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

405 Comments

  2. R2 Vine Show .. a pile on against Brewdog the hipster craft beer company
    60 ex-employees signed letter accusing it of laddish environment
    Founder says they have thousands of ex-staff
    ‘most of what is said in the protest letter is not true, but we take the sentiment seriously’

    They claim they are the only Carbon-neutral beer company
    ..yet flew a private jet.

    Like

  4. ITV local news #2 item : “Climate Change at the G7
    we spoke to leading Sheffield expert John Grant, Hallam Poly”
    ..footage shows Fishlake
    Grant “this shows the fingerprint of human caused climate change”
    ..(pure speculation not science)
    reporters continued with buzzword soup
    “…Climate Emergency ..Prince of Wales…
    Yorks CBI spokes : Rain Newton-Smith “Humber green jobs making turbines.”

    Like

  8. After the May15th electric bus depot fire in China
    There was a June 5th one in Germany, Hannove

    German news tweet
    Fire started in one electric bus devastates bus depot, 9 EV buses destroyed
    EV service suspended now. Firefighters face special problems with this blaze.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. “G7: Climate protesters target Cornish summit”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-57445814

    “Hundreds of climate campaigners have staged a protest march targeting the G7 summit.

    The activists paraded from St Ives Leisure Centre to the middle of the Cornish town, escorted by police.

    They called for immediate action from the G7 world leaders to “address the climate and ecological emergency”.

    Protests were also held in Falmouth, with climate change campaigners gathered on the beach, playing music and listening to speeches.”

    Right at the end of the article:

    “On Thursday, seven people were arrested with paint, smoke grenades and loud hailers in a car near the summit site in Carbis Bay.”

    The photos of them are worth looking at. Many in strange religious grab, the manufacture of which must have increased their CO2 footprint, as must the fact that many travelled considerable distances to be there (I don’t imagine they all walked or cycled). Describing it as a religion doesn’t do it justice – cult seems more appropriate.

    Like

  10. “Smashed prices: Australians enjoy $1 avocados amid record production
    It’s avo on toast for everyone thanks to an eye-watering drop in the price of the nation’s favourite brunch fruit”

    https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/jun/11/smashed-prices-australians-enjoy-1-avocados-amid-record-production

    “Australian avocado production has more than doubled in ten years, from 40,000 tonnes in 2009/10 to nearly 90,000 in 2019/20 – at a value of almost half a billion dollars (A$493m). Of these, 80% were Hass avocados – with the much-maligned Shepard variety making up 17%. Just 5% of this is exported.

    It is likely to double again in the next ten years, said Tyas.”

    How can this be? I thought climate chaos meant that this sort of thing was impossible?

    Like

  11. “World oil demand ‘will rebound to pre-Covid levels by end of 2022’
    Opec and allies will face pressure to pump more fossil fuels as economies recover, says IEA”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/11/world-oil-demand-covid-opec-iea

    “The world’s demand for oil will rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022, as recovering economies require oil-producing countries to pump more fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

    Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and their allies, including Russia, collectively known as Opec+, will need to “open the taps to keep the world oil markets adequately supplied”, the global energy watchdog said in its monthly oil report.

    Oil demand is expected to bounce back by 5.4m barrels a day this year, one of the fastest climbs on record, and by a further 3.1m in 2022, pushing consumption of crude above 100m for the first time by the end of next year, the IEA said.”

    Which rather makes me wonder about the Guardian’s reporting on oil a little over a year ago. Remember this?

    “Will the coronavirus kill the oil industry and help save the climate?

    “https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/01/the-fossil-fuel-industry-is-broken-will-a-cleaner-climate-be-the-result

    “Analysts say the coronavirus and a savage price war means the oil and gas sector will never be the same again

    Damian Carrington, Jillian Ambrose and Matthew Taylor
    Wed 1 Apr 2020 07.00 BST

    The plunging demand for oil wrought by the coronavirus pandemic combined with a savage price war has left the fossil fuel industry broken and in survival mode, according to analysts. It faces the gravest challenge in its 100-year history, they say, one that will permanently alter the industry. With some calling the scene a “hellscape”, the least lurid description is “unprecedented”.

    A key question is whether this will permanently alter the course of the climate crisis. Many experts think it might well do so, pulling forward the date at which demand for oil and gas peaks, never to recover, and allowing the atmosphere to gradually heal.

    The boldest say peak fossil fuel demand may have been dragged into the here and now, and that 2019 will go down in history as the peak year for carbon emissions. “

    Like

  12. “Half of clothes sold by online fashion brands ‘made from virgin plastic’
    Fast-fashion boom fuelling rise in use of synthetic fibres made from fossil fuels, study shows”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/11/half-of-clothes-sold-by-online-fashion-brands-made-from-virgin-plastic

    “Approximately half of the clothes sold by large online fashion brands such as Boohoo and Asos are made entirely from virgin plastic materials such as polyester, despite a push to reduce the huge environmental impact of the fashion industry.

    An analysis of 10,000 items added to the Asos, Boohoo, Missguided and PrettyLittleThing websites over a fortnight in May found an average of 49% were made entirely of new plastics such as polyester, acrylic and nylon. In some stores just 1% contained recycled fabric, according to the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) study.

    The fast-fashion boom has caused the use of synthetic fibres, which are made using fossil fuels, to double over the past 20 years.”

    Like

  13. Mark: ‘…many travelled considerable distances to be there’

    I’m fairly sure that the bloke dressed up as Death at Ocean Rebellion’s 5am topless-mermaids-and-very-loud-toots-on-a-klaxon protest was Doug Francisco. He was certainly involved in the protest.

    He came out of quarantine this week, having flown home after spending 18 months in Mexico and Panama.

    Like

  14. In late April one of the main organisers of Ocean Rebellion’s G7 protests received £10k from the Arts Council. This was supposedly for a group that does similar protests under a different name, Apocalypse Theatrics, but as the only posts on that group’s Facebook page since early April are about Ocean Rebellion’s G7 protests it seems likely that the Arts Council has paid for people to be woken up at 5am by five very loud toots on a klaxon. Topless mermaids are inadequate compensation for such antisocial behaviour.

    Is it art? I suppose so.

    Should it receive public funds?

    Er, no.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. “The EU’s carbon club of one
    Brussels seeks G7 support as it pushes ahead with a border tax for carbon, but the US and Japan are concerned.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-carbon-border-tax-support-g7-us-japan/

    “EU leaders want their G7 allies to join them in imposing trade barriers on climate laggards — but Japan and the U.S. aren’t so sure.

    At this weekend’s summit of leaders in Cornwall, the wealthy countries — which have all committed to scrub out carbon pollution by 2050 at the latest — will concede they need to address the risk of industries fleeing to countries with weaker regulation, according to a person with knowledge of the latest draft of their statement.

    An EU official said leaders would “definitely” discuss a plan Brussels is expected to roll out in July to hit steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizers and electricity with a carbon border tariff based on the EU carbon price.

    If other countries followed suit, it could lead to the creation of a carbon club of nations, in which high carbon imports are taxed at the border.

    But while Japan and the U.S. recognize the problem, they are not yet ready to back a concrete solution. Neither has introduced a national system to price carbon. That puts them in a tight spot, especially U.S. President Joe Biden, who is unlikely to get such a measure through Congress.

    U.S. climate envoy John Kerry earlier this year urged the EU to wait until after the COP26 climate change conference in November, where other countries have been asked to come forward with credible plans to reduce emissions. If they do so, the reasoning goes, there’s no need for a potentially divisive trade measure.

    Japanese government spokesman Tomoyuki Yoshida said the EU’s plans to tax carbon imports were “one of the quite controversial, heated discussions among the concerned parties.””

    Like

  19. “G7 wrestles with its climate limitations
    The richest democracies are having trouble getting the rest of the world to follow them on climate policies.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/g7-wrestles-with-its-climate-limitations-g20-carbon-emissions/

    “The countries that consider themselves the planet’s natural leaders face an uncomfortable reality at the G7 summit this weekend: The future is not in their hands.

    Climate change, and the attempt to thwart it, will be decided largely in Beijing, Delhi, Brasilia, Abuja, Pretoria and Jakarta — capitals already responsible for more carbon pollution than those gathering in Cornwall.

    Nonetheless, the leaders of the wealthiest democracies will meet at a hotel overlooking a private beach, hoping to settle among themselves on the right mix of competition, contrition and coercion to convince the emerging great emitters to act.

    Although the G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., the U.S. and the EU — is responsible for the bulk of historical emissions, by dint of cutting down at home while emissions keep rising elsewhere, they now create a dwindling share of planet-heating greenhouse gases.”

    Like

  21. “G7 leaders face biggest climate change decisions in history – David Attenborough”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57456641

    “G7 leaders are facing the most important decisions in human history as they seek to tackle climate change, Sir David Attenborough has said.

    The naturalist will address world leaders gathered in Cornwall on Sunday as they set out plans to cut carbon emissions and restore biodiversity.

    Ahead of the meeting, Sir David warned that humans could be “on the verge of destabilising the entire planet”.

    Climate change is one of the key themes at the three-day summit in Carbis Bay.

    The group of seven – the UK, US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy – are expected to pledge to almost halve their emissions by 2030, relative to 2010 levels.

    The UK has already surpassed that commitment, previously promising to cut emissions by the equivalent of 58% on 2010 levels.”

    Like

  22. It appears the BBC’s agenda around the G7 is as intense as it is ahead of COP 26. Otherwise why have a brand new report on an incident that occurred 4 months ago?

    “Chamoli disaster: ‘It hit the valley floor like 15 atomic bombs'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57446224

    “Nature often takes us by surprise. Its power is all too frequently underestimated, with catastrophic consequences.

    So it was with the Chamoli disaster back in February, when the flank of a Himalayan mountain failed and fell into the valley below.

    It set in train a cascade of debris that claimed over 200 lives and destroyed hydro-electric infrastructure worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

    I suppose in fairness they’re reporting on a report just released, the timing of which one may wonder about. Here is the link for those interested – and some might be, as it was much-discussed here at the time:

    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/09/science.abh4455

    Like

  23. There’s a short video attached to this report on the incident – interesting given both the headline, and the hype at the time:

    “‘Difficult’ to pin Chamoli disaster on climate change”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-57453988

    “Scientists have detailed February’s catastrophic rock and ice slide in the Indian Himalaya that claimed 200 lives. The disaster was initiated close to the top of the 6km-high Ronti Peak in the Chamoli district of the state of Uttarakhand. The team calculates almost 27 million cubic meters of material fell into the valley below. Lead author Dr Dan Shugar, from the University of Calgary, Canada, discussed the event with BBC Science In Action presenter Roland Pease.”

    Like

  24. I’m told that on the BBC News Channel not long after 6pm yesterday the wall-to-wall coverage of the G7 and related climate frenzy was interrupted, at considerable length, by the news that the Danish footballer Christian Eriksen had collapsed in a stadium in Copenhagen, presumably from a cardiac arrest, playing in front of TV billions in Euro 2020, and had only just been resuscitated through the prompt intervention of medics on the pitch. One man saved from death compared to the billions we are promised are at risk in future. Yet the BBC knew where the public’s priorities lay. (They would know that from Twitter and Facebook, for a start.) My mole took some comfort from that unplanned switch of programming.

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  25. XR isn’t a death cult, honest.

    URL:show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news-content-600ed2733c68d80019a19bc7/preview/60c60a9147aa33001916db63

    Like

  27. Why? Nothing Wales does can make any difference to anything.

    “Climate change: Wales ‘needs to do twice as much’ in next decade”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-57461279

    “Wales needs to do twice as much on climate change in the next decade “as we’ve done in the previous 30 years”, the climate change minister has said.

    Julie James said it was “stretching an ambitious target” but that it would be possible to reach it.

    All road schemes in Wales are set to be reviewed and a new law to tackle air pollution will be introduced in the next year.

    Wales is aiming to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

    But a December 2020 report by the Climate Change Committee, which advises governments in the UK, said: “Underlying indicators and the lack of a cohesive, economy-wide strategy for 2050 – at both UK and Welsh government level – mean that Wales was not currently on track for the existing 80% target, let alone net zero.”

    Speaking on the BBC Politics Wales programme, the newly appointed climate change minister said: “It is possible to do it but it will mean all of us playing our part.

    “So, there will be some things that will need to change… but what we need to do is put the conditions in place so that people aren’t sacrificing things in order to assist the climate.”

    Friends of the Earth Cymru has called for a ban on new roads in Wales.”

    Like

  28. XR’s G7 beach bums:

    URL:twitter.com/XRebellionUK/status/1404001136844156928

    Note the response by someone who does PR for the Marine Conservation Society: ‘wtf is going on here’.

    Andy West will have the answer. It involves narcissism, cults, conformity, cracks and crevices. But mostly narcissism.

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  29. Naked eschatonanist Quakers are not a new thing. Pepys in 1667:

    One thing extraordinary was, this day a man, a Quaker [Solomon Eccles/Eagle], came naked through the Hall, only very civilly tied about the privities to avoid scandal, and with a chafing-dish of fire and brimstone burning upon his head, did pass through the Hall, crying, “Repent! repent!”

    URL:www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1667/07/29/

    Like

  30. I suspect this would happen in the UK too if we were ever allowed a vote, following a complete explanation of what will be involved in net zero:

    “Swiss voters reject key climate change measures”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57457384

    “Switzerland’s policy on fighting climate change has been thrown into doubt after voters rejected key measures in a popular vote.

    A referendum saw voters narrowly reject the government’s plans for a car fuel levy and a tax on air tickets.

    The measures were designed to help Switzerland meet targets under the Paris Agreement on climate change.

    Many voters appear to have worried about the impact on the economy as the country tries to recover from Covid-19.

    Opponents also pointed out that Switzerland is responsible for only 0.1% of global emissions, and expressed doubts that such policies would help the environment.

    The vote, under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, went 51% against, 49% in favour.”

    Like

  31. Meanwhile, in a different country, but it might as well be on a different planet:

    “CBI boss says world is ‘way off track’ in fight against climate crisis
    Tony Danker says UK government must publish detailed and concrete guidance on home heating and transport to unlock private resources”

    “The head of the UK’s biggest business lobby group has warned that the corporate world is “way off track” in tackling the climate crisis.

    Tony Danker, the director general of the CBI, called on the government to do more to unlock the resources of the private sector by publishing new guidance on heating and transport.

    “Tackling the planet’s climate crisis before it’s too late has always been a seismic challenge demanding global cooperation on an unprecedented scale,” he will say in a speech at the CBI’s Road to Zero conference on Monday. “The world has no room for failure. The climate crisis is worsening and currently we’re way off track.”

    The CBI, which represents the UK’s biggest employers, wants the government to “fill in the blanks” in its plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 68% by the end of this decade, and by 78% compared with 1990 levels by 2035.

    Danker called for the government to put forward detailed plans on a charging network for electric vehicles, the phasing out of gas boilers, new offshore windfarms, and funding formulas for new nuclear power stations.”

    Like

  32. “Michael McCormack says coal here to stay as G7 countries commit to decarbonised power by the 2030s
    Coal ‘pays for a lot of barista machines’ for inner-city cafes and will play a part for many years to come, acting prime minister says”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/14/michael-mccormack-says-coal-here-to-stay-as-g7-countries-commit-to-decarbonised-power-by-the-2030s

    “The deputy prime minister Michael McCormack has declared coal will be around for “many more years to come” as trade ministers from Australia and the UK launch a last-ditch effort to resolve lingering disputes before announcing in-principle support for a bilateral trade deal.

    McCormack’s bullish comments on the future of coal on Monday follow an agreement by the G7 over the weekend to end government support for coal-fired power stations by the end of the year. Scott Morrison attended the G7 summit in Cornwall.”

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  33. We mentioned the IIED before
    Its boss tweeting faithfully that he can count deaths from “Climate-related disasters”
    … guess he means weather related

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  34. 7am R4Sunday Religion show
    cover photo “children wearing our House Is On Fire T-shirts”
    blurb Climate Change Boat Relay; Faith and Football; Cult Survivor

    – a group of young Christians will meet at Truro Cathedral.
    There they will bless a wicker boat
    to be carried in relay to Glasgow in time for the UN Climate Change Conference in October.
    Probably a #PRasNews item

    Like

  35. 4:30pm R4 going on about Sci-hub
    making out rather than being a cheeky tool to get paywalled articles for free
    it’s a big GRU operation to steal passwords and info from academic staff and universities.
    Sci-hub fans say “they would say that wouldn’t they ?”

    STM reply
    “They compromise the security of libraries and institutions, pose a threat to the integrity of the scientific record and harm learned societies who are reliant on income to support their crucial work.”

    Liked by 1 person

  36. So “Arts and Humanities *Research* Council” is funding Climate “research” at Hull university
    but how often does research funding get used for Climate-Alarmist activism ?

    4:13pm local radio’s show was plugging new film to be shown to children
    during the Children’s Literature Festival sat 26th June
    The kids will be asked to write poetry after seeing the film

    Their project called Risky Cities : Rising Tide of Humber project
    that get school kids to understand how Climate Change will flood Hull
    (why no “The” with Humber ?)
    They have a video .. https://youtu.be/eyLkIpEPIEA
    .. some skeptic tweeted the poster

    Liked by 1 person

  37. @stewgreen”. “So “Arts and Humanities *Research* Council” is funding Climate “research” at Hull university but how often does research funding get used for Climate-Alarmist activism ?”

    For the government, using activist is likely cheaper and more effective than using PR companies.

    Like

  38. “Touring electric coach stranded at Eden Project after failing to find charging point in Cornwall
    The Carbon Battle Bus had travelled from London to Cornwall but needs to recharge before it can continue on its tour”

    https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/touring-electric-coach-stranded-eden-5524525

    “A fully-electric coach has found itself stranded in Cornwall after being unable to charge at five different locations across the Duchy.

    The Carbon Battle Bus is on a tour of the UK and this week travelled from London to Cornwall but was unable to complete its tour after finding charging points did not work.

    It came to Cornwall to tie in with the G7 Summit in Carbis Bay where world leaders have been discussing climate change and the need to reach targets for zero carbon.

    Planet Mark, the organisers of the Zero Carbon Tour, successfully travelled from London to the Eden Project, a distance of 263 miles with one recharge, in the electrically-powered Yutong coach.

    However, in order to make the return leg through the South West of England the coach needs a recharge.

    But with 60 to 70 miles it has found that there are no serviceable chargers left on the network and the five that they attempted to use in Cornwall were unable to charge the bus.”

    Liked by 1 person

  40. “Rich countries urged to come up with detailed plans to cut emissions
    Laurence Tubiana, a key player in 2015 Paris summit, says UK and others must explain how they will achieve climate goals”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/14/rich-countries-urged-to-come-up-with-detailed-plans-to-cut-emissions

    “Rich countries must come forward with detailed plans on how they hope to meet their climate targets, and Boris Johnson must forge much closer relationships with developing countries to bring about the breakthrough needed on the climate crisis this year, one of the architects of the Paris agreement has said.

    The G7 summit, which ended on Sunday in Cornwall, achieved much less than campaigners had hoped, with no significant new cash forthcoming for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, on the frontlines of climate breakdown.

    There were promises by the world’s richest economies to halt funding for coal, but they fell short of the pledge to end all new fossil fuel development that experts have said will be needed.”

    And yet it’s the poorer countries whose GHG emissions are growing.

    Like

  41. Fact-checking, anyone?

    “How are our cities going to look in a rapidly heating world? It won’t be long and 50C will be normal
    James Bradley
    Hot weather bakes in disadvantage. Regenerating natural and living ecosystems will help us all”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2021/jun/15/how-are-our-cities-going-to-look-in-a-rapidly-heating-world-it-wont-be-long-and-50c-will-be-normal

    “…In January last year the mercury reached 48.9C in Penrith, but it’s reasonable to assume that by the end of this decade (and quite possibly before) we will be experiencing temperatures in excess of 50C in some parts of Sydney, as well as similar temperatures in other capital cities….”

    NB That’s Penrith, Australia. I doubt if Penrith, Cumbria, UK has seen much above the 20sC for a long time! I think it reached about 16C here in Cumbria today, on the UK’s “hottest day this year”.

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  42. When is “green” not green?

    “Gigafactories: Europe tools up against US and Asia as a car battery force”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57382472

    “Surrounded by a forest of tall green pine trees, 125 miles south of the Arctic circle, a giant electric battery factory is rapidly taking shape on a site as big as 71 football pitches.

    The project will be a gigafactory, a term coined by Tesla founder Elon Musk to describe his first high-volume plant for producing lithium-ion electric battery cells, deep in the Nevada desert.

    Startup Northvolt, co-founded by two former Tesla executives, is in Skellefteå, a much chillier location, in northern Sweden.

    But from here, as well as a base in Västerås just outside Stockholm, it is hoping to provide a quarter of Europe’s electric batteries, as demand for electric vehicles surges amidst the global race to cut carbon emissions….

    …”If you look at the agenda for all the automotive manufacturers to actually make those electric cars, the amount of cells that you’ll need to access, is going to be humongous,” says the plant’s manager Fredrik Hedlund….

    …There are still gaps in the green loop though, with some employees commuting weekly by plane from other Swedish cities and many others driving non-electric cars to the site….”.

    Like

  43. “Nato and climate change: How big is the problem?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57476349

    “The world’s most powerful defence alliance agreed on Monday to step up efforts to tackle climate change for the first time.

    Nato – the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – said its members have pledged to “significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from military activities” in a way that does not impact personnel safety or the effectiveness of their operations.

    In a statement released after a summit in Brussels, the group also asked the organisation’s leader to develop a realistic, ambitious and concrete target for reducing Nato emissions and to assess the feasibility of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

    The statement described climate change as “one of the defining challenges of our times”. It said Nato wanted to be a leading international force in understanding and adapting to the ways climate change will impact world security….

    …In Monday’s statement Nato said it would develop a “mapping methodology to help Allies measure greenhouse gas emissions from military activities and installations”, which could help set “voluntary goals” to try and reduce these emissions…

    …Experts say environmental changes from climate change can also act as “threat multipliers” – intensifying existing tensions over resource scarcity or sparking regional destabilisation and conflicts…

    …Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is personally passionate about the subject, having previously served as an environment minister in Norway and as a UN special envoy on climate change. He has been publicly pushing the organisation to prioritise climate change for some time….”

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  44. “Auckland chapter of New Zealand’s School Strike 4 Climate group admits racism and disbands
    The chapter of the international movement said it was a ‘racist, white-dominated space’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/15/auckland-chapter-of-new-zealands-school-strike-4-climate-group-admits-racism-and-disbands

    “A large part of New Zealand’s School Strike 4 Climate movement has formally disbanded, saying it had been racist and insufficiently responsive to activists of colour.

    In a Facebook post, the movement’s chapter in Auckland said it had “avoided, ignored and tokenised BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of colour] voices and demands” and that it had been “a racist, white-dominated space”.

    The group, which did not respond to requests for comment, said it would no longer organise strikes and instead pledged to “uplift BIPOC-led climate justice spaces”.

    It also claimed the national group had a “big problem” with racism, though it said it “can’t speak on their behalf”, and that its members had separated from the national team.”

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  45. “Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions target missed again”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57482228

    “The Scottish government has again missed its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    Figures for 2019 show they fell 51.5% against the baseline, well short of the 55% target.

    The statistics reveal Scotland’s land is no longer regarded as a “carbon sink” to soak up some carbon dioxide.

    Although year-on-year emissions fell, figures for all years have been revised up significantly, meaning more gases were released than previously thought.”

    It’s always worse then we thought!

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  46. “The ‘green influencers’ targeting the TikTok generation
    Activists are increasingly harnessing the power of social media to organise and educate people about the climate crisis”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/15/the-green-influencers-targeting-the-tiktok-generation

    “Social media platforms are no longer just for selfies and blogs but a place “to organise and educate” people about the climate crisis, according to YouTube star turned activist filmmaker Jack Harries.

    One of a growing band of “green influencers” who are harnessing the power of social media to tell stories about the climate to create change, Harries has made a series called The Breakdown for the free environmental streaming service WaterBear, which was founded last year by the creator of Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher Ellen Windemuth, and is backed by Prince Harry, Lily Cole and Maisie Williams.

    Aimed at the TikTok generation who feel overwhelmed by environmental issues, The Breakdown has short snappy episodes and enables viewers to click through via WaterBear’s interactive hub to sign petitions and engage with climate organisations.”

    Like

  47. The headline suggests it’s something that’s going on now, and the impacts will be felt soon:

    “Climate crisis to hit Europe’s coffee and chocolate supplies”

    The sub-headline is subtly different:

    “Increasing droughts in producer nations will also make palm oil and soya imports highly vulnerable, study finds”

    The story is that this isn’t happening now, it’s yet another prediction from yet another study:

    “Coffee and chocolate supplies in Europe soon could be disrupted by the climate crisis as droughts hit producer countries, according to a study.

    The research also found a high vulnerability for palm oil imports, used in many foods and domestic products, and soybeans, which are the main feed for chickens and pigs in the European Union.

    The scientists predicted a sharp rise in drought risk for EU agricultural imports overall. Only 7% were vulnerable over the last 25 years, but this grows to 37% in the next 25 years, even if carbon emissions are cut sharply. Shortages of supply could result in higher prices, they said.

    The analysis only considered drought; other climate impacts such as flooding and increased pests could worsen the situation. However, some regions may have lower drought risk in future and might partially compensate for lost crops elsewhere.”

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  48. “Germany slams Timmermans over farm reform
    Green Deal chief accused of ‘jeopardising confidence’ in the European Commission.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-slams-timmermans-over-farm-reform/

    “Germany’s Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner on Tuesday directly accused the EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans of damaging the credibility of the European Commission through his role in negotiations on the next Common Agricultural Policy.

    The Commission has been pushing countries to adopt a greener stance on the EU’s giant farm policy, but farm ministers pushed back hard arguing too much green ambition too quickly could bankrupt their farmers. Countries’ refusal to meet the higher green demands coming from Timmermans and the European Parliament last month led to a break-up in talks.

    “All ministers, regardless of which party or country they come from, have the impression that Commissioner Timmermans’ behavior is jeopardising confidence in the Commission in its function as an honest broker,” she wrote in a statement released Tuesday by the German agriculture ministry after two days of talks in Lisbon aiming to get a deal back on track.

    An EU official retorted: “It’s hard to broker any agreement when one of the parties is backpedaling on their own position. Lashing out against the Commission, who is putting actual compromises on the table, seems a bit irrelevant at that stage. But we’re happy to discuss it over lunch.”

    Germany’s powerful farm chief Klöckner brokered a common CAP position between all EU countries last October but she and her fellow ministers ended up offering Parliament a deal that was actually less green in some crucial aspects during the negotiations in May, tanking the talks.

    Klöckner wrote: “We agree that it would be good if the Commission respected the Council and Parliament in their role as legislators. Her strongly-worded statement did not name-check EU farm chief Janusz Wojciechowski, despite the fact the Pole was the only EU commissioner present for the off-record ministerial talks in Portugal this week.

    The German statement said Commission officials have “repeatedly burdened” the final phase of the talks with new legislative proposals which lack a legal basis. MEPs have also accused the Council of the same last-minute tactics.

    Timmermans finds himself between a rock and a hard place on agricultural policy, having already been heavily criticized by climate activists such as Greta Thunberg for not being strong enough on driving through a greener transition for the heavily-emitting sector.

    POLITICO has reported he gave Portugal’s farming minister Maria do Céu Antunes a “10-minute scolding” behind closed doors about the EU Council’s low green ambition as the last round of negotiations collapsed.”

    Like

  49. Just an indication of what tv shoves at us
    5-select now ; Ben Fogle from Feb 2020
    Tim and Lucy AitkenRead have turned their lives around to live off-grid in New Zealand
    … Lucy used to be a climate change LEAD campaigner for Oxfam

    Why were donors to Oxfam paying for a climate change LEAD campaigner ?

    Like

  50. oh they were advertising last month
    “Campaigner – COP 26 Lead (0632)
    Organization Oxfam GB Posted 27 May 2021 Closing date 9 Jun 2021
    Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty.
    Do you have experience in managing projects involving people from several areas of an organisation from across the world and other organisations?
    Do you have experience in campaigning on issues on which Oxfam campaigns at the regional or global level?

    Do you excellent communication skills?
    If the answer is yes, then would like to hear from you!”
    google cache

    Like

  52. And still the propaganda continues ahead of COP 26. This one is on the front of the BBC news website:

    “UK warned it is unprepared for climate chaos
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC environment analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57487943

    “The UK is woefully unprepared to deal with changes occurring to the climate, government advisers say.

    A report by the independent Climate Change Committee predicts warming will hit the UK harder than first thought.

    It warns of more severe heatwaves, especially in big cities, and more intense rainfall, with an increased flood risk across most of the UK.

    It says homes, infrastructure and services must be made resilient to floods, heat and humid nights.

    The authors of the report on adaptation, or “climate-proofing”, warn that global warming can cause damage running into tens of billions of pounds over short periods – and they say they’re frustrated at the lack of government action….

    …The CCC is an independent group of experts set up to provide the government with advice on the climate crisis….”

    And, as with the similar Committee in New Zealand, it appears that “independent” doesn’t necessarily mean what ordinary folks would assume it means. And, as with NZ, the members of the committee may be very well-qualified to perform the role asked of them, but in what sense “independent”?

    https://www.theccc.org.uk/about/

    E.g. “Piers Forster is Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate and Professor of Physical Climate Change at the University of Leeds. Piers has played a significant role authoring Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and is a coordinating lead author role for the IPCC’s sixth assessment report.”

    “Rebecca Heaton is responsible for Drax Group’s efforts to mitigate climate change, ensuring that sound science underpins climate change polices and business strategy. She is also responsible for developing sustainability and climate change research programmes.”

    “Keith Bell is a co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has been at the University of Strathclyde since 2005, was appointed to the Scottish Power Chair in Smart Grids in 2013 and has been involved in energy system research in collaboration with many academic and industrial partners.”

    I suspect you’d struggle to find a dissenting voice among the Committee members, so again, in what sense are they “independent”?

    Like

  53. The BBC’s having another big push today:

    “Wales must prepare for ‘hotter, wetter future'”

    When you click on it, the headline changes to:

    “Wales’ climate change plans ‘not sufficient’, advisers says”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57487682

    “Lives and livelihoods are at risk if Wales does not do more to prepare for a hotter, wetter future, UK government advisers say.

    The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said current plans to protect people, infrastructure and wildlife “will not be sufficient”.

    It comes despite warnings in a series of reports by the CCC since 2011.

    The Welsh government has said climate change was “at the heart” of its decision making.

    Of the 61 risks identified by the CCC in its latest assessment of the impact of climate change in the UK, “more action” is needed in Wales to address 32 of them.

    Twenty six of the risks have increased in urgency since the last report in 2016.

    They include threats to the viability of coastal communities from sea level rise, flooding and erosion, people’s health from overheating in their homes, roads and railways from extreme weather and lightning, and wildlife across land and sea.”

    Like

  54. Oh look, there’s another one:

    “Rising temperatures in NI ‘need urgent attention'”

    When you click on it becomes:

    “Climate change: Warnings of flooding, drought and wildfires in NI”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57491770

    “Rising temperatures in NI are one of a series of climate indicators needing more urgent attention, an advisory body to government has said.

    The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) warned about greater risks of flooding, summer droughts and wildfires.

    These pose real challenges to communities, food production and infrastructure in the years ahead.

    The changing climatic conditions also threaten habitats and biodiversity.

    The findings are contained in an assessment of the risks posed by climate change to the devolved nations.

    The report is the work of the CCC which is an independent advisory body to government.”

    And there’s that word “independent” again. Independent of the government, maybe, but independent in what sense, otherwise? Group-think rules, I suspect.

    Like

  55. “Volvo to build steel cars without fossil fuels by 2026
    Swedish carmaker joins forces with steel firm to use technology that replaces coal with hydrogen”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/16/volvo-build-steel-cars-without-fossil-fuels

    “Volvo plans to build cars using steel made without fossil fuels by 2026, as part of a deal that could significantly reduce the carbon emissions from manufacturing its vehicles.

    The Swedish carmaker and compatriot steelmaker SSAB signed a letter of intent to commercialise technology that replaces coal with hydrogen in a crucial part of the process.

    Steel is a big contributor to global carbon emissions but it is widely seen as one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. Blastfurnaces use huge amounts of energy, while carbon dioxide is also released when coking coal is used to remove oxygen from iron ore.

    Volvo estimates the steel in its petrol and diesel cars accounts for 35% of carbon emitted during production. The figure is 20% for Volvo’s electric vehicles, which use significantly more energy in making batteries, although over the lifetime of an electric car, average resource and energy use is expected to be significantly lower.

    Substituting coking coal for hydrogen is expected to reduce emissions from steelmaking by at least 90%.

    The deal with SSAB is expected to make Volvo Cars, owned by the Chinese carmaker Geely, the first major marque to use the lower-emission steel. However, it will take some time to increase production to commercial scale and to test its safety.”

