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Climate Scepticism
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Continuing from the last comment on the previous thread. The first page in the series, from early May 2021, is here.
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Thanks Page Turner.
“Poll shows big increase in British concern over climate change
The level of concern is the highest since 1989.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/british-publics-concern-over-climate-change-reaches-near-record-level/
It’s a short article, with a few interesting takes:
“Climate change and pollution are the second-biggest concerns for Britons, according to an Ipsos MORI poll published Friday.
Worries over the environment jumped 16 percentage points since July, with 32 percent of the poll’s respondents expressing concern over the issue. That’s second only to the coronavirus pandemic.”
I am always irritated at the conflation between environment and climate change, especially given how many climate change mitigation measures are damaging to the environment. The poll makes that conflation, with the section in question being “pollution/environment/climate change”. I’m concerned about pollution and the environment, but not much about climate change. How would they register my views?
“According to the poll, those older than 55 are more concerned with the environment than younger respondents; likewise, upper and middle class people are more worried than manual and working class respondents.”
I find that interesting. Young working class people with jobs and possibly money worries aren’t so concerned as those who are comfortable.
“Mike Clemence, a researcher at Ipsos MORI, said that the “historically high level” of concern coincided with the publication of the latest report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)…”.
So the propaganda worked – for now, at least.
By the way, the poll can be found here:
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/public-concern-about-climate-change-and-pollution-doubles-near-record-level
But I can’t find the questions they asked, the framing of which can obviously make a huge difference to the outcome.
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“The nuclear dilemma”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/the-nuclear-dilemma/p09rsq3p
“As the climate crisis deepens, and energy demands continue to grow, how much do we need nuclear power?”
So, the BBC is now fully signed-up to Guardian-style language.
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“The climate scaremongers: A weekly round-up
By Paul Homewood
August 27, 2021”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-a-weekly-round-up-3/
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Mark was aware that Open Mic requires intervention by ‘page Turner’ to whom great appreciation is sent. No doubt you, Stew and others will now contribute feverishly to make the new page unstable. But for several weeks I and my temperamental iPad are content.
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Daily Express: Monday, 23 August 2021:
“Heatwave forecast: Blistering Azores plume to sizzle UK as Bank Holiday maps turn RED hot.”
Well, that’s climate change for you.
Daily Express: Two days later:
“UK storm latest: Britain braces for Bank Holiday washout as Icelandic system strikes.”
Well, that’s climate change for you.
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Sorry Alan, but there’s just so much to bring to attention on Open Mic. And so often the BBC and the Guardian are in lockstep. Suddenly both are showing interest in nuclear power. I mentioned the BBC article above. Now here’s the Guardian’s:
“The race to give nuclear fusion a role in the climate emergency”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/28/the-race-to-give-nuclear-fusion-a-role-in-the-climate-emergency
“Power from fusion has proved too hard to generate at scale. Can recent breakthroughs and massive investment change that?”
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8pm BBC4 The repeat of Coast contained the BBC regulation Green Dream PR
Here we are Strangford Lough the place pioneering out Green Energy future with Tidal Power”
Here a turbine was installed in 2005 …blah, blah, blah..
.. it was decommissioned in 2019″
… OK actual honesty
but they didn’t explain why
Actually Seagen set up got loads of grants , sold on to Siemens, who then pulled out of Tidal power
In the 14 years the project didn’t even generate 1GWh per year … just 11GWh in total
1 MWh is £40, so 1 GWh is £40,000 in value
So annually they generated less than £40,000 in electricity.
Yet the grants were in the £millions
Later on the programme went to the current research lab which is researching underwater kites
seems they pull on a ratchet and generate electricity.
The prog ended with the same warning message as last week about “rising sea levels” etc
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I suppose we can all dream…
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-sensible-speech-on-climate-the-pm-will-never-make/
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I don’t know if any of you are interested, but a certain Mallen Baker has been learning the hard way just what it means to attempt a sensible debate with the denizens of ATTP:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/a-chat-with-mallen-baker/
It started with him inviting Dr Ken Rice to speak on one of his podcasts, and ended with him finally having to give up defending his position once the discourse had descended to such a level that even someone who seemed possessed of limitless self-restraint and temperance could stand it no more. Thomas Fuller stepped in every now and then, but his contributions were soon to fall victim of Willard’s moderation. Presumably, this was because he had been ‘playing the referee’, as Willard and Ken like to put it. To illustrate the issue, I have found a video to explain what playing the referee means, Willard style:
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John, that strikes me as classic and absolutely standard over at aTTP. I wonder if Mallen Baker has regretted getting involved? I am reminded why, although I occasionally visit to see what’s going on, I never comment. It’s just not worth it.
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This appeared on the BBC’s website 5 hours ago. So far as I can see, they have simply re-posted an article they posted a few weeks ago. More evidence that it’s not about news, but about propaganda:
“Will I ever be able to fly again without feeling guilty?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57917193
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“Floating wind turbines could open up vast ocean tracts for renewable power
Technology could help power a clean energy transition if it can overcome hurdles of cost, design and opposition from fishing”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/29/floating-wind-turbines-ocean-renewable-power
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“Extinction Rebellion activists glued to Science Museum site in Shell protest
Demonstrators attach themselves to railings in reaction to museum taking funding from oil firm for Our Future Planet show”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/29/extinction-rebellion-protesters-science-museum-shell-sponsorship
“Extinction Rebellion protesters have glued or locked themselves to the railings inside the Science Museum, in a protest against the oil firm Shell’s sponsorship of its exhibition about greenhouse gases.
Five people have put their arms through the railings and glued their hands together so they are not damaging the museum’s property. Six have deadlocked their necks against the railings. Some of them are scientists, dressed in lab coats, while others are in clothes with Extinction Rebellion logos.
Earlier, protesters were escorted by police and members of the museum security team as they moved through the ground floor of the museum in South Kensington while about 200 supporters, including the Olympic sailor Laura Baldwin, gathered outside.
They chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, sponsor Shell has got to go” as those outside sang “No more petrol, no more diesel, funding fossil fuels is evil”, waved flags and banners, played drums and blew whistles….
