansen-scientists-letter

    The controversial concept of purposely deflecting the sun’s rays to cool down an overheating Earth should be further studied, according to a group of scientists headed by James Hansen, the renowned former Nasa climate researcher.

    An open letter from more than 60 scientists across the US, Canada and Europe warns that it is “increasingly unlikely” the world will remain below 2C of heating beyond pre-industrial times, due to a failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions, requiring a “rigorous, rapid scientific assessment” of previously outlandish proposals for solar geoengineering to provide rapid cooling.

    The letter’s signatories include Hansen, the veteran climate scientist credited with alerting the world to the dangerous escalation of global temperature in the 1980s. While they make clear that cutting emissions is the primary priority, the scientists argue that the full ramifications of the geoengineering, also called solar radiation management (SRM), needs to be understood before it is tried in desperation by a country.

    “Since decisions on whether or not to implement SRM are likely to be considered in the next one to two decades, a robust international scientific assessment of SRM approaches is needed as rapidly as possible,” the letter states.

    There are a range of different potential climate interventions to try to artificially curb global heating, such as the brightening of clouds to make them more reflective of sunlight, but the option considered most likely by scientists is the spraying of aerosol particles, such as sulphur, into the stratosphere.

    These particles would deflect the sun’s rays and rapidly cool the planet, by 1C or maybe even more, although they would only linger temporarily, requiring a constant series of trips by aircraft to spray more aerosols and replenish the reflective material…

    Like

  378. I don’t doubt that this is right. Will it dawn on climate alarmists that humankind is affecting the environment very directly in very many ways, and that much that is attributed to GHG-induced climate change might be either natural and/or the result of other human activities – everything from deforestation on a massive scale to the urban heat island effect?

    “Scientists prove clear link between deforestation and local drop in rainfall
    Study adds to fears Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfall”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/01/scientists-prove-clear-correlation-between-deforestation-and-rainfall-levels

    For the first time researchers have proven a clear correlation between deforestation and regional precipitation. Scientists hope it may encourage agricultural companies and governments in the Amazon and Congo basin regions and south-east Asia to invest more in protecting trees and other vegetation.

    The study found that the more rainforests are cleared in tropical countries, the less local farmers will be able to depend on rain for their crops and pastures.

    The paper, published in the journal Nature, adds to fears that the degradation of the Amazon is approaching a tipping point after which the rainforest will no longer be able to generate its own rainfall and the vegetation will dry up.

    People living in deforested areas have long provided anecdotal evidence that their microclimates became drier with lower tree cover. Scientists already knew that killing trees reduces evapotranspiration and thus theorised this would result in lower local rainfall.

    The team at Leeds University have now proven this using satellite and meteorological records from 2003-17 across pantropical regions.

    Even at a small scale, they found an impact, but the decline became more pronounced when the affected area was greater than 50 sq km. At the largest measured scale of 200  sq km, the study discovered rainfall was 0.25 percentage points lower each month for every 1 percentage point loss of forest.

    This can enter into a vicious cycle, as reductions in rainfall lead to further forest loss, increased fire vulnerability and weaker carbon drawdown….

    Like

  380. “The controversial concept of purposely deflecting the sun’s rays to cool down an overheating Earth should be further studied, according to a group of scientists headed by James Hansen, the renowned former Nasa climate researcher.”

    we seem to have reached the Nutione era in Earths long history.

    Like

  381. We might as well give up and stop wasting loads of money on things that damage the environment and which make our lives worse, then…:

    “Green Party co-founder: the environmental battle is lost”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-64818316

    One of the four founders of the Green Party of England and Wales, Michael Benfield, has told the BBC it is now “too late” to save the planet from climate catastrophe.

    He made his remarks at event held at the London School of Economics to mark the party’s 50th anniversary. Green MP Caroline Lucas, added that the Greens did “not have another 50 years” to turn things around.

    Like

  382. “CO2 emissions may be starting to plateau, says global energy watchdog
    IEA records rise of less than 1% from energy use in 2022, but 7% reduction needed every year this decade to meet emissions goal”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/02/co2-emissions-may-be-starting-to-plateau-global-energy-watchdog-iea

    Global carbon dioxide emissions are still rising but may at least be reaching a plateau, research from the International Energy Agency has shown.

    CO2 from energy – by far the biggest source of emissions – increased by less than 1% in 2022. This was despite the turmoil in energy the markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The rise is smaller than the 6% increase in emissions from energy recorded by the IEA in 2021, a leap that came on the back of the rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic.

    However, a 7% reduction is needed every year to meet the goal of halving emissions this decade.

    Many experts had feared the soaring price of gas could push countries back towards using coal, which has much higher carbon emissions. But renewable energy seems to have been a big beneficiary, as countries opted for solar and wind power, and encouraged the take-up of heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs). A mild start to Europe’s winter also helped to save energy across the EU….

    With all the coal-burning plans being put in place by China and other developing countries (as defined by the various UN climate agreements) I would be amazed if the claim that CO2 emissions may be starting to plateau turns out to be correct. But what do I know? I’ve just learned from the Guardian that the IEA “is the global gold standard for energy research”.

    Like

  383. “Climate change: NI ‘needs radical action’ to meet net zero goal”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-64816402

    Northern Ireland will fall well short of a 2050 net zero emissions target unless “radical action” is taken, says the Climate Change Committee (CCC).

    The CCC says measures including a reduction in livestock by a third and an increase in electric vehicles within a decade will not be enough.

    Stormont set the net-zero goal in 2022.

    In a report, the CCC proposes an alternative option to cut 83% of emissions but says even this would be “extremely challenging”.

    The committee advises the government on emissions targets and reports to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    Its latest advice is that it has not seen sufficiently ambitious policy in Northern Ireland to meet either net-zero or interim targets.

    “That must change,” the committee warns….

    The population of Northern Ireland is less than 2 million. That represents less than 0.3% of the UK population. The UK is responsible for perhaps 1% of global CO2 emissions. So Northern Ireland (all things being equal) is responsible for less than 0.03% of global emissions. Nothing it does will make any measurable difference to global climate. But it will almost certainly make lives significantly worse for the population of Northern Ireland, and at great cost, so why are they doing this?

    When I worked as an in-house lawyer in commerce & industry, the boards of companies I worked for used to expect a justification (normally based on return on capital) before committing to spending money on any project. Some time after the project was completed, they also required there to be a post-completion review, to see if the return on capital had been achieved and to learn lessons – if the project had gone well, they looked to find out why, with a view to replicating it in future; if it had failed, they looked to find out why with a view to avoiding similar mistakes in future. I firmly believe we need that sort of mind-set to analyse the whole net zero policy. If politicians were asked to justify it, based on the measurable difference it would make to the “climate crisis”, then they wouldn’t be able to do so. As a minimum, every time they throw money at some hare-brained net zero scheme, they should be forced to explain afterwards what difference the scheme has made, and whether it was justified in its own terms. Again, I suspect the answer most times would be overwhelmingly negative. No doubt that’s why they don’t do it.

    Like

  385. 1pm local news planners have approved 42 miles of cables thru the East Yorks countryside from Bridlington to Drax
    The cables are part of a scheme to feed GREEN ENERGY from Scotland into the National Grid
    but the farmers union say the depth on 90cm is not enough

    Like

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