    Rather a lot of qualifications there, methinks. We’ll see.

    Like

  56. “Poorer households in UK should get free heat pumps, say experts
    Help is needed to replace gas boilers with low-carbon alternatives, warn builders, energy firms and charities”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/16/poorer-households-in-uk-should-get-free-heat-pumps-say-experts

    “Households on low incomes should be supplied with free heat pumps in order to kickstart the market for low-carbon heating equipment and meet the UK’s climate targets, experts have told the government.

    Heat pumps can currently cost thousands of pounds to install, but the more that are installed, the faster that cost is likely to come down. They are widely regarded as the best way to replace the UK’s gas boilers and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from homes.

    More than 20 organisations representing builders and construction businesses, energy companies and civil society groups have signed an open letter calling for a “fair heat deal” that would ensure people on low incomes can gain access to heat pumps.

    About 14% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating the UK’s poor housing stock, most of which is also draughty and energy inefficient. The group also called for insulation to be made available to people on low incomes.”

    So, another burden to be placed on the taxpayer. And, once installed, what are the poor people to do, given that their bills will go up and their homes won’t be as warm as they would be if they still had their gas boilers?

    Like

  57. I have an idea – just don’t do it, given the problems associated with it:

    “How to win over those who will lose most from a global carbon tax
    Barry Eichengreen
    Those who bear a disproportionate share of a carbon tax will mobilise against it … unless they are given reason not to”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/16/how-to-win-over-those-who-will-lose-most-from-a-global-carbon-tax

    “…Like any mass movement, the gilets jaunes had multiple grievances. But their most animating complaint was a fuel tax increase imposed in the name of combating climate change. Rural residents rely more on their cars, trucks, and tractors than do urban dwellers, who can ride a bicycle or take the subway to work. The tax increase hit them where it hurt, in the pocketbook….

    …Other countries can expect similar resistance, and not just from farmers. In the United States, President Joe Biden’s administration had to overcome the opposition of fishermen and whale watchers to approve an offshore windfarm near Martha’s Vineyard, cancelling a more ambitious project off the coast of Cape Cod. We can also expect opposition to a carbon tax to be regionally concentrated. In the US, that means states such as Texas, North Dakota, and others producing oil, gas, and coal.

    In addition, there is the danger that carbon taxes will worsen political polarisation and provoke a populist reaction similar to the response to the China shock. Workers displaced from the energy and transport sectors will blame the tax, even if the root causes lie elsewhere. Parents struggling to feed their kids and fill their petrol tanks will dismiss carbon taxation as an elite project championed by pointy-headed intellectuals. The China shock gave us Donald Trump. A carbon tax, imposed willy-nilly, could result in even worse….

    …We know that carbon taxation imposes higher costs on residents of small municipalities and rural areas than on urbanites. Similarly, poorer households spend a larger share of their income on food and transport, which are carbon intensive, than do wealthier households, which spend more on more environmentally friendly services. One US study estimates that the share of income absorbed by a carbon tax would be three times higher for the lowest-income quintile than for the highest….”

    Like

  58. Euro 2020 – France 1-0 Germany: Several in hospital after parachute protest

    I was not watching the game, so was unaware of this. A bit of spin being put on the protester’s message:

    He had the words “Kick out oil Greenpeace” written on his parachute and was given medical attention before being escorted away by security.

    Actually looking at the pic the parachute had the words “KICK OUT OIL! GREENPEACE” which has a rather different meaning.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57488478

    Liked by 1 person

  59. Mark, it doesn’t matter any more how ludicrous the story is. Of course we’re unprepared for climate chaos. I think our preparedness for an invasion by Martians is also sorely in need of improvement.

    Like

  60. JIT

    You beat me to it regarding the Greenpeace stunt. I wonder what fuel the aeroplane used?

    I’m hoping that the result will be increasing resentment against selfish people who take risks with other people’s welfare. In any event, although they say that there is no such thing as bad publicity, I imagine this won’t play well. It certainly deserves to rebound on them, IMO.

    Like

  61. Yesterday morning the Strategic Communications Manager for the UNFCCC’s High-Level Climate Champions had a somewhat low-level message for the world:

    It’s halve emissions before 2030, stupid!

    URL:twitter.com/slgoodenough/status/1404730929789259782

    Strategic or wot?

    Actually, having just spent an hour or so reading the guff put out by the High-Level Climate Champions’ Road to NowhereRace to Zero campaign and the associated Race to Zero Dialogues, Race to Zero Breakthroughs and Race to Resilience, I think Ms Goodenough* has the right approach. Keep it short, keep it simple. No wanging on about how mainstreamed multi-stakeholder milestone-tracking roadmaps can catalyse synergistic pathways to holistic solutioning between key non-state actors in the climate action ecosystem, thereby triggering tipping points that bring forward step-change as the new normal going forward.

    ===
    *It’s unfair to make fun of people’s names, especially when you’re using an alias, so I haven’t. But I can’t resist mentioning that one of Race to Zero’s high-level supporters is Mads Nipper, the CEO of Orsted, formerly known as DONG.

    Like

  62. St Ives has had 36 covid cases in the last seven days, a tally that’s nine up from yesterday’s, which was three up from the day before’s. The rolling rate for St Ives is now 517.5. That somewhat startling rate (higher than most areas in Blackburn) and similar ones nearby have made Cornwall go dark green on the govt’s covid map.

    URL:coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map

    A week ago, it was yellow.

    The rolling rates are based on resident populations, so don’t make a lot of sense in tourist areas, but it’s obvious that G7 hasn’t been kind to Cornwall.

    Liked by 1 person

  64. “Turow: Vast Polish coal mine infuriates the neighbours”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57484009

    “…Already the Czech Republic has asked the European Court of Justice – the EU’s top court – to fine Poland €5m (£4.3m; $6m) daily for disobeying the Court’s order to halt mining there. Polish and Czech ministers are due to meet in Prague on Thursday in a bid to resolve the dispute.

    And water is not the only issue. Turow contributes to CO2 pollution – a particular problem for Poland, whose energy sector is still about 80% dependent on coal.

    In the mine, excavating machines that dwarf small tower blocks dig soft brown coal, also known as lignite, to provide fuel for the adjacent power plant….”.

    That would be the lignite they mine so much of in Germany. Speaking of Germany, NordStream2 irritates lots of people, but you don’t see the BBC or the EU banging on about it (or German lignite mines, come to that).

    Like

  65. For the sake of clarity, if the Polish lignite mine causes environmental problems (and it may) that should indeed be a matter for concern. I simply call for consistency of approach. Polish lignite mines bad, German lignite mines….if not good, well, move along, nothing to see here.

    Like

  66. BT group busy tweeting about Hate and Climate Change stuff

    Like

  68. Euro2020: Terrifying moment a Greenpeace protester parachutes onto pitch before Germany vs France
    Evening Standard … https://youtu.be/KDVWclRNjys
    Greenpeace has apologised after two people were hospitalised with head injuries in its “reckless and dangerous” parachute stunt against a Euro 2020 sponsor last night.

    Plastic and metal rained on to the pitch and into stands when the protester hit overhead spidercam TV cables as he paraglided through the open roof just before the France v Germany game kicked off in Munich.
    He then lost control of the seated microlight with a rear fan propelling him under a yellow parachute at the Allianz Arena.
    French manager Didier Deschamps was forced to take cover as the activist, who struggled to right himself, narrowly avoided landing on his dugout and a group of fans in the front rows.

    Like

  69. Stew, the Greenpeace stunt was a protest about Volkswagen not phasing out fossil-fuelled* cars as fast as Greenpeace would like, yet the paragliding protester, Kai von Stietencron, himself drives a fossil-fuelled VW Polo. (All Polos are fossil-fuelled.) He also has a 4×4 parked in his driveway

    URL:translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.bild.de/news/inland/news-inland/nach-greenpeace-bruchlandung-beim-em-spiel-hier-humpelt-der-chaos-pilot-nach-hau-76762976.bild.html

    ===
    *Should that be ‘fossil fuel-fuelled’?

    Liked by 1 person

  70. 1pm will the local news do some #PRasNews
    Of course they will
    “Teachers will benefit from £third of a million, in Science/Maths training over the next 5 years from Dogger Bank wind-farm corp
    The money will train teachers and stimulate youngsters”

    OK the firm put out their PR today ..it’s actually a £1m programme , but split through 3 areas
    And during 5 years electric customers will probably be subsidising that wind farm by £5 BILLION.
    https://doggerbank.com/about/community/

    We’ll be investing £1m during the construction of our world-leading wind farm and working with education providers to support the development of skills for the future of green energy.
    (The mean they’re INDOCTRINATING the kids)

    We are passionate about inspiring young people for a working life in a net-zero world. During the construction of the wind farm we will increase and expand STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) provision in local communities with bespoke programmes in each key area.

    Liked by 1 person

  71. ITV local news … any #PRasNews?
    Yes, “It’s International Clean Air Day”
    presented by the weatherman Jon Mitchell.

    He used expert Alistair Lewis of York Uni.
    says cities are the problem. Made grand claims about man-made pollution
    ..so forgetting about pollen etc
    (asthma attacks correlate with grass pollen
    .. although manmade pollution doesn’t help)
    He made the claim pollution causes 28K to 36K deaths per year
    ( ..FakeNews … he’d be pushed to show us 1 death certificate nevermind 36K)

    Next unamed expert made asthnma claims
    Ah it’s Prof Jonathan Grigg (he founded a campaign group DoctorsAgainstDiesel which helped the Times promote electric cars, but fell a bit flat)

    The ITV Jon highlights the new AQI Air Quality Index graph, that they’ll be using on future shows.
    He made no mention of today’s pollution levels … Why’s that ?
    cos today air pollution is zero .. it’s been raining all day so it’s all been washed out.

    He finally mentioned natural stuff like Sahara dust quickly at the end.

    https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-17/air-quality-forecasting-pollution

    Like

  72. Does the BBC have an IT glitch, or are they deliberately re-posting old out-of-date articles to scare people, making it seem as though it’s current news when it isn’t? Today this appeared on the “Science & Environment” [sic] section of the website:

    “Arctic sea-ice shrinks to near record low extent”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54211760

    That’s odd, I thought, given how cold it’s been over the recent winter in the northern hemisphere, and given that we’re not yet at the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere – so much ice-loss can be expected over the coning months. How can we have reached a near-record ice-loss so early in the season? Then the penny dropped. The article is dated 21st September 2020.

    Why has it magically appeared on the website now? Incompetence or a cynical attempt to make the public think that things are worse than they are?

    Like

  73. “Small steps taken to make shipping greener”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54985109

    “Delegates at a high-level meeting have agreed new guidelines intended to make shipping compatible with UN climate change goals.

    The London talks, organised by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), settled on a plan to align the industry with the Paris climate treaty.

    Scientists say ships are a key source of pollution, producing a billion tonnes in CO2 emissions each year.

    Shipping was left out of the original Paris negotiations in 2015.

    But three years later, the IMO agreed it had to act to make the sector comply with the landmark climate deal, which aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in order to limit global temperature rise.

    Emissions of carbon dioxide from shipping represent about 3% of the global total.

    The new rules set guidelines to make ships more efficient in how they operate and in so doing reduce their emissions, in line with Paris targets.

    Tuesday’s proposals were overwhelmingly backed by the majority of the delegates to the meeting. But with little enthusiasm.

    Delegate after delegate complained about the lack of ambition of the plans and that, at best, today’s outcome was “a small step”.

    Britain’s representative at the talks, Katy Ware, summed up the mood of many who supported the new rules.

    She said: “The UK must join others in stressing its disappointment in the lack of ambition in the draft regulations. Going forward, we call on all member states to work in unison to tackle the climate crisis.”

    Only three countries rejected the new guidelines: the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.”

    Like

  74. “Humber carbon capture scheme ‘may create 49,000 jobs'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-54986043

    “Developing technology to capture and store harmful climate-changing emissions may create up to 49,000 jobs, a report suggests.

    The Drax Group, which commissioned the report, said some of the jobs, earmarked for the Humber region, “could be created as early as 2024”.

    The firm owns the UK’s largest power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, and is testing carbon capture techniques.

    An MP said it was “critical” people had the skills needed for the jobs.”

    These things are difficult. Apart from the weasel word “may” in the headline, which turns out to be compounded by more weasel words (“up to”) in the story with a further qualification that “some” (proportion not stated) of the jobs “could” be created by “as early as” (there’s biased reporting – why not say the earliest date that any of the jobs might be created is 3 years out?), there’s the fact that if the 49,000 jobs are reasonably paid, we’re probably looking at a cost to consumers from funding those jobs of £1.5Bn. These are jobs that don’t result in more power being generated. They’re an on-cost. How is this good news?

    Like

  75. “Rolls-Royce’s jet engines to run on synthetic fuels as part of net-zero plans
    Manufacturer says all products launched after 2030 will use sustainable fuels yet to be approved”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/17/rolls-royces-jet-engines-to-run-on-synthetic-fuels-as-part-of-net-zero-plans

    “Rolls-Royce, the jet engine maker, has said that all products launched after 2030 will be capable of running with net zero carbon emissions as part of decarbonising plans that rely heavily on replacing fossil fuels with synthetic alternatives that are yet to be approved.

    The manufacturer and other aviation companies face a huge challenge to cut their products’ carbon emissions. No existing technology can fly passengers across the world without producing tonnes of carbon dioxide.

    Rolls-Royce is instead pinning its hopes on synthetic fuels, which the industry calls “sustainable aviation fuels”, or SAF. Almost identical chemically, but produced from non-oil sources, the fuels could theoretically result in significantly less or even zero new carbon emissions across their lifecycle.

    Rolls-Royce plans to gain regulatory approval by 2023 for using synthetic fuels in all engine models currently in production, the company said on Thursday. That would mean two-thirds of existing planes using Rolls-Royce engines could be adapted with minor engineering changes.

    However, the company has so far been unable to set interim science-based targets – the gold standard – for reducing its group-wide carbon emissions because of uncertainty over how the supply of synthetic fuel will grow.”

    As so often, the detail behind the story differs somewhat from the eye-catching headline.

    Like

  76. “Scottish government provides £26m to help green energy transition”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-57539254

    “An energy transition zone in Aberdeen is being allocated £26m by the Scottish government to help the transition from oil and gas jobs to green energy.

    This almost matches funds provided by the UK government.

    The zone aims to transform the area into a hub for cleaner energies such as offshore wind and hydrogen.

    Planned projects include manufacturing for floating offshore wind farms, a skills academy and facilities for testing hydrogen power.

    The Aberdeen Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) is being built south of Aberdeen harbour and is expected to directly support 2,500 green jobs by 2030, alongside a further 10,000 transition-related jobs.”

    If these jobs are so good, and if the transition is so obvious, and if renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, why the need for all this taxpayer cash?

    Like

  77. 13:45pm The same dogmatic thinking was parroted
    at 8 minutes of 15min prog.
    “Technology continues to derange and warp our understanding of what’s TRUE
    Take The Climate Crisis ..we have a finite amount of time”
    ..FFS The guy is taking for granted that his Climate Alarmist side is right

    The irony was that the guy pushed Climate Alarmism dogma in a talk dedicated to to the laudable topic of stopping people getting into bubbleworlds
    He @TristanHarris was plugging his film The Social Dilemma
    ==================================

    He continued
    “Social media profits by putting people into their own echo-chambers, instead of nuanced view of reality (OK)
    (The climate bit I already mentioned continues )
    .. we should’ve taken action 40 years ago
    so we can do it step by step
    (FFS HE’s THE ONE IN A BUBBLE
    he thinks that nothing happened since 1981 !!!
    In reality pure economic drive has meant that processes get more and more energy efficient
    Not through Mickey Mouse things like Sola/Wind power or electric cars .
    but rather petrol/diesel engines are way more efficient
    gas power has taken over coal power/heating
    that’s the big CO2 saving )

    (He continues)
    But no, now we are going to have to take such dramatic action so quickly !
    We need new tech for this problem
    we need camaraderie spirit (true that is better)
    Today’s social media that polarises us is bad and detrimental to problem solving (OK now he is onto something
    but it’s the skeptics who have been ostracised by the alarmist elites)
    .. The polarisation means “we” don’t look for what’s true , but ask if it supports OUR team’s worldview, only then do we accept it ”

    You used to work at Google, why are you revealing he inside secrets ?
    “Yeh they use tricks like notifications to get you into an addictive loop”

    Look at social movements like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Ralf Nader
    they brought awareness, how did catalyse change ? how can we do that ?
    The lead study on kids IQ’s was a breakthrough
    but today Social Media drops our collective IQ
    (rubbish ! it has dropped dogmatist’s IQ’s but increased the skeptics’)

    “We need awareness to help family members come out of their rabbit holes”
    (True he has a point )
    .. A lot of of people get wrapped up winning for their side
    instead of getting truth and moving forward.
    (He blames Social Media for that, but I disagree much of politics has always been tribal like that.
    I agree it would be good if the economics of tech companies meant they earned more from opening debate, rather from polarising people into rabbit holes.

    His words are not verbatim, I edited them, cos he could speak clearer
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000vp31

    Like

  78. That was a Radio4 piece today
    Throughout the day Global Warming dogma was just dropped into so many progs
    Mad green claims that suit narratives are just waved through, cos there is no opposing voice.
    11am R4 show claimed in passing
    that Ghengis Khan killed so many people he halted global warming.
    …
    Em actually if people were burning wood not fossil fuels
    and planting crops at the same time they did land clearance
    then there wouldn’t have been manmade CO2 anyway.

    11:30am Politics show ended with Chris Packham and Baroness Young making grand claims
    all PR for COP 26

    They said that Britain is getting drastically more polluted air
    and drastically hotter
    then said we must have UK species not species brought in from the Mediterranean
    .. hang on surely a warmer country needs warmer species ?

    5:30pm Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
    #ClimateCrisis ? President of #COP26
    @AlokSharma_RDG says his “lightbulb moment” was watching @algore’s An Inconvenient Truth

    the Radio4 schedule page links to the wrong prog page
    It’s here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09lwtmd

    Like

  80. 7:35am R4 religion show Rowan Williams was plugging his book
    presenter fed him lines so he could push agendas
    eg What about G7 ?
    “oh it’s the African nations that will suffer most from Climate Change”

    Like

  81. Been said before
    Scottish Renewables CEO Claire Mack says
    Offshore WIND: Network Charge Rules Jeopardise Scotland’s Offshore Wind Ambitions – Scottish Renewables.
    https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/06/18/network-charge-rules-jeopardise-scotlands-offshore-wind-ambitions-scottish-renewables/
    …The Transmission Network Use of System charge is not levied on European renewable energy projects, meaning it is cheaper to build wind farms there and sell the power to the UK through a growing number of interconnector cables, than build home-grown clean power plants, according to the Scottish renewable energy association.

    Like

  83. Evidence the public are not eco-warriors
    They’re buying giant paddling pools
    Times “No longer content with a quick paddle, people are buying pools up to 15ft long that are large enough to float in on a lilo. Some take a day to fill — even with a hose.
    Retailers say the pandemic has accelerated the trend for enormous paddling pools as families deprived of a summer holiday overseas create their own water parks — complete with slides — at home.
    John Lewis said that while sales of inflatable pools have risen by 78 per cent since 2019, sales of its largest, 12ft-diameter pool, which costs £99.99, jumped 240 per cent.”

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/families-dip-more-than-a-toe-into-giant-paddling-pools-5v93v8jnv

    Like

  84. “Climate change: How can you make your home eco-friendly?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57226425

    “With new homes being built with eco-friendly design in mind, older properties can prove the worst offenders when it comes to their carbon footprint.

    But making alterations to your existing home can be costly, running into hundreds or even thousands of pounds.

    So, how can homeowners make their properties kinder to the environment while keeping costs down?

    We spoke to the Welsh government and Energy Saving Trust to find out….”.

    Hmm, “hundreds or even thousand of pounds…”. And the rest!

    Like

  85. Stew, here’s the subhead of that ‘Dormouse scurrying to extinction in warming Britain’ article in The Times:

    Creatures such as dormice and hedgehogs, already under threat, are being pushed to the brink by climate change. We have two years to save them, a new report warns

    The report doesn’t mention dormice in any of its 1,478 pages.

    Also, I’m not sure that dormice scurry. I think they scramble and hop.

    (Judging by hazelnut shells whose holes sometimes have fairly smooth rims, I might have dormice in my garden. But that’s probably wishful thinking.)

    Like

  86. Stew’s report doesn’t mention hedgehogs either. The only passage that I can find that might be relevant to dormice, hedgehogs etc is this:

    While there is a mixed response to climate change within and across taxa, some, such as mammals[,] show an overall net positive response (Burns et al., 2016). This may be dependent on factors such as geography, ecology of the species and habitat changes, but the threat posed by climate change to many species (Risk N1) should not be underplayed.

    Which is the usual ‘good news doesn’t invalidate the precautionary principle’ shtick.

    Also, the report doesn’t say that we have two years to save the UK’s wildlife from climate change, or indeed from anything else.

    The article says this:

    The CCC report said there is a “once[-]in-a-generation opportunity in the next two years” to build policies that will protect Britain’s wildlife, given the “wholesale review” of environmental and agricultural policy being drawn up after Brexit. If action is not taken soon, many changes will be “locked-in” and become impossible to reverse, it warned.

    Er, no. The report does talk about potential eco-damage being locked-in if we don’t get the post-Brexit eco-regs right, but does it say that we have only two years for that?

    Prolly not.

    This is the closest quote I can find:

    Given the opportunities associated with developing new trading relations post-EU exit, coupled with investment in post-COVID-19 economic reconstruction, there is a window of opportunity in the next five years to focus on resilience[-]building.

    Which doesn’t have a whole lot to do with using Brexit to improve our wildlife’s chances of survival.

    But I’ve read only about five complete pages of what is no doubt an admirable, if sometimes badly edited, report. (Lead author: Richard Betts.)

    Liked by 2 people

  87. “Students protest at Science Museum over sponsorship by Shell
    Student Climate Network planning more demonstrations over oil firm’s funding of climate crisis exhibition”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/19/students-protest-at-science-museum-over-sponsorship-by-shell

    “A group of activists who were threatened with arrest on Saturday evening after staging an “occupation” of the Science Museum in London have vowed to renew their fight on Sunday.

    The London branch of the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) organised a demonstration at the museum in protest at its decision to accept sponsorship from fossil fuel giant Shell.

    The museum in South Kensington has partnered with Shell to fund its Our Future Planet exhibition about carbon capture and storage and nature-based solutions to the climate crisis.

    On Saturday afternoon, a group of activists draped a banner reading “Drop Shell Sponsorship” from one of the museum’s balconies.

    Other protesters brandished anti-Shell placards, while some gave speeches about the company and global warming that were livestreamed on the group’s social media platforms.”

    Like

  88. “Head of Independent Sage to launch international climate change group
    Sir David King hopes to emulate success of British Covid advisory body by issuing monthly reports on environmental crisis”

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/20/head-of-independent-sage-to-launch-international-climate-change-group

    “Several of the world’s leading scientists plan to launch an independent expert group this week to advise, warn and criticise global policymakers about the climate and nature crises.

    The new body has been inspired by Independent Sage – the cluster of British scientists who have held UK ministers and civil servants to account for their lack of transparency and mishandling of the Covid pandemic.

    The Climate Crisis Advisory Group, comprising 14 experts from 10 nations and every continent, aims to have more of an international reach and provide the global public with regular analysis about efforts to tackle the global heating and biodiversity crises.

    Headed by the former UK chief scientific adviser Sir David King, the new group will issue monthly updates about the state of the global environment at meetings that will be open to the media and the public. These online gatherings will be chaired by the BBC presenter Ade Adepitan.”

    Paul Homewood is on it:

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/06/20/david-king-crawls-back-out-of-woodwork/#more-51540

    Liked by 1 person

  89. SkyNews video 2 weeks old : https://youtu.be/6zfz7AEaZ48
    ‘Green warriors’ need to be ‘aware of the realities’ around climate change
    “This week, a global solar risk assessment, published by solar news outlet PVTECH, reported that solar assets are experiencing higher than expected rates of degradation.
    “And as to achieving promised outputs, it showed that one in eight solar assets chronically underperform.”
    Hollie Hughs MP”Yep we need coal, won’t be closing mines, but one day battery power might solve this” (deluded on that last bit)

    Like

  90. Betts ! ..did Ward write it for him ?

    Top Times’ comment
    “It is a lie! The main problem for a dormouse is winter survival and for dormice it is environmental change notably changes in woodland management and farming practice. You can see from the distribution map high temperatures are not an issue because they are doing better in the South.
    Too easy to blame climate change which lets you off the harder task of tackling the real problem”
    .. And the ever vigilant Richard Stout says the same there as well

    Comments haven’t picked up the report doesn’t mention dormice
    They do say the one the Roman’s ate is different ,..this hazel one is much smaller

    Like

  91. The Times 8 tweet thread goes into to decline of species
    and then finally implies it’s all in the CCC report
    … https://twitter.com/thesundaytimes/status/1406592202457980928

    Wiki : “Though Ireland has no native dormouse, the hazel dormouse was discovered in County Kildare in 2010, and appears to be spreading rapidly, helped by the prevalence of hedgerows in the Irish countryside.”

    In the UK “A 2020 study found that hazel dormice in Britain have declined by 51% since 2000. Woodland habitat loss and management and a warming climate are seen as material threats to their future status”

    As to the Roman edible dormouse
    “in 1902 some of the animals escaped and reproduced, establishing themselves in the wild as an invasive species.
    Today, the British edible dormouse population is thought to be 10,000 strong,[10] and Glis glis have been recorded in a 25-kilometre (16-mile) radius of Tring, “

    Like

  92. R4 2pm drama is a ficiion set in a Norfolk wetland reserve
    stars Sophie Okonedo and Rylance
    “conservation taking place in the face of rapid environmental change in the wetlands of Norfolk, and everywhere.”
    recorded at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen.

    Like

  94. Countryfile zero-grazing farm, 200 cows kept in barns
    sounds bad , but cost the machines cut the grass there is zero wastage through cows trampling it
    They cut 20T /day…100KG for each cow

    Like

  95. Assuming the reportage is correct, this looks like yet another example of environmentalists getting it wrong again:

    “Tasmanian devils devastate penguin population on Australian island”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57558396

    “A project to preserve endangered Tasmanian devils on a small island has backfired after the predators killed seabirds in large numbers, a conservation group says.

    A small number of devils were shipped to Maria Island east of Tasmania, Australia, in 2012.

    The move aimed to protect the mammals from a deadly facial cancer that had driven them towards extinction.

    The devils have recovered since, but the island project has come at a cost.

    The introduction of the devils to the island has had “a catastrophic impact on one or more bird species”, according to BirdLife Tasmania, a local conservation organisation.”

    Cane toads, anyone?

    Like

  96. I never thought I’d see these views aired at the Guardian:

    “If we want to fight the climate crisis, we must embrace nuclear power
    Bhaskar Sunkara
    A powerful form of clean energy already exists – and it is far more reliable than wind and solar”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/21/fight-climate-crisis-clean-energy-nuclear-power

    “On 30 April, the Indian Point nuclear power plant 30 miles north of New York City was shut down. For decades the facility provided the overwhelming majority of the city’s carbon-free electricity as well as good union jobs for almost a thousand people. Federal regulators had deemed the plant perfectly safe.

    New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, a key figure behind the move, said that the shuttering of Indian Point brought us “a big step closer to achieving our aggressive clean energy goals”. It’s hard to reconcile that optimism with the data that’s recently come out. The first full month without the plant has seen a 46% increase in the average carbon intensity of statewide electric generation compared to when Indian Point was fully operational. New York replaced clean energy from Indian Point with fossil fuel sources like natural gas.

    It’s a nightmare we should have seen coming. In Germany, nuclear power formed around a third of the country’s power generation in 2000, when a Green party-spearheaded campaign managed to secure the gradual closure of plants, citing health and safety concerns. Last year, that share fell to 11%, with all remaining stations scheduled to close by next year. A recent paper found that the last two decades of phased nuclear closures led to an increase in CO2 emissions of 36.3 megatons a year – with the increased air pollution potentially killing 1,100 people annually.

    Like New York, Germany coupled its transition away from nuclear power with a pledge to spend more aggressively on renewables. Yet the country’s first plant closures meant carbon emissions actually increased, as the production gap was immediately filled through the construction of new coal plants. Similarly, in New York the gap will be filled in part by the construction of three new gas plants. For the Germans, investment in renewables did eventually pay dividends, but it largely replaced the old nuclear plants’ output rather than reducing existing fossil fuel consumption. The carbon intensity of German electricity is higher than the EU average.

    However, even a more aggressive investment in renewable energy wouldn’t have solved Germany’s problem. There are just a handful of large economies that have already mostly decarbonized their grids; all of them have a foundation of nuclear or hydroelectricity (or both), and then to greater or lesser degrees add renewables like wind and solar on top. This is because nuclear and hydro are able to provide electricity whenever we need it. These “firm” sources of clean electricity do not need to wait for the sun to shine or the wind to blow to power the ventilators in our hospitals. Batteries and other forms of energy storage are great, and we need much more funding of research and development to make them even better, but until huge technological leaps occur, sustainables are hindered by the need for cooperative weather.”

    Like

  97. “Australia’s top economists back government intervention to speed switch to electric cars
    Majority support subsidising EV purchases and setting a date to ban import of petrol-powered cars, while others prefer a carbon tax to lower emissions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/21/australias-top-economists-back-government-intervention-to-speed-switch-to-electric-cars

    “Australia’s top economists overwhelmingly back government measures to speed the transition to electric cars in order to meet emission reduction targets.

    An exclusive poll of 62 of Australia’s preeminent economists – selected by their peers – finds 51 back measures to boost the takeup of electric cars including subsidising public charging stations, subsidising the purchase of all-electric vehicles, and setting a date to ban the import of traditionally powered cars.

    Only 11 oppose such measures, three of them because they prefer a carbon tax.

    Six of the 51 who supported special measures said they did so reluctantly, as their preferred alternative would be a carbon price or a carbon tax, rather than subsidising “one alternative out of many to reduce emissions”.

    Has anyone asked the Australian public? Thought not, but it looks as though they’re voting with their purses and wallets:

    “Cars account for roughly half of Australia’s transport emissions, making them about 8% of Australia’s total emissions.

    Yet Australia’s takeup of electric vehicles is dwarfed by the rest of the world.

    On one measure, all-electric cars accounted for just 0.7% of new car sales in Australia in 2020 compared with 5% in China and 3.5% in the European Union.”

    Like

  98. I just posted at Pauls to alert him to #ShowYourStripes Day PR stunt, that media running

    I came across a twitter thread and replied to the guy
    I’d never come across the Guardian article
    saying ‘In 1959 Edward Teller warned Big Oil of of climate doom’
    That is a bit strange cos he was a skeptic in the end
    The killer thing his big doom prediction has way passed now

    I found a debunk article https://web.archive.org/web/20200513233736/https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/no-joke-during-record-cold-spell-the-guardian-warns-of-global-warming/

    but a twitter account W illiam Connolley of all people also pointed to a debunk on the Stoat blog
    http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2018/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959.html

    Like

  101. stewgreen, inevitably the BBC has this:

    “Climate change: Stripes campaign ‘started conversations'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-57560185

    “A campaign to visualise climate change has “started millions of conversations”, its creator has said.

    Prof Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, came up with the “warming stripes” graphics to illustrate temperatures changing over time.

    A social media campaign was supported by scientists, TV weather presenters and celebrities around the world.

    The university has also announced it will host an online climate education summit ahead of the COP26 talks.

    Climate scientist Prof Hawkins said he developed the graphics in 2017 as means of displaying climate change in a “visual and accessible” manner.

    Each coloured stripe represents the average temperature for a year since 1850 – blue for cooler temperatures and red for hotter years.”

    News by press release.

    Like

  102. I suppose it’s an ill wind that blows no good. Gabon gets paid, not for protecting its ecology, but for the impact of that on its CO2 emissions. Still, if it encourages it to stop cutting forest down, I suppose that’s a good thing, even if it’s for the wrong reasons:

    “Gabon is first African country paid to protect its rainforest”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-57567829

    “Gabon has become the first African country to receive payment for reducing carbon emissions by protecting its rainforest.

    The UN-backed Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) has handed over $17m (£12m) – the first tranche of a $150m deal struck in 2019.

    Nearly 90% of Gabon is covered by forest, which captures more carbon than the country emits.

    Rainforests are vital for absorbing the globe’s climate-heating emissions.

    Gabon has been able to show that it managed to reduce deforestation and so lower its carbon emissions in 2016 and 2017 compared to the previous decade, Cafi says.

    As a result Norway, through Cafi, has paid Gabon $17m based on a formula relating to the number of tonnes of carbon that would otherwise have been released. The rest of the $150m should be handed over in the coming years.”

    The initial payment represents just 0.1% of Gabon’s annual GDP, but Forest Minister Lee White told the BBC that it was a significant first step.