…Dr Charlie Gardner, an associate senior lecturer in conservation science at the University of Kent and a member of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion, said: “We find it unacceptable that a scientific institution, a great cultural institution such as the Science Museum, should be taking money, dirty money, from an oil company.
“The fact that Shell are able to sponsor this exhibition allows them to paint themselves as part of the solution to climate change, whereas they are, of course, at the heart of the problem.” A Shell spokesperson said: “Our target is to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in step with society. Shell works with our customers to identify the best paths to decarbonisation; we seek to avoid, reduce and only then mitigate any remaining emissions.””
Rather worrying, isn’t it, that there’s such a thing as “Scientists for Extinction Rebellion”. They even have a website:
https://www.scientistsforxr.earth/
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Sunday’s Countryfile
Mainly about a Staffordshire Agricultural Show
and the kids showing farm animals
Eco items
#1Tom Heap investigates a toxic threat to dolphins, porpoises and killer whales.
PCB’s are still getting released
“UK harbour porpoises have half the pregnancy rate you’d expect”
“There only 8 killer whales in the UK and they’ve never had a calf in the 25 years we’ve been monitoring them
One of the females was found to have 100 times more of the PCBs than expected”
#2 Adam Henson finds out what he needs to do to go green on his farm,
Adam says his farm emits 1,000T CO2 pa ..whereas the UK average is 10T per person
.. So actually his farm only emits as much as 100 people..that seems low to me
“Here we are at the neighbours farm which has an anaerobic digestor which takes food waste, makes into gas for electricity, about 6,000 homes worth
and generates some fertiliser as well”
Hmm That’s the main business of slippery guy Dale Vince
Normally waste stuff gets turned into compost to fertilise the soil., in the process some CO2 is release and some feeds the soil.
The thing about the Anaerobic digestor set up
Is that you are taking green fields and building a factory on them
which surely wouldn’t be allowed by normal planning laws.
Next item Cow methane Prof Jude Capper said UK is 60% lower than global average
and much land is no good for crops
Next with Organic Farmer : Chris Repple
with his £70K weeding robot
It’s got a large solar panel on top
but I bet that is not enough to supply much of the power
The line “We can be net zero by 2040” was repeated a few times.
Next week in Scotland eating seaweed
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stewgreen
“There are only 8 killer whales in the UK and they’ve never had a calf in the 25 years we’ve been monitoring them
One of the females was found to have 100 times more of the PCBs than expected”
This is only part of the story. There are two populations of killer whales in UK waters. The one referred to here is found in the western approaches, and seems to have been poisoned by PCBs a considerable time ago. While the other can be in more northern waters with resident pods around Orkney and Shetland. These are doing fine with a population that has increased over the last 40-50 years.
The reason for the difference between the two populations is that killer whales have different “cultures’ with different populations specialising in catching particular prey. The northern whales prey mainly on seals while the western ones prey mainly on pelagic fish. As far as I know, no one has found the source of the PCBs in these animals, but since PCBs accumulate in preditors and are neither eliminated nor metabolised it is likely that they entered the food chain many years ago.
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“Action ‘needed now’ to cut farming sector emissions”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58376033
“Ministers need to stop talking and “begin acting” if emissions reductions in Scotland’s farming sector are to be maximised, a report has claimed.
Campaign group WWF Scotland says plans to replace the existing farm support mechanism in 2023 is too late.
The Scottish government is looking at how to replace the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy which provided support and incentives to farmers.
NFU Scotland first presented proposals to ministers more than three years ago.
A range of farmer-led groups have since made recommendations.
But last week another advisory group was formed by the government to drive those policies forward…
…Jonnie Hall, director of policy at the National Farmers Union (NFU) Scotland, said the industry needed “a new, properly funded, agricultural support package that delivers for Scotland’s current and future needs”….”
#MagicMoneyTree.
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“Over-50s want climate crisis addressed ‘even if it leads to high prices’
Research finds almost two-thirds of older people want UK government to move faster on green initiatives”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/30/over-50s-want-climate-crisis-addressed-even-if-it-leads-to-high-prices
“The majority of over-50s believe the UK government should be doing more to address the climate crisis, even if it leads to higher prices, a study has found.
A survey of more than 500 people aged 50 and over found that almost two-thirds want ministers to move faster on climate initiatives, regardless of whether it meant products and services would be more expensive over time, or more difficult to access.
Stuart Lewis, the founder of Rest Less, which conducted the study, said: “Our research shows that midlifers feel a huge sense of responsibility for the health of the planet and their role in reducing climate change.”…”.
That might be the wealthier 2/3 who can afford to virtue-signal. What about young people, who are going to be saddled with debt, many of whom can’t even afford to obtain a mortgage to buy a house as late as their late 30s?
By the way, the survey looks like a means of getting a free advert for an organisation/website I’d never heard of before today:
https://restless.co.uk/
Funnily enough, I can’t find a reference to the survey on their website, so can’t find out how they framed the questions (which of course frames the responses). No wonder the Guardian provided a link only to the website, and not to the survey (at least, not so far as I can see).
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“Tesla’s German factory pits politicians against environmentalists
Tesla has run into trouble building its factory near Berlin, but also has plenty of political support.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/tesla-germany-berlin-factory-politicians-environmentalists/
“The first electric cars were supposed to roll off Tesla’s new German production line a month ago. That hasn’t happened.
That’s largely due to a series of complaints filed by environmental groups against the factory in Grünheide near Berlin.
But the huge investment, the prospect of jobs and the chance for Germany to expand electric vehicle production is creating a united front among politicians aiming to protect Tesla — something that’s dismaying environmental campaigners.
“A dialogue between investors and politicians is common and basically makes sense,” said Johannes Bradtka, head of VLAB, a Bavarian environmental association. “In the case of Tesla, however, the dialogue went far beyond what was necessary. As far as we know, Tesla was given concrete political commitments and promises. Therefore, one can definitely speak of preferential treatment compared to other companies.”
The lawsuits have come thick and fast since Tesla announced the project in 2019, but the carmaker’s boss Elon Musk now says production will begin in October.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully getting the approval to make the first cars maybe in October if we are fortunate,” Musk said earlier this month during a visit to the factory with Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate for chancellor.