    Norway has validated Gabon’s systems for monitoring deforestation and carbon emissions, which could be used to help high carbon-emitting countries pay Gabon for managing its resources in the future, the minister said.”

    Like

  103. “Wales transport: Freeze on all new road building projects”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-57552390

    “All new road-building projects in Wales are being frozen while the Welsh government conducts a review.

    It means plans for the Deeside “Red Route”, the Llandeilo bypass, and a third Anglesey crossing will be put on hold.

    Ministers believe its necessary as part of Wales’ effort to reduce carbon emissions.

    The Tories said the decision was a “significant blow for our recovery” and that more information was needed.

    Meanwhile Plaid Cymru said the review cannot mean communities “are left behind”.”

    They’re all united about the urgent need to get to “net zero”, but not about the consequences, it seems.

    Like

  104. “UK aviation’s carbon plan allows rising emissions from planes
    Industry says buying carbon offsets means overall emissions will fall compared with peak year of 2019”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/uk-aviations-carbon-plan-allows-rising-emissions-from-planes

    “The UK aviation industry has announced carbon targets that allow emissions from planes to increase into the mid-2030s. It says buying carbon offsets will result in overall emissions falling compared with 2019 levels.

    The move was welcomed by government ministers. But environmental groups said the industry was “trying to have its cake and eat it” and said only reducing flights would guarantee the carbon cuts needed to tackle the climate crisis. Aviation caused 7% of the UK’s emissions in 2018.

    The UK’s climate change laws use 1990 as a reference year and, compared with this, the aviation industry is planning for emissions to be about double by 2030. The sector’s peak year for emissions was 2019, which is the year it has chosen to use.”

    Like

  105. “Activists fear Biden’s climate pledges are falling apart: ‘We aren’t seeing grit’
    The president took swift action upon entering the White House, but recent developments raise concern his agenda has stalled”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/22/biden-climate-change-plan-environment

    “On his first day at the White House, Joe Biden earned praise for following through on several campaign promises, committing the US to strict climate goals and a greener future. Now, nearly six months into his presidency, several of those commitments are being put to the test, and already, many are falling apart.

    A court last week ruled that the Biden administration did not have the authority to unilaterally pause oil and gas lease sales across the US. The decision came alongside news that congressional bargaining over Biden’s climate and infrastructure bill is hitting a wall with Republicans and the administration is now considering a slimmed-down version.

    Together, the developments are compounding a list of worries by environmentalists. Many fear Biden’s promises on climate may turn out to be more talk than action.

    “We aren’t seeing the fight and the grit that gives us the full hope,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director of WildEarth Guardians. “There’s something to be said about posturing and sending the message that you are for real, these aren’t just words, that these are values, and they are going to fight for them and build the right level of support to get things across the finish line.”

    Last week’s ruling on new oil and gas lease sales, handed down by a Trump appointee, Judge Terry Doughty of the US district court for the western district of Louisiana, creates a major hitch for Biden’s climate action plan. Louisiana’s attorney general and 12 other states originally filed the suit against the Biden administration’s leasing pause, arguing it would harm their states economically. Most of those states heavily rely on the sale of oil and gas and subsidies for the industry.”

    Like

  106. An EU-sponsored artwork from 2001:

    Mmmm. How very inspiring.

    (Did it inspire Prof Hawkins? Dunno.)

    Like

  107. 9:30am I am assaulted by BBC Green agenda pushing again
    A doctor’s lecture about her campaign to get more Green POLITICS into the NHS

    An item that begins with a Trojan horse of talking about a sick little boy Ahmed and helping him get fit by leaving his flat more.

    It had the normal problems
    : overstatement eg that the asthma that killed Kissigani was CAUSED by traffic pollution
    No it was probably made worse by pollution
    : mixing up Climate Change and plastic pollution…they are two different things
    If plastic is used properly it doesn’t create CO2
    : The idea that green measures are Win/Win
    … Britains high electric prices due to green measures do a lot of harm
    .. Veganism was pushed tooWelcoming us into her consulting room to meet her patients,
    Tamsin describes her journey to climate activism,
    and why she’s convinced that looking for ‘double wins’ is the way forward.
    From giving a lecture about the environment to a sea of faces all sipping coffee from plastic cups,
    to the challenges of winning over already hard-pressed colleagues,
    in this witty talk Tamsin describes the realities of climate activism on the NHS frontline.
    As she prescribes health interventions with positive side-effects for the planet,
    she offers a new way to talk about climate change.Prog in on 3 times this week
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x4vq

    Like

  108. 9:30am I am assaulted by BBC Green agenda pushing again
    A doctor’s lecture about her campaign to get more Green POLITICS into the NHS

    An item that begins with a Trojan horse of talking about a sick little boy Ahmed and helping him get fit by leaving his flat more.

    It had the normal problems
    : overstatement eg that the asthma that killed Kissigani was CAUSED by traffic pollution
    No it was probably made worse by pollution
    : mixing up Climate Change and plastic pollution…they are two different things
    If plastic is used properly it doesn’t create CO2
    : The idea that green measures are Win/Win
    … Britains high electric prices due to green measures do a lot of harm
    .. Veganism was pushed too

    Welcoming us into her consulting room to meet her patients,
    Tamsin describes her journey to climate activism,
    and why she’s convinced that looking for ‘double wins’ is the way forward.
    From giving a lecture about the environment to a sea of faces all sipping coffee from plastic cups,
    to the challenges of winning over already hard-pressed colleagues,
    in this witty talk Tamsin describes the realities of climate activism on the NHS frontline.
    As she prescribes health interventions with positive side-effects for the planet,
    she offers a new way to talk about climate change.

    Prog in on 3 times this week
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x4vq

    Like

  109. 10:48am -10:55am I am assaulted by BBC Green agenda pushing again
    “Eco novels”

    “Two novels – one published tomorrow and one just out in paperback explore the human impact of environmental disaster through the lives of girls and women.
    They both ask – what is really important to us?
    What lasts when everything we think we need is stripped away?     ”

    #1 Diane Cook : ‘The New Wilderness’
    All nature has been destroyed except for one bit where a few humans live as hunter gatherers

    #2 Kate Sawyer, author of ‘The Stranding’, her first novel
    Ends up an an eco-apocalypse
    main character lives in the carcass of a whale
    Appears to an eco-lecture.

    The preceding item was about Ugandan squatter women
    with : Sostine Namanya of NAPE (National Association of Professional Environmentalists committed to sustainable solutions to Uganda )
    The item was a way of saying “see this is what the Tory aid cuts do !“

    Like

  110. She’s Tamsin Ellis @climate_gp

    Tweet in support of her
    “The impact of climate change on mental health is something that I am very passionate about”
    FFS it’s the alarmism that hurts mental health

    Liked by 1 person

  111. “bumblebees” in New Scientist the sciency advertising mag, quickly repeated by the BBC
    spoiler right at the end he admits “the bees can adapt” … so there is no worry

    “Climate change could turn bumblebees into picky eaters
    Temperature and humidity changes that influence the way flowers grow can make bumblebees picky eaters
    – and climate change *could* make them even more so.
    This suggests that rising temperatures could have an impact on pollination rates, which are already in decline.”
    Bristol Uni behaviourist The author’s own tweet thread
    Shows he doesn’t even know how to refer to the BBC programme
    It was Mondays R4 10pm news at 10:40pm in their “Daily Look at Climate Change” segment

    Like

  114. R4 Farming Today : 16/06/21
    A new report says the Government is not adapting fast enough to the risks from climate change.
    (The keep telling a lie often enough dept)
    “A new report by the Climate Change Committee shows that the gap between the level of risk from climate change and the level of adaptation to those risks, has widened, and that although the UK has the capacity and the resources to respond to the risks, it hasn’t done so.”

    Like

  115. Local news have made another Green PR as News video item
    from a report aired on radio 7 days ago

    They’ve tweeted it twice today

    Like

  116. BBC local news : Tonight’s #PRasNews
    “Putting together like a jigsaw, a giant windfarm”

    #GreenBlob

    Justin Rowlatt “it’s the UK’s energy revolution”
    “It’s made a new industry here in the Northeast”
    …(Hull is the North not Northeast .. that’s Middlesbrough and Newcastle)
    Then a massive lie
    “Now the UK wind industry is virtually subsidy free”
    wind costs £130 per MWh gas power costs £35/
    MWh
    so wind’s getting a subsidy of £95 per MWh”
    plus no mining tax, plus its not real constant power etc.

    Like

  117. “England’s first double-decker hydrogen buses to launch in London”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57578043

    “England’s first fleet of hydrogen powered double-decker buses are set to be introduced in London.

    Twenty of the vehicles, which produce no pollution from their exhausts, will serve the number 7 route between East Acton and Oxford Circus.

    Transport for London already has more than 500 electric buses in its fleet as it aims to be zero-emission by 2030.

    The new buses can be charged once a day within five minutes and the only direct by-product is water.”

    This looks like the standard BBC tactic of reporting something before it happens, then reporting it when it does happen, so they get two bites at the cherry.

    Like

  119. “Green light for Ratcliffe-on-Soar waste incinerator angers campaigners”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-57572003

    “Environmental campaigners say they are disappointed after plans for a £330m waste incinerator were approved.

    The facility will be built at Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power station in Nottinghamshire, which is due to be decommissioned in five years.

    Opponents say incineration sends significant amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    Site owner Uniper said the facility would help the UK to effectively and efficiently reduce waste.”

    Subject to real toxins not being released into the atmosphere, it always seems to me that burning waste products to generate energy makes much more sense than sending them to landfill or to Asia to be “recycled” only for them to be dumped into rivers and oceans.

    Like

  120. Another story from the “it’s worse than we thought” school (it always is):

    “IPCC steps up warning on climate tipping points in leaked draft report
    Scientists increasingly concerned about thresholds beyond which recovery may become impossible”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/climate-change-dangerous-thresholds-un-report

    “Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that global heating will trigger tipping points in Earth’s natural systems, which will lead to widespread and possibly irrevocable disaster, unless action is taken urgently.

    The impacts are likely to be much closer than most people realise, a a draft report from the world’s leading climate scientists suggests, and will fundamentally reshape life in the coming decades even if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under some control.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is preparing a landmark report to be published in stages this summer and next year. Most of the report will not be published in time for consideration by policymakers at Cop26, the UN climate talks taking place in November in Glasgow.

    A draft of the IPCC report apparently from early this year was leaked to Agence France-Presse, which reported on its findings on Thursday.”

    Leaked, eh? How convenient.

    Like

  121. “Draft EU policy to cut shipping emissions condemned as ‘disaster’
    Exclusive: leak reveals law promotes liquified natural gas and will lock in fossil fuel use for decades, says NGO”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/eu-policy-to-cut-shipping-carbon-emissions-would-be-disaster-leak

    “A leaked draft of a key EU policy designed to cut carbon emissions in shipping, one of the world’s biggest polluters, has been described as an environmental disaster for “promoting” liquified natural gas, a fossil fuel, as an alternative to heavy oil.

    The decision, says an NGO that has analysed the plans, will ‘lock in the use of fossil fuels for decades to come and make the EU’s target of net emissions neutrality by 2050 unreachable.

    The green fuel law for EU shipping – FuelEU Maritime – is due to be published on 14 July. But a draft of the policy seen by the Guardian reveals the European Commission has considered but rejected requiring specific green fuels to be used by shipowners.

    Brussels has instead opted for a goal-based approach that would set increasingly stringent “greenhouse gas intensity targets” to be met for the energy used on board.

    The commission’s leaked paper says this approach, rather than a “prescriptive” fuel regulation, “answers the needs for flexibility, which have been stressed by stakeholders during the consultation activities” (in particular operators and ports). The commission cites the fast pace of technological developments as a factor in its decision.”

    There seem to be an awful lot of leaks at the moment….

    Like

  122. “Most new wind and solar projects will be cheaper than coal, report finds
    Almost two-thirds of renewable energy schemes built globally last year expected to undercut coal costs”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/most-new-wind-solar-projects-cheaper-than-coal-report

    “Almost two-thirds of wind and solar projects built globally last year will be able to generate cheaper electricity than even the world’s cheapest new coal plants, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).

    The agency found that the falling cost of new windfarms and solar panels meant 62% of new renewable energy projects could undercut the cost of up to 800 gigawatts (GW) worth of coal plants, or almost enough to supply the UK’s electricity needs 10 times over.

    Solar power costs fell by 16% last year, according to the report, while the cost of onshore wind dropped 13% and offshore wind by 9%.

    In less than a decade the cost of large-scale solar power has fallen by more than 85% while onshore wind has fallen almost 56% and offshore wind has declined by almost 48%. Francesco La Camera, Irena’s director general, said the agency’s latest research proved the world was “far beyond the tipping point of coal”.

    He said: “Today renewables are the cheapest source of power. Renewables present countries tied to coal with an economically attractive phase-out agenda that ensures they meet growing energy demand, while saving costs, adding jobs, boosting growth and meeting climate ambition.”

    In Europe, the cost of a new coal plant would be well above the cost of new wind and solar farms including mandatory carbon prices. The report found that in the US renewable energy could undercut between three-quarters and 91% of existing coal-fired power plants, while in India renewable energy would be cheaper than between 87% and 91% of new coal plants.”

    Lots of “coulds” in there. If true, why is India building so many new coal plants?

    Like

  123. “Moscow sees hottest June day for 120 years with more to come
    Temperatures reach 34.7C in Russian capital as weather bureau blames climate change”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/moscow-sees-hottest-june-day-for-120-years-with-more-to-come

    “Moscow has sweltered through its hottest June day for 120 years after the temperature hit 34.7C with even hotter weather expected over the coming days.

    Russia’s weather service, Roshydromet, which blamed climate change for the soaring temperatures.

    The weather service, which has kept records since 1881, is forecasting temperatures above 35C on Thursday and Friday. Monday was the hottest June since 1901.”

    Which presumably means it was hotter 120 years ago? Was climate change responsible for the very cold winter, too?

    Like

  124. “PM not delivering on climate promises – advisers
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC environment analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57580254

    Worth a read, IMO, as it reveals perhaps more than they intended:

    “The committee complains that the public has not been engaged to make changes essential for protecting the climate.”

    Translation – when the public realise what’s involved, they aren’t going to like it.

    “The CCC says people should be asked to eat 20% less meat and dairy produce by 2030, and 35% less by 2050. This will improve health and save money as well as emissions.”

    Major change to lifestyle involved. No explanation given regarding the claims that this will improve health and save money. No discussion of possible down sides. Obviously part of the fiction being embedded by the climate worriers and media to say that it’s all a win-win.

    “Sales of new gas boilers should be stopped by 2035. People will mostly convert to heat pumps instead. This will involve disruption – and the CCC says ministers will have to subsidise the installation cost.”

    Translation – this will involve massive cost and disruption, and will have to be subsidised (by the taxpayer, not ministers – is anyone seriously thinking Sunak, Hancock, Patel et al are going to be digging deep personally?).

    “Committee members want to see taxes taken off clean electricity – and maybe shifted on to more polluting gas – although power bills for poor households should not rise.”

    What taxes? I’m only aware of 8% VAT and lots of subsidies. “Power bills for poor households should not rise” – translation: this route will be expensive, more taxpayer largesse needed to prevent even more fuel poverty.

    “Frequent fliers will need to be curbed, the CCC believes. Even if low-carbon planes are developed, the UK still cannot let demand for aviation grow unconstrained.”

    Why can’t demand for aviation grow “if low-carbon planes are developed”? More evidence that this is an attack on our way of life (not that I’ve flown anywhere for years – horrible experience unless you’re rich enough to fly by private jet)

    “People will need to be consulted over changes ahead – perhaps by groups such as the UK climate assembly.”

    Well, I think enough has been written here and elsewhere about the sham that is the Climate Assembly. When they say “consult the people”, they obviously don’t mean that literally.

    “It urges the Treasury to protect the poorest from the cost of climate policies. ”

    What cost? I thought renewable energy was cheaper than fossil fuel generated energy according to the BBC and the Guardian?

    “Mr Stark says the environment Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is lagging with policies, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is failing to integrate climate change into the Planning Bill.

    All these policies, though, are over-shadowed by the delayed Treasury net zero review, which will determine how much cash is invested into the projected zero-carbon economy.”

    Translation – this is going to cost, big style, and the Treasury isn’t happy about it.

    Like

  125. “Climate change: Large-scale CO2 removal facility set for Scotland”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57588248

    “A large facility capable of extracting significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the air is being planned for north east Scotland.

    The proposed plant would remove up to one million tonnes of CO2 every year – the same amount taken up by around 40 million trees.

    The extracted gas could be stored permanently deep under the seabed off the Scottish coast.

    But critics argue that technology isn’t a magic bullet for climate change.”

    Nothing’s ever enough, even this crackpot scheme comes in for criticism from climate worriers.

    So much for all the green jobs, by the way. “Storegga say up to 300 jobs would be created in the construction phase.”

    Weasel words – “up to”, and only during the construction phase.

    Like

  126. Good grief:

    “Climate change: Young people in Wales ‘paralysed’ by concerns”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-57590549

    “More young people are seeking counselling over climate change worries, charities have said.

    Mental health experts said young people felt “hopeless and paralysed” by their concerns about the future.

    Ellie, 17, said she did not want to live in a world where her children did not know what polar bears were.

    “My biggest worry with this is that people get so scared that they just don’t do anything,” she added.”

    Like

  127. “Climate change: Stormont instability could hinder emissions targets”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57584774

    “Political instability at Stormont could hinder necessary moves on climate change in Northern Ireland, according to the head of the UK’s top climate body.

    Lord Deben chairs the Climate Change Committee which advises devolved administrations and central government on emissions cuts and targets.

    He said Northern Ireland was “further behind the curve” than it ought to be.

    He blamed the three year collapse of Stormont over a renewable heat scandal.”

    Ironic that the instability that could hinder climate change targets was caused by a dodgy scheme to hit climate change targets….

    Like

  128. When one version of a story just isn’t enough:

    “Climate change anxiety: Young people ‘feel hopeless'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57555760

    “Young people who feel “hopeless and paralysed” by fears about climate change need help and support, mental health experts have said.

    Place2Be – a charity offering counselling in schools – said the issue was becoming “more and more prominent”.

    Plaid Cymru said it wanted new guidance for teachers and funding for eco projects focused on pupils’ wellbeing.

    The Welsh government said changes it had made to the curriculum would help.

    While the physical dangers posed by climate change are now widely-reported, the potential impact on people’s mental health has not had as much attention.

    But Cliona Vaughan, a counsellor who works as school project manager for Place2Be in south Wales, said children’s climate anxiety was brought about by a sense that politicians and big business were not acting quickly enough.

    She said one child told her: “We need to find another planet.”

    She added: “They’re feeling worried, trying to find ways to help sort it out at a young age.””

    Like

  129. More irony, given the Welsh Government’s constant attacks on car use:

    “Wales’ bus service closures leaving people ‘isolated'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57572842

    “For many people in Wales, living without a bus service means being marooned in their homes, unable to carry out even essential tasks.

    Marion Hobbs, who lives in Blaencaerau near Maesteg, has to spend £8 on taxis each time she goes food shopping, sees the doctor or simply visits friends.

    Her nearby bus service stopped due to the Covid pandemic and has not resumed.”

    Like

  130. Quelle surprise – the Guardian runs with the same news by press release so loved by the BBC:

    “UK policies will not deliver emission cuts pledge, says climate adviser
    Climate Change Committee says government needs to ‘step up very rapidly’ to meet ‘historic’ targets”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/24/uk-policies-will-not-deliver-emission-cuts-pledge-says-climate-adviser

    “Boris Johnson’s government has set “historic” targets on the climate crisis but has failed so far to come up with the policies needed to reach them, the government’s independent advisers on the climate have warned.

    The Climate Change Committee published two progress reports on Thursday, showing the UK lagging behind on its key goal of 78% cuts to greenhouse gases by 2035 and making recommendations on how to get back on track.

    Lord Deben, the committee chairman, said: “[The targets] are remarkable and have set a major example [to the world]. But the policy is just not there. It’s very clear we need to step up very rapidly.”…”.

    Like

  131. “COP 26: Police disruption ‘inevitable’ from Glasgow climate summit”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57596249

    “It is “inevitable” that the UN climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow will cause disruption to day-to-day policing, a review has warned.

    The event in November was postponed last year because of the pandemic.

    About 10,000 officers from across the UK will be deployed each day during the conference, which is expected to attract 120 heads of state.

    Police Scotland said it was “the most complex and complicated” event ever staged in Scotland.”

    Another reason, on top of covid, the hypocrisy of mass travel to a climate conference, and expense, for it to be held virtually instead of in-person. Of course, they want the demonstrations and the hype, so we all know it will go ahead.

    Like

  132. This is looking increasingly farcical, given Northern Ireland’s many more pressing problems where action might make a difference rather than being pointless virtue-signalling:

    “Climate change: Second climate bill given green light by Executive”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57584774

    “A second climate bill is to begin its path through the Northern Ireland Assembly.

    Agriculture and Environment Minister Edwin Poots received approval from the executive to progress it on Thursday.

    It joins an existing private members’ Climate Bill which is already being scrutinised by assembly members.”

    Like

  133. “Ukraine floods: Why climate change and logging are blamed”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53233387

    “When flooding hit almost 300 towns and villages in western Ukraine last week, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said they were the biggest since the 1990s. Climate change is part of the story, but illegal logging and deforestation are also being blamed for the scale and speed of the floods.”

    Of course climate change is blamed – it almost is, whenever anything slightly unusual happens these days. Biggest flooding since the 1990s, eh? So it flooded more in the 1990s, then?

    “Since 2001, there has been a threefold increase in logging on mountain peaks in the Carpathians, says environmental activist Dmytro Karabchuk of the NGO, Forest Initiatives and Communities.”

    My money’s on the logging.

    Like

  134. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Northern Ireland, in the real world:

    “Climate change: Red meat sector opposes proposed legislation”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57598051

    “Northern Ireland’s red meat sector has been giving evidence to a Stormont committee on proposed climate legislation.

    It is opposed to the private member’s bill which would set a net-zero emissions target by 2045.

    The agri-food industry says that would disproportionately affect the sector which is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

    The Northern Ireland Meat Exporters’ Association represents meat companies.

    Its spokesman Conall Donnelly said the bill had the potential to “decimate” the red meat sector which accounts for about half of Northern Ireland’s agricultural output.”

    Like

  135. “Report outlines 80 ways Scotland could tackle climate change”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57595574

    “A Scottish “Oyster card”, green taxes and scrapping air miles are among 80 recommendations of a citizens’ assembly looking at how Scotland can tackle climate change.

    Scotland’s Climate Assembly also urges a ban on single-use plastics and a four-day working week.

    The assembly brought together more than 100 people from all walks of life to discuss the challenge.

    Their report will now be handed over to party leaders at Holyrood.

    Described as a “clarion call” for action, it says there should be a ban on single use plastics “unless there is no viable alternative”.

    To encourage people out of their cars, it calls for public transport to be made “cheaper, or free”, with standardised smart ticketing introduced across the whole country in what could be an “Oyster card for Scotland”.”

    All of which ignores the blatantly obvious fact that in global terms Scotland’s GHG emissions are utterly insignificant, and nothing Scotland does can “tackle climate change”.

    Like

  136. “Ministers ‘should urge public to eat less meat’
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC environment analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57580254

    “The UK public should be urged by the government to protect the climate by eating less meat and dairy produce, advisers say.

    Cattle are a major source of planet-heating gases, but ministers fear a backlash if they ask people to cut down on steak.

    But the Climate Change Committee (CCC) says people should reduce meat-eating for their health, as well as for the planet.

    It says the issue’s one of many failings of a government which is delivering only a fifth of its pledges on climate change.

    People should be asked to eat 20% less meat and dairy produce by 2030, and 35% less by 2050, the CCC insists.”

    This isn’t news at all. It’s reporting by press release, a slightly different spin on an earlier article, in an attempt to take numerous bites of the same cherry.

    Like

  137. “Edinburgh Airport to build solar farm next to runway”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57596248

    “Edinburgh Airport is to build an 11-acre solar farm next to its runway.

    The array of solar panels will be the first of its kind in the UK and could provide 26% of the airport’s energy needs.

    It is hoped the solar farm, which will be located at the western end of the runway, will be operating next summer.

    Environmental groups said the benefits of switching to solar power were a “drop in the ocean” compared to the damage done by aviation industry.

    The Scottish government has put £2m towards the cost of the solar farm.”

    There are at least two inevitable aspects to the story – first the “it’s not enough” comment from environmental groups (it never is) and second the use of taxpayer money for this futile act.

    Like

  138. Money no object, apparently:

    “Can gardening help tackle climate change?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-57588454

    “A new gardening science centre has opened at RHS Wisely in Surrey, the first of its kind in the world.

    Scientists will examine how garden plants can impact positively on the environment.

    The centre in Woking has taken eight years to build and cost £35m.”

    Like

  140. Teachers ADMIT to wanting to RADICALISE our kids to be Climate Protesters
    A survey of teacher has revealed 54% want to teach our kids how to angrily protest and civil disobedience
    including primary teachers
    are we seeing the issue here ?
    kids are not an army for the leftwaffe
    DRP’s video… https://youtu.be/OB8pRWc3jis

    Like

  141. Oz: The ‘woke agenda’ undermines the principles which ‘sustained us for generations’
    according to Sky News host Gary Hardgrave.

    Like

  142. Canada @TomHarrisICSC new 30 minute video with Sheila Gunn Reed
    #1 CBC’s online comment censorship
    #2 Mad fake-green policies coming out of Ottawa
    #3 Anti-Science : CRT & Post modernism, banning logic & debate

    Like

  146. ITV local news “winds of change are coming to help with climate
    .. but there are concerns turbines might harm wildlife”

    ITV’s KevinGAshford aired an apologist making claims

    Like

  148. James May ‘I bricked my Tesla
    That Tesla has a major fault
    If you leave it on charge for a long time
    the main battery gets full, and stops charging the electronics battery
    Then that eventually goes flat and with no electronics you can’t get in the car
    Then when you use the complicated emergency entry procedure
    the he electronic battery is still so buried away, it’s difficult to charge it.
    They should simply have an external charging port for it”
    … https://youtu.be/NsKwMryKqRE

    Like

  149. “Rocksavage Power Station: Low carbon plant plans unveiled”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-57613320

    “Plans for a low carbon power plant with the potential to become carbon neutral by 2028 have been unveiled.

    The gas-fired Rocksavage facility in Runcorn, Cheshire, has been operating since 1998.

    Operators InterGen and partners HyNet aim to blend hydrogen and natural gas to produce electricity.

    They said the “innovative” project could reduce carbon emissions by 150,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking 60,000 cars off the road.

    The proposals aim to produce and distribute blue hydrogen, which is classed as low carbon, as well as capture and store carbon by the mid 2020s, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.”

    Like

  150. “The massive green power projects stuck in limbo”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57510870

    “Pumped storage hydro schemes are renewable energy projects with the potential to help Scotland – and the rest of the UK – cut carbon emissions and hit climate change targets, according to developers.

    Planning consent has been secured for new multi-million pound schemes in the Highlands and the south of Scotland, and permission is being sought to expand Argyll’s Cruachan power station.

    But it is decades since a new scheme has been constructed in the UK, and none of the projects have yet progressed beyond the planning stage. Why is building work on hold – and what are the prospects for the future?”

    Like

  151. Shock horror probe! Extinction Rebellion didn’t like an article in the Telegraph!

    URL:extinctionrebellion.uk/2021/06/22/dear-daily-telegraph-here-are-the-results-of-our-free-fact-check-of-your-recent-article/

    Of XR’s 17 mostly dodgy rebuttals, this is perhaps the dodgiest:

    9. More from Kit [Malthouse, MP] in paragraph 13: “We have been clear that we will not tolerate groups such as Extinction Rebellion using guerrilla tactics to shut down printing presses and deny the public access to information.”

    Definitions of the term ‘guerilla tactics’ include the words, ‘military’, ‘paramilitary’, ‘hit and run’, ‘deception’ and ‘espionage’. The Telegraph might want to think again about using this one to describe non-violent protestors who are accountable and accept the legal consequences of their actions.

    XR people bang on about guerrilla tactics all the time. It’s a trendy term that makes them feel edgy and cool. They are fans of, for example, guerrilla rewilding (illegally felling other people’s conifers and planting broadleaves in their place), guerrilla fashion repair (public sewing), guerrilla gardening (public sowing) and guerrilla ontology (no idea).

    And XR might never have got off the ground without the ‘£20-40k’ it received in 2018 from Guerrilla Foundation, a ‘civil society’ organisation set up in 2016 by the millionaire (billionaire?) heir to a Big Pharma fortune.

    *

    In other shock horror news, an angry person in a local newspaper is blaming XR for the rapid increase in covid cases in St Ives and Falmouth:

    URL:www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/19397213.john-p-james-blames-extinction-rebellion-covid-spike/

    He’s almost certainly wrong, but well done him, anyway. He’s standing up to what XRers like to call unaccountable power – which, in this case, is them.

    Liked by 2 people

  153. “Yellowstone: report reveals extent of climate threat to oldest US national park
    Researchers say temperatures, already the highest in the past 20,000 years, could increase by up to 10F by 2100”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/25/yellowstone-national-park-climate-crisis

    “…The analysis shows that temperatures in the park are now as high or higher as during any period in the last 20,000 years and are very likely the warmest in the past 800,000 years. Since 1950, Yellowstone has experienced an average temperature increase of 2.3F, with the most pronounced warming taking place at elevations above 5,000ft.

    Those changes could be even more extreme in the future: by the end of the century, the researchers say the temperature could increase by 5-10F under current emissions scenarios. That would mean the park’s surrounding areas could swelter under 40-to-60 more days per year with temperatures above 90F.

    Because of the increased heat, the spring thaw now begins several weeks earlier, and annual stream runoff happens eight days earlier than it did in 1950.In addition, higher temperatures mean that much of the precipitation that once fell as snow will now be rain – annual snowfall has declined by nearly 2ft since 1950 and is expected to decline further.

    That snowpack is a bank of water for later in the year, and is used by cities as far west as Los Angeles and earlier snowmelt and loss of snowpack will increase the area’s susceptibility to future wildfires, the authors write.

    “The decrease in snow is due to the increase in temperature over time, which caused more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow,” wrote report co-author Bryan Shuman of the University of Wyoming….”.

    Warmest in the past 800,000 years? That’s quite a claim. The report is here, for those interested:

    http://www.gyclimate.org/

    Like

  154. “12 arrested in raids on Extinction Rebellion sites in London
    Police seize equipment from three premises before what officers expect will be busy weekend of protests”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/26/12-arrested-raids-extinction-rebellion-london-protest

    “Police in London have raided a warehouse used by Extinction Rebellion, as well as an arts centre that was exhibiting some of the structures used in the demonstrations that blockaded newspaper printing plants last year.

    The Met is under increased scrutiny as the group plans further protests against the owners of the UK’s press outlets this weekend, alongside supporters of the Black Lives Matter campaign against racial injustice.

    Scotland Yard said it had “taken proactive action to prevent and reduce criminal disruption which we believe was intended for direction at media business locations over the weekend”.

    A spokesperson added that 12 people had been arrested in three raids across London. “During the arrests, a number of items were seized by officers, including bamboo structures, lock-on equipment and other items which could be used to cause criminal damage and obstructions. Those arrested have been taken to police custody as inquiries continue.”

    Extinction Rebellion said the raid at its premises had uncovered only activists making art and questioned why officers had raided the Antepavilion centre, which they said had no connection to them other than exhibiting a bamboo structure used in their blockade of printing presses at last year’s anti-press protest.

    Police said they were “preparing for what is expected to be a busy weekend”, with marches planned in Westminster, Lambeth and Southwark.

    The climate crisis demonstrators plan to gather at midday on Sunday in Parliament Square.

    They said they wanted to highlight that “four tax-avoiding, climate sceptical billionaires – Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, Sir Frederick Barclay and Baron Evgeny Lebedev – own 68% of the UK’s print media, manipulating the truth and sowing division among the general public for profit”.

    They have accused the home secretary, Priti Patel, of putting extra pressure on police to crack down on their demonstration in case they target media organisations again. One of the activists, Nuala Gathercole Lam, said: “This is what happens when you take peaceful protest action to the true centres of power in this country.”

    Like

  155. OK, it’s Russia Today, but I suspect there’s more than a grain of truth in this:

    “Boris Johnson’s food policy strategist says meat tax ‘may be necessary’ but warns of FOOD RIOTS if brought in too soon – reports”

    https://www.rt.com/uk/527631-meat-tax-food-riots/

    “After the UK’s government climate change advisers urged it to implement policy to reduce meat and dairy consumption, Boris Johnson’s hand-picked food strategy planner reportedly says a meat tax “may be necessary” in the future.
    Restaurateur Henry Dimbleby, chosen to lead Downing Street’s ‘National Food Strategy’ formulation body, believes that a levy on processed meat staples like burgers, steaks, ham, sausages, and chicken nuggets could be needed in order to tackle climate change, according to media reports.

    However, Dimblebly is expected to tell the prime minister not to introduce any such tax in the short-term because of the potential unrest it could lead to during the pandemic, according to The Sun.

    Citing unnamed sources familiar with a draft document due to be released next month, the paper noted that ministers fear street protests over food prices similar to those conducted by the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ (Yellow Vest) movement in France in recent years.

    The sources also reportedly said the document was “still a work in progress,” but did not dispute that it would recommend making some meats pricier.

    When the prospect of a meat tax was raised earlier this year, Johnson said there would be no such levy on his watch – despite clinging to his stated green agenda goal to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.

    In April, Johnson committed to reducing the UK’s greenhouse emissions by 78% by 2035. This would reportedly require convincing the public to cut down meat and dairy intake by a fifth.

    The average daily red meat consumption in the UK is 70g per person, according to the National Health Service, which also notes that a breakfast containing two typical British sausages and two bacon rashers is equivalent to 130g.

    But the government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) panel recommended this week that public consumption of meat and dairy needed to be reduced, for personal health as well as climate change, by 20% by 2030 and 35% by 2050….”.

    Like

  156. “From September, new eco scores will be displayed on supermarket produce,
    showing the item’s environmental cost alongside its nutritional information”
    Sunday Times

    Like

  157. “XR protesters arrested after dumping manure outside Daily Mail offices
    Extinction Rebellion activists wanted to send message to ‘four billionaire owners of 68% of the UK’s print media’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/27/extinction-rebellion-protesters-arrested-dumping-manure-daily-mail

    “Six climate activists have been arrested after protests in which manure was dumped outside newspaper offices in central London.

    Seven tonnes of fertiliser was dumped outside the west London building that houses the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, i, Independent and Evening Standard on Sunday. The offices of the Daily Telegraph at Victoria were also targeted.

    Campaigners from Extinction Rebellion said they had singled out the Daily Mail because it “suppresses the truth from the public” on the climate emergency. A banner reading “Free the press” was also strung up on scaffolding outside Northcliffe House, the building that houses the newspaper.

    The group also attempted to pour several tonnes of manure outside the Telegraph’s offices in central London, but were stopped by the police.

    In a statement the environmental protest group said it wanted to send a message to “the four billionaire owners of 68% of the UK’s print media” and was demanding “an end to media corruption that suppresses the truth from the public for profit”.

    Police said the group, which arrived about 6.40am on Sunday, emptied manure from a truck before climbing scaffolding on the outside of the building.

    Five people were arrested for an offence under section 148 of the Highways Act. Four of them were also arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage.”

    No manure for the Guardian, of course!

    Like

  158. “Mining holds the key to a green future – no wonder human rights activists are worried
    Kevin Watkins
    Renewable energy will rely heavily on an industry already berated for human rights violations”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/27/mining-holds-the-key-to-a-green-future-no-wonder-human-rights-activists-are-worried

    “…Can we decarbonise power and transport in time to avoid climate catastrophe? That will depend partly on the governance of a global mining sector tarnished by accusations of human rights abuse, environmental damage and financial corruption.

    Expanding renewable energy is a mineral intensive enterprise. Nature might provide the solar radiation and wind providing renewable energy, but the arteries through which the electricity flows are made of copper – and lots of it. Wind turbine gearboxes need manganese, platinum and rare earth magnets. EV batteries are made with lithium, cobalt and nickel. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a mid-century zero-carbon world will take a sixfold increase in the production of these and other transition minerals by 2030. Prices are already surging.

    The supply chains through which transition minerals flow are highly concentrated. Small groups of countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (cobalt), Indonesia and the Philippines (nickel), Australia and Chile (lithium) – dominate production. But Chinese mining companies are rapidly increasing investments.

    In processing, China is the main game in town. Its refining companies account for more than half of the world’s cobalt and lithium production. Global value chains for EV batteries are dominated from top to bottom by Chinese suppliers. They account for more than 80% of the raw materials for advanced battery materials.

    That market structure explains why the prospect of a global mining boom is causing concern among human rights activists. “Make a list of the companies and countries producing transition minerals,” says Phil Bloomer, the director of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), “and you have a window on egregious and systematic violations of human rights”. The centre recently published a survey claiming more than 300 serious allegations against 115 transition mineral mining companies, ranging from the violation of indigenous land rights, to water pollution, health threats, corruption and a systemic failure to consult local communities.

    Water-intensive lithium mining in the Atacama desert in Chile, the world’s driest environment, has triggered a wave of legal battles over water rights pitching indigenous communities against multinational mining companies. Nickel production in Indonesia and Australia is at the heart of battles over water pollution. Cobalt mining in the DRC has been linked to allegations of child labour, the financing of armed groups, and industrial-scale corruption linking multinational mining companies to politically connected intermediaries via a complex web of offshore shell companies….”.

    Like

  159. “The Guardian view on getting to net zero: the crunch is coming
    Editorial
    Bold climate targets are meaningless without policies to meet them. The PM should grab the chance to make Cop26 a success”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/the-guardian-view-on-getting-to-net-zero-the-crunch-is-coming

    “Targets are all very well. But not if there is no way of reaching them. In which case, they are a sham. This is the problem now confronting the government. The UK’s stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels is very ambitious. “Remarkable” was the word used last week by Lord Deben (the former Conservative environment secretary John Gummer). He chairs the climate change committee (CCC) that advises the government. Its latest reports make an unflattering contrast between impressive aims and the absence of plans to meet them.

    A strategy setting out how the UK intends to meet its net zero pledge is promised before the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow in November. But there is little sign so far that ministers grasp the scale of the challenge. Not a single government department, the CCC finds, is moving at the necessary pace. Transport, agriculture, buildings, industry: in all the key emissions-producing sectors bar power generation, there has been an alarming lack of progress. Cuts to the aid budget now overseen by the Foreign Office mean that it too is implicated. Support for poor countries as they make the transition away from fossil fuels has long been recognised as a crucial element of the global climate process.

    The UK is far from the only country that is falling far short on its commitments. Pakistan’s climate minister, Malik Amin Aslam, described the allocation of funding in the final communique of the recent G7 meeting as “peanuts”.”

    Like

  162. “Climate change: Why action still ignites debate in Australia”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57606398

    “In my first week as the BBC’s new Australia correspondent in 2019, a state of emergency was declared in New South Wales. Bushfires blazed and came very close to Sydney.

    The orange haze and the smell of smoke will forever be etched in my memory.

    As the country woke to pictures of red skies, destroyed homes and burned koalas in smouldering bushland, the climate change debate came to the fore.

    But this wasn’t a scientific debate. It was political and it was partisan.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not answer questions about the issue, while then Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack dismissed climate concerns as those of “raving inner-city lefties”.

    That was my other big memory of my first week in Australia. The leadership – after years of drought and as blazes raged across the east coast – openly throwing doubt on the effects of climate change.

    This was a tussle at the heart of Australian politics.

    Climate change is a hotly charged issue here. It draws in the powerful fossil fuel industry and regional voters fearful for their livelihoods.

    It’s a subject that has ended political careers.”

    It might end quite a few in the UK too, when the voting public learns what “net zero” is going to mean to them.

    Like

  163. “Canada hits record temperature of 46.1C amid heatwave
    British Columbian village sets new record, with most of western Canada subject to heat warning”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/28/canada-hits-record-temperature-of-461c-amid-heatwave

    “Canada has set its highest temperature on record after a village in British Columbia reached 46.1C (115F) on Sunday.

    The temperature in Lytton, in the south of Canada’s western-most province, surpassed the previous national high of 45C (113F), set in Saskatchewan in 1937.

    As the US Pacific north-west sweltered to the south, a heat warning was in effect for most of western Canada, too, and the country’s weather agency said numerous daily temperature records had been broken across British Columbia.

    Environment Canada expects temperatures to begin cooling on Tuesday.

    In the coastal city of Vancouver, where the temperature peaked at 31C (88F) by mid afternoon on Sunday, many people headed to the beach, though the crowds appeared smaller than usual in the sweltering heat.”

    Like

  165. Local BBC PRasNews promoting Rough gas field as a magic store for hydrogen.
    Local enviro reporter-activist “The only emission is harmless water”
    … That’s a lie the first phase of the Hull hydrogen plant will make hydrogen from natural gas as usual
    He hinted that he knew that
    “It’s hoped that some of the power to make hydrogen will come from North Sea turbines”
    ..ie he knows most will NOT be from them.

    Like

  167. It’s a good job it’s warm and light, given the performance of the UK National Grid just now:

    Coal: 3%
    Gas: 52.7%
    Solar: 0.3%
    Wind: 6.5%
    Hydro: 0.5%
    Pumped storage: 0.2%
    Nuclear: 14.8%
    Biomass: 7%
    Interconnectors: 14.6%

    Like

  168. “Labour MP Mark Tami criticises pause to A55-A494 ‘red route’ scheme”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-57643114

    “A Labour MP says he is “very disappointed” in Welsh government plans to pause a new road scheme in Flintshire.

    Mark Tami said the so-called “red route” scheme planned to link the A55 with the A494 and the A548 would reduce air pollution in Aston and Shotton.

    Last week Welsh ministers said all new road-building projects would be frozen while they conducted a review.

    The Welsh government has been asked to respond to Mr Tami’s comments.

    Welsh ministers have said freezing new schemes was necessary to cut carbon emissions.

    But the Conservatives warned the decision would be a “significant blow” to economic recovery.

    Plaid Cymru said the review should not mean communities were “left behind”.”

    Part of my sadness at reading this story is the utter predictability of all of the party political comments. Who will speak for the people?

    Like

  169. Seriously?

    “Billions needed to protect Glasgow from climate effects, report says
    Study says 2m in Clyde area – due to host Cop26 – face severe disruption without urgent investment”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/29/billions-needed-to-protect-glasgow-from-climate-effects-report-says

    “Nearly 2 million people living in the greater Glasgow area face severe disruption from climate heating unless billions of pounds are invested in protecting homes, businesses and transport links, a report says.

    A study on the impacts of climate change on the Clyde area estimates about 140,000 of its poorest residents will be the worst affected by increased heatwaves, flash floods and droughts, as they are the least equipped to cope.

    The report from Climate Ready Clyde, a coalition of 15 councils, universities, the NHS and infrastructure bodies, has been published as Glasgow prepares to host the Cop26 global climate talks in November.

    It estimates there is already a funding shortfall of at least £184m a year to begin retrofitting homes and offices for heatwaves, defending roads and rail links against flooding and storms, and planting 18m trees to absorb higher temperatures and rainfall over coming decades.

    “Urgent mobilisation of additional finance is crucial,” the report says, adding that failing to do so will cost the region billions in lost income and emergency spending.

    James Curran, the coalition’s chair and a former chief executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, said a “transformational approach” was needed. Playing host to Cop26 added to the sense of urgency in the region.

    “Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities and if we don’t respond in a coherent and urgent way then the inequalities that already exist in society will be worsened,” he said.

    “Some of the people who can least afford it and are least culpable in creating climate change are the ones that are going to suffer more with poor housing; they will be suffering damp in the winter; they’ll be suffering excessive heat in the summer; public transport will be disrupted.””

    Have the authors even been to Glasgow?!!! Perhaps, given the involvement of the NHS in this work of fantasy, they might like to think about the effects of rising fuel poverty on the poorest in society, and the massive drugs problem in Glasgow, combined with the low life expectancy. Climate change is the least of the problems faced by the 140,000 poorest people in the Clyde area. Get real, for goodness’ sake. Try responding in a coherent way, instead of writing breathless and incoherent rubbish.

    Liked by 1 person

  170. Have they no shame? How low will they stoop? Is there no disaster or catastrophe that they won’t harness for their agenda?

    “Miami condo collapse prompts questions over role of climate change
    Experts suggest vulnerability of south Florida to rising seas could lead to destabilization of further buildings”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/29/miami-condo-collapse-questions-climate-change

    “The shocking collapse of a 12-storey building in the Miami area last week has raised questions as to the role played by the climate crisis, and whether the severe vulnerability of south Florida to the rising seas may lead to the destabilization of further buildings in the future.”

    Thus the shocking headline and opening paragraph, despite the start of the second paragraph making it clear that:

    “The exact cause of the disaster that befell the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside on Thursday has yet to be fully determined…”.

    It doesn’t stop them speculating about rising seas. You have to read on a long way, past all the climate crisis, rising seas, shock horror, to get to this:

    “The land beneath Champlain Towers South is also, unusually for eastern Florida, subsiding, according to a study released last year that found the condo was subsiding into the ground at a rate of around 2mm a year throughout the 1990s. Shimon Wdowinski, a professor with Florida International University’s Institute of Environment who conducted the research, said he was “shocked” to see the building collapse and didn’t immediately connect it to his study.

    “It’s common that we see buildings with minor damage from subsidence, but not really this,” he said. “Things can go from stable and move slowly for a long period of time before suddenly accelerating to the point of collapse. It’s not a linear process.””

    Liked by 1 person

  171. For once, BBC reporting is not in lockstep with the Guardian. It’s curious that they both ran an article on the same theme on the same day, but a pleasant surprise that the BBC departed from the Guardian’s coverage, and avoided the climate hysteria:

    “Miami building collapse: What could have caused it?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57651025

    “As the search for survivors continues, questions are being raised about what caused a 12 storey apartment complex to collapse in Surfside, near Miami in Florida.

    Experts gathering information at the scene will have to consider a range of possible causes – from structural defects to environmental influences – and whether a combination of factors may have triggered the sudden collapse of the 40-year-old block.”

    Those environmental influences are said to be as follows:

    “A study from researchers at Florida International University published last year found that the building was sinking at a rate of about two millimetres per year in the 1990s.

    Lots of movement underneath buildings can cause cracking and contribute to structural problems.

    Professor Shimon Wdowinski said the study did not focus on Champlain Towers South in particular, but the building stood out as one of the places that showed the most subsidence.

    He said it was not much, but the study was more than 20 years ago and “we do not know what happened after 1999, at what level it continued to sink, if it continued to sink, and how this may have affected its foundations”.

    “Maybe a point was reached where the structure couldn’t hold the load and collapsed. But this is a structural problem. They are not things that I study,” he told BBC Mundo, the BBC’s Spanish language news service.

    “What we do know is that the building that collapsed in Miami has been sinking for decades, but that alone does not explain the collapse.””

    Unlike the Guardian, not a mention of sea-level rise.

    Like

  172. Pre-Cop26 propaganda continues unabated:

    “Up to 410 million people at risk from sea level rises – study
    Majority of land at risk from a 1-metre sea level rise is in the tropics, research finds”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/29/risk-from-sea-level-rises-unless-emissions-reduced

    “Up to 410 million people will be living in areas less than 2 metres above sea level, and at risk from sea level rises, unless global emissions are reduced, according to a new study.

    The paper, published in Nature Communications, finds that currently 267 million people worldwide live on land less than 2 metres above sea level. Using a remote sensing method called Lidar, which pulsates laser light across coastal areas to measure elevation on the Earth’s surface, the researchers predicted that by 2100, with a 1 metre sea level rise and zero population growth, that number could increase to 410 million people.

    Their maps showed that 62% of the most at-risk land is concentrated in the tropics, with Indonesia having the largest extent of land at risk worldwide. These projections showed even more risk in the future, with 72% of the at-risk population in the tropics, and 59% in tropical Asia alone.”

    The report can be found here, should anyone be interested:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23810-9

    Like

  173. BBCnews 5:55pm “Climate Change” is being laid on thick in the West America and Canada heatwave report
    that’s “Weather is not Climate except when we do it”

    6:15pm ITV pseudo-local news
    “Climate Change” is being laid on thick in @NityaGRajan’s syndicated national item
    “here I am in this magic eco-home
    ..every home in the UK needs to be upgraded to the same standard at a cost of £50K each”

    #TheyNeverMentionChina

    Like

  177. “Brecon: Giant sequoia trees planted to offset lifetime emissions”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57636376

    “Nearly five hundred saplings of the world’s largest tree, the giant sequoia, have been planted in Brecon.

    The team behind the One Life One Tree project said it could be the largest plantation of its type in Europe and that every tree would offset a person’s lifetime carbon footprint due to its size and lifespan.”

    A combination of good intentions and attention-grabbing, I suspect, with the “world’s largest tree” angle being used to grab publicity for “off-setting a lifetime’s emissions.” Yet would it not make much more sense to plant indigenous trees rather than import foreign ones? It was only a few days ago that I posted (at “Saving the Planet by Trashing it” an article by the BBC complaining that planting the wrong trees in the wrong places was environmentally detrimental:

    “‘Quick fixes’ to the climate crisis risk harming nature”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57425311

    ALso this:

    “A billion new trees might not turn Ukraine green”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57566701

    Like

  178. “UK making trade deals with countries abusing human rights, says TUC
    TUC says UK should use its leverage to ensure countries respect labour and human rights”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/30/uk-making-trade-deals-with-countries-abusing-human-rights-says-tuc

    No criticism in the article of Chinese solar panels built by Uighur slave labour in Xinjiang, of course. Brazil, Malaysia and India all come in for stick, but not China. Go Guardian, go!

    Like

  179. However, the Guardian HAS woken up in this article:

    “Five Asian countries account for 80% of new coal power investment
    China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/five-asian-countries-80-percent-new-coal-power-investment

    “Five Asian countries are jeopardising global climate ambitions by investing in 80% of the world’s planned new coal plants, according to a report.

    Carbon Tracker, a financial thinktank, has found that China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units, even though renewable energy is cheaper than most new coal plants.

    The investments in one of the most environmentally damaging sources of energy could generate a total of 300 gigawatts of energy – enough to power the UK more than three times over – despite calls from climate experts at the UN for all new coal plants to be cancelled.

    Catharina Hillenbrand von der Neyen, the author of the report, said: “These last bastions of coal power are swimming against the tide, when renewables offer a cheaper solution that supports global climate targets. Investors should steer clear of new coal projects, many of which are likely to generate negative returns from the outset.”

    While Asia continues to plough money into coal plants, countries across the developed world are accelerating plans to phase them out. The UK government has announced plans to bring forward the deadline for coal plants to be decommissioned by one year earlier than planned, to 2024.”

    It should, perhaps, occur to them, that outside ivory towers people make investment decisions based on facts. I very much doubt that these coal-fired power stations would be built if renewables were both cheaper and more efficient/effective than “renewable” alternatives. Perhaps Guardian journalists and report authors should muse on that for a while.

    They, and their acolytes, might also ponder that these developments mean that “net zero” in the UK is a damaging and expensive and pointless waste of time.

    Liked by 1 person

  180. Meanwhile Michael Manni s having another pop at Australia, which he visits regularly* by aeroplane:

    “Australia is at the climate crossroads. The choice is yours, mates
    Michael Mann
    One path leads to suffering and ruin. The other to a safe and vital future. But you must leave fossil fuels behind”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/australia-is-at-the-climate-crossroads-the-choice-is-yours-mates

    “To an outside observer like myself, Australia’s approach is reminiscent of the what we saw several years ago with other intransigent countries – hesitant, stubbornly clinging to outmoded energy systems and unwilling to embrace the necessary and inevitable transition away from fossil fuels.

    The difference is now, the rest of the world is moving swiftly down the path of a renewable energy transformation, while Australia’s “leaders” are still bickering about which direction the country should go.”

    I’m not sure what he means by “the rest of the world”, but perhaps he should have read the article in the Guardian I’ve just linked to above making such an inaccurate claim. Never mind, he gets in a plug for his latest book, so that’s OK.

    *For example:

    https://climatepeopleorg.com/2017/02/13/professor-michael-mann-in-australia/

    Like

  181. 9am R4 will your town be under water by 2030?
    Will many of the UK’s coastal towns, not to mention central London, be underwater in the next few years?

    is one item

    Like

  182. If anyone wants to see a masterclass in interviewing you should check out Martin Lewis’ demolition of Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth) on this morning’s Good Morning Britain. Martin was pointing out the huge hikes in energy prices that are in the pipeline this year as a direct result of the UK Government’s energy policies. So much for win-win.

    Liked by 1 person

  183. Is anyone surprised by this?

    “Offsets being used in Colombia to dodge carbon taxes – report
    Fossil fuel levy can be avoided by buying carbon offsets that may have no benefit for climate”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/offsets-being-used-in-colombia-to-dodge-carbon-taxes-report-aoe

    “Forest protection carbon offsets that may have no benefit to the climate have been used by polluters to avoid paying carbon taxes in Colombia, according to a report.

    In 2016, a levy of about $5 (£3.60) was introduced in the South American country to cover the use of some fossil fuels. However, companies that emit carbon dioxide can avoid paying the tax by buying carbon offsets from Colombian emission reduction projects, including those that conserve threatened natural carbon banks such as peatlands, forests and mangrove swamps.

    According to the report, a new analysis of large-scale forest protection schemes in the Colombian Amazon by Carbon Market Watch claims that they may be dramatically overstating their impact on preventing deforestation. The report warns that millions of carbon credits have likely been generated with no benefit to the climate.

    It finds the issue of “hot air” carbon credits from forest protection schemes in Colombia could be the “tip of the iceberg”, with 75 similar projects permitted to sell credits under the country’s domestic tax system.

    About 5m credits have been bought from the projects considered in the report, nearly all by Primax Colombia SAS, a fossil fuel company covered by the carbon tax. This would represent a loss of about $25m to the government, according to the report, which has been published as part of an investigation with the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP).”

    Like

  184. “Carbon tariffs should only be ‘a last resort,’ cautions new OECD boss
    Cormann’s comments echo previous statements by US officials.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/carbon-tariffs-should-only-be-a-last-resort-cautions-new-oecd-boss/

    “Countries should exhaust all other options before resorting to carbon tariffs, said Mathias Cormann, the new secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

    Cormann told a POLITICO Live audience Wednesday that the threat of what the EU calls a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” should be used to coax allies into a global climate deal, but must be implemented only if negotiations fail. The EU plans to publish its proposals for the carbon-linked tariff in July.

    Echoing previous statements by U.S. officials, Cormann said, “This should absolutely just be a last resort. It would be much preferable if countries around the world could be persuaded to make a genuine and proportionate effort towards achieving the global mission, to get to global net-zero by 2050.”

    Regarding the border tax, he said: “If we do have to go down this path, we have to be very careful we make judgments on where to calibrate that price.”

    A “one-size-fits-all” approach to measuring carbon prices would be “very difficult” to make in accordance with the World Trade Organization’s rules, he said. “I think there is a bit of homework to be done before we go down this path,” he said.”

    Like

  185. 4:30pm R4 Sciency Show
    One of the 3 items is with the boss of a GreenBlob PR agency
    “In the near future domestic gas boilers may be replaced by heat pumps.
    However, a district heating system in London is already installing the pumps in a scheme which should see 50% reductions in their carbon emissions.
    We visited the Citigen site to see how the plan would work, and discussed the potential for domestic heat pump roll out with Simon Evans from Carbon Brief.”

    em district heating systems are notorious for screwing up and increasing bills
    such wastage means CO2 is often increased
    never mind the CO2 & £ costs built into the manufacturing/installation stages.

    Like

  186. “energy efficient heat pumps”
    are they ?
    they have a installation footprint of £10K-£20K
    factory that into the energy balance.

    The engineer just admitted that they compress the natural energy at 14C to 85C it’s not a efficient as a lower temperature
    “but we have to use 85C cos the buildings are old”
    presenter “the system is magical”

    The system is replacing the 22MW diesel powered district heating system for the City of London.
    Should be operational in November.

    company man “If this new boiler is hydrogen, it’s emission free”
    .. Ah the presenter did point out that depends how you make the hydrogen
    She didn’t explain the only current economic way to make hydrogen is from fossil fuels.

    They are talking about other heatpump projects in Newcastle …”150 properties”

    Like

  187. part 2 of the item is with the Greenblob PR man
    The presenter is pointing out the heatpump system is more expensive to install and run
    He’s saying grants should be given
    … yeh cos magic unicorns will pay for the grants.

    Now they are talking about the hydrogen boiler option
    He spoke about hydrogen coming from windfarm electricity
    .. (tha is not economic currently)

    Ah the guy just admitted his own home heat pump system didn’t work out (old building etc.)

    Like

  188. 11pm R4 more greenReligion PR
    Extinction Compendium
    In a new show produced by Jon Holmes,
    Comedian (and actual council Waste Education Officer) Jon Long and Biologist Gillian Burke take on green issues in this fast paced new enviro-comedy.

    The topic – Plastic. Scourge of the planet, or synthetic scapegoat?

    Featuring sketches, songs, and expert interviews. Tonnes of questions, and even one or two answers.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xfr3

    Like

  189. I’ve just chanced upon this Google Maps view of wind-turbine blades lined up at a dock in Hull:

    URL:www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.7446711,-0.301566,1062m/data=!3m1!1e3

    Impressive. Also impressive: Google’s 3D-view works for most of the stash.

    I’ve never been to Hull, mostly because I’ve never heard anything good about it. I thought it was a huge slum with a few boringly leftie theatre companies, but it looks both gorgeous and interesting.

    It won’t be like that for long, though, not with sea-level rise. So get those turbine blades out of there as pronto as possible. Just as the poached elephant tusks that they somewhat resemble are currently curing epilepsy in China, the turbine blades can only cure climate change by being all at sea. Get them offshore, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Limited (if you haven’t already, nudge nudge)!

    Like

  190. Mining good, coal mining bad:

    “Climate change: Will UK mining drive a green revolution?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57534978

    On an old Cornish tin mine:

    “With the growth of renewable energy and electric vehicles, demand for some minerals is soaring.

    “Next-generation solar panels use a compound called tin perovskite; anything with an electric connection, a circuit board has tin in it,” explains Mr Williams.

    “We’d be contributing to the UK’s objective of meeting its carbon neutral target by 2050. And to have that domestic supply on your doorstep, it makes sense to see this mine put back into production.”

    The rocks of this region hold a metal of great interest, too.

    Lithium was discovered in Cornwall about 150 years ago, but back then there was little need for it.

    It’s a very different story today.

    Lithium is the main component of the batteries that electric cars use. And with the UK’s ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars that comes into force in 2030, we will need more and more of it.”

    Like

  191. “Climate change: ‘Last refuge’ for polar bears is vulnerable to warming”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57682081

    “A new study finds that an area of the Arctic Ocean critical for the survival of polar bears is fast becoming vulnerable to climate change.

    The region, dubbed the “last ice area” had been expected to stay frozen far longer than other parts of the Arctic.

    The researchers say that high winds allied to a changing climate were behind the unexpected decline.

    The Wandel Sea area, to the north of Greenland, is part of what scientists call the “last ice area”.

    Normally, this region retains thick, multi-year ice all year round.”

    Tucked away in the article :

    “The researchers say that the record melt was 80% due to weather related factors such as the winds, and 20% from thinning related to climate change”

    Also, this refers to last year, not this. It isn’t news. It’s propaganda ahead of COP 26. Ditto this:

    “Climate change: Extremes committee validates Antarctic record heat”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57676695

    “A new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent of +18.3C has been confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

    It occurred on 6 February last year at Argentina’s Esperanza research station.”

    It’s a “record” from 16 months ago, although the BBC can justify reporting it as “news” by its recent validation. Also, tucked away in the article is this:

    “One of the drivers of the rise in temperatures is the strengthened westerlies that now blow around the continent.

    This powerful airflow produces warming conditions on the eastern, leeward side of the peninsula’s mountainous spine.

    Such warm, downslope winds are well known across the Earth, and wherever they occur they tend to have a local name.

    The Chinook winds that drop over the Rockies and Cascades in North America are an example of this phenomenon. In the Antarctic, they are known as Foehn winds – a title originally used in Alpine Europe.”

    The “record” was set near the tip of a peninsula, and almost certainly has nothing to do with climate changed, but it will be used ahead of COP 26 as part of the ongoing propaganda.

    Like

  192. I saw this and thought “thank goodness they’re not blaming it on climate change – I wonder what the story is?” How wrong can you be?

    “Yellowstone’s most famous geyser could shut down, with huge ramifications”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/yellowstone-geyser-old-faithful-stop-erupting-ramifications

    “While the geyser is highly predictable – it erupts every 44 to 125 minutes since 2000 – a new climate assessment and a recent study has revealed that rising temperatures, reduced snowfall and increased rain threaten to shut Old Faithful off completely by the end of the century.

    While that could threaten the natural beauty of the park, it also means an ecosystem three times the size of Rhode Island, stretching 22m acres across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, faces a threat that no national park can protect against: temperature.”

    Like

  193. 12:05 am TalkRadio : The skeptic presenter occasionally have Dale Vince on
    I guess Vince takes any opportunity for PR
    #1 about Vince being a UN Climate Ambassador invited on after his greening of football
    #2 Vegan food
    #3 Greener Football
    #4 G7 Politicians Boris/Biden took local jet flights
    #5 People being told to rip out their gas boiler
    “Oh that’s just a RIGHT WING scare story”
    .. strictly speaking they aren’t doing that
    but rather saying your next must be hydrogen compliant , and enforcing “green standards” before you can rent out or sell
    .. that is a lead into Vince pushing his grass-BioGas .. “we can power all 28 million homes on it, without disturbing food crop land”

    #6 presenter Mike brings up idea of farmers getting grants for solar farms, then later selling off the land as now brown field sites.
    Mike doesn’t have much knowledge, he’s just flippant.
    And dv just picks off the weakest points and ignores the rest.
    eg DV says 2we have lots of new Electric Cars”
    .. mike is too weak to point out they are fossil fuel powered
    It would be better if he brought on a proper skeptic
    #7 DV “Biden will make a big change”
    #7 UN Green sports plan

    #8 listener question about grass-gas an easy one cos DV points out he is collecting the methane , not releasing it.

    Like

  194. Dr Caroline Johnson Conservative MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham
    points us to a Lincolnshire consultation
    I have concerns about the emphasis being placed on the use of windfarms in the newly released Central Lincolnshire Local Plan. I believe there are far more impactful and less intrusive ways to facilitate a move to carbon net zero in our county, including supporting the offshore wind sector, low energy homes and encouraging the use of cleaner technologies.
    Windfarms cause both noise and visual pollution, have a known detrimental environmental impact on local wildlife, and can often have an intermittent functionality inland. They could cause interference with some radar signals in low flying zones, which is an important safety issue, given the RAF presence in Lincolnshire.
    I would encourage those with similar concerns regarding windfarms to submit their comments to the consultation on the plan, which is now running for 8 weeks (from 30 June to 24 August 2021).
    https://central-lincs.inconsult.uk/CLLP.Draft.Local.Plan/consultationHome

    Like

  195. General rule : if somewhere gets extra HOT air, somewhere else gets extra COLD air
    “South Brazil state Santa Catarina records 3rd consecutive day of snow, below-zero temperatures”

    The Serra Catarinense has peaks with altitudes that reach 1,827 meters
    but it is a long way north of the South Pole.
    It does snow most years, but only a little and only on about 2 days normally.

    Like

  197. Jit, you beat me to it. In the old days, I think what the BBC has just done here (editing out any reference to gains from climate change at Monbiot’s behest) would have been known as censorship. I think it is worth quoting at some length from the article to show just how sinister things are now becoming in this area:

    “BBC Bitesize has removed references to the “benefits” of climate change on its website, following complaints online.

    The education website listed “healthier outdoor lifestyles” as one of the pluses of having warmer temperatures.

    Others included easier access to oil in Alaska and Siberia, new shipping routes created by melting ice, and more tourist destinations.

    Climate expert and writer George Monbiot called the list, which has now been removed, “an absolute disgrace”.

    “This is what BBC Bitesize is teaching our children about climate breakdown,” the Guardian journalist tweeted.

    “I’m sorry, but it’s an absolute disgrace. You could come away thinking: ‘On balance, it sounds pretty good’.”

    Stuart Lock, the chief executive of Bedford’s Advantage Schools trust, said the article did not “align with the national curriculum” and “needs reconsidering”.

    The BBC said on Friday: “We have reviewed the page and have amended the content to be in line with current curricula.”

    The guide, which is aimed at GCSE geography students, now only shows the negative impacts of climate change – such as sea levels rising and droughts and floods becoming more likely….

    …In 2018, the BBC admitted its coverage of climate change had been “wrong too often”, telling staff: “You do not need a denier to balance the debate”.”

    What debate?!!!

    Like

  198. Reading scraps congestion charge zone due to ‘limited benefits'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-57701385

    “Plans to introduce a congestion charge in Reading have been scrapped.

    It comes after Reading Borough Council said the current climate emergency required “radical new proposals”.

    Transport boss Tony Page thought a workplace parking levy or clean air zone could prevent the town being used as a shortcut by drivers.

    The authority has now said an investigation has proved it would have “limited environmental and financial benefits”.”

    Like

  199. Here’s the first item in Bitesize’s current list of global impacts from climate change:’sea level rise will affect 80 million people’.

    Totally meaningless when put like that. Affect them how?