The factory is moving forward despite furious efforts on the part of campaigners.
First there were lawsuits against clearing trees from the site, then protected anthills that had to be relocated, followed by lawsuits over snakes and lizards. Tesla eventually chopped down the last tree and started construction in early 2020, but the problems didn’t stop.”
Nice to see, for once – environmentalists seeking to protect the environment instead of throwing it under the wheels of a Tesla in the name of “net zero”.
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R4 “coming up how you can be a greener energy user, with someone who runs a green energy company”
#ConstantAgendaPushing
Another item is the start of E10 fuel today
Forecourt petrol will have 10% biofuel
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It’s @BillBullen Founder & CEO of @UtilitaEnergy – the UK’s leading Smart PAYG Energy Supplier
Claimed home users can help us reach net zero 2 years early
.. “turn your thermostat down”
.. “check the set up is correct, thermostat, hot water times etc.”
.. claimed “Covid has led to large decrease in energy use ..offices not heated, as we work from home which is heated anyway”
It was #PRasNews He had his spiel and the box ticked they moved on to trail tomorrow as the prog ended.
… His tweet .. https://twitter.com/BillBullen/status/1431219225448919041
says “We submitted our white paper to @annietrev today
– asking why BEIS has failed to tackle domestic energy waste,
which could speed up the UK’s #RacetoZero by as much as 2-years.
Looking forward to a response. Read the white paper here: http://bit.ly/3kqORrd
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Mark,
I wonder how many of the journalists in receipt of the Rest Less copy thought to seek out the provenance of the report before publishing. Let’s face it, it would not have occurred to them to have done so, such is the parlous state of modern journalism. It isn’t just the framing of the questions that matters but also the process by which the 500 respondents were selected. Without this information the reported results are garbage.
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John, yes the results are meaningless and garbage, but they fit the agenda, and that – it seems – is all that matters.
stewgreen, I listened to You and Yours today, and the take away point for me was that if you have an old car, or a petrol lawn mower, or indeed any other machinery requiring petrol, then safest is not to use E10 (because it is corrosive) but to use premium unleaded instead. That means your costs are going to go up. Perhaps there should be an advertising logo – “COP26: Costing You More”.
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Hurricane in Louisiana .. good job they have this big new oil pipeline from Canada
.. Oh Biden cancelled it.
BBC “the hurricane has now been downgraded”
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Prompted by Stew’s E10 comment, I nipped out to the local garage earlier to see if they still have 95-octane E5. I was in luck. They don’t switch to E10 until tomorrow.
My old strimmer and chainsaw can probably cope with any old crap I throw in them, plus they probably need replacing anyway, but I have an irreplaceable (cos EU regs) and somewhat temperamental 20-year-old collapsible two-stroke moped that would probably get killed by E10 and I’m not sure it would cope well with 97-octane E5. I’ve now got 20 litres of its familiar fuel, enough to keep it going for a year or more.
Thanks very much, Stew.
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Here’s an anecdote about how ley lines empowered synchronicity (or vice versa) to get Boris Johnson to bump into a bunch of crusties in a farm shop and start crying when they fondled him and sang a song. Told by Gail Bradbrook during a paywalled 80-minute interview with Russell Brand in late 2019. Transcribed from this snippet:
URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8U6_ZireLM
*
RUSSELL BRAND: Yeah. Right, I really liked the story you told me, Gail, about the march to Chequers. Would you do that again for us?
GAIL BRADBROOK: Sure, yeah. So this was Tori Lou and a group that had decided that they wanted to bring love to power. It was on the equinox. I was actually away in a ceremony myself praying for the Rebellion. And so they walked along what’s called the Mary Michael Line – so it’s a ley line – to Chequers with the idea of bringing love to power and they sang this Taizé song – you know, it’s a really beautiful harmonic song, comes from the Christian tradition – which was about let love lead the way, listen to your heart. And because they had kids with them there was breastfeeding mums and toddlers kicking off and nappies had to be changed, you know what it’s like. You know, any sense of time is gone. They were two hours late getting to Chequers and they were, I guess, thinking they were later than they intended, walked into a farm shop and Boris Johnson was there. This often feels like these synchronicities and magic happens in Extinction Rebellion. I’ve had a lot of those experiences. Right thing happening at the right time. Anyway, they start to sing to him this beautiful Taizé song and they put their hands on him and he put his hand on his heart and started to cry. He started to fill up and started to shake as well. And it happened for a few minutes. He recomposed himself and he went to his girlfriend, apparently, and said: ‘Where did these people come from? It’s like they emerged from the earth.’ And one of them said: ‘Yeah, we had a message for you.’ And he put his hand on his heart and said: ‘Listen to your heart and let love lead the way.’
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Here’s a newish EU-funded Lew paper that ‘provides support for the use of argument-based inoculation in combatting [sic] extremist messages’, those extremist messages being aimed at, on the one hand, far-right Islamophobes and, on the other, potential supporters of Islamist terrorism.
URL:cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41235-021-00323-z
I gave up after the fourth paragraph in the article’s ‘significance statement’, which ended with this:
The cited sources don’t support that 95% claim (and one of them is the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, ferks).
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A Bristol GP reckons that climate change is killing his patients:
Bonus pix:
https://show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news-content-600ed2733c68d80019a19bc7/preview/61277d29a1f5300012384c4d
https://show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news-content-600ed2733c68d80019a19bc7/preview/612cc45ad6f55a00198f0783
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Flipping heck everything the media do is PERFORMANCE !
as they do this bias by omission and hype stories up
Countryfile definitely said there is only 1 population
Tweets refer to there being UK population and a Transient population that sometimes visits
However May 14th Telegraph quoted an expert
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2021/05/14/killers-coast-three-new-pods-orcas-feasting-seals-scotland/
“We learned that actually, there are far more killer whale pods present around the north coast of Scotland and Northern Isles than previously thought,” she said.
The three pods are in addition to a separate group, often described as the UK’s only resident pod of orcas, known as the “west coast community”.
Photographer and naturalist Hugh Harrop, of local company Shetland Wildlife, said that the idea that the UK had just one resident pod was incorrect.