    And it’s out-of date. The new meaningless scare number for sea-level rise is 280 million people.

    Which makes the fourth item on the Bitesize list a bit odd: ‘diseases such as malaria increase, an additional 280 million people may be affected’.

    Most of them presumably due to that notoriously climate-sensitive topical parasite, Coincidensus sealevelriseosis.

    Like

  200. Natural climate change has affected people dramatically in the past, shock horror (only this article doesn’t quite put it like that):

    “Medieval climate change impact on Caerlaverock Castle examined”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-57694242

    “Experts are to examine the impact of medieval climate change on a castle site in southern Scotland.

    A structure built on the Solway Firth at Caerlaverock about 800 years ago was abandoned and replaced by one further inland and on higher ground.

    Environmental archaeologists will look at whether the original castle fell victim to huge coastal storms….

    …The first castle is thought to have been built on the coast with a harbour in 1229 to guard the entrance to the River Nith and Dumfries and provide protection against invasion from England.

    However, when King Edward I did invade in 1300, he had to besiege a new, stone-built castle constructed further inland and on higher ground….

    The site of the old castle is now an “uninviting wetland” with analysis suggesting that huge marine storms may have hit the coast repeatedly.

    When they ceased, it is believed the castle could have been left up to 400m (1,300ft) from the coast which prompted the construction of the new building.

    Experts will now re-examine the sediments in the area and collect additional samples to trace the “environmental legacy” of the medieval storms and give a clearer history of the castle move….”.

    I did wonder about this when I visited a few years ago.

    Inevitably, the conclusion won’t be along the lines of “this has always happened, what’s the fuss about?”…No indeed:

    “Dr Richard Tipping and Dr Eileen Tisdall said: “We are very excited to start working on this project, not only after lockdown, but also because understanding what climate changes in the past meant for people then is a key message for people in the coming years.””

    Like

  201. Inevitably, the Guardian has the “Bitesize” story, too:

    “BBC removes Bitesize page on climate change ‘benefits’ after backlash
    Study website made claims including warmer temperatures ‘could lead to healthier outdoor lifestyles’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/02/bbc-removes-bitesize-page-climate-change-benefits-backlash

    I loved this quote:

    “Stuart Lock, the chief executive of Advantage Schools trust in Bedford, said the advice was “flat wrong, doesn’t align with the national curriculum or exam specs, and needs reconsidering”.

    “Climate change isn’t a ‘both sides’ argument,” he added.”

    And the next one is arguably even more hilarious:

    “Extinction Rebellion’s south-east group said: “GCSE students, young people, those facing future disasters, deserve better than to be judged on questions which warp and distort the truth.””

    Like

  203. RussiaToday right now
    “Putin is to limit industry in order with the Paris Accord”
    hmm what Russia/China SAY
    is different to what they DO

    Like

  204. 6am news : Money to be spent lighting up buildings
    in enforced worshipping of the NHS

    Bird charity warns of harm from new wind farm
    Wind farms are not a straightforward subject for the RSPB in its efforts to protect the UK’s birds.
    “The charity supports the growth of renewable energy to combat the effects of climate change, but ”

    FFS it’s a bit late, but …

    Liked by 1 person

  205. “Can hydrogen fuel help drive towards green future?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57693635

    “Big businesses are using climate change to make a case for hydrogen.

    Those with a stake in the industry want the UK government to nail down a “bold” hydrogen strategy, and soon, which is said to be coming this year.

    A new survey by business campaign group Hydrogen Strategy Now says without it we’ll miss out on investment and job creation.

    But it’s not a simple story and a critical eye from environmental groups is closely watching how this plays out.”

    Looks like another way in which “Big Green” business has sniffed an opportunity to demand taxpayer funding with a view to making a killing.

    And then:

    “The train being built in Bo’ness will be powered by “green” hydrogen, which is made using renewable energy to power the electrolysis of water.

    It uses a lot of energy and is pricey – and added to that, when the hydrogen is on board the train, it will then be converted (via a fuel cell) back into electricity to power the train.

    Electricity – to hydrogen – back to electricity. Which begs the question: isn’t this really energy inefficient?

    “Absolutely.” A surprising answer from the CEO of Arcola Energy, the company in charge of the train build….

    …For him, decarbonisation is about using all the tools you have and hydrogen playing a role in the transport, industry and heating tasks that batteries are struggling to fulfil.

    “So I say use the right technology everywhere,” Mr Todd says.

    “There are plenty of places where it makes really good sense to do fuel cells, the business case works, the technical case works, so it’s horses for courses.”

    He, like other enthusiasts, reckon the price tag on hydrogen will go down if business is scaled up, which is why he’s pushing for a UK strategy to build market confidence….”

    A UK strategy to build market confidence in an inefficient system? Sounds like a plea for taxpayer money to me.

    Like

  206. “Slough goes bankrupt after discovery of £100m ‘black hole’ in budget
    Labour-run council is third English local authority to become effectively insolvent in past three years”

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/02/slough-goes-bankrupt-after-discovery-of-100m-black-hole-in-budget

    Perhaps they should have thought about that before declaring a climate emergency? Now they have a financial emergency instead.

    http://news.reading.gov.uk/34m-for-net-zero-carbon-reading/

    “READING Borough Council’s commitment to deliver a net zero carbon Reading by 2030 is outlined with a proposed £34 million investment to reduce emissions in the two years since it declared a Climate Emergency”.

    Like

  207. On the BBC’s self-censorship of good news about climate, the Guardian proudly announces:
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/02/bbc-removes-bitesize-page-climate-change-benefits-backlash

    After a backlash from climate experts and campaigners, including the Guardian writer George Monbiot, the page, aimed at year 10 students, was amended to only include the negative impacts of climate change.
    Monbiot tweeted: “This is what @bbcbitesize is teaching our children about climate breakdown. I’m sorry, but it’s an absolute disgrace. You could come away thinking: ‘on balance, it sounds pretty good’.”

    I’ve sometimes expressed admiration here at Cliscep for some of Gorge Monbiot’s campaigning journalism, for example against the Indonesian genocide in East Timor, or the scandalous monopoly position of Elsevier and others in scientific publishing. You could come away from some of the stuff I’ve written about Monbiot thinking: ‘on balance, he sounds like a good chap’.

    This is an absolute disgrace. From now on, all mention of Monbiot at Cliscep will be limited to pointing out that he’s a nasty narrow-minded bigot intent on censoring any truthful material that goes against his fanatical quasi-religious beliefs.

    Liked by 2 people

  208. Fooc on R4 now
    Blurb : Western Canada is still reeling from a week of record temperatures on the Pacific coast.
    A freakish heatwave caused snowmelts, which in turn triggered flood warnings; tinder-dry forests burst into flame; and deaths spiked in cities simply not built for the heat. Neal Razzell lives on Vancouver Island and reports on life under the ‘heat dome.’
    (hmm, I worked on the Island cleaning the king of Afghanistan’s carpets. it has a maritime climate .. i guess it never got super hot, cos of sea breezes
    ah he talked about the mainland instead)

    On Air : He’s superhyping “426 deaths, 3 times more than normal”
    ( I bet there is some double counting or something)
    He went on about Lytton the heat records
    and then claims the town all burnt down.
    He claims Climate Change will get worse.
    He laid it on thick

    That journo seems to do quite a few BBC-WS climate progs
    A recent one made out CCS is coming, but failed to explain how small the project is
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2dql

    Like

  209. To the long list of Guardian/BBC articles which demonstrate the very opposite of what they’re trying to prove, add this one: “US Cities are suffocating in the Heat. Now they want Retribution”
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/01/us-cities-heat-baltimore-suing-oil-gas
    the word “Retribution” in the title leading neatly into the theme of poor black people suffering disproportionately from global heating. Of a poor district of Baltimore, the article says:

    Scientists say temperatures in such pockets can be as much as 10 to 20 degrees hotter than other parts of the city due to a high concentration of pavement and a lack of shade from trees.

    (I expect that’s Fahrenheit, = 5 to 11°C)

    The article doesn’t explain how abolishing the motor car and reliable electricity generation is going to help these poor people, given that, even if the total overhaul of our way of life works according to plan, it would only reduce temperature rise by a half a degree or so during their lifetimes, leaving them hotter than before. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to plant more trees, or pay them better so they could move down the road to where it’s 5-11°C cooler, or buy them air conditioning?

    Like

  210. Stew Green on the RSPB:
    There’s a split growing in the Bird World between those who are opposed to wind farms and those who are opposed to solar panels. It depends whether you prefer your pheasant fried or minced..

    Like

  211. Geoff

    They need to be careful in pushing that line of argument, since it carries with it the implication that they are not adjusting nearly enough for the Urban Heat Island effect.

    Like

  212. “Gloucestershire plan to plant 35 million trees ‘overly ambitious'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-57697998

    “A council has admitted its plan to plant 35 million trees by 2030 might be “overly ambitious”.

    Gloucestershire County Council agreed the pledge in October and published it in its corporate strategy in February.

    The council has so far planted 10,380 trees in total, which is roughly the daily figure needed to meet its target.”

    Like

  214. Well now, here’s a dilemma – aren’t methane emissions from cattle destroying the planet, or something? Isn’t that why we all have to become vegans?

    “How cattle are helping rare butterflies to thrive at Mabie Forest”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-57636202

    “A forest in the south of Scotland is seeing a rare butterfly thrive thanks to a surprising friend.

    The distinctive Belted Galloway cattle are being used to help the pearl-bordered fritillary flourish.

    The last full survey at Mabie Forest near Dumfries in 2019 found numbers had more than doubled on the previous year.

    Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has been using a range of methods to help the local colony – including letting the heavy cattle in to graze.

    …They … allow a herd of Belted Galloways to keep the grass from getting too long and to create the sort of wet habitat and muddy hollows that the butterflies like….”

    Like

  216. “Former French Prime Minister Fillon joins Russian oil company board
    François Fillon becomes the latest senior European politician to join a Russian oil company.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/former-french-prime-minister-fillon-joins-russian-oil-company-board/

    “Former French Prime Minister François Fillon has been named to the board of a Russian oil company, according to Agence France-Presse.

    Documents published Saturday by a Russian website run by the Interfax news agency showed Fillon joined the board of Zaroubejneft on June 28.

    The former head of government under Nicolas Sarkozy works for the company as a consultant through his firm Apteras. He was nominated for the job by the Russian government in early June.

    Fillon went into consulting following a disastrous presidential bid in 2017, which was derailed by a fake-jobs scandal. He was sentenced in June 2020 to five years in prison, three suspended.

    He is the latest senior European politician to join a Russian fossil fuel company. Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl was named in June to the board of oil company Rosneft. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been chairman of the Rosneft board since 2017.”

    Like

  217. @Mark Hodgson: “Well now, here’s a dilemma – aren’t methane emissions from cattle destroying the planet, or something? Isn’t that why we all have to become vegans?”

    Let’s see now, cattle, especially grain-fed cattle, produce methane from the fermentation of plant material. So shouldn’t we expect a whole-grain vegan diet to produce the same amount of methane? Has anyone tested vegans for their methane output?

    Like

  218. I don’t know about you, but we’ve just had some pretty beefy thunderstorms pass over tonight. You know, the sort that can give rise to flash flooding caused by poor drainage and hitherto unnoticed streams. Nothing particularly unusual about that. Except this time the new housing estate that has recently been erected behind Aldi has just copped for it. No one is surprised by this. The builders and the council were so keen to shoehorn this housing development into a thoroughly unsuitable plot of land — it had susceptibility to flash flooding written all over it. I feel terribly sorry for the new residents but there is at least one silver lining. The news headlines can now point to unprecedented flooding in my home town due to climate change! It’s here! It’s now! And it’s terrifying. I demand to know what we are going to do about it.

    Like

  219. Switch on bingo
    As I switch on BBC4 at 8:15pm
    The narrator says
    “As the Polar ice melts, it’s becoming much easier to gain access to he gas, oil, and minerals beneath the seabed
    the scramble is on to claim the right to exploit them”
    scary brainwash music and graphics

    Prog is dated Apr 2010

    Like

  223. Re: RSPB. Looking for Stew’s news item from a day or two ago I went to their website to read the press release (couldn’t find one). What I was astounded by was the new landing page:

    The rest of the website has been turned into a future dystopia, where the RSPB is “shutting down”, and instead of a section on “Birds and Wildlife” we have a section on “Birds and Wildlife of the Past.”

    Like

  225. Nature never closes down and can have a really bad bite. What can they be thinking of?

    Like

  226. “Climate change: Planting extra trees will boost rainfall across Europe”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57722879

    “Planting extra trees to combat climate change across Europe could also increase rainfall, research suggests.

    A new study found that converting agricultural land to forest would boost summer rains by 7.6% on average.

    The researchers also found that adding trees changed rainfall patterns far downwind of the new forests.

    The authors believe that extra rain could partially offset the rise in dry conditions expected with climate change.

    The findings about increasing rainfall are partly based on observations of existing patterns. But the underlying reasons are less clear – they are probably related to the way the forests interact with cloudy air.”

    The study can be found here:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00773-6

    Like

  227. Here’s a young man unaffected by climate brainwashing:

    “My ‘lovely’ calves: Irish 10-year-old swaps cash prize for herd”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57722196

    “What would most 10-year-olds want to spend €1,000 (£860) on? Lego? Computer games? Maybe a lifetime supply of sweets?

    For Irish youngster William Woods, a sudden windfall in a prize draw meant he was able to realise his dream.

    So the boy, from Ballyconnell, County Cavan, spent his winnings on six calves.

    “Cows are my favourite animal, so why not buy some?” he told Irish national broadcaster RTÉ.”

    Like

  228. “Climate change: The craft brewery using algae to cut emissions”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-57675513

    “Fermenting beer produces carbon dioxide (CO2), which is usually released into the atmosphere. Australian craft brewer Young Henrys has partnered with climate change scientists and developed a way to use microalgae to capture that CO2, and turn it into oxygen.

    The brewers estimate their algae releases as much oxygen as two hectares of bushland.”

    Like

  229. “BBC Look East news programme gets carbon makeover”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-57723971

    “A regional BBC news programme has become the first in the broadcaster’s history to undergo a “carbon makeover”, cutting its emissions by two-thirds.

    Reporters on Cambridge-based Look East used electric bicycles and cars and charged cameras and drones using solar power to make Monday night’s programme.

    As studio lighting is also a big carbon emitter, the programme came live from the car park – in natural light.

    A hydrogen fuel cell generator was used to power the programme.

    The Look East team worked with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge, to measure their carbon footprint, and found travel was their biggest carbon contributor.”

    I look forward to learning how that goes next winter…..

    Like

  230. “Green light for Scotland’s largest net zero housing project in Edinburgh”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-57725111

    “Plans to create Scotland’s largest net zero housing development in Edinburgh have been granted approval by planners.

    The 444-home Western Villages will be a mix of one, two and three-bedroom flats.

    It is part of the £1.3bn Granton Waterfront Regeneration where more than 3,500 homes will be built over the next decade.

    It will focus on active travel, electric car charging points, car club spaces and public transport links.”

    Like

  231. “Swaffham Prior residents create green alternative to oil heating”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-57698106

    “Villagers have grouped together to replace their oil heating systems with a greener alternative.

    Mike Barker and Emma Fletcher, of Swaffham Prior in Cambridgeshire, both wanted an alternative to the “ugly” oil tanks in their gardens.

    The neighbours had the idea to dig 130 boreholes, each 200m (656ft) deep, in a field to naturally heat liquid which then spreads through the village.

    Mr Barker said they wanted to create a “sustainable” project in the community….

    …Resident Margaret Joyce said: “We’ve all got to do something green. If we can have a carbon neutral area then that’s fantastic.”

    Kate and Tom Wood said they thought the project made sense “financially” and “environmentally”….”.

    Another project where I’d be interested to learn more in the middle of next winter.

    Like

  232. “Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey opposed plans to cut new home emissions
    Exclusive: firm also argued against heat pumps, which are proposed as a replacement for gas boilers”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/05/housebuilder-taylor-wimpey-opposed-plans-cut-new-home-emissions

    “Taylor Wimpey, one of the UK’s biggest housebuilders, opposed government plans to slash carbon dioxide emissions from new homes by at least three-quarters and argued against heat pumps, which are proposed as a replacement for gas boilers, one of the UK’s biggest causes of greenhouse gases.

    The company, which typically builds about 15,000 new homes a year, told a consultation that a target of cutting CO2 emissions from new homes by 75% to 80% from 2025 was “too high” and argued that heat pumps would be too expensive and would disappoint customers with their performance.”

    Nice to know that someone’s standing up for common sense and for poor people.

    Like

  233. “Green party co-leader Jonathan Bartley steps down and urges electoral reform
    Bartley aims to give next leader time to prepare for election and will focus on building progressive alliance”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/05/green-party-co-leader-jonathan-bartley-steps-down-after-five-years

    “Jonathan Bartley, who has served for five years as co-leader, said he wanted to leave enough time for his successor to take the reins before a possible snap general election before 2024.

    Bartley has not ruled out standing as an MP but will concentrate on building a progressive alliance across left-leaning parties, which collectively attracted more votes in the 2019 general election than the Conservatives and smaller rightwing and Eurosceptic parties combined, but which fell to a crushing defeat as Boris Johnson took an 80-seat majority in parliament.

    Under a fair voting system the Green party would have 50 MPs on its current poll ratings, Bartley said, instead of a single MP, Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion.”

    Like

  234. A slightly confusing story, but then it is RT…

    “French senate votes against referendum on protecting climate change fight within constitution”

    https://www.rt.com/news/528442-french-senate-votes-against-climate-referendum/

    “The French national senate has rejected holding a public vote backed by President Emmanuel Macron on whether the country’s fight against climate change should be enshrined in the constitution.
    In a vote on Monday, France’s upper house adopted at second reading a new bill on the environment pushed for by the Citizens’ Climate Convention, a 150-member assembly set up by Macron

    Senators passed the text by a majority of 210 votes for to 127 against, after rejecting the bill in its previous incarnation in May over the use of the terms, “guarantee” and “fight.”

    France’s lower house, the National Assembly, where Macron has a majority, adopted an amended version of the text at the end of June, which replaced the word “fight” with “act.”

    The version passed on Monday says that France “preserves the environment as well as bio-diversity, and acts against climate change under the conditions laid down in the Environment Charter of 2004”.

    The bill’s passage deals a blow to Macron’s promise of a referendum on constitutionally protecting the climate change fight, because both houses of parliament must agree on the same text in order for a public vote to take place.”

    Like

  236. “Scots tenement owners could face £40,000 bills for ‘green’ upgrades”

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19421651.scots-tenement-owners-face-40-000-bills-green-upgrades/

    “OWNERS of tenement flats across Scotland could be hit with bills of up to £40,000 to ensure properties comply with strict Scottish Government targets to reduce carbon emissions.

    Social housing landlords are facing costly upgrades to housing stock over the next ten years which aim to improve energy efficiency and reduce fuel poverty.

    Tenement owners living in mixed tenure blocks factored by housing associations could also be hit with costly bills as some works would require their consent. …

    …However, a report released today by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) found the total number of households in fuel poverty would only be reduced from 38% to 29%, for upgrades totalling £2billion. Bills would be reduced by an average of £279 per year….

    …Almost half of the housing groups cited the cost of upgrades as the biggest hurdle, as well as identifying suitable alternatives, such as replacements for gas boilers.

    Tenement buildings and in particular mixed-tenure blocks were highlighted as particularly problematic.

    One social landlord said: “It’s not just the technical challenge, the majority of tenement buildings have owners in them. In an ideal world we want to take the owners with us, but most owners probably don’t have the finances to bring a property up to EESSH2. Some things can’t be done without owners’ consent so that will limit what we can do.”

    The cost for individual tenements is estimated at between £30-40,000, based on projects by John Gilbert Architects. …

    …It comes amid warnings thousands of rural homeowners could be left behind because they are unable to afford environmentally friendlier heating systems.

    The government aims to convert 167,000 homes off the gas grid to zero or low emissions heating systems, focusing primarily on heat pumps. Many are reliant on high carbon coal and oil.

    Heat pumps for off-grid homes could result in homeowners facing costs of up to £18,000.

    Research carried out by Opinium on behalf of Liquid Gas UK has shown that a third of Scottish rural households cannot afford to pay anything towards the cost.”

    That’s going well then.

    A quick calculation suggests a payback period of well over 100 years (cost per individual tenement of £30 – 40,000; savings £279 p.a.). Doesn’t sound like a good investment, especially given that many of the tenements are unlikely to have a lifespan of 100 years from now.

    Like

  237. “Climate crisis causing male dragonflies to lose wing ‘bling’, study finds
    Black patterns used to attract mates can cause the insects to overheat in hotter climates”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/06/climate-crisis-causing-male-dragonflies-to-lose-wing-bling-study-finds

    “Male dragonflies are losing the “bling” wing decorations that they use to entice the females as climates get hotter, according to new research.

    The results have led to the scientists calling for more work on whether this disparate evolution might lead to females no longer recognising males of their own species in the long run.

    Many dragonflies have ornamental black patterns on their wings which help them find their mates. New research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that male dragonflies are evolving to have less of that “bling” in areas where the climate is hotter, although female dragonflies don’t seem to be following suit.”

    It’s not an evolutionary response to changing temperatures, IMO, if males are doing it but females aren’t. The Guardian’s link to the report doesn’t seem to work.

    Like

  238. “Nordic countries endure heatwave as Lapland records hottest day since 1914
    Kevo in Lapland recorded a temperature of 33.6C after Finland registered record heat in June”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/06/heatwave-hits-nordic-countries-lapland-temperature-

    “Nordic countries have registered near-record temperatures over the weekend, including highs of 34C (93.2F) in some places.

    The latest figures came after Finland’s national meteorological institute registered its hottest temperature for June since records began in 1844.

    Kevo, in Lapland, recorded heat of 33.6C (92.5F) on Sunday, the hottest day since 1914 when authorities registered 34.7C (94.5F), said the STT news agency. Several parts of Sweden also reported record highs for June.”

    In other words, 1914 was hotter.

    Like

  239. After a long stint as the site’s water carrier, Sceptica is having a short holiday in the Algarve. Please address comments, suggestions and complaints re: sticky posts or other things to me for now.

    Liked by 1 person

  240. “Environment: Fear for future of north Wales steam trains if coal banned”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57740145

    “There are fears steam trains will stop running under new laws which may lead to a ban on burning coal.

    Paul Lewin, of the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland heritage railways in Gwynedd, said the industry needed “water-tight” exemptions to any proposed legislation.

    Concerns were raised in the House of Lords any new law could “bring about the death of Thomas the Tank Engine” and threaten heritage attractions.”

    Liked by 1 person

  241. Ah, that Law of Unintended Consequences….

    “Renting clothes is ‘less green than throwing them away’
    Transportation and dry cleaning make it the worst green option for consumers of fashion, study finds”

    https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/jul/06/renting-clothes-is-less-green-than-throwing-them-away

    “A study has revealed that renting clothes, long touted as one of the “answers” to fashion’s sustainability crisis, is worse for the planet than throwing them away.

    The study, published by the Finnish scientific journal Environmental Research Letters assessed the environmental impact of five different ways of owning and disposing of clothing, including renting, resale and recycling.

    It found that renting clothes had the highest climate impact of all. The hidden environmental cost was found to be delivery and packaging costs. Renting involves a large amount of transportation, taking the clothes back and forth between the warehouse and the renter. Dry cleaning is also harmful to the environment.”

    Like

  242. “The Guardian view on meeting net-zero targets: take the people with you
    Editorial
    A green jobs revolution can deliver a fair transition to carbon neutrality”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/06/the-guardian-view-on-meeting-net-zero-targets-take-the-people-with-you

    “n the lead-up to November’s crucial Cop26 climate change conference, the government has been rather better at setting eye-catching CO2 reduction targets than taking the necessary actions to meet them. This month, however, there have been signs of an overdue sense of urgency kicking in when it comes to creating and safeguarding green jobs….

    …Much, much more is needed though, if Britain and its workforce are to meet the challenges ahead. The UK has committed to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, to a 78% cut by 2035 and a 68% cut by 2030. But, as a study released this week by the Onward thinktank points out, these goals will only be achieved through a labour market revolution in skills and training, which shows no sign of happening any time soon. Its report, Qualifying for the Race for Net Zero, estimates that 3.2 million workers, employed in sectors such as construction, manufacturing and transport, will soon need to upskill or retrain….”.

    Given that it won’t make any difference to the world’s climate, given the behaviour of China, Russia, Middle East oil states and the developing world, I think you’re going to struggle to “take the people with you”, especially when they see their heating costs going up and their travel options going down.

    Like

  243. “Why North America’s killer heat scares me
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC environment analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57729502

    Worth a read to see inside the mind of a climate worrier. It ends:

    “Tomorrow I’ll return to coolly dissecting intriguing policy issues but today with Hazel at the back of my mind, please excuse me this brief visit to my more emotional side.

    In my 30+ years of reporting on the climate I’ve always taken a risk perspective on stories, because Mrs Thatcher was right that there’s only one planet. And I want Hazel and her own future grand-children to enjoy it.

    I used to employ the Twitter hashtag #Rollthedice. Now I’ve changed it to #Playingwithfire.”

    Like

  244. And when one story on a theme isn’t enough…

    “Record June temperatures point to more ‘extraordinary’ extremes”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57742482

    “North America experienced its warmest June on record, according to the EU’s Earth Observation Programme.

    That will come as no surprise given the unprecedentedly high temperatures recently recorded during the heatwave that hit Canada and parts of the US.

    But UK residents may be startled to learn that despite the rain and cloud they experienced it was the second warmest June on record for Europe.

    It was also the fourth warmest June ever recorded worldwide.”

    Well, yes, it is a surprise, given that we’ve had a very middling sort of June. And no mention of the cold January-May?

    And there’s this?

    “Professor Otto says even if we do manage to achieve the dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions many countries around the world are now committed to we will still see more frequent and more intense heatwaves than we have today.”

    So why are we even bothering?

    Like

  245. Curious, eh?

    “Surging Alaskan glacier viewed from space”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-57744323

    “The Finnish space company Iceye uses radar satellites to track changes on Planet Earth. These movies show the daily movement of Muldrow Glacier, which flows down the north side of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. The images were taken with Iceye’s spacecraft between 16 and 30 April. This year has seen the Alaskan glacier undergo one of its periodic surges when it can move by up to tens of metres a day. Muldrow seems to do this every 50 years or so.”

    Like

  246. “Human activity influencing global rainfall, study finds
    Anthropogenic warming of climate has been a factor in extreme precipitation events globally, researchers say”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/07/human-activity-influencing-global-rainfall-study-finds

    “Human activity such as such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use change were a key factor in extreme precipitation events such as flooding and landslides around the world, a study has found.”

    If anyone wants to check it out, the report can be found here:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24262-x

    I haven’t checked myself, but suspect land use change is a much bigger factor than climate change.

    Like

  247. “UK’s climate targets will cost less than battling Covid, says OBR
    But watchdog warns government that costs will double if it delays action to cut emissions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/06/uks-climate-targets-will-cost-less-than-battling-covid-says-obr

    How convenient that net zero won’t be all that expensive if we rush down that road, but will be much more expensive if we delay.

    “The UK’s climate targets will cost the government less over the next 30 years than the price of battling the Covid-19 pandemic if it acts quickly, according to the UK’s fiscal watchdog.

    Forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that ending the UK’s contribution to the global climate crisis would add 21% of GDP to the national debt by 2050, or £469bn in today’s terms. But those costs could climb twice as high if the government delays action to cut emissions.

    The independent spending forecasts found that taking early action to decarbonise the economy would have a smaller net impact on the UK’s finances than Covid or the 2008 financial crisis.

    But the spending watchdog said that delaying climate action until the start of the next decade, which is considered crucial in averting dangerous levels of global heating, would end up adding twice as much to the national debt as acting fast. Failing to take action could have a catastrophic impact on the public finances, the OBR warned.”

    What a load of rubbish! The UK taking action while China, Russia, Middle East oil states and the developing world don’t take action, will achieve nothing, so failing to take action will leave the UK’s finances in a better state than taking expensive and futile action. That’s a concept that even a 5 year old could understand, but it seems to be beyond “independent experts”.

    Like

  248. Mark, the estimate is pure fantasy. HS2 alone is presently estimated at £108,000,000,000. So for little more than 4 HS2s we can decarbonise the UK?

    Hinkley C is supposed to be costing £22,000,000,000 but according to the NAO, bill-payers are on the hook for another 50 billion, thanks to the spiralling cost of a watt. At inception C was supposed to be able to generate leccy at £24/MWh; it has now signed off on a strike price of about £90/MWh.

    Incidentally, Hinkley B is to shut this time next year, with a loss to the grid of a little over a jiggawatt.

    Of course, there may be scope to keep the costs of decarbonisation off the books as much as possible by the simple expedient of stealth taxes, such as already infest our leccy bills.

    Liked by 2 people

  249. “The climate crisis will create two classes: those who can flee, and those who cannot
    Peter Gleick
    Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in low coastal zones vulnerable to sea-level rise and coastal storms. That number could reach a billion by 2050”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/07/global-heating-climate-crisis-heat-two-classes

    “Worldwide, nearly 700 million people now live in low-lying coastal zones vulnerable to sea-level rise and coastal storms. That number could reach a billion by 2050. Island nations like the Maldives, Seychelles, Kiribati and others could be completely wiped out by rising seas and storms. Even a rise of only a meter (39in), almost certainly unavoidable now, will displace millions of people in Florida and along the Gulf coast, causing trillions of dollars in damages and property loss.”

    Like

  250. “Cop26: young people to interview ministers on stage, government says
    Global summit to be held in Glasgow in November will be ‘most inclusive’ ever, says spokesperson”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/07/cop26-young-people-to-interview-ministers-on-stage-government-says

    “Young people will interview government ministers on stage as part of plans to make this autumn’s climate change summit the “most inclusive ever”, the government has announced.

    A whole day will be dedicated to listening to the views of selected young climate activists at Cop26, the global summit due to be held in Glasgow in November. The event will heavily feature the “marginalised generation”, many of whom have said they have been ignored by governments.”

    Why “selected young climate activists”? Why not a cross-section of the population? Oh yes, that’s right – only the brainwashed can be relied on to give them the publicity they’re looking for. But is it right that the rest of the populations should be disenfranchised in this way?

    Like

  251. “I asked them why Gazprom spends tens of millions on promoting itself at the Champions League and the Euro Championships?’
    The reply?
    ‘To annoy the EU, and remind them that we are still the elephant
    that they cannot remove from the room in their dubious energy policy    .’

    ‘Gazprom is the largest gas company on the planet
    and it has 28 per cent of the world’s gas reserves (yes, 28 per cent).’
    ‘You actually (the UK) buy Russian Natural Gas if you have gas at all in the UK
    as it is supplied from Europe (UK buys a large amount of its gas from Europe) but pretends none of it is from Russia.

    It even buys LNG from Russia through intermediaries to pretend it does not buy from Russia.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/gazprom-blows-the-eu-a-raspberry

    Hmm still bet most of our gas come from outside Russia …eg Qatar LNG etc.

    Like

  253. “India discovers new plant species in Antarctica”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57732014

    “What about sunlight? The scientists say they still fully don’t understand how the plants survive under thick snow during the six winter months with no sunlight and temperatures dropping to as low as -76C.”

    And yet, what else do we get? The inevitable:

    “What worried the scientists was the “alarming evidence” of climate change that they saw during the expedition. They say they came across melting glaciers, crevasse-infested ice sheets and glacial melt-water lakes on top of ice sheets.

    “Antartica is getting greenified. Many temperate species of plants that previously could not survive in this frozen continent are now seen everywhere because of the warming up of the continent,” said Prof Bast.”The finding that Antarctica was greenifying was disturbing,” said Prof Raghavendra Prasad Tiwari, a leading biologist and the vice chancellor of the Central University of Punjab. “We don’t know what lies under the thick ice sheets. There could well be pathogenic microbes which could emerge when the ice melts due to global warming,””

    Here we go – the next stage of completely unsubstantiated scaremongering.

    Greenified? Early in the article we are solemnly told:

    “Only 1% of Antarctica is ice free.”

    Where are the BBC fact-checkers when we need them?

    Like

  254. A headline with two errors in a short sentence:

    “Wildlife Trusts habitat projects aim to tackle climate crisis”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57756586

    There is some global warming, with pluses and minuses to be had from that. There is no crisis. Secondly, a Wildlife Trust wasting £2M of National Lottery money won’t “tackle” it, crisis or not.

    “Wildlife projects to help tackle the effects of climate change and restore animal habitats have been unveiled by a charity.

    The Wildlife Trusts schemes include improving fragmented wetlands across England and Wales to pave the way for reintroducing more beavers to the UK.

    Coastal saltmarshes in Essex will be also expanded and and peatland habitats in five counties restored.

    Funding of £2m towards the projects has been provided by the People’s Lottery.

    The “nature-based solutions” will help the UK in its goals to cut carbon emissions to “net zero” by 2050, The Wildlife Trusts said.”