We’ve now got three pods that we refer to as a Northern Isles community. thought to comprise 18 animals in total.
(Additionally transient pods are mentioned)
“Northern Scotland is also frequented by Other pods who move between Iceland, …and other areas of the Atlantic.”
BTW tweeters were more annoyed with them failing to call them orcas cos they are actually not whales but giant dolphins who can kill whales
Surely many suspect that first oil/gas disturbed orcas
and secondly windfarms.
One article from May 19 says Oslo researchers found not only PCBs
but also brominated flame retardants (BFRs), were found along with high levels of man-made chemicals called perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
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I won’t go to the British Science Festival this week
cos it seems anti-science . No Maths or Physics people just soft science activists
So I looked up the Hull Freedom Festival
Last week they had Smart, Clean and Green – Transforming the Foundation Industries Research & Innovation Hub
presented by Mark Jolly, Cranfield University
“everyday products that we use? Such materials have carbon footprints and this event will show how the evolution of the industrial age has created the problem but how by working smarter, more cleanly and in a greener way we can mitigate the current situation.
TransFIRe is a UK funded research and innovation hub of over 75 organisations with expertise from all the materials sectors in the Foundation Industries (cement, ceramics, chemicals, glass, metals and paper). The hub will support these industries hit the government target of net zero 2050. The research will look at best practices to reduce energy and CO2, reuse and reduction of waste materials, and energy capture local community engagement.
https://www.freedomfestival.co.uk/mark-jolly-smart-clean-and-green-transforming-the-foundation-industries-research-innovation-hub/
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“Greta Thunberg: Scotland ‘not a world leader on climate change'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58387017
“Campaigner Greta Thunberg says she doesn’t regard Scotland as a world leader on climate change.
The Swedish activist told BBC Scotland she recognised that some countries “do a bit more than others” but that none were coming close to what was needed.
On the Scottish Greens’ deal to enter government, she said some politicians were “less worse” than others.
But she said tackling climate change was not as easy as voting for a green party.”
Well, she got that right! More, more, more. Destroy your economies, destroy your way of life. The Climate Gods must be appeased! Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.
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“Greta Thunberg: ‘I’ll go to COP26 if it’s safe and democratic'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-58388980
Well, it won’t be democratic. Who voted for it? The citizens of the world? The citizens of the UK? The citizens of Scotland? The citizens of Glasgow?
“Campaigner Greta Thunberg has spoken to BBC Scotland ahead of the COP26 climate change summit, which is due to be held in Glasgow in November.
In a wide ranging interview, Ms Thunberg said she is “not 100% sure” that she will attend the talks and that her decision will be based on whether the event is “safe and democratic”.
She added that if she does decide to come to Glasgow, her plan would be to travel by train from Stockholm.
Ms Thunberg still believes the conference will not lead to anything “if we don’t treat this crisis like a crisis.”
She explained: “It should be all about climate justice and we can’t achieve climate justice if everyone is not contributing on the same terms”.”
Two Greta pieces in a day. The COP 26 push is on!
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“Ofgem launches £450m fund to help homes and businesses go green
Money available for ‘bold and ambitious’ ideas by energy network firms in aim to reach net zero”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/31/ofgem-launches-450m-fund-to-help-homes-and-businesses-go-green
“Great Britain’s energy regulator has launched a £450m fund aimed at innovative projects that will help the country meet its net zero climate targets.
Ofgem will make the money available to energy network companies that are trying to ensure homes and business are going green.
The £450m fund will be available over the next five years but could be extended if strong plans are presented, Ofgem said.
It is expected to play into the UK’s wider ambitions to slash 68% of emissions by 2030, and 78% by 2035. Its goal is for net zero emissions by 2050.
Ofgem said the ideas would need to be “bold and ambitious”, have the potential to be rolled out at scale across the UK, and could range from heat pump installations to developing battery storage technology.
Funding will be considered for projects that cover heating and transport, data and digitalisation, and “whole system integration”, which refers to the entire journey of electricity from plant to plug.”
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By the way, thanks Vinny for drawing attention to these people:
https://www.doctorsforxr.com/
This bit’s interesting:
“An inconvenient change
We understand that individual members of the public have been and will be greatly inconvenienced, for which we are truly apologetic.
We also understand the difficult position the government has been put in. In some corners of society, the changes needed to avert disaster will be unpopular, and therefore the government has to very cautious how it approaches this situation.
This is where we come in. Our profession is held in high regard by the general public, so profound backing from us would go a long way to increasing support for the cause. This in turn will give the government a strong mandate to act as we feel it must, and empower those MPs who do take this seriously to take centre stage.”
So, they seek to use their position of trust to push a political agenda.
“On June 28th 2019: Newcastle Hospital Declared a Climate Emergency, since then so have Manchester, Gloucester, Nottinghamshire and Bristol.
On July 5th 2019: The Royal College of Emergency Medicine committed to Divest from Fossil Fuels, joining the BMA, RCGP and FPH. This was followed on October 17th 2019 by the Royal College of Physicians
On 20th September, the Royal College of GPs Declared a Climate Emergency
On 25th September, 30 doctors protested at the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) against governmental inaction. 4 of our number were arrested.
On 13th October, over 200 healthcare professionals marched through London to protest government inaction, and the 110 people extra people who die every day through the effects of air pollution, which was widely covered in the media. During the whole 2 week protest over 30 health professionals were arrested.
On January 16th 2020 we successfully campaigned to have an Oil and Gas conference barred from RCGP HQ in Euston.”
Given the difficulty of getting a face-to-face appointment with a GP, and given the backlog in hospital appointments, if they really care about people’s health, wouldn’t they do better to concentrate on the day job?
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What a great use of public funds!
“Police at Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow to get public order training
About 10,000 officers a day will be present at event likely to be focus of wide range of demonstrations”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/30/police-at-cop26-climate-summit-in-glasgow-to-get-public-order-training
“Thousands of officers will receive public order training in the run-up to the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in November, Police Scotland has said.
About 10,000 officers from around the UK will be deployed each day of the climate summit, making it one of the largest policing operations ever undertaken in Britain.