    Like

  255. Speaking of scare-mongering:

    “Climate crisis ‘may put 8bn at risk of malaria and dengue’
    Reducing global heating could save millions of people from mosquito-borne diseases, study finds”

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jul/08/climate-crisis-may-put-8bn-at-risk-of-malaria-and-dengue

    “More than 8 billion people could be at risk of malaria and dengue fever by 2080 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, a new study says.

    Malaria and dengue fever will spread to reach billions of people, according to new projections.

    Researchers predict that up to 4.7 billion more people could be threatened by the world’s two most prominent mosquito-borne diseases, compared with 1970-99 figures.

    The figures are based on projections of a population growth of about 4.5 billion over the same period, and a temperature rise of about 3.7C by 2100.”

    All of which rather ignores the fact that malaria was widespread in the UK as the country was just emerging from the Little Ice Age. If anyone can be bothered to read it, the study can be found here:

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00132-7/fulltext

    At least I think that’s it – the Guardian article didn’t link straight to it.

    Like

  256. Oh well, at least this one acknowledges that more people die of heat than cold, though you would think that would mean warming would be reported as good news. Not a bit of it!

    “Extreme temperatures kill 5 million people a year with heat-related deaths rising, study finds
    More people died of cold than heat in past 20 years but climate change is shifting the balance”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temperatures-kill-5-million-people-a-year-with-heat-related-deaths-rising-study-finds

    “More than 5 million people die each year globally because of excessively hot or cold conditions, a 20-year study has found – and heat-related deaths are on the rise.

    The study involving dozens of scientists around the world found that 9.4% of global deaths each year are attributable to heat or cold exposure, equivalent to 74 extra deaths per 100,000 people.”

    Spot the missing information? Oh yes, that’s how many people die of cold each year. Nothing, tumbelweed.

    “The study found more people had died of cold than heat over the two-decade period. But heat-related deaths were increasing, while cold-linked deaths were dropping.

    Monash University’s Prof Yuming Guo, one of the study’s lead researchers, said this trend would continue because of climate change, and total mortality rates may go up.

    “In the future, cold-related mortality should continue to decrease, but because the heat-related mortality will continue to increase, that means there will be a break point,” Guo said.

    He said in Europe there had already been an overall increase in the rate of deaths associated with temperatures.

    “If we don’t take any action to mitigate climate change … more deaths will be caused.”…”.

    “Deaths associated with temperatures”? Good grief. The study is here, if anyone can be bothered:

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext

    This was a bit of a surprise:

    “…sub-Saharan Africa had the highest mortality rate linked to cold temperatures….”

    Like

  258. Jit, thanks for that. I think the Guardian’s reporting of that story might by some people (I couldn’t possibly comment!) be described as lying by omission.

    Like

  259. “Justin Trudeau’s love of fossil fuel will only make Canada’s extreme weather worse
    Tzeporah Berman
    In Canada, almost every policy to help wean us off fossil fuel has been watered down by oil and gas lobbyists”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/08/trudeau-love-fossil-fuel-makes-canada-extreme-weather-worse

    “The most recent data, despite the Trudeau government’s claims of climate leadership, shows that Canada has made no progress in reducing emissions. Canada’s emissions are higher today than they were in 1990 and Canada is performing worse on climate change than any other G7 country.”

    Like

  260. How the BBC let climate deniers walk all over it
    by George Monbiot
    The fossil-fuel multinationals fund ‘thinktanks’ and ‘research institutes’.
    But it’s gullible public service broadcasters that give them credibility”
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/08/bbc-climate-change-deniers-fossil-fuel-broadcasters

    Comments will close here at 12:30 BST. (they only opened at 8am)
    ” This discussion is now *closed for comments*
    but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next time”
    There are 1,000 comments, all look to be from people in fantasyland

    Like

  261. Channel 4 put out 5 PR tweets for this conspiracy theory story that we are all bombarded by websites funded by oil corps pushing climate scepticism.
    They have minimal likes ..53

    .. https://twitter.com/alextomo/status/1413232282652057606
    .. https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1412866006205169666
    .. https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1413230155145912322
    .. https://twitter.com/alextomo/status/1413074021369974791
    .. https://twitter.com/alextomo/status/1413052645892411392

    Like

  262. Ah another story from same reporter from a few days earlier July 1st
    “On Channel 4 News tonight our Washington DC correspondent @siobhankennedy4
    talks to @AOC about our and Greenpeace UK investigation into Exxon and lobbyists. watch at 7pm”

    ha I always suspected PRasNews cutNpaste from Greenpeace

    Like

  263. Real world maths probably does say that switching from coal to gas
    has so far saved more CO2 than almost all other measures
    actually

    Like

  266. “Does new oil field conflict with climate summit aims?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57762927

    “In a matter of months, all eyes will be on Scotland for climate crisis talks of world significance – but at the same time, a proposal is afoot to tap a new oil field in the North Sea for further fossil fuels.

    November’s COP26 summit in Glasgow will see representatives from across the world gathering to try to reach agreements on how to reduce emissions – aka greenhouse gases.

    The UK government has promised to take the lead role in what is seen by many as our last, best chance to prevent global temperatures from spiralling out of control.

    But environmental groups have accused ministers of hypocrisy after it emerged that the development of a vast new North Sea oil field at Cambo, west of Shetland, could get the green light.

    Tessa Khan, an international climate change lawyer who founded Uplift, one of a number of groups signing a letter against the Cambo proposals, accused ministers of automatically nodding projects through without thinking about their climate impacts.”

    Just as the Scottish government nods through wind farms without thinking suffciently about their environmental impacts, I would suggest.

    Like

  268. “Spanish ministers clash over campaign to eat less meat”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57766345

    “A Spanish minister has been roasted by members of his own coalition government over his efforts to reduce meat consumption in the country.

    This week consumer affairs minister, Alberto Garzón, launched a campaign to encourage Spaniards to eat less meat.

    “Eating too much meat is bad for our health and for the planet,” Mr Garzón said in a video on Twitter.

    But for some cabinet ministers, his plea for moderation was difficult to swallow.

    “It seems to me the campaign is unfortunate,” agriculture minister Luis Planas said in an interview with a local radio station.

    Mr Planas said the “Less meat, more life” campaign was “unfair” for Spain’s meat industry, which is a major contributor to the country’s economy.

    Those views were echoed in an open letter to Mr Garzón, penned by six meat-producing associations.

    The associations accused the minister of defaming a sector that accounts for 2.5 million jobs and exports worth almost €9bn (£7.7bn; $10.6) in Spain.”

    Like

  269. “BBC-induced Climate Disinformation”
    isn’t that what we get in every BBC news programme from Harra ?
    … as the BBC step up their relentless Climate Alarmism campaign ahead of COP26
    so that the public hear
    Harra shout “human-induced Climate Change” dozens and dozens of times, day in day out.

    Like

  270. When it comes to reducing CO2 emissions, I’ve long been convinced that Germany is little more serious than China. Now we have this:

    “Joint CO2 targets must not diminish German industry, CDU leader warns EU
    Armin Laschet, frontrunner for next chancellor, says Germany will focus on innovation and market incentives”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/09/joint-co2-targets-must-not-diminish-german-industry-cdu-leader-warns-eu

    “The frontrunner to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor has warned the EU that joint greenhouse gas targets must not come at the cost of diminishing the prowess of German industry, signalling a reluctance to join carbon reduction schemes planned in other European countries.

    “Europe has to be modernised: we have to implement the Green Deal together but still remain successful with our industries,” Armin Laschet, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader, told the Guardian in an interview.

    “That’s the part that they don’t say out quite so loud in Brussels, but it’s what we expect in Germany: that we do everything to modernise our industries. There are many member states that are no longer industrialised economies. But us, and a couple of others, we want to stay that way.””

    Like

  271. UK National Grid just now:

    Coal: 3.3%
    Gas: 55%
    Solar: 1%
    Wind: 1.8%
    Hydro: 0.6%
    Pumped storage: 0.6%
    Nuclear: 15.6%
    Biomass: 8.1%
    Interconnectors: 13%.

    Like

  273. “EU’s carbon border levy risks death by a thousand cuts
    In the beginning it was Paris’ idea. And it is still only Paris’.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-lonely-crusade-for-a-carbon-border-tax/

    “It is fitting that the European Commission is finally set to propose a carbon border tax on France’s national holiday on July 14: Bastille Day.

    It was, after all, the French who led the charge for a revolutionary new levy to be imposed at the EU’s ports and border crossings to shield Europe’s industries from cheaper imports made in places with laxer environmental rules.

    As with the original Bastille Day at the beginning of the French revolution, however, the big question is now whether everything will descend into a bloody spate of feuding where many of the nobler intentions behind the reform are lost. The biggest danger is that the proposal will be diluted beyond recognition amid a series of compromises to please opponents ranging from trade partners like the U.S. and China, through to Europe’s own domestic industries.

    Most worryingly for Brussels, the all-important Germans — rarely fans of revolutionary change — are still wavering on whether a carbon border levy is the best way to protect European companies that feel that they have been put on an uneven playing field by the bloc’s green rules.

    The international pressure against the EU is already building to a fever pitch. The proposed tax, a recent draft of which was obtained by POLITICO, has already managed to rile big hitters in global trade, who could take legal action against Brussels at the World Trade Organization.

    China’s President Xi Jinping told the the Europeans in April not to let the battle against climate change become an excuse for “trade barriers,” while Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan told a POLITICO event last week that the EU carbon levy ran “the risk of enhancing protectionism.”

    “Of course, this will be disputed in WTO,” Pascal Lamy, a former director general of the WTO, said in an interview. Russia, Canada, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all also raised objections, according to an official in the WTO’s home base in Geneva.

    Skepticism from the U.S. is perhaps the single most significant hurdle, with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai refusing to rule out retaliatory tariffs.”

    Like

  274. “ECB sets 2 percent inflation target, prepares greater role in fighting climate change”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/ecb-switches-to-symmetric-target-no-overshooting-plans-officials-inflation/

    “The Governing Council claimed a role in fighting climate change, committing to a plan that includes disclosures as a requirement for eligibility as collateral and asset purchases and enhancement of risk assessment capabilities. The ECB will also consider climate-change risks when reviewing the valuation and risk control frameworks for assets used as collateral in its monetary policy operations and when choosing corporate bonds it buys as part of its quantitative easing program.

    “Climate action is squarely in the middle of our strategy,” Lagarde said, adding that it is “central to what we will do in terms of our monetary framework and in terms of our monetary operations.””

    Like

  275. Fluff article in Times last week claiming a Putney school has found classroom garden plants improve the air.
    Hmm 35 kids in a room sure makes a difference to the air, but one or two plants is mere fluff on top of that.

    Like

  276. Another puff piece claiming mussles can be used to filter microplastic s from water
    .. Are microplastics an actual real world problem ?
    Not as far as I know they sit in the environment like any other particle like sand, like pollen
    They not intrinsically poisonous like uranium or something

    Like

  278. I saw some statistics about plastic in the sea recently. There are allegedly 8 million tons dumped in the sea every year but that compares with 12.5 Billion tons of sediment from rivers that flows in every year.

    Like

  279. Times is on about Henry Dimbleby saying food prices need to go up to produced sustainable food
    .. The BS article doesn’t explain his job, or that he is David Dimbleby’s son
    but I see Mark reported on June 27th an RT article that explained
    chosen to lead Downing Street’s ‘National Food Strategy’ formulation body,
    believes that a levy on processed meat staples like burgers, steaks, ham, sausages,
    and chicken nuggets
    could be needed in order to tackle climate change, according to media reports

    Like

  280. Last *Sunday* when I pointed out how cheap gas power is compared to forcing renewbles on to the grid
    Emma Pinchbeck head of the Electric corps trade body spat back some PR BS
    I called it out
    She replied she never did PR
    ..FFS all her jobs were PR starting with WWF, then renewables trade body
    Check the Times from the day before and she had a PR BS letter
    written in the same style as one the previous Saturday from Mr Ward the Climate Fraud
    Times commenters called her letter out as BS
    … https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1413622371995594752

    Like

  282. “US heatwave: California and Nevada brace for record-breaking temperatures”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57788118

    “Extreme heat is building in the western United States, with forecasts of record-breaking temperatures in the states of California and Nevada.

    It comes just weeks after another dangerous heatwave hit North America, and the region has experienced the hottest June on record.

    California’s Death Valley on Friday recorded a high of 54.4C (130F), with similar heat expected this weekend.

    Millions of people in the US are under warnings of excessive heat.

    The National Weather Service has advised those affected to drink plenty of water and stay in air conditioned buildings.

    The temperature in Death Valley on Friday matched one recorded in August 2020 – which some argue is the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth. A temperature of 56.7C (134F) was recorded in 1913, but this is contested by climate experts.”

    Well, climate experts would contest it, wouldn’t they? Can’t have it being hotter 108 years ago than it is now, can we?

    Like

  283. “Climate change protest youngsters write sand slogans”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

    At 15.01 on 9th July 2021:

    “Youngsters worried about the impact of climate change have been protesting on the beach at Whitley Bay.

    Inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who skipped school and started inspired an international movement, the youngsters carved their slogans into the sand (pictured below).

    North Tyneside YouthStrike4Climate was started by three local children concerned by global warming and increases in the Earth’s temperature.”

    This is science & environment news, apparently – BBC style, anyway.

    Like

  284. “Weatherwatch: rising seas threaten mansions yet to be built
    At Emsworth in Hampshire the highest tides will soon be lapping at the doors of new houses”

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/10/weatherwatch-rising-seas-threaten-mansions-yet-to-be-built

    “Standing with your feet in the sea at Emsworth in Hampshire, the coastal path is at knee level a metre away. Beyond that the elegant front gardens of the million-pound houses are well below eye level. It is a spring high tide in Chichester harbour at one of the few places on the south coast where there are no sea defences. It is a sunny day with a gentle offshore breeze.

    An onshore wind would add another half a metre to this tide. With sea level rise the highest tides will soon be lapping at the doors of the mansions being built to replace the prewar bungalows. On the front lawn of a nearby 1920s house the owners want to build another five executive homes while the local authority, trying to keep houses affordable, suggests 24 ordinary dwellings.

    Amid the rush to develop, the exposed location hardly gets a mention. Overtopping the harbour is regarded as “a maximum flood risk” so planning rules stipulate that ground floors must be half a metre above lawn level and with solid front fence. The dried seaweed wrapped around the fence posts in the less well-tended front gardens show that these planning rules may already be out of date. More surprisingly, 30-year mortgages are still available.”

    Which might suggest that banks and building societies are less concerned about rising sea levels than are Guardian journalists. They might be wrong not to worry, of course, but given how difficult it is to obtain insurance for a property that is prone to flooding inland, while it’s presumably readily available at Emsworth, perhaps the sea level rise paranoia is overdone?

    Like

  285. “Rathlin Island: Aim to be carbon neutral by end of decade”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57794383

    “Rathlin Island was only connected to Northern Ireland’s main electricity grid in 2007.

    Prior to that it was powered by unreliable wind turbines and old diesel generators.

    Now islanders want to use the wind and waves that surround them to create their own green energy.

    The ambition is to become completely carbon neutral by the end of the decade, according to Michael Cecil from Rathlin’s Development and Community Association.

    “The island relies on its ferry service, home heating oil, diesel and petrol for transport on island and gas for cooking,” said Mr Cecil.

    “All of those things produce carbon dioxide and other gases that pollute the atmosphere. We’re keen to remove as much, if not all of that, as possible”….

    …The island is to get a community electric car and 20 e-bicycles in coming months, under a scheme backed by the Department for Infrastructure.

    Researchers are also to carry out scoping studies on how else the island can become self-sustainable and green energy efficient.

    Some possible options may be community-owned wind turbines, solar panels and hydrogen technologies.

    But Mr Cecil and the community association knew its plans to become carbon neutral by 2030 are ambitious.

    The two diesel ferries used to get to the island are responsible for a large proportion of its emissions.”

    Progress of a sort. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen the BBC use the words “unreliable” and “wind turbines” in the same sentence.

    Like

  287. UK National Grid just now:

    Coal: 2.9%
    Gas: 49.6%
    Solar: 0.2%
    Wind: 4.1%
    Hydro: 0.6%
    Pumped storage: 0.1%
    Nuclear: 18%
    Biomass: 8.6%
    Interconnectors: 15.5%

    Like

  288. “The young Fenland farmer taking on climate change”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-57700865

    “A 22-year-old farmer has told how he has built a reservoir and invested in new kit because of his fears over climate change and extreme weather.

    Rob Andrew has been growing crops with his father in the Cambridgeshire Fens for five years and documents his time out in the fields on YouTube.

    He said in the short space of time that he has been farming he has noticed planting and harvesting windows shortening.

    They have tried to help the environment by planting more grass and trees and buying equipment that releases less carbon from the soil, as well as creating the small reservoir. He has called on the government to help out small farms with grants.

    A Defra spokesperson said: “Our landmark plans for a renewed agricultural sector will transform the way we support farmers to reward them properly for the work that they do to improve the environment, adapt to a changing climate and store carbon.

    “Our update to the Agricultural Transition Plan outlines how we will put this into practice, with farmers able to earn up to £70 per hectare for actions to improve the health of their soil – leading to increased biodiversity, improved water quality and reduced carbon emissions.””

    Planting and harvesting windows shortening? Over 5 years? Really? If it’s over 5 years, it’s weather, not climate. Anyway, I thought spring was supposed to be arriving earlier (not that it did this year), and winters getting shorter. Planting and harvest windows should be lengthening, not shortening, due to warming.

    Like

  289. “EU green renovation push raises the heat on EU countries
    Capitals are wary that higher EU energy efficiency targets and a new carbon market for buildings may stir social discontent at home.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-green-renovation-push-raises-the-heat-on-eu-countries/

    “The EU plans to put the squeeze on countries to make buildings more energy efficient — and that’s setting off fears of a clash between Brussels and national capitals and the possibility of a populist backlash.

    The European Commission wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, and doing that means a radical rethink of how buildings are treated. About three-quarters of the EU’s building stock is considered to be energy-inefficient, and buildings account for more than a third of the bloc’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.

    The Commission aims to tackle the issue on July 14 in its Fit for 55 package, a major legislative proposal aimed at hitting the bloc’s 2030 climate pledges that will include new energy efficiency targets and a proposal to extend carbon trading to the buildings sector.

    But those measures risk putting further strain on Brussels’ relationship with member countries, which will have to take on costly renovations in the public sector and fend off potential anger from homeowners and tenants facing higher heating bills.

    Governments are especially nervous about the Commission’s proposal for a new carbon cap-and-trade system, which would oblige fossil heating fuels suppliers to buy permits for the greenhouse gases they emit — something that could hike energy prices.

    Critics, including Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Slovenia’s Janez Janša, Latvia’s Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš and Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel, say that risks shifting costs onto the bloc’s poorest people. France, too, is wary of how higher prices will play domestically, given the unrest unleashed by the Yellow Jackets protest movement in response to planned tax hikes on gasoline in 2018. “

    Like

  290. If you are using “Conversations” mode, you can tidy up the page by removing dead threads.
    Click the three dots, then the popup that says “follow conversations” to unfollow it.

    Like

  291. R4 consumer show
    Energy tariffs that charge less for overnight power
    so you can charge up your car and heaters are becoming more popular.
    More than 4 million customers are signed up
    but nearly half of them could lose access to tariffs like Economy 7 and Economy 10
    unless they switch to a smart meter.

    Like

  292. Sadly, this UN initiative is probably doomed to failure, but it strikes me as a lot more useful than the climate COPs:

    “UN sets out Paris-style plan to cut extinction rate by factor of 10
    Ambitious draft goals to halt biodiversity loss revealed, with proposed changes to food production expected to ‘raise eyebrows’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/12/change-is-coming-un-sets-out-paris-style-plan-to-cut-extinction-rate-tenfold

    “Eliminating plastic pollution, reducing pesticide use by two-thirds, halving the rate of invasive species introduction and eliminating $500bn (£360bn) of harmful environmental government subsidies a year are among the targets in a new draft of a Paris-style UN agreement on biodiversity loss.

    The goals set out by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)to help halt and reverse the ecological destruction of Earth by the end of the decade also include protecting at least 30% of the world’s oceans and land and providing a third of climate crisis mitigation through nature by 2030.

    The latest draft of the agreement, which follows gruelling virtual scientific and financial negotiations in May and June, will be scrutinised by governments before a key summit in the Chinese city of Kunming, where the final text will be negotiated.

    Alongside the 2030 draft targets, new goals for the middle of the century include reducing the current rate of extinctions by 90%, enhancing the integrity of all ecosystems, valuing nature’s contribution to humanity and providing the financial resources to achieve the vision.”

    And yet compare and contrast with COP 26 in Glasgow, which absolutely can’t be held remotely, despite covid, and despite the huge amounts of CO2 that will be emitted by tens of thousands of delegates descending on Glasgow from all over the world, in direct and hypocritical contradiction of its aims.

    Meanwhile…:

    “The Guardian understands that the [biodiversity] summit, scheduled for October, is expected to be delayed for a third time due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is now likely to take place in Kunming in the first half of 2022, pending in-person preparatory negotiations that could happen in Switzerland early next year.”

    Like

  293. Emotional blackmail TV advert
    1 minute of different BAME kids shouting at you
    .. “What’s it gonna take for YOU to do something about Climate Change ?”

    “join the Amazon Climate Pledge companies”

    Here’s the short 15 second version

    Like

  294. “Health warnings as Death Valley scorches in 54.4C heat
    Severity of hot spell in western US underlines dangerous impact of human-caused climate disruption”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/health-warnings-as-death-valley-scorches-in-544c-heat

    “The US National Weather Service measured the temperature at Furnace Creek in Death Valley on Saturday at 54.4C (130F). If confirmed, this would equal the record set at the same place last year and rival slightly higher measurements made more than 100 years ago when equipment was less precise.”

    If “slightly higher” measurements were made more than 100 years ago, then last year’s (and this year’s) temperatures are not “the record”, now are they? And does it not occur to the Guardian, in its ham-fisted attempt to disregard the real record, set more than 100 years ago, that if the equipment then was less precise, the temperature then could just as well have been higher, rather than lower, than that recorded?

    Like

  295. Each time political greens waste my time with their bullying
    .. I pledge to deduct that time from time I spend sorting the recycling
    and pledge to eat more meat

    … I’m still left as being far more green than them anyway.
    ..with their shop yourself green mentality

    Like

  296. Amazon renames Seattle stadium as part of their campaign.

    Like

  297. “Our climate change turning point is right here, right now
    Rebecca Solnit
    People are dying. Aquatic animals are baking in their shells. Fruit is being cooked on the tree. It’s time to act”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/12/our-climate-change-turning-point-is-right-here-right-now

    Lots of angst, but also this:

    “There was a case to be made that climate change – in the form of rising saltwater intrusion – was a factor in the Florida building’s collapse…”. A very weak case. Even the climate change-obsessed BBC didn’t make that claim.

    Like

  298. “Biden’s clean energy plan would cut emissions and save 317,000 lives
    A new report has found that a policy standard would be most effective to reach the goal of 80% renewable energy use by 2030”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/11/biden-administration-clean-energy-climate-crisis

    “A Biden administration plan to force the rapid uptake of renewable energy would swiftly cut planet-heating emissions and save hundreds of thousands of lives from deadly air pollution, a new report has found amid growing pressure on the White House to deliver a major blow against the climate crisis.”

    Growing pressure? From whom? The Guardian?

    Like

  301. On my Guido page now .. they haven’t got a global warming ad
    but rather an ad touting for global warming adverts
    It’s a good sign, if they don’t have enough already

    Like

  304. “£12.5m grant for Cairngorms climate emergency projects”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57809447

    “Projects to preserve the Cairngorms landscape have won a £12.5m share of National Lottery funding.

    The money will help fund more than 20 schemes in The Cairngorms National Park including planting thousands of trees, restoring 3,500 hectares of peatland and a new nature-based dementia centre.

    The Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) also plans to develop an electric bike network around the park.

    It is hoped the 23 projects can be completed by the end of the decade.

    The money will go towards a series of projects aimed at tackling the climate emergency and delivering a “wellbeing economy”.”

    Some of the money goes to restoring peatland, while elsewhere in Scotland, peatland is being trashed by windfarms. Where’s the logic?

    Like

  305. Speaking of Scottish windfarms…

    “Third of Scotland’s big wind farms linked to tax havens including Cayman Islands”

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19436186.third-scotlands-big-wind-farms-linked-tax-havens-including-cayman-islands/

    “Nearly a third of Scotland’s biggest wind farms have owners with links to offshore tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Guernsey and Jersey.

    An investigation by The Ferret has also revealed that 39 of the largest 50 wind farms are ultimately owned outwith Scotland in England, Spain, France, Germany, Norway, China and elsewhere. “

    Liked by 1 person

  307. “Climate change: Leaders demand more power”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

    At 15.47 today:

    “Council leaders and regional mayors are calling for more power and money in order to hit climate change targets.

    The influential figures who will be attending a summit hosted in Birmingham on Tuesday have signed a letter calling for “further and faster” action to protect the environment.

    The government has set a target to get the country to net zero by 2050, with a 78% reduction in emissions by 2035 compared with 1990 levels.

    Andy Street, Conservative mayor of the West Midlands and summit co-convenor, said: “We’re asking ministers to give us the powers and the funding to do more.

    “We want to work hand-in-glove with Government to accelerate the drive to net zero.””

    Protecting the environment and net zero are not the same thing, and indeed they are often in conflict. And what is the point of hitting climate change targets, if they don’t make any difference to climate change?

    Like

  308. This is dated 18th November 2020, but has just popped up on the “Science & Environment” section of the BBC website, so it’s difficult to do other than conclude that it’s an exercise in propaganda ahead of COP 26, pure and simple:

    “What is climate change? A really simple guide”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24021772

    “While Covid-19 has shaken much of human society, the threat posed by global warming has not gone away.

    Human activities have increased carbon dioxide emissions, driving up temperatures. Extreme weather and melting polar ice are among the possible effects.”

    Etc etc, ad nauseam.

    Like

  309. “Von der Leyen pledges fuel poverty help amid EU emissions trading concerns
    Commission president moves to assuage fears scheme could lead to higher home energy and petrol bills”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/13/von-der-leyen-pledges-fuel-poverty-help-amid-emissions-trading-concerns

    “The European Commission has said it wants a fund to prevent fuel poverty, amid warnings from an ally of France’s Emmanuel Macron that a proposed trading scheme to cut emissions from transport and buildings is “political suicide”.

    The commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is due to unveil the plans for a trading scheme on Wednesday as part of a sprawling set of proposals to get the EU on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, including goals to increase use of electric vehicles and phase out petrol-powered cars by 2035.

    Speaking before the launch to the Guardian and other European newspapers, she sought to assuage fears that the plan would trigger a rise in household energy bills and petrol prices. “We will make sure households with small incomes get support for mobility, driving and heating,” she said.

    But the plan to create an emissions trading system (ETS) for transport and buildings has been denounced as “politically suicidal” and “a huge political mistake” by Pascal Canfin, the chair of the European parliament’s environment committee and a key Macron ally. “It’s a very bad idea,” he said

    In a stark warning, he said the commission was “going to trap” lower middle class families. Hardest hit would be people in regions with poor public transport and tenants who could not pay for energy efficiency upgrades to their homes, he said. “It’s a huge political mistake, including for the European project,” Canfin said.”

    Political realities hitting home?

    Like

  310. “https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/13/rising-oil-price-may-speed-shift-to-electric-vehicles-says-energy-watchdog”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/13/rising-oil-price-may-speed-shift-to-electric-vehicles-says-energy-watchdog

    “Rising oil prices could help speed climate action by accelerating the shift to electric vehicles, but would come at the expense of the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the global energy watchdog.

    The world’s demand for crude surged by an average of 3.2m barrels a day (b/d) in June compared with the previous month but the return of oil production has failed to keep pace, triggering a steady rise in market prices.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that oil prices, which climbed by two-thirds this year to highs of $77 a barrel earlier this month, could climb higher and lead to market volatility unless big oil producers pump more barrels.

    “While prices at these levels could increase the pace of electrification of the transport sector and help accelerate energy transitions, they could also put a drag on the economic recovery, particularly in emerging and developing countries,” the IEA said.”

    Remember this?

    “Will the coronavirus kill the oil industry and help save the climate?”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/01/the-fossil-fuel-industry-is-broken-will-a-cleaner-climate-be-the-result

    “Analysts say the coronavirus and a savage price war means the oil and gas sector will never be the same again

    The plunging demand for oil wrought by the coronavirus pandemic combined with a savage price war has left the fossil fuel industry broken and in survival mode, according to analysts. It faces the gravest challenge in its 100-year history, they say, one that will permanently alter the industry. With some calling the scene a “hellscape”, the least lurid description is “unprecedented”.”

    Doesn’t look so broken and in survival mode just15 months later. So much for analysts and Guardian journalism.

    Like

  311. “Carry on flying, says government green plan
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC Environment Analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57830168

    “Carry on flying, the government has told the British public, in its plan to reduce transport emissions to virtually zero by 2050.

    Ministers say new technology will allow domestic flights to be emissions-free by 2040, and international aviation to be zero carbon by mid century.

    The policy has been ridiculed by environmentalists who say the government is putting far too much faith in innovation.”

    And environmentalists aren’t putting too much faith in innovation?

    Like

  312. “Is this Wales’ first zero-carbon secondary school?” morphs, when you click on it, into:

    “Climate change: Carmarthenshire school’s zero-carbon secondary bid”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57823406

    “A school is hoping to become the first carbon-neutral secondary in Wales.

    Ysgol Bro Dinefwr, near Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire, has been working with an energy company and suppliers in an effort to cut and offset their carbon emissions.

    Plans include growing food on site, planting trees and wildlife gardens.

    But an environmental expert warned there needed to be a “cultural shift” across Wales for all public bodies to reach the zero-carbon target by 2030.

    Ian Chriswick, assistant head teacher at the school said: “We’re looking to increase the number of solar cells on our roof space, we’re also hopefully in the future going to redirect our main energy power source from the local wind turbine.

    “We’re going to be installing electric vehicle charge points in our car park for staff and also visitors to the area to use in the future.””

    Yeah, right, that’ll do it.

    Of course, one version of the story isn’t enough for the BBC. We also have this:

    “Climate change: Ysgol Bro Dinefwr’s zero-carbon bid”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-57823407

    “Pupils have been growing plants in a polytunnel and beds.

    Cerys, who is in Year 12, said: “It’s a matter of our lives now. I think it should be important to everyone.””

    I suggest pointing out to the pupils, including Cerys, that without oil they wouldn’t have smart phones, and asking them to live without them, for the sake of net zero – see how that goes down with the climate worrying youth.

    Like

  313. “UK ministers resist calls to reduce VAT on green home improvements
    MPs and builders want tax cut included in government strategy to cut emissions from home heating”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/uk-ministers-resist-calls-to-reduce-vat-on-green-home-improvements

    “Ministers are resisting calls to reduce VAT on green home improvements, despite pleas from MPs and builders, as they prepare to set out a national strategy for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from home heating.

    Heating Britain’s homes accounts for about 14% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and that number has barely budged in the past decade. This year, ministers scrapped the green homes grant, a scheme to subsidise insulation and low-carbon heating systems, after only six months. This left the UK with no plan to bring homes into line with the government’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

    The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been preparing a new heat and buildings policy to solve the problem, which may finally be published this week. However, the Treasury seems intent on leaving out a key plank of the strategy that has the support of MPs, the construction industry, green experts and campaigners.”

    I just love that – “green experts”.

    Like

  314. “Ban on polluting lorries pledged in Tories’ transport greenprint
    Delayed decarbonisation plan for achieving net zero emissions for transport by 2050 is published”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/ban-on-polluting-lorries-pledged-in-tories-transport-greenprint

    “New diesel and petrol lorries will be banned in Britain by 2040, under a “greenprint” to decarbonise all types of transport by 2050.

    The British government’s long-awaited transport decarbonisation plan, finally published on 14 July, will include what is being billed as a “world-leading pledge” to end the sale of all new polluting vehicles and move towards net zero domestic aviation emissions by 2040.

    It will also include commitments to electrify the entire fleet of government cars and vans by 2027, and plans to create a net zero-emissions rail network by 2050.

    While the government said the plans were still subject to consultation, it said it proposed to phase out all polluting HGVs by 2040, and polluting lorries weighing under 26 tonnes by 2035. It would do so earlier if a faster transition seemed feasible.”

    Like

  315. “UK public should get ‘people’s dividend’ in drive to hit green targets
    Landmark report proposes free public transport, more green spaces and cash for home improvements”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/uk-public-should-get-peoples-dividend-in-drive-to-hit-green-targets

    “The British public should be given a “people’s dividend” worth billions of pounds as part of the national drive to hit targets for net zero carbon emissions and the restoration of nature, according to the most detailed blueprint to date for a green transition.