Leaders from around the world will gather in Glasgow to discuss tackling climate change, and Police Scotland said it would take a human rights-based approach to policing any demonstrations during Cop26.
A senior officer said the force was already engaging with protest groups to allow peaceful demonstrations.”
What’s the betting on a crime wave during COP 26, as the criminals realise most of the police are in Glasgow?
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Appropriate award for winning letter in this week’s Radio Times?
Letter. “In view of the concern and talk about climate change, I think it’s time the BBC showed again the 2008 film starring Pete Poslethwaite, the Age of Stupid. It’s hard-hitting and almost frightening. Perhaps a regular showing of this drama-documentary might eventually get the message across.
Award: The writer of this [expletive removed] won a DVD of Doctor Who: The Web of Fear.
Does the Radio Times have a sceptic on board with a sense of humour?{
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Here’s the ultimate source of Bradbrook’s anecdote about ley lines bringing BoJo to a farm shop to hold his heart and cry:
URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhYh1L5ke-Q
Much of it tallies with Bradbrook’s version. Some of it doesn’t. (Eg, march to Chequers? They were on a pagan equinox loop and needed a snack.)
Here’s an entertaining (or not too dark, anyway) write-up by Dark Mountain’s Dougald Hine:
URL:bellacaledonia.org.uk/2019/10/04/the-curious-tale-of-boris-johnsons-heart
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“Berlin university canteens cut meat from menus to curb climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58393847
“Canteens at Berlin’s universities will offer mainly vegan and vegetarian meals from next term as part of a push to make menus more climate-friendly.
Students will be able to order meals from menus that are 68% vegan, 28% vegetarian and just 4% meat and fish from the start of October.
On Mondays, there will be no meat dishes available at all, as canteens swap currywurst for salads.
The canteens are currently closed, but food can be picked up on request.
The new menus are designed to reduce the carbon footprint of universities in the German capital.
Meat is very common in many traditional German dishes, such as schnitzels, bratwurst and pork knuckles. However scientists say carbon emissions produced by the meat industry are contributing to climate change.”
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“Aylesbury milk factory blockaded by climate activists”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58396352
“Climate activists have blockaded the UK’s largest milk factory and demanded the firm cuts its environmental impact.
About 50 people from Animal Rebellion locked themselves to barricades at the site in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
They said they would not leave until the company agreed to transition to plant-based production by 2025.
Arla said it was committed to working “in the most sustainable way possible” and aimed to be carbon net zero by 2050.
Animal Rebellion claimed the organisation emitted more greenhouse gases in 2017 than some mining companies and oil producers.
The protest group said a climate crisis could lead to unstable crop supplies to feed dairy cows and potentially expose them to heat stress for two months longer than usual.”
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“Police wield batons during XR’s London Bridge bus blockade
Move on ninth day of latest protest campaign appears to mark change in use of force against the group”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/31/police-wield-batons-during-xrs-london-bridge-bus-blockade
“Police in London wielded batons and threw punches against Extinction Rebellion protesters as they battled to gain control of an open-top bus blocking London Bridge on Tuesday, in a step-change in their use of force against the group.
On the ninth day of XR’s latest protest campaign, the Guardian witnessed officers from the Metropolitan police climb the sides of the bus parked across the junction at the south of the bridge, striking and wrestling with protesters….
…The drawing of truncheons against XR protesters marked an apparent change in the Met’s approach to the group. During previous XR campaigns, which have often involved roadblocks and peaceful civil disobedience, officers have taken an incremental approach to clearing blockades, carefully removing protesters from barricades and carrying them away.
“It’s the police committing mindless violence when they’re supposed to be protecting us,” one XR supporter at the scene, 66-year-old Carol Jones from Southport, said.
Protesters remained around the bus for several hours after the fracas, while the officers involved appeared to be relieved and replaced. At 4pm, the Met imposed a section 14 order, requiring the protest to end immediately. Protesters moved on, following a samba band down Borough High Street and west along Southwark Street. A number of activists remained inside the bus and locked beneath.
A Met statement said given the demonstration was an “attempt to cause major disruption to one of London’s busiest bridges” the use of force “was reasonable and proportionate”. They added that arrests were made….”
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It’s nearly ten years since Occupy London set up its camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral and now there’s a fox there eating an egg:
https://stephenliddell.co.uk/2021/08/30/following-a-fox-around-st-pauls-cathedral/
Synchronicity or conspiracy? Both?
The main spokesman for Occupy London’s camp at St Paul’s was George Barda, who later co-founded Compassionate Revolution with Gail Bradbrook. Compassionate Revolution became Extinction Rebellion. An XR-supporting barrister beat a fox to death with a baseball bat while wearing his wife’s kimono exactly 614 days ago and 6,140 yards away (give or take) from St Paul’s. A ley line runs through St Paul’s. This can’t all be down to coincidence. Wake up, sheeple!
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“Left-wing Democrats want Fed chief replaced”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58400767
“A group of progressive Democrats including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for Jerome Powell not be reappointed as Federal Reserve Chair in 2022.
The lawmakers accused the central bank chief of not doing enough to tackle climate change or economic injustice.
Mr Powell, a Republican, was appointed as Fed chair by Donald Trump in 2017 but his tenure expires in February.
There is speculation President Joe Biden plans to reappoint him.
In a statement, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Mondaire Jones and Jesús “Chuy” García said: “We urge President Biden to re-imagine a Federal Reserve focused on eliminating climate risk and advancing racial and economic justice.
“To move forward with a whole of government approach that eliminates climate risk while making our financial system safer, we need a Chair who is committed to these objectives.”…”.
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“One in three trees face extinction in wild, says new report”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58394215
“At least 30% of the world’s tree species face extinction in the wild, according to a new assessment.
They range from well-known oaks and magnolias to tropical timber trees.
Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk – twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.
Conservation groups are calling for urgent protection efforts amid threats such as deforestation, logging and [yes, you guessed] climate change.”
But what is the reality of those threats in turn? Persevere through the article and eventually you find:
“The biggest threats to trees globally are forest clearance for crops (impacting 29% of species), logging (27%), clearance for livestock grazing or farming (14%), clearance for development (13%) and fire (13%).”
Unless (which would be a highly dubious thing to do) you attribute “fire” to “climate change”, that looks like only 4% left to be attributed to climate change. And yet the very next sentence says:
“Climate change, extreme weather and sea level rise are growing threats to trees. But the authors say with conservation action, there is hope for the future.”
The end of the article is shocking:
“Over the past 300 years, global forest area has decreased by about 40% and 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
Research shows that seven main commodities drive more than half of deforestation worldwide.
Trees at particular risk of extinction include:
Large tropical trees known as dipterocarps that are being lost due to the expansion of palm oil plantations
Oak trees lost to farming and development in parts of Mexico, Chile and Argentina
Ebony and rosewood trees being felled for timber in Madagascar
Magnolia trees at threat from unsustainable plant collecting
Trees such as ash that are dying from pests and diseases in the UK and North America”
But climate change it ain’t.
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“New eco-petrol baffles a quarter of motorists”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58398606
“A more eco-friendly petrol is coming to British filling stations this month, but a quarter of drivers do not know whether their cars can run it, new research says.
The government intends to make E10 the new standard petrol grade.
It contains less carbon than other fuels and more ethanol, a kind of alcohol manufactured from plants.
But according to the RAC, 24% of motorists are unaware of it, while 27% do not know if their car is compatible.
Current petrol grades in the UK – known as E5 – contain up to 5% ethanol, with the other 95% being regular unleaded petrol.
Their replacement, E10, will see this percentage increased to 10% – a proportion that would bring the UK in line with countries such as Belgium, Finland, France and Germany.
Introducing E10 could cut carbon emissions by 750,000 tonnes a year, says the Department for Transport, the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road and an important step towards the government’s climate change targets.”
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“Weather-related disasters increase five-fold
Floods, storms and extreme events increase five-fold, but the number of people dying in them fell”
When you click on it, the heading changes to:
“Climate change: Big increase in weather disasters over the past five decades”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58396975
“The number of weather-related disasters to hit the world has increased five-fold over the past 50 years, says the World Meteorological Organization.
However, the number of deaths because of the greater number of storms, floods and droughts has fallen sharply.
Scientists say that climate change, more extreme weather and better reporting are behind the rise in these extreme events.
But improvements to warning systems have helped limit the number of deaths.”
Interesting – climate change and more extreme weather are separate categories, apparently. There’s also a recognition that better reporting is a factor. However, it’s misreported. Better reporting isn’t behind a rise in these events – it’s behind GREATER AWARENESS of the incidences of these events. That’s very different indeed.
At last there seems to be growing awareness of the need for adaptation:
“…”We need greater investment in comprehensive disaster risk management, ensuring that climate change adaptation is integrated in national and local disaster risk-reduction strategies,” she said.”
I would also like to know if their claims of massively increased costs are quoted in inflation-linked numbers or whether the numbers for 1970-9 are quoted at 1970-79 prices.
“Reported losses in the decade between 2010-2019 were around $383m per day, a seven-fold increase on the $49m per day between 1970-1979.”
There has been a heck of a lot of inflation over that timescale, and if it’s baked in to the numbers, it will massively distort that seven-fold increase.
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Mark, if this is anything like the previous such reports, it is entirely due to the increasing interconnectedness of all things and better reporting. I am hoping that someone else will investigate so that I don’t have to! (cf. Denierland p.197 and the IPPR’s fake, er that is erroneous, report.)
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It gets worse – not only does Scotland have a Scotland environment correspondent, it has a Wales environment correspondent too.
“COP26: Climate change summit is ‘make or break’ for the planet, says MP
By Steffan Messenger
BBC Wales environment correspondent”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58398254
The whole article is shameless scare-mongering propaganda, IMO. It certainly isn’t news. It’s just part of the ramp-up ahead of COP 26.
As is this (which even includes a photo from the first article):
“Climate change: Meet the people taking action”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-58399174
“People need to take action against the “terrifying” effects of climate change, according to the people doing it themselves.
Ella Smillie has set up a swap shop to borrow rarely used tools and electronics to reduce the numbers that need to be made.
“It’s the single biggest issue of our lifetime,” she said of climate change.
Steve Porretta built his own flood gates after being “constantly concerned” about flooding to his home.”
And that’s it! News/current affairs? or propaganda?
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“Make historic campaign to ban leaded petrol ‘blueprint to phase out coal’, says UN
Hailing end to toxic fuel additive, Guterres says same commitment is needed to eliminate other pollutants”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/01/make-historic-campaign-to-ban-leaded-petrol-blueprint-to-phase-out-coal-says-un
“But Guterres said countries should be inspired to coalesce around the cause of removing pollutants from the environment to “create a world of peace that works with nature, not against it”.
“We need international cooperation, compromise, solidarity – all guided by science,” the secretary general said.”
Good luck with that, given the ongoing reliance of developing countries on coal and other fossil fuels, as made clear in their NDCs submitted pursuant to the Paris Agreement (of course lots of them – most obviously China) haven’t even bothered submitting the required updated NDCs ahead of Glasgow’s COP 26).
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“Harrogate Convention Centre could get 1,000 solar panels”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment
at 14.45 today:
“More than 1,000 solar panels could be installed on top of Harrogate Convention Centre in a bid to reduce the town’s carbon footprint.
Harrogate Borough Council has applied for 1,077 solar panels on several buildings of the 40-year-old venue, which the Local Democracy Reporting Service said is the largest energy consumer of all buildings in the town.
Solar panels could save 24 tonnes of CO2 a year and will be paid for with £375,000 out of Harrogate Council’s £2.4m decarbonisation funding from the government.
Under plans more cash would be spent on energy-efficient lighting, air source heat pumps and pipework insulation. The nearby Hydro swimming pool could also get 420 solar panels, with gas boilers replaced by heat pumps.
Harrogate Convention Centre was set up as a 500-bed NHS Nightingale hospital for almost a year but did not treat a single coronavirus patient and the facility was dismantled earlier this year.
The centre was struggling financially before the pandemic, and the council is pushing ahead with plans for a potential £47m redevelopment after warnings it may not survive without major investment.