    Free public transport, more green spaces and money for improving homes are at the core of a landmark report that proposes one of the greatest advances in the fairness agenda since the creation of the NHS.

    The 70,000-word manifesto by the cross-party environmental justice commission says levelling up must be at the heart of efforts to decarbonise the UK economy to ensure policies have broad public support.

    The authors – MPs, citizen’s juries, business executives, union leaders and members of the Institute for Public Policy Research – say they have learned from the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protests in France that fuel tax increases will bring a backlash if they are perceived as unfair. Instead, they cite Canada as an example of redistributing carbon tax revenues among citizens. In the UK’s case, they say this should be done in the form of grants and support for better wellbeing.

    Caroline Lucas, a Green party MP and one of the co-chairs of the commission, saw parallels with the creation of the NHS in terms of the possible social impact.”

    #Magic Money Tree.

    It seems to be dawning on them that their agenda is regressive and will adversely effect poor people worst, and thus will be unpopular when the penny drops with the public. Unfortunately they are clueless as to where are the money is to come from that will need to be redistributed if we’re not to have riots on the streets.

    #Carry on Regardless.

    Like

  316. ““Projects to preserve the Cairngorms landscape have won a £12.5m share of National Lottery funding.

    The money will help fund more than 20 schemes in The Cairngorms National Park including planting thousands of trees, restoring 3,500 hectares of peatland and a new nature-based dementia centre.”

    Of course, if some Quango decides what the landscape should look like, it hardly going to be natural, is it?

    Shades of Capability Brown and all those 18th-century sublime estates…

    Like

  317. ““Climate change: Carmarthenshire school’s zero-carbon secondary bid”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57823406

    “A school is hoping to become the first carbon-neutral secondary in Wales.”

    Wasn’t there a secondary school (in the Wirral?) built in the 60s that relied on passive heating? ie just lots of warm young bodies and incandescent lights?

    Like

  318. ITV local news…totally slick CC PR item based on NFU future of farming initiative
    starred farmer James Johnson
    and the a Doncaster farmer who claimed his recycling of home garden compost into farm fertilizer
    “This will be carbon negative in future”
    ..(nothing was explained ..but the process cannot even be carbon neutral. ..cos CO2 is captured out of the air, into the grass and into his farm crops ..but he’d lose transport & construction CO2 in the process
    To be CO2 negative you’d have to Carbon Capture and that is a perpetual motion machine project)
    reporter Chris Kiddy

    Second item (probable national syndicated item)
    “changing the way we heat our homes”
    “Air Source Heat pumps to replace gas boilers”
    now Ground Source heat pumps
    costing 6- £18,000″

    Reporter Kevin Ashford

    Like

  319. “Climate change: Ministers abandon plans to set out low-carbon heating strategy before summer break following disagreements inside government
    Sky News understands the ‘heat and buildings strategy’ was originally due for publication next week. But a Whitehall standoff over the cost of the plans means talks have stalled.”

    https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-ministers-abandon-plans-to-set-out-low-carbon-heating-strategy-before-summer-break-following-disagreements-inside-government-12355890

    “Government talks over how Britain should meet its domestic climate change commitments have stalled and the publication of a new strategy is set to be delayed until the Autumn, Sky News has learned.

    Ministers had been due to announce a “heat and buildings strategy” next week which would set out how Britain will decarbonise central heating systems in homes and offices – which combined make up a third of emissions.

    But Sky News understands a Whitehall standoff over the cost of the plans means this is now not expected until at least September.

    Separately, discussions are stuck over how best to fill the tax gap left behind because of the transition to electric cars. Number 10 wants to explore road pricing but is facing resistance elsewhere in government and is hostile to suggestions of an increase in fuel duty.

    These issues need to be resolved early in the Autumn and pulled together in a single Net Zero Strategy, all before the UK hosts the UN climate change conference at the end of October. Many environmental groups had hoped the UK would set the pace globally on domestic reforms.

    This comes amid a more gloomy global outlook for the COP26 climate change talks: discussions made less progress than hoped at the G7 summit of leaders in Cornwall in June amid signs that governments around the world are worried about the costs of climate change measures.”

    As well they might be….

    Like

  320. “EU unveils sweeping climate change plan”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57833807

    “The European Union has announced a raft of climate change proposals aimed at pushing it towards its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

    A dozen draft proposals, which still need to be approved by the bloc’s 27 member states and the EU parliament, were announced on Wednesday.

    They include plans to tax jet fuel and effectively ban the sale of petrol and diesel powered cars within 20 years.

    The proposals, however, could face years of negotiations.

    The plans triggered serious infighting at the European Commission, the bloc’s administrative arm, as the final tweaks were being made, sources told the AFP news agency….

    …The measures are likely to push up household heating bills, as well as increase the cost of flights in the EU. Financial assistance will be available for people to install insulation and make other long-term changes to their homes.

    “We’re going to ask a lot of our citizens,” EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said. “We’re also going to ask a lot of our industries, but we do it for good cause. We do it to give humanity a fighting chance.”

    Opposition is also expected from some industry leaders, such as airlines and vehicle manufacturers, as well as from eastern member states that rely heavily on coal.

    One EU diplomat told Reuters that the success of the package would rest on its ability to be realistic and socially fair, while also not destabilising the economy….”

    Good luck with that!

    Like

  321. “Climate change: Amazon regions emit more carbon than they absorb
    By Matt McGrath
    Environment correspondent”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57839364

    “Deforestation and climate change are altering the Amazon rainforest’s ability to soak up carbon, according to a new study.

    Significant parts of the world’s largest tropical forest have started to emit more CO2 than they absorb.

    The south-east is worst-affected, say scientists, with higher rates of tree loss and an increasing number of fires….

    …Areas of our planet that absorb more carbon from the atmosphere – for example, in the form of the greenhouse gas CO2 – than they store are known as sinks.

    The role played by the lands and forests of the Earth in soaking up carbon has been a critical factor in preventing faster rates of climate change.

    Since the 1960s, these sinks have taken in around 25% of carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels.

    The Amazon, home to the world’s largest tropical forest, has played a key role in absorbing and storing much of that carbon.

    But the growing impacts of climate change and deforestation are taking their toll on this crucial CO2 sponge….”

    Like

  322. “UK roadbuilding strategy needs to take in climate commitments, government says
    ‘Fundamental changes’ to travel patterns due to the pandemic and environmental goals prompted rethink of spending on roads”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/14/uk-roadbuilding-strategy-climate-commitments-government-grant-shapps

    “Britain’s £27bn roadbuilding strategy will have to be redrawn to take account of environmental commitments, the government has admitted, in a victory for campaigners who sought a judicial review.

    The government’s transport decarbonisation plan, published on Wednesday, pledged to review the national networks national policy statement, which outlined a strategy of major spending on roads.

    The plan said that the “fundamental changes” brought to travel patterns by the pandemic as well as climate commitments had prompted the decision, although the government had faced a potentially difficult legal battle after court documents showed that the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, had resisted officials’ advice to review the roads policy.

    The pledge means that the Department for Transport will abandon its legal defence in one of the two cases brought by the Transport Action Network (Tan). The campaigners are likely to be awarded costs.

    However, the decarbonisation plan still suggests that the government will continue large-scale road building, on the assumption that future vehicles will be electric or low-emission.”

    Like

  323. “UK ‘sacrificing’ fishing sector for offshore windfarms, says industry
    Ambition to expand offshore wind energy will cause huge displacement to industry, UK fishing federation claims”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/14/ministers-accused-of-sacrificing-fishing-sector-for-second-time-since-brexit

    “The government has been accused of sacrificing the fishing industry for a second time since Brexit in order to burnish its green credentials with a huge programme for offshore wind turbines.

    The prime minister, Boris Johnson, last year said the UK had an opportunity to become “the Saudi Arabia of wind”, as part of a goal to become carbon neutral by 2030.

    But in an echo of Brexit political divides, fishing officials said on Wednesday the government had failed to carry out impact assessments or recognise the huge “displacement” that wind turbines at sea were causing the fishing industry.

    “What we seem to have is a government that is in thrall to the conservation lobby, and you can see why – there are green votes that are there,” said Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) at a briefing to reporters on Wednesday. He added that the government had “no real understanding of what the effects are of those policies in terms of displacement”….

    …Tony Delahunty, president of the NFFO, said the environment campaigners “pooh pooh the displacement argument” about the barrier to fishing near the huge structures but that the issue did not solely concern the “block of seabed that’s covered by the actual turbines” but also related to the “thousands and thousands of cables connecting to the shore base”, many of which are “not covered”.”

    Liked by 1 person

  324. “Siân Berry quits as Green party leader in dispute over trans rights
    Departure citing ‘mixed messages’ follows that of co-leader Jonathan Bartley earlier this month”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/14/sian-berry-quits-as-green-party-leader-in-dispute-over-trans-rights

    “Siân Berry is to quit as leader of the Greens, citing conflict within the party over transgender rights and claiming it had been a “failure of leadership” on her part that the party was sending “mixed messages”.

    The Guardian understands there had been a significant clash of opinion with a particular colleague.

    Berry, who was the party’s candidate for London mayor, had been co-leader with Jonathan Bartley, who announced he was stepping down earlier this month. She said she had been agonising over whether to stand in the forthcoming leadership election but said she felt divisions in the party were too great.

    A vocal supporter of trans equality, Berry had said one of the first things she would do as mayor would be to set up a commission on the rights of trans Londoners. In her resignation letter on Wednesday, Berry said there had been significant disagreement with colleagues elected to the party’s frontbench team.”

    Like

  328. Well I have a magic solution to CO2
    so they’ll be no flooding in the 2030’s ….will there NASA ?

    … oh it’s a wobbly moon that will cause flooding.

    Like

  329. the climate PR firm is paying for Twitter advertising
    – then Twitter is pushing it out onto me
    (Siman Evans was on our local TV item about heat pumps last night)

    Like

  330. ‘CAMP UPDATE: great energy here with over 30 new-comers as we move into a sunny first evening occupying the OSI factory in Scunthorpe. Come on down and enjoy the atmosphere!’

    URL:twitter.com/RebelsAnimal/status/1415692792484048904

    Entirely because of such protests, last week I went to a MaccyD’s for the first time in about ten years, driving miles out of my way to find one. I took my ancient mother with me and she had her first ever Big Mac. She absolutely loved it! (And she’s a very fussy eater.) I loved mine too. Big Mac? Not that big but a wonderful snack!

    I’ll be driving miles out of my way to find a MaccyD’s on a very regular basis from now on.

    Thanks, Animal Rebellion, for the reminder.

    (But can you make your camp updates a bit more camp next time? Talking about new-comers is quite camp, but you can do better. Especially in Scunthorpe.)

    Like

  331. In other news, the already somewhat mystifying descriptor ‘feral atlas’ is actually a verb:

    URL:feralatlas.supdigital.org/?cd=true&bdtext=feral-atlas-as-a-verb-beyond-hope-and-terror

    Treating Feral Atlas as a verb means learning this art of iterative attention and using it both on our site and in the world.

    OK.

    I feral atlas

    You bollocks speech

    They think that Stanford Uni shouldn’t really be funding such twaddle

    Like

  332. ITV local news & BBC local news
    both with substantial on-site broadcasts from the veg-supremacist mafia blockade camp outside McDonald’s factory in Scunthorpe

    ‘We’ll make your life hell until you stop selling things we don’t like ..like meat”

    Did The spokesman have a Scunthorpe accent ?
    No, barefooted Miss Helen double barrelled name, actually had an Australian/New Zealand accent.

    BBC footage had an interview with two 15 years sitting across the road doing a counter protest.
    Very coherent arguments
    “We are here in support of the agency workers, who’ll get laid off cos of this XR blockade
    .. they’ve got mortgages to pay.”
    McD already have a green and vegetarian foods programme
    .. but when you make concessions to green-supremacists, they never thank you
    instead they always demand more.

    Like

  333. Like

  334. spokes name is as Harley McDonald-Eckershall,
    Strange how many protesters like her are listed on acting websites
    “Actor, Extra and Model – London …”
    (Restaurant patron in a short film)

    From her jobs listed on LinkedIn she seems to come from Melbourne
    Young Voices for Animals Nov 2016 – Jul 2019 2 years 9 months
    Melbourne, Australia
    https://archive.is/Q4vCY

    Key news : News shows that 20 police officers are tied up policing the protesters
    That’s big waste and cost for Scunthorpe

    Comments do seem to MASSIVELY go against the activists
    “I feel so sorry for these guys,
    if their ancestors hadn’t eaten meat,
    then they wouldn’t have had the brain capacity to protest!”

    Sky thread 30 against them

    Wow local facebook news coverage is massive
    A local man has now set up a counter protest offering bacon sandwiches
    1,300 almost all positive comments
    3,500 likes

    Like

  335. “Climate change: ‘Sleepwalking into oblivion’ coastal erosion warning”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57852719

    “Some areas of Wales at risk of coastal erosion could be “sleepwalking into oblivion” due to climate change.

    Advisors have warned 2,126 properties in Wales are in danger of sea erosion and 36,000 are at risk of coastal flooding by the end of the century if coastal defences are not maintained.”

    What proof do they have that “climate change” is making worse an existing – and long-standing – problem?

    Like

  336. “Formula 1 boss Ross Brawn says hydrogen could be future fuel”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/57842205

    “Hydrogen-powered cars could be the future of Formula 1, according to F1 managing director for motorsports Ross Brawn.

    He says sustainability is now a central objective for the sport, which has committed to become carbon neutral by 2030.

    The engineer behind Michael Schumacher’s seven world titles ruled out a switch to fully electric vehicles.

    “Maybe hydrogen is the route that Formula 1 can have where we keep the noise, we keep the emotion but we move into a different solution,” Brawn told the BBC.

    Rising F1 star Lando Norris is also sceptical about introducing fully electric cars to Formula 1. You just don’t get the same buzz from electric cars, he says.”

    Well, that’s certainly true!

    “Formula E race descends into farce as half the field runs out of charge”

    https://www.caradvice.com.au/947573/formula-e-race-descends-into-farce-as-half-the-field-runs-out-of-charge/

    Like

  337. “The climate is boiling. Why has Harvard still not fully divested from fossil fuels yet?
    Kim Heacox
    At $42bn, the Harvard endowment exceeds the combined monetary value of many small countries. But it stubbornly refuses to speed up divestment”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/15/harvard-represents-reason-and-science-so-why-hasnt-it-divested-from-fossil-fuels-yet

    “The fossil fuel divestment movement, which began about a decade ago, has gained considerable momentum. Bill McKibben, co-founder of the international environmental group 350.org, has said many times, “Money is the oxygen on which the fire of global warming burns.”

    It’s time to suffocate big oil. And for Harvard to do its part. Others will follow.”

    The language becomes ever more extreme.

    Like

  338. Inevitably, and predictably:

    “Climate scientists shocked by scale of floods in Germany
    Deluge raises fears human-caused disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/climate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany

    “Scientists will need more time to assess the extent to which human emissions made this storm more likely, but the record downpour is in keeping with broader global trends.”

    Like

  339. video clip : ‘I think a lot of young people will think “don’t tell me what to do”’
    Angela Levin, journalist and royal author, gives her take
    on Harry and Meghan’s decision to limit their children to two due to environmental concerns.

    Like

  342. 2pm local radio news : 2 clear Green #PRasNews items
    Item #2 “Scunthorpe MacDonald’s blockade
    Police are now negotiating with 2 protesters who are on the factory roof
    Here’s a clip of Prof Sarah Bridle food and Climate specialist at Manchester “
    WTF uncontested statement from a anti-meat activist !

    Bridle “Farm animals like cattle and sheep cause HALF of the UK’s emissions ..pause .. just in METHANE
    (Clever cherry pick there. Farming animals does cause much CO2, so she’s moved to methane )

    .. Globally about 85% of farm land is used to feed livestock
    so globally on avg producing animal based foods uses 16 times as much land as the same number of calories for plant based food.”
    (Probably some cherrypicking there
    If I grow 1Kg of sugar, it will have much more calories than 1Kg of meat
    * see below

    Item #4 Project to make a NEW salt marsh at Skeffling near Hull
    probably seaside land that was once drained for agriculture.

    “Parts of the sea wall will be cut to allow salt water in
    Each hectare will sink 4 tonnes of carbon annually
    contributing the UK’s Zero-Carbon economy”

    It’s not a new project
    Here’s a Dec 2018 page
    https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/yorkshire/outstrays-to-skeffling-managed-realignment-scheme/

    *More on Bridle
    Mentioned Bridle before. She did used to be a Prof at Manchester in Astrophysics but then she switched to become a full time climate Activist
    ..she has a new book out https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1366666869109850116

    She’s an activist with @FixOurFood
    does a lot of GlobalWarming PR work
    eg in the Times June 25th
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-cut-the-environmental-impact-of-what-you-eat-mh6mvt7jp

    Like

  344. The interesting thing is that 3pm and 1pm news omitted both those PR bits
    The 1pm news is a bit longer and instead of Bridle we got the local BBC reporter from the scene reporting the removal of the women and the van.

    Like

  346. It seems the science isn’t settled after all:

    “Climate change: Science failed to predict flood and heat intensity
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC environment analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57863205

    “Top climate scientists have admitted they failed to predict the intensity of the German floods and the North American heat dome.

    They’ve correctly warned over decades that a fast-warming climate would bring worse bursts of rain and more damaging heatwaves.

    But they say their computers are not powerful enough to accurately project the severity of those extremes.

    They want governments to spend big on a shared climate super-computer.”

    As ever, send money!

    Like

  347. “Six Extinction Rebellion protesters found guilty of blocking news printers
    Judge says demonstration was ‘peaceful’ but impacted Murdoch, Mail, Telegraph and Standard titles”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/six-extinction-rebellion-protesters-found-guilty-of-blocking-news-printers

    “Six Extinction Rebellion protesters on trial for blockading the printing press of some of the UK’s biggest newspapers have been found guilty.

    The activists appeared at St Albans magistrates court on Friday accused of obstructing the highway outside Newsprinters printing works in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, on 4 September 2020.

    Judge Sally Fudge convicted the defendants, saying that while the demonstration was “peaceful” it had a significant impact on the ability of businesses to function and caused newspapers to lose an estimated £1m.

    Extinction Rebellion (XR) said it was considering an appeal and that “history will decide where the real guilt lies”.”

    Like

  348. “Germany’s fuel-price push divides Brussels as EU sets out climate plans
    Plans to add road transport to the EU’s emissions trading scheme triggered a split in Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-europe-road-transport-fuel-price-climate-change-emissions-trading-scheme/

    “Germany got what it wanted — now everyone else has to deal with it.

    On Wednesday, the European Commission unveiled its Fit for 55 mega-package of climate legislation, meant to put the bloc on track to meet its 2050 emissions targets.

    At the heart of it was a plan to extend carbon pricing to road transport and buildings via the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) — a move championed by two German leaders, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at a summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden in April, just as the EU executive was drafting the Fit for 55 laws.

    That plan, however, triggered a split within von der Leyen’s Commission and will likely spark criticism from governments across the bloc wary of a social backlash if the proposed measures hit consumers’ wallets.

    Even on the morning of the launch, the issue of the ETS extension was pushing the college of commissioners close to an extraordinary revolt. A significant cross-party group of commissioners opposed the measure, according to four officials.

    They included members of von der Leyen’s own center-right European Peoples’ Party and climate czar Frans Timmermans’ center-left Socialists, as well as liberals from Renew Europe.

    Some commissioners were also infuriated by a perception that von der Leyen had railroaded them into supporting the measure by expounding in detail on the reforms in newspaper interviews published the morning of the legislation’s launch. One-third of commissioners, according to officials, asked for their dissent to be noted in the minutes of the commissioners’ meeting ahead of the unveiling.

    Carbon pricing for transport — which, in practice, will add a few cents per liter to fuel prices by the end of the decade — is a policy few outside Brussels or Berlin have asked for.

    Wary of the Yellow Jackets protests that rocked France in 2018, many capitals are nervous about introducing measures that would directly hit motorists’ wallets. The road pricing plan would mean fuel producers have to buy credits and pass the cost, albeit marginal, to consumers.

    Denmark has been the lone supporter of their German neighbors, said the country’s Climate Minister Dan Jørgensen: “It would actually be difficult for me to just point to a big number of other countries that support it.””

    Like

  349. An article like this was always inevitable at the Guardian:

    “What is causing the floods in Europe?
    Scientists believe climate disruption will bring more extreme weather, and humans are making things worse”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/what-is-causing-floods-europe-climate-change

    It’s the final paragraph that makes me wonder if the person who wrote it lives in the same world as me:

    “Why do so many news reports about extreme weather underplay the climate connection?
    In some media organisations, this appears to be part of a deliberate strategy to undermine climate science and the political impetus to reduce emissions. Habit also plays a part. For decades, journalists have depicted heatwaves as a good news story to be casually illustrated with pictures of sunbathers, ice creams and swimming pools. Excess caution can also make reporters timid about making the link with the climate crisis. On Wednesday, the climate scientist Ed Hawkins took the BBC to task for this and for failing to keep up with the science. From now on, he suggested journalists use the phrase: “Experts say that climate change is already increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, and many single events have been shown to have been made worse by global warming.”

    Liked by 1 person

  350. Behind a paywall, unfortunately:

    “Green alternatives to gas boilers to cost £12bn more than Government planned
    New analysis shows that Downing Street has vastly underestimated the scale of home retrofits needed to reach its net zero targets”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2021/07/16/green-alternatives-gas-boilers-cost-12bn-government-planned/

    “Green alternatives to gas boilers will cost £11.8 billion more than the Government has budgeted for over the next four years because ministers have vastly underestimated the scale of home retrofits, The Telegraph can reveal….”

    Like

  351. Another inaccurate headline:

    “Hottest NI day ever as temperatures soar above 30C”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57875732

    “Temperatures in Northern Ireland reached record-breaking heights on Saturday as thermometers soared above 30C.

    It is the hottest day on record with Ballywatticock, near Newtownards in County Down, recording a temperature of 31.2C.

    The previous high was 30.8C set in the summers of 1976 and 1983.”

    Two things wrong with the headline. First, as the Met Office made clear, at this stage the record set today is provisional, not confirmed. Secondly, it’s probably the hottest day in Northern Ireland since records began, not the hottest day “ever”. There is a significant difference. That said, I don’t deny that it’s been hot.

    Like

  352. “McDonald’s blockade: Arrests as Animal Rebellion protest continues”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-57860942

    “Four people have been arrested as activists continue a third day of protests outside one of McDonald’s main UK suppliers.

    Animal Rebellion supporters set up a blockade at OSI Food Solutions in Scunthorpe on Thursday over demands the fast food giant become plant-based.

    As well as the arrests, Humberside Police said nine people had been reported for summons.

    Neither McDonald’s or OSI have commented on the protests.”

    Like

  353. “‘Like a bomb went off’: survivors of Germany’s worst floods in 200 years relive their agony”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/17/like-a-bomb-went-off-survivors-of-germanys-worst-floods-in-200-years-relive-their-agony

    What has just happened in Germany is truly awful, and my heart goes out to everyone affected. I certainly don’t seek to minimise it for one moment. However, if they had worse floods 200 years ago (as the headline strongly implies) then statements like this seem open to doubt:

    “The fallout is already prompting a political reckoning about the costs of climate change, with the Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte on Friday directly blaming changing weather patterns for the intensity of flooding.

    Asked whether global warming had contributed to the disaster, he said that was “without a doubt the case”. He added: “I don’t want to make hasty declarations … but something is really happening, let’s be clear.””

    Liked by 1 person

  354. “Regulate business to tackle climate crisis, urges Mark Carney
    Former Bank chief says governments must act as free markets will not reduce emissions alone”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/17/regulate-business-to-tackle-climate-crisis-urges-mark-carney

    “Governments must step up their regulation of businesses to tackle the climate crisis, the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has urged, because the financial free markets will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions alone.

    Carney, who left the Bank of England last year before the first Covid-19 lockdown, is now one of the most influential figures working on Cop26, the vital UN climate talks to be held in Glasgow in November. He is a UN envoy on climate change and Boris Johnson’s finance adviser on the climate.

    He said for the world to meet its climate goals, governments would have to force industries to follow clear rules, on everything from energy generation to construction and transport, and set carbon prices that would drive investment towards green ends and close down fossil fuels.”

    But I loved this bit:

    “However, Carney still sees a future for fossil fuels. In May, the International Energy Agency said if the world was to stay within 1.5C of global heating, there could be no more exploration or development of fossil fuel resources.

    Carney argues that countries and companies could still carry on exploiting fossil fuels, despite this advice, if they use technology such as carbon capture and storage, or other ways of reducing emissions. “You have to take it on the specific projects. If [fossil fuel] producers are able, through considerable investment in carbon capture and storage, to get to net zero then that creates some room in the carbon budget.”

    In Canada, for instance, where Carney is from and partly lives – and where, according to rumours, he is reported to be considering a political career – he said oil sands producers could continue to develop their high-carbon resources, if they reduce their emissions and Canada can make changes elsewhere. “Canada has an objective of 40-45% down on emissions by 2030,” he said. “I’m not going to dictate exactly how that is accomplished but the critical thing is the aggregate.”

    Companies should also be able to use carbon offsets to meet climate targets, Carney insisted.”

    Like

  355. “Interview
    On board with net zero: the transport boss trying to drive down emissions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/17/on-board-with-net-zero-the-transport-boss-trying-to-drive-down-emissions

    “David Brown of Go-Ahead is promising that his company’s bus and train operations will be carbon-free by 2035…

    The pledges assume continued government spending on hydrogen and electric vehicles, and subsidy for green operations. Brown lobbied for a change announced in the government’s decarbonisation plan, improving bus operators’ grants for running electric vehicles to 22p per kilometre. “It transforms the economics for investing in new buses.”…”

    #Magic Money Tree

    Like

  356. Some people are suggesting that Ballywatticock…

    …doesn’t exist.

    It does. It’s just down the road from Ballygobackwards. I lived with women from both villages for a total of seven years.

    No, I don’t want to talk about it.

    Liked by 1 person

  357. Tip : 7pm Countryfile : “Charlotte Smith investigates the environmental impact that increases in offshore windfarms are having both on land and at sea.”
    rest of crew is at Yorkshire’s Flamborough Head.

    Like

  358. “Politicians from across world call for ‘global green deal’ to tackle climate crisis
    New alliance urges governments to work together to deliver a just transition to a green economy”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/politicians-from-across-world-call-for-global-green-deal-to-tackle-climate-crisis

    “The Global Alliance for a Green New Deal is inviting politicians from legislatures in all countries to work together on policies that would deliver a just transition to a green economy ahead of Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow this November.

    The alliance includes Caroline Lucas, the Green party’s only MP, and Labour’s Clive Lewis, as well as MEPs, representatives in Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia and the US among other countries….

    …Manon Aubry, a French MEP, said governments must focus on social justice and the climate. “As the consequences of the climate crisis become more and more alarming, inequalities are growing and the poorest are hit hardest by the impacts of a changing climate. If we want fair, systematic and effective climate policies, we need a radical shift away from free trade and free-market ideology.”

    The alliance currently has 21 members from 19 countries….”

    One problem to my mind is that the efforts of people like these to focus on the climate has had the effect of increasing the gap between rich and poor and increasing fuel poverty, so I’m not sure how they think they can do that and concentrate on social justice at the same time (unless they intend massive taxation and wealth redistribution at the same time – maybe they do, and maybe that’s fair enough, but at that point it’s no longer so much about the climate, IMO).

    PS How many of these alliances et al are “sustainable”? How many do these people need, for goodness’ sake? Or is it just yet another opportunity for a press release and a bit of PR ahead of COP 26?

    Like

  359. Mark, thank you ​for drawing our attention to this sentence:

    The Global Alliance for a Green New Deal is inviting politicians from legislatures in all countries to work together on policies that would deliver a just transition to a green economy ahead of Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow this November.

    Deliver what ahead of Cop26 in November?

    – a just transition to a green economy?
    – policies that would ensure this remarkable feat at some point in the future?
    – just more hogwash?

    The lack of punctuation seemed to make the first the most likely intended meaning.

    Ambitious target. But there’s no time to be lost.

    Like

  361. Just got a spam mail fromAcademia.edu
    Hi Stewart,
    Kagingo Munilu tagged you as a co-author on a paper.

    … oh I’d better click the link …. NOT

    Like

  362. “Simon Amstell: Carnage”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

    at 15.47 today.

    “Comedy doc, set in 2067, where Simon Amstell looks back at Britain’s animal eating past.
    It’s 2067, the UK is vegan, but older generations are suffering the guilt of their carnivorous past. Simon Amstell asks us to forgive them for the horrors of what they swallowed.”

    Like

  363. “World’s feral pigs produce as much CO2 as 1.1m cars each year, study finds
    Researchers estimate the invasive species releases 4.9m metric tonnes of greenhouse gas annually by uprooting soil”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/worlds-feral-pigs-produce-as-much-co2-as-11m-cars-each-year-study-finds

    “The climate impact of wild pigs around the world is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of 1.1m cars annually, according to new research.

    Modelling by an international team of researchers estimates that feral pigs release 4.9m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year globally by uprooting soil.

    Researcher Dr Christopher O’Bryan of the University of Queensland said feral pigs were one of the most widespread vertebrate invasive species on the planet.

    “Pigs are native to Europe and parts of Asia, but they’ve been introduced to every continent except Antarctica,” he said.

    “When we think of climate change, we tend to think of the classic fossil fuel problem. This is one of the additional threats to carbon, and to climate change potentially, that hasn’t really been explored in any global sense.”

    Feral hogs uproot soil while searching for food, in a process O’Bryan likens to “mini tractors that are ploughing soil”. Doing so exposes microbes in the soil to oxygen. The microbes “reproduce at a rapid rate and then that can produce carbon emissions [in the form of] CO2.”

    “Any form of land-use change can have an effect on carbon emissions from the soil,” O’Bryan said. “The same thing happens when you put a tractor through a field or you deforest land.”

    The researchers estimate that wild pigs are uprooting an area upwards of 36,000 sq km (14,000 sq miles) in regions where they are not native.

    Oceania had the largest area of land disturbed by wild pigs – roughly 22,000 sq km – followed by North America. The pigs in Oceania accounted for more than 60% of the animal’s estimated yearly emissions, emitting nearly 3m metric tonnes of CO2, equivalent to about 643,000 cars.

    The findings of the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, were drawn from three models. One model predicted wild pig density globally across 10,000 simulations, based on existing information about wild pig populations and locations.

    A second model converted pig density into an area of disturbed land, and a third estimated the amount of CO2 emitted when soil is disturbed.”

    What is the point of this sort of research? They don’t seem to offer a conclusion. What are we to do? Kill all the wild pigs? The study doesn’t offer any conclusions, other than to say:

    “We hope this paper stimulates discussion on the role of invasive species for not only contributing to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but also spurring further research that looks at the local benefits to countries at tack-ling threats to soil, like invasive species, to reach their sustainable development goals (Bossio et al., 2020; Bradford et al., 2019; Lal, 2004). Such a research direction will bring untapped benefits by reducing emissions and by securing biodiversity and food security into the future”.

    The study can be found here:

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gcb.15769

    Nobody ever seems to produce studies into the impacts of wind turbines on CO2 release in quite the same way. This sentence from the Guardian article could just as easily be produced in respect of wind turbines:

    “Areas that are peat bogs or black soils … especially ones that have a lot of moisture, they’re a sink for carbon,” said Patton. “When pigs get in there and root around, they have a lot more potential for that carbon to be released [than from other soils].”

    Like

  364. “The little tech firm gunning for an airspeed record”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57747128

    “…However, building battery-driven aircraft is an even bigger challenge than building battery-driven cars. For a start, an aircraft has to drag its batteries into the sky and ideally keep them there.

    The battery system for E-NXT weighs 300kg – that’s almost half the entire weight of the aircraft.

    So most of Electroflight’s work has gone into developing the battery system, all the time thinking about the trade-off between weight and power.

    “There are no free lunches in engineering – you can’t trick physics,” Mr Youngman jokes.

    Achieving a record-breaking speed will put the battery system under an serious strain.

    While many sports cars can develop more than 500 horsepower, they only need that power for short bursts.

    Electroflight’s aircraft will need to sustain almost all of that power output for its entire record-breaking run – around eight minutes.

    Even at cruising speed the batteries will be operating at 60% of their maximum output….

    …In the early days of electric aircraft it’s likely that batteries will have to be replaced frequently, perhaps for recharging, and definitely when they get older and less efficient, so cost will be a big factor….

    …At the moment, it is not clear what future aircraft will look like, or how they will be powered – and batteries are unlikely to be the only answer.

    “Batteries are great for releasing energy but not so great for storing it, so we can use them on their own for short flights, and get rid of all the complication and mess of liquid fuel,” says Steve Wright an avionics expert at the University of the West of England.