Meanwhile, Harrogate District Hospital has received £14m from the government to reduce its carbon footprint by 25%, and North Yorkshire County Council has been given £2m to improve carbon efficiency in its buildings.”
£14M for a carbon footprint reduction for a hospital, while there are huge waiting lists for appointments. Priorities?
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From the “you couldn’t make it up” school of environmentalism:
“UK imported more than half its gas in first three months of 2021”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-58403581
“The UK imported more than half its gas supply in the first three months of the year, the industry has said.
Oil and Gas UK’s (OGUK) annual economic report said 56% of the requirement for homes and power stations between January and March came from abroad.
The industry said that was down to a rise in demand coupled with a drop in UK production due to the pandemic.”
Due to the pandemic? How about “due to producers not being allowed to frack and exploit existing reserves”?
Rather crucially:
“Chief executive Deirdre Michie said: “Oil and gas provided nearly three-quarters of the UK’s total energy last year.
“We will continue to rely on them to heat our homes, keep our lights on and create many of our everyday essentials.
“We all know that change is needed so the question is how fast we make that change. This report shows the reality that cutting off the domestic production of oil and gas faster than we can reduce demand risks leaving us increasingly dependent on other countries.”
The report said the industry was ready to invest £21bn over the next five years into exploration and production.
It also said the oil and gas sector supported almost 200,000 UK jobs in 2021.”
Meanwhile:
“Scottish Green Party co-leader Lorna Slater told BBC Scotland it was time to turn to sustainable energy sources.
Ms Slater, whose appointment as a junior minister in Nicola Sturgeon’s government was approved in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, said oil and gas needed to be “phased out”.”
Good luck, Scotland.
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“WWF office sit-in enters second day as XR keeps up London protests
Extinction Rebellion members march through Westminster and target offices of JP Morgan”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/01/wwf-office-sit-in-enters-second-day-as-xr-keeps-up-london-protests
One of life’s delicious ironies:
“An occupation of the offices of the environmental group WWF by a protest in solidarity with indigenous people in Africa has continued into its second day, as Extinction Rebellion’s actions continued in London on a smaller scale.
About a dozen activists organised under the banner WTF WWF occupied the WWF offices in Woking, Surrey, on Tuesday morning. They stayed overnight, refusing to leave until it begins a dialogue with indigenous communities in Tanzania, Kenya and Cameroon who say they are being displaced by conservation efforts.
A spokesperson for the group, which includes members of the XR Youth Solidarity network, said it also wanted WWF to publicly speak out about evictions.
“If WWF is truly invested in supporting indigenous land and human rights as they say they would use their global influence and public image to speak out against the evictions and abuses happening in Tanzania, Cameroon and Kenya, or they would a least agree to speak to our indigenous partners on the ground,” the spokesperson said.
“Our demands are very simple and achievable. They could end this occupation easily if they wanted, but so far they have refused to do what they praise themselves to be doing.”
WWF had previously called the occupation disappointing. The NGO said: “Communities are at the heart of our work and as a global organisation we will continue to strengthen how we embed human rights into nature conservation, everywhere we work including in the most challenging areas of the world, to safeguard communities and the nature upon which they depend.””
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“Opec member urges oil producers to focus more on renewable energy
Iraqi minister and International Energy Agency chief urge countries to move away from fossil fuel dependency”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/01/opec-member-urges-oil-producers-to-focus-more-on-renewable-energy
“The finance minister of Iraq, one of the founding members of the global oil cartel Opec, has made an unprecedented call to fellow oil producers to move away from fossil fuel dependency and into renewable energy, ahead of a key Opec meeting.”
Well, yes and no. As a related article makes clear, countries such as his – Iraq – are almost totally dependent on revenues derived from selling oil. He’s prepared to make the right noises about moving away from fossil fuels, but basically only if the begging bowl he’s holding out is filled to the brim by western nations:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/01/oil-producing-countries-net-zero-2050-iraq
“Without help for oil-producing countries, net zero by 2050 is a distant dream
Ali Allawi and Fatih Birol
To meet climate targets and avoid economic collapse, countries such as Iraq need international support in the transition to clean energy”
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“We can’t build our way out of the environmental crisis
George Monbiot
New infrastructure projects are all the rage, post-pandemic. But who benefits from a rising tide of concrete?”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/01/build-environmental-crisis-infrastructure-pandemic-concrete
“Sure, we need some new infrastructure. If people are to drive less, we need new public transport links and safe cycling routes. We need better water treatment plants and recycling centres, new wind and solar plants, and the power lines required to connect them to the grid. But we can no more build our way out of the environmental crisis than we can consume our way out of it. Why? Because new building is subject to the eight golden rules of infrastructure procurement.”
There is a rather beautiful irony regarding George’s eight golden rules, IMO. Namely, they can mostly be applied equally to “renewable” developments such as wind farms.
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It doesn’t matter what the weather, it’s climate change, or “global weirding” if all the apocalyptic warnings about climate change or climate chaos aren’t actually borne out by the facts:
“Glasgow records hottest summer in run-up to Cop26 climate summit
South of UK was duller and wetter than usual, while extreme weather hit hard across the world”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/01/glasgow-records-hottest-summer-ahead-of-cop26-climate-summit
Scotland had a pleasant summer for once and was dry, but not record-breakingly so. Northern Ireland had a hot summer too, but break no records (the article claims it was the 3rd warmest in 140 years of records). South and east UK were duller and wetter than average, but came nowhere close to breaking any records. The UK summer was the 9th highest on record (not where I live, it wasn’t, nothing like it, though it has been quite pleasant).
Never mind. All this can still be made to fit the agenda:
“Mark McCarthy, the head of the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre, said: “Summer 2021 will be remembered very differently depending on where you are in the UK.” A mix of unusually dry and wet, and hot and cold weather has been referred to as “global weirding” by some scientists.”
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Since when has mixed weather been wierd for the UK? I give up.
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MSM spread a myth that young people all support XR
by omitting the majority that oppose them
Then festival aftermath proves that many young are not eco-warriors
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I find the leaving behind of literally fields full of unwanted tents after the Reading Festival difficult to understand on several grounds. And most were brand-spanking new tents, bought with the sole purpose of providing shelter solely for the Festival. But not worth the time and trouble of packing up and taking home. Festival 2022 will require the purchase of new tents, which on the basis of this year’s experience will be left decorating the countryside as well. What is the mindset? Certainly the polluters have money to burn. No doubt the costs of removing tents and disposing of them (think of the land fill charges) will be passed onto next year’s costs and will necessitate increased ticket prices. What a lose-lose situation and generation.
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Alan
Here Matt Ridley on the Fracking Fiasco, a couple of years ago:
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-2019/the-plot-against-fracking/
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R4 You and Your starts
– “You want to help with Afghan refugees
– Why Climate Change is changing the taste of your wine
Our reporter Bob Walker finds out by speaking to wine makers, importers, and sellers, discovering it’s increasing the strength of the wine in your glass.”
…. sounds like BS.. strength is dependent on how you mix the ingredients and how long etc.
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@larryElder is standing for California Governor
and is running a referendum this week to force a recall of the current Democrat governor
“Gavin Newsom said the state treated 90,000 acres of forests for fire prevention.
That was a lie.
He overstated the amount of acreage treated by 690%.
The state treated under 12,000 acres.
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R4 now a scientist is now describing how they make “coal” from bio-waste.
The presenter is avoiding the word “coal”
says “this carbon material” instead.
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ITV local news
“A new windfarm information hub has opened in Grimsby”
.. The #PRasNews is laid on thick.
Various voices spout buzzwords , “Green Energy Revolution”
“saving the planet” etc.
“Here’s a little boy that wrote a fan letter to the windfarm company”
2.5 mins
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Here’s the local BBC reporter promoting the same thing
It’s not been on BBC TV yet
Maybe they’ll do it on Friday
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Here’s Stu Basden, XR co-founder and guru of the XR Consent Advocacy Circle*, sniffing a policeman’s crotch while two other XR protesters make Nazi salutes:
https://show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news-content-600ed2733c68d80019a19bc7/preview/612f256b49d6920012aa411d
XR Consent Advocacy Circle’s last meeting was nearly two years ago. Even if that copper consented to having his crotch sniffed, it’s probably time for another meeting.
===
*’The XR Consent Advocacy Circle works to cultivate and spread consent-based behaviours and language, as ways of being and relating that foster respectful interactions (including personal, conversational, physical, sexual, societal, global).’
But not ‘getting-to-work-al’ or ‘living-our-lives-how-we-want-al’, it seems.
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Friday morning local news
“11,000 solar panels are to be placed at the Castle Hill Hospital”
(that’s Cottingham, Hull)
“The panels will provide one third of the hospital’s power” (That is spin)
“It’s possible cos of a £12.4m GOVERNMENT grant” … that’s your tax money not magic money
And if the solar power was any good it wouldn’t need a grant , it would be self funding.
BTW that’s about £1,000 per panel plus £1.4m for the wiring and regulators etc., so seems expensive to me
As ever ask “is this news or is it PR ?”
In fact the BBCnews solar list page had the story on May 24th
And there were earlier stories in March
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c302m85q132t/solar-power
So I make this the third bite of the PR cherry.
If I Google the list of pages starts with news stories from May
Seems to me Radio Humberside news team are deliberately inserting GreenBlob PR stories almost every day in the lead up to COP26
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OT, except perhaps in a vaguely Greta-ish way: Guirec Soudée has resurfaced.
URL:www.guirecsoudee.com/blog/phone-patch
The transatlantic rower lost most of his onboard electrics two months ago and has made contact with the rest of the world only two or three times since then.
Thanks to unfavourable currents, he’s probably heading in the wrong direction at the moment but at least he’s still there, still going.
(Why? Because his chicken, Monique, said that he couldn’t do such journeys without her. Stick at it, Guirec! We can’t let poultry rule our lives.)
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BBC rule : Every day in the run up COP26 there must be greendream PR in news bulletins.
Saturday local news
9am “Grimsby and Hull are to *BENEFIT* hugely from a rise in wind industry jobs
it looks like the number of jobs in that industry is to double in the next 5 years
Here’s the man from Orsted.”
PR man Duncan ” … world’s biggest wind farm ah blah”
“and now the sport”
WTF the news was only 2 mins long and half of it was that item.
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The Telegraph reports (front page news) that environment minister Rebecca Pow said that weeds are just plants in the wrong place; they are part of “the rich diversity of life” and we need “a different way of thinking”. We also should be cutting lawns less often (to help reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050). As an avowed sceptic I deliberately weeded a flowerbed this morning and planted spring bulbs. Tomorrow I shall be emitting like mad as I mow my lawn. Are all environmental ministers as loony as Pow?
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Alan, not just all environmental ministers, but, regrettably, also most politicians, it seems.
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“Exxon slammed as climate hypocrites for sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ to Ida victims
Critics pillory big oil companies for cynical expressions of sympathy while continuing to block climate solutions”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/03/big-oil-hurricane-ida-flood-victims-thoughts-prayers
“Major oil companies are being pilloried on social media for sending “thoughts and prayers” to victims of Hurricane Ida while sidestepping their role in the ongoing climate disaster.
At least two ExxonMobil outposts – from Beaumont and Baytown, Texas – tweeted the message on Monday, using the hashtag #LouisianaStrong. It didn’t take long for Twitter users to call out the company for its tone-deaf response, noting that Exxon’s own internal research program predicted catastrophic climate change decades ago.
Moreover, in the last 80 years, Louisiana has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of its coastal wetlands, according to the US Geological Survey. The major factors contributing to the decline of the natural storm barrier are offshore oil rigs, onshore wells and refineries operating on the shoreline.”
Does anyone know if that last sentence is actually true?
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“West Cumbria Coal Mine to face public scrutiny”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19559055.west-cumbria-coal-mine-face-public-scrutiny/
“THE West Cumbria Mining Company will face public scrutiny over plans for its new mine after a four-year fight by a Cumbrian Charity.
After unprecedented national and global concern, a four-week inquiry will begin on September 7 and will see the mining giant face public scrutiny of its plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria.
South