    “For longer flights we are going to need hydrogen or alternative green fuels for a long time yet.”…”

    Like

  365. “Future flooding threat could overwhelm complacent UK banks
    A Danish bank is warning lenders that the climate crisis must be considered in their long-term plans”

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/20/future-flooding-threat-could-overwhelm-complacent-uk-banks

    “One criticism made of politicians is that their policy and vision for the future only extends as far as the next election. It is alarming to discover that banks have an equally short horizon – three to five years, according to the Bank of England.

    Across the North Sea in Denmark, Nationalbank has become so alarmed at this short-termism it has produced a series of warnings about the stability of its financial system. It says that long-term lending, 20 to 30 years, needs to take into account the climate crisis and the catastrophic write-down in the value of assets that may result from flooding.

    The bank’s fears stem mainly from sea level rise because Denmark has more than 8,000km (4,970 miles) of coastline and a lot of valuable installations close to the sea. Perhaps the Bank of England, behind London’s Thames Barrier, has got complacent. Along the east coast of England much coastal infrastructure and many homes are at least as vulnerable to storm surges as those on the other side of the North Sea. Maybe it will take a disaster on the scale of the east coast’s 1953 “Big Flood” to wake up UK banks to the potential financial danger of a changing climate. Let us hope their reserves can survive the shock.”

    Not that Denmark has a vested interest in plugging climate change, or anything, all those wind turbines its companies operate all over the world (including, big style, in the UK)….

    Like

  367. “Bristol Airport: Inquiry into expansion refusal begins”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-57898791

    “A council has defended its decision to reject expansion proposals of an airport despite the threat of a costly planning appeal.

    North Somerset Council voted overwhelmingly to reject Bristol Airport’s plans in February 2020.

    The hearing began earlier after Bristol Airport challenged the decision.

    Council leader Don Davies (Independent) said: “This unfortunately is used by big business the world over to try and cow members to do things for profit.”

    “This airport is not owned locally, it’s owned by a Canadian pension scheme and what is the motivation for the appeal?…”.

    Relevance of who owns it, being what, precisely? If it’s relevant, then many, many wind farms should be shut down on those grounds – very few are owned by British companies. Many of them have most of their components manufactured abroad and transported long distances, sometimes from as far way as Indonesia. Green?

    Like

  368. Front page news at the BBC – fits the agenda, obviously. And the businesses concerned get a nice free advert, into the bargain:

    “Hot weather: Welsh outlets shut due to ‘unbearable’ temperatures”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57899296

    “A pub and a restaurant have both closed due to scorching temperatures in Wales.

    The Pipeworks Bar said the heat was “unbearable” for staff behind the bar at Pontyclun in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

    The Stone Crab restaurant in the Welsh seaside resort of Saundersfoot in Pembrokeshire has also shut and said it “cannot let our staff continue to suffer in this hot weather”.

    Monday was Wales’ hottest day of 2021 as 30.9C temperatures were recorded in Cardiff amid an extreme weather alert.

    The Met Office issued one of its new-style extreme heat weather warnings for the first time for parts of the UK, including larges parts of Wales.

    The amber warning will be in place until Thursday, when temperatures are expected to peak and could reach 33C (91.4F) in some western areas.”

    Like

  369. What’s remarkable here is how little is made of climate change, though the headline is suitably Apocalyptic:

    “‘Everything is on fire’: Siberia hit by unprecedented burning
    Locals fear for their health and property as smoke from raging forest fires shrouds an entire region of eastern Russia”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/everything-is-on-fire-siberia-hit-by-unprecedented-burning

    “Locals have blamed various factors for the fires, from the climate crisis to poor government preparedness, to a ban on purging dry grass, budget cuts to forestry services, alleged arsons, and, in particular, the hot summers.

    “There never used to be summers with such large fires,” said Nikolai Verkhovov, a native of Srednekolymsk, a village on the River Kolyma more than 750 miles from Yakutsk. “But last year a village in my district nearly burned down.” He suggested that budget cuts to forest ranger services and corruption could play a role in the fires.”

    Like

  370. Peak bizarre:

    “Who is to blame for the sweltering weather? My kids say it’s boomers – and me
    Zoe Williams
    My children are not enjoying the current British heatwave. And they think they know the culprit”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/20/who-is-to-blame-for-the-sweltering-weather-my-kids-say-its-boomers-and-me

    “I thought there was nothing about hot weather I couldn’t handle with a piña colada and a positive attitude, but I had reckoned without peak teenager. It is not technically my fault that the temperature hit 28C, nor that it doesn’t seem to get cooler overnight, and while arguably it’s my fault that nobody has a working fan, the link is only tangential: I bought a rabbit, and the rabbit ate through the wires. Even that wasn’t my idea.

    Yet from the moment consciousness spreads across the house, it’s an opera of 13-year-old complaint, gripes harmonising from room to room, reaching their crescendo roughly every 25 minutes.

    It starts like a Tripadvisor review for a poorly managed B&B. Why is the airflow so poor, and the bed so hot, and the chair no cooler than the bed, and how, crucially, has the management allowed the temperature to rise so steeply and made no attempt to intervene?

    Then it builds to a series of more metaphysical questions: what is the point of summer? How can a mind occupy itself thinking of nothing but heat? What if the whole summer is like this and there’s no possible escape, and nobody can do anything for six weeks, and that’ll be six weeks wasted?”

    28C shock horror! Er, it’s called summer. In our part of the world it makes a very pleasant change to have some modestly hot days, blue skies and not much rain. It’s what summers used to be like when I were a lad, and very nice it is too.

    Like

  371. “Climate crisis threatens access to nutrients in fish, study finds
    Results of research show that fisheries in over 40% of countries studied are highly vulnerable”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/20/climate-crisis-threatens-access-to-nutrients-in-fish-study-finds

    “The climate crisis and to a lesser extent overfishing could threaten the world’s supply of essential vitamins and minerals gained from fisheries, according to research….

    …The study, published in Current Biology, looked at five key micronutrients: calcium, iron, zinc, selenium and vitamin A. Unlike the clear impact of the climate crisis, they found that global fisheries have a relatively low nutritional vulnerability to pressure from overfishing….”.

    The study can be found here if anyone is interested:

    https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00896-4

    Like

  372. “‘Reckless’: G20 states subsidised fossil fuels by $3tn since 2015, says report
    Support for coal, oil and gas remains high despite pledges to tackle climate crisis”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/20/g20-states-subsidised-fossil-fuels-2015-coal-oil-gas-cliamte-crisis

    “The G20 countries have provided more than $3.3tn (£2.4tn) in subsidies for fossil fuels since the Paris climate agreement was sealed in 2015, a report shows, despite many committing to tackle the crisis.

    This backing for coal, oil and gas is “​​reckless” in the face of the escalating climate emergency, according to the report’s authors, and urgent action is needed to phase out the support. The $3.3tn could have built solar plants equivalent to three times the US electricity grid, the report says.

    The G20 countries account for nearly three-quarters of the global carbon emissions that drive global heating.

    The report, by BloombergNEF and Bloomberg Philanthropies, focuses on three areas where immediate action is needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C: ending fossil fuel subsidies, putting a price on carbon emissions and making companies disclose the risks posed by climate change to their businesses.

    The report says all 19 G20 member states continue to provide substantial financial support for fossil-fuel production and consumption – the EU bloc is the 20th member. Overall, subsidies fell by 2% a year from 2015 to reach $636bn in 2019, the latest data available.

    But Australia increased its fossil fuel subsidies by 48% over the period, Canada’s support rose by 40% and that from the US by 37%. The UK’s subsidies fell by 18% over that time but still stood at $17bn in 2019, according to the report. The biggest subsidies came from China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India, which together accounted for about half of all the subsidies.”

    There you go – China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India. Good luck changing their priorities.

    Like

  373. Mark, there is usually some jiggery-pokery going on in these sort of reports, where VAT foregone because energy bills are taxed at the lower rate is counted as a subsidy. (This also applies to renewable electricity, but I doubt they mention that.)

    These “subsidies” would hardly balance the fuel duty and the VED charged only on petrol and diesel cars anyway.

    Like

  374. Jit, you’re correct, of course. However, it’s worth pointing out that, even in their own warped terms, the biggest offenders who they should be lecturing, are China, India, Saudia Arabia and Russia, not the west. But who do they bang on about endlessly – UK, EU, Australia, Canada, USA et al. Why? Because they can’t influence the biggest offenders. And if the biggest offenders are impervious to demands, and won’t change their way of life, then the whole climate hysteria thing is a complete waste of time.

    Like

  376. “Men cause more climate emissions than women, study finds
    Both spend similar amounts of money but men use cars much more, Swedish analysis shows”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/21/men-cause-more-climate-emissions-than-women-study-finds

    “Men’s spending on goods causes 16% more climate-heating emissions than women’s, despite the sum of money being very similar, a study has found.

    The biggest difference was men’s spending on petrol and diesel for their cars. The gender differences in emissions have been little studied, the researchers said, and should be recognised in action to beat the climate crisis.

    The analysis compared single men and women in Sweden and found that food and holidays caused more than half of all emissions for both men and women. The scientists found that swapping meat and dairy for plant-based foods and switching to train-based holidays, rather than using planes or cars, cut people’s emissions by 40%.”

    So what’s the conclusion? Forcible re-education camps?

    “The research, published in the Journal for Industrial Ecology, did not include fuel for work vehicles such as taxis or plumbers’ vans. Previous research found that in families with one car, men used it more often to go to work with women more likely to use public transport.

    Holidays accounted for about a third of emissions for both the men and women. “That is a lot more than I expected,” said Carlsson Kanyama. They used data for single people because figures for individuals living in families were not available.

    The changes to diet and holidays to reduce personal emissions were chosen because they do not require extra spending, such as buying an electric car. “These are substantial changes of course, but at least you don’t need to get yourself another job, or borrow money from the bank,” she said. “So it’s something within reach here and now. You just use the same money you have and buy something else.”

    A study in 2017 found that the greatest impact individuals can have in fighting climate change is to have one fewer child, followed by not using a car and avoiding flying.

    Studies in 2010 and 2012 showed that men spent more on energy and ate more meat than women, both of which cause high emissions. But Carlsson Kanyama said: “I’m surprised more studies have not been done about the gender differences in environmental impact. There are quite clear differences and they are not likely to go away in the near future.”

    The EU’s green deal was criticised last week for failing to include the intersection between gender and the environment.”

    Good grief! The agenda to destroy our lifestyles is increasingly obvious.

    Like

  377. Well done, climate worriers:

    “Staff made redundant from West Cumbria Mining”

    https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19456353.staff-made-redundant-west-cumbria-mining/

    “Plans for a new coal mine in Whitehaven have taken another major blow – as staff have lost their jobs.

    A number of people who were employed by West Cumbria Mining have been made redundant.

    This includes the majority of staff who were based at the site office at Haig Pit, Kells.

    Among those to be laid off is Julie Rayson, who was office manager at the Haig Pit site and had worked there for two years….

    …Speaking about the redundancies, Mrs Rayson, who is also a Whitehaven town councillor, said: “The investors have been putting money in.

    “There’s no production from the mine, which should have been up and running by now, if everything had gone to plan.

    “We probably would have been into production by now.

    “If everything had gone to plan, they’d be having a return on their investments and producing coking coal.

    “Obviously, while they haven’t got any money coming in, and they’re having to fund an inquiry as well. The legal costs are astronomical.

    “I totally understand they’ve had to make cuts.

    “They’ve had to fork out all this money for legal fees, which is totally unnecessary.”

    Mrs Rayson is hopeful that the mine will still go ahead.

    She said: “They have met every requirement along the way. It’s already been passed three times.

    “I would love it to go ahead, not just for me, but what it would bring to the area, as a town councillor, and the regeneration into the town and extra money that would come in.

    “I’m desperate for it to go ahead.”…

    …Chris Hayes, mayor of Whitehaven, who represents Kells on Whitehaven Town Council, said: “It’s sad to report that jobs have been lost already.

    “These people have had to find jobs elsewhere. It’s not going to be easy in this climate. It’s sad.

    “I’m all for the mine. We need to try and keep young people around here. These were well paid jobs for local people.

    “I appreciate the environmental side. We’ve all got to do our bit.

    “But we still need steel and we need coking coal.

    “I can’t see how it can be beneficial to travel it across the world to use here.”…”

    Like

  378. Meanwhile, on a totally different scale, over in Europe (where Merkel says Germany’s to step up its war on climate change):

    “U.S. urges Ukraine to stay quiet on Russian pipeline
    The Biden administration is asking an unhappy Ukraine not to make waves, as it nears Russia-Germany pipeline agreement.”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/20/us-ukraine-russia-pipeline-500334

    “In the midst of tense negotiations with Berlin over a controversial Russia-to-Germany pipeline, the Biden administration is asking a friendly country to stay quiet about its vociferous opposition. And Ukraine is not happy.

    U.S. officials have signaled that they’ve given up on stopping the project, known as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and are now scrambling to contain the damage by striking a grand bargain with Germany.

    At the same time, administration officials have quietly urged their Ukrainian counterparts to withhold criticism of a forthcoming agreement with Germany involving the pipeline, according to four people with knowledge of the conversations….

    …In ongoing talks with Germany, U.S. officials are trying to limit the risks the pipeline will present to Ukraine and to European energy security, the official told POLITICO. American and German officials are in talks about the pipeline and its impact on Ukraine, that official added. They are looking for ways to reduce the damage it does to the young democracy.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that the pipeline’s completion is a fait accompli. The senior administration official said the U.S. has concluded that sanctions will not be able to block the pipeline’s completion.

    The administration’s position is at odds with much of Congress and with the Ukrainian government and other Eastern European allies, who have long held that U.S. intervention can still block completion of the pipeline, which is nearly completed….

    …Critics of the forthcoming U.S.-Germany pact over the pipeline say it will mainly serve Russia’s interests and harm ties between Washington and Kyiv.

    “It’s unbalanced and unfair that Russia gets a huge reward and Ukraine is flogged over criticism,” said Alina Polyakova, the president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. “It’s 100 percent true that if Trump did this,” everyone would go nuts, she added.

    The U.S. put sanctions on the pipeline during the Trump administration that stalled the project. Germany’s finance minister tried to make a deal with the Trump administration that would have funded the import of U.S. liquefied natural gas to Europe in exchange for withholding sanctions on the pipeline, according to Environmental Action Germany, as RFE/RL reported. But Trump did not take the deal and there were disagreements within the administration about how far to go with sanctions, prompting Congress to beef up the U.S. sanctions regime.

    Republicans and Democrats in Washington have long opposed the pipeline, which would run from Russia to Germany and significantly increase Western Europe’s dependence on Russia for energy.

    “It’s doubling down on gas energy imports from Russia rather than investing in diversification of energy sources — green energy in particular,” Polyakova said. “As long as you get cheap Russian gas, why invest in other energy sources?”

    Biden and Merkel don’t see eye to eye on Nord Stream 2
    FOREIGN POLICY

    Biden and Merkel present united front — but still don’t see eye to eye on Nord Stream 2
    BY MAEVE SHEEHEY

    The new pipeline would also be a body blow to Ukraine’s economy, as Russia pays billions of dollars in transit fees on the gas that passes through Ukraine on its way to Europe.

    Nord Stream 2’s opponents say it would also reduce Ukraine’s leverage in peace talks with Russia, whose incursions into eastern Ukraine have drawn international condemnation….”.

    Like

  380. ITV local news : ep2 of Natural Remedies for Climate Change
    Today : peatlands
    “these hold twice as much carbon as forests”
    … well since they are made of dozens of layers of dead forests, that’s not a surprise
    but I expect the sea could hold more CO2

    “growing spagnum moss is a magic remedy
    … good news all around”

    Like

  381. Mark there is a direct link button next to the item total
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=undefined_p0742jzk%26Are%20we%20teaching%20children%20enough%20about%20climate%20change%3F%262021-07-21T12%3A42%3A56.088Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:pips:p0742jzk&pinned_post_asset_id=undefined_p0742jzk&pinned_post_type=share

    It also has its own dedicated page
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/live-lessons/teaching-children-about-climate-change/z4xchbk

    no date stamp
    I think it is old

    Like

  384. “Climate change: Airbus aims for ‘climate-neutral’ flights by 2035”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57923403

    “Aircraft that produce zero emissions will be flying by the middle of this century and Airbus’s Flintshire plant will play a “critical” role, according to a senior manager.

    The industry is under pressure to produce emission-free aircraft by 2050.

    Airbus has set a target of commercial “climate-neutral” flights by 2035, with hydrogen as a primary power source.

    It traditionally employs about 6,000 staff at Broughton but announced 1,400 job cuts last year due to Covid.

    The company now expects the commercial aircraft market to recover to pre-Covid levels between 2023 and 2025.

    And a key target for the future is developing and making greener, more efficient wings at the plant through initiatives like its Wing of Tomorrow programme – the largest research and development programme at Airbus.

    “We have a challenge today to try and symbolically get towards a zero emissions product by around 2050,” said Gareth Davies, head of industrial architecture for wing.”

    Like

  385. Another attempt to induce climate hysteria over fairly routine summer high temperatures:

    “Heatwave: Workers struggle to avoid ‘unbearable’ temperatures”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-57923094

    “The heatwave has seen many people either heading for the beach or the shade.

    But for some workers, there is no escaping the scorching temperatures.

    “It just saps you of all your energy, you’re constantly sweating,” said scaffolder John Boland.

    “The steel has been sat in the sun for quite a while, obviously it heats up and it gets really hot.

    “It can burn your hands, it can burn your forearms, it can burn your neck if you’re carrying things on your shoulders… it can be quite painful.”

    Welders in Carmarthenshire were also struggling.

    “It’s unbearable… it’s 30C and we’re welding, so it’s a lot of heat,” said one.”

    1976 anyone?

    Like

  386. Another attempt to link covid and the “climate crisis” in the public mind:

    “After Covid, the climate crisis will be the next thing the right says we ‘just have to live with’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/22/covid-climate-crisis-politics-individualism

    “Soon, shockingly soon, the cheap shots, the brazen stat-bending and the coprophagic cynicism that have warped British discourse since March 2020 will migrate from Covid to an even bigger and more lethal crisis: the climate emergency. And just as they have helped shape the self-inflicted catastrophe that England has embarked upon this week, so they will work their terrible influence on that one.

    Scientists and politicians the world over have noted the strong similarities between coronavirus and climate breakdown.”

    Hmmmm……

    Like

  387. A depressingly informative article:

    “The UK has been linked to Congo’s ‘conflict minerals’ – where are the criminal charges?
    Vava Tampa
    Swiss court ruling is not the first time plunder of DRC’s mineral wealth has been linked to the killing of Congolese people. Without accountability, it won’t be the last”

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/commentisfree/2021/jul/21/the-uk-has-been-linked-to-congos-conflict-minerals-where-are-the-criminal-charges

    So, what minerals are we talking about? Tucked away, is this:

    “Kabila offered some of DRC’s strategic gems and minerals, including cobalt, an essential component of lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles. The country is home to about 60% of the world’s known cobalt reserves, which makes some of Kabila’s corrupt friends in the UK, Gibraltar and Switzerland almost indispensable in the global supply chain of electric cars, while Congolese die daily from violence required to sustain their corrupt deals.”

    Liked by 1 person

  388. “COP26: Glasgow will ‘welcome’ climate protests says council leader”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57927933

    For a nanosecond, I thought this was a reference to welcoming protests against the hypocrisy and futility and expense of COP 26. I should have known better:

    “Glasgow will “welcome” climate change protesters when the city hosts the COP26 summit in November, the city’s council leader has said.

    Susan Aitken said it was vital people were allowed to have their voices heard in order to influence world leaders.

    She said Glasgow had a long tradition of protest, but urged campaigners to respect the city and its residents.

    About 10,000 police officers will be deployed each day during the summit…

    …Asked about the possibility of direct action or disruption by campaigners, she said protest was “democratically absolutely crucial”.

    “I think we will see protests, undoubtedly – and that’s something we as a city welcome,” she said.

    “Glasgow has long been a city of protest. We are known for our bolshiness and for speaking up on issues that concern us, and we certainly wouldn’t be looking to turn away people coming in to make their voices heard at COP.

    “It’s enormously important that civil society from across the world is there, able to influence what those world leaders are discussing.”…”.

    We all know that they have no intention of being influenced by people who disagree with their agenda, and the only type of protest that is welcome is that which demands they “do more”.

    Like

  389. “ScotWind offshore wind auction attracts 74 bids”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-57904501

    I’ll bet it did!

    “More than 70 bids have been lodged by developers seeking the rights to develop major offshore wind projects on the seabed around Scotland.

    The ScotWind leasing auction, which is being overseen by Crown Estate Scotland (CES), is the first of its kind for a decade.

    Bidders include consortia of major oil companies, utility firms and investment funds from around the world….

    …The auction could net the Scottish government up to £860m….”

    The usual weasel words – “could” and “up to”. No recognition of the fact that the money to be netted by the Scottish government will ultimately be paid by UK taxpayers and electricity customers, and that with interest from “around the world”, much of the subsidised profits will leak abroad.

    Like

  391. This afternoon in the House of Commons, Dawn Butler repeatedly accused BoJo of lying about the pandemic and the govt’s responses to it. The Deputy Speaker’s first response:

    ‘Order! Order! I’m sure that the Member will reflect on her words and perhaps correct the record.’

    (Perhaps somewhat unhealthily, those words immediately made me think of ATTP’s passive-aggressive policing of the climate apocalypse.)

    Butler’s response:

    ‘Madam Deputy Speaker, what would you rather? A weakened leg or a severed leg? You know, at the end of the day the Prime Minister has lied to this House…’ and so on.

    Does anyone know what Butler meant by the weakened/severed leg thing? It has been reported without comment at lots of online news sites so must be obvious to those who aren’t thickos.

    I’m a thicko. Help me, please.

    Like

  392. Never mind. The thicko has finally got it. Butler was referring to a speech BoJo gave about covid earlier this month.

    Like

  393. Speaking of Edinburgh, here is the finest article you will ever read about a building that looks like a poo:

    URL:tychy.wordpress.com/2021/06/30/arts-review-the-st-james-quarter/

    Is it time to Edinburgh ‘Again’?

    Like

  394. From the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, the testimony of Miss Clack (a religious zealot):

    “What was to be done now? With my training and my principles, I never had a moment’s doubt.

    “Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of manifest usefulness, the true Christian never yields. Neither public nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us when we have once got our mission. Taxation may be the consequence of a mission – riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence of a mission: we go on with our work, irrespective of every human consideration which moves the world outside us. We are above reason; we are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody’s eyes, we hear with nobody’s ears, we feel with nobody’s hearts but our own. Glorious, glorious privilege! And how is it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare yourselves the useless inquiry. We are the only people who can earn it – for we are the only people who are always right.”

    Remind you of anyone?

    Like

  395. Well, who’d have thought it?

    “Great Britain faces risk of winter blackouts, system operator warns
    Coal plants and nuclear reactors shut down while energy demand expected to rise after Covid restrictions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/22/great-britain-faces-risk-of-winter-blackouts-system-operator-warns

    “Great Britain faces its greatest risk of blackouts for six years this winter as old coal plants and nuclear reactors shut down and energy demand rises as the economy emerges from Covid-19 restrictions.

    National Grid’s electricity system operator, which is responsible for keeping the lights on, said it expected the country’s demand for electricity to return to normal levels this winter, and would be braced for “some tight periods”.

    The system operator published a surprise report warning that the tight electricity supplies recorded last winter could be tighter in the winter ahead due to “uncertainty” over the country’s power supplies.

    It said that in some scenarios the “margin” of forecast electricity supplies might exceed demand by 5.3%, the tightest margin recorded since the winter of 2015-2016, when National Grid was forced to ask businesses to reduce their electricity usage to keep the lights on after a spate of breakdowns at coal plants.

    National Grid has traditionally published its forecasts for the winter in September but surprised the market on Thursday by issuing a preview report.

    “Following tighter margins in winter 2020-21 compared to previous winters, we have decided to publish an early view of the margin for winter 2021-22. We believe this will help to inform the electricity industry and support preparations for the winter ahead,” it said.

    The system operator issued a string of official warnings that electricity supplies were under pressure last year, despite a 3-4% slump in energy demand as people stayed away from offices, pubs and restaurants during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The UK was forced to rely on its last remaining coal power plants to meet demand during cold, still periods when demand was high and wind speeds low last winter. This year it could be more difficult to cover the loss of a sudden outage at a power plant, subsea power cable or low wind speeds due to the closure of older nuclear plants.

    The system operator has assumed that the Dungeness B and Hunterston B nuclear power stations will not be available for the full winter, and that the Baglan Bay, Severn Power and Sutton Bridge gas power stations will remain unavailable.

    “While we remain confident there is sufficient supply to meet peak demand, we should prepare for some tight periods during the winter” because there “is still some uncertainty” about electricity supplies, the electricity system operator said.”

    I’m not sure “we told you so” expresses it sufficiently.

    Like

  397. Speaking of BBC environment analysts:

    “Road planners able to ignore climate change, campaigners claim
    By Roger Harrabin
    BBC environment analyst”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57935608

    “Planners can effectively ignore climate change when they are deciding whether to grant permission for new road schemes, environmentalists have said.

    Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has promised a review of £27bn highways policy which will be completed within two years.

    But in the meantime, planners can use existing guidelines.

    Campaigners say these ignore the cumulative effects of major road projects.

    They say Mr Shapps should be blocking new schemes until a new climate-friendly policy is developed.”

    Like

  398. Ramping up for COP 26:

    “Sundarbans: why the world’s largest mangrove forest is sinking”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-india-57929463

    “Their ancestors have lived in the Sundarban delta on the Bay of Bengal for centuries, but thousands of people are now leaving the region because of climate change.

    Violent annual storms which batter the delta, rising sea levels and melting ice from the Himalaya mountains, are gradually overwhelming the low-lying islands.

    BBC Hindi’s Debalin Roy visited the region to talk to people who have become first-hand witnesses to the catastrophic impact of climate change.”

    Hmm. Here’s the BBC website on 17th March 2019:

    “Sinking island in the Sundarbans Delta”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-india-47560991

    “Thousands of people still live on the Indian island of Ghoramora, which has shrunk in size to just 4.5 sq km.

    It’s one of scores of low-lying islands in the Sundarbans Delta that are rapidly disappearing.

    Scientists say global warming has caused melting snow and ice to swell the rivers, and the sea level has risen.

    Tens of thousands have fled Ghoramora in recent decades.”

    The Guardian ran this story as long ago as 2010:

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2010/jan/14/sinking-sundarbans-peter-caton

    Oh, and here’s the BBC on 15th September 2003:

    “Fears rise for sinking Sundarbans”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3102948.stm

    “The sea is steadily eating into the Sundarbans, the world’s largest delta and mangrove forest, threatening an ecological disaster for the Bengal basin region.
    The 20,000 square kilometre forest delta stretches across the lower reaches of the Bengal basin – 60% falling in Bangladesh and the rest in the Indian state of West Bengal.” etc etc etc.

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  399. Meanwhile, Wikipedia tells me “The Sundarbans area is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and the population is increasing.”

    Also (and this seems like a big issue): “As a result, half of this ecoregion’s mangrove forests have been cut down to supply fuelwood and other natural resources. Despite the intense and large-scale exploitation, this still is one of the largest contiguous areas of mangroves in the world. Another threat comes from deforestation and water diversion from the rivers inland, which causes far more silt to be brought to the estuary, clogging up the waterways.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundarbans

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  400. Apparently COP 26 is just 100 days away, so expect much more of this:

    “Protesters urge Boris Johnson to take Cop26 climate talks seriously
    With 100 days to go to crucial UN crisis summit in Glasgow, PM is accused of lack of leadership”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/23/protesters-urge-boris-johnson-to-take-cop26-climate-talks-seriously

    “Protesters will fill London’s Parliament Square on Friday morning, calling on the prime minister, Boris Johnson, to make the climate crisis his top priority, as the UK prepares to host UN talks that will determine whether the world tips into environmental catastrophe this decade.

    Giant alarm clocks will show time running out, while 100 protesters chant that Johnson and his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, are “missing in action” on the climate crisis.

    Saturday marks 100 days to the Cop26 summit, vital UN climate talks that open on 1 November in Glasgow. Scores of world leaders will fly in for the start, and officials from 196 countries will spend two weeks in high-pressure negotiations aimed at setting a new path to a safer climate.

    Floods across Europe and China, wildfires in the US, killer heatwaves stretching into northern latitudes and extreme weather across the planet give a glimpse into what is at stake. Scientists warn that unless global greenhouse gas emissions are halved in the next decade, temperatures will rise by more than 1.5C and the extreme heat, droughts and floods seen in recent weeks will rapidly become the norm rather than the exception, with devastating consequences.

    John Kerry, the special envoy for climate to the US president, Joe Biden, warned in a landmark speech at Kew Gardens this week: “Cop26 in Glasgow [is] a pivotal moment for the world to come together to meet and master the climate challenge … in little more than 100 days, we can save the next hundred years.”

    Alok Sharma, the UK minister who will serve as president of the summit, said: “Cop26 is our last best hope of avoiding the worst effects of climate change, and we cannot afford to fail. Over the next 100 days, we need all governments to accelerate the green transition, so that we leave Glasgow with a clear plan to limit global warming to 1.5C. This will set the course of this decisive decade for our planet and future generations.”

    But as Sharma prepares for a key meeting of world ministers this weekend, and as the US steps up its diplomacy before Cop26, climate experts and veterans of the UN talks told the Guardian that Johnson was failing to take the reins, both internationally and at home.”

    Like

  401. At WUWT Dodgy Geezer used a term that I had either not heard or had forgotten: purity spiral. Here is the ever-reliable Urban Dictionary’s definition:

    Purity Spiral A social ratchet effect within a community. A process of moral outbidding, unchecked, which corrodes the group from within, rewarding those who put themselves at the extremes, and punishing nuance relentlessly. Not to be confused with ‘virtue signalling’, ‘woke culture’, or ‘online mobs’.

    Edit: it also appears to be a term of art for white supremacists, relating to purity of a different kind – ethnic rather than ideological. And may be accompanied by a swirly angular design whose pedigree is familiar to students of history.

    Liked by 1 person

  402. “Greenpeace call for more support for oil workers to move into green jobs”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-57936319

    “Greenpeace is calling for more funds to support the transition for oil and gas workers into the green economy.

    The environmental group launched its new campaign off the north east coast of Scotland on board its flagship Rainbow Warrior.

    They were joined by younger School Strike campaigners also calling for a “just transition” to green skilled jobs.

    The Scottish government said its aim was to capitalise on the skills of oil and gas workers to meet the goal of becoming a “net zero nation”.”

    #MagicMoneyTree

    Just a reminder:

    “Rainbow Warrior III motor-assisted sailing yacht was custom built for environmental activist group Greenpeace International.

    Construction of the ship was completed in October 2011 and it entered service in December the same year.

    A $32m (€23m) contract to build the ship was awarded to Fassmer Shipyard, Germany, in July 2009. Funds for Rainbow Warrior III’s construction were sourced from about three million sponsors. The 57.9m-long ship uses wind energy instead of fossil fuels and incorporates green marine technology….

    …Rainbow Warrior III is a sailing ship mostly dependent on wind energy. It, however, has a back-up engine, 1,425kW Caterpillar C3512, that runs on diesel-electric propulsion. The back-up engine is used during bad weather conditions.

    The ship, running on the back-up engine, moves at a maximum speed of 15k. Power from the diesel-electric engine reaches the Schaffran propellers through an electromotor….”

    https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/rainbow-warrior/

    Like

  403. It’s sunny and hot and the middle of summer. Here’s how the UK National Grid is doing right now:

    Coal: 3.1%
    Gas: 49%
    Solar: 10.6%
    Wind: 3.2%
    Hydro: 0.7%
    Pumped storage: 1.9%
    Nuclear: 11.4%
    Biomass: 6.9%
    Interconnectors: 11.8%

    Like

  404. “What does a future-proofed home look like?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57738681

    “Colin Heal’s house is prepared for an uncertain future….

    …Also, below the surface, are pipes connected to a ground source heat pump. The pump takes heat from the ground and boosts it to the level needed for the underfloor heating and hot water. Heat pumps are much more energy efficient than boilers, which typically rely on fossil fuels.

    Mr Heal’s house does have a wood-burning stove as well, for those days when the temperature dips below freezing and the heat pump becomes less efficient. But the stove is there mainly because it looks nice, not because it is their main source of heat….”.

    Heat pumps are much more energy efficient than boilers? Really? I’d like to see that fact-checked.

    So who is Colin Heal? Eventually the article slips it in:

    “Higher energy needs, more flood risk and variable temperatures: these are among the impacts of climate change for which all of the UK – not only sustainable construction consultants like Mr Heal – needs to be ready.”

    Nice advert, then!

    “Mr Heal thinks there should be more financial incentives to encourage climate-proofing: “People are quite reluctant at the moment to invest in sustainability.””

    #MagicMoneyTree

    Perhaps people are reluctant to invest in it because they don’t have all that money and/or it doesn’t make financial sense to them?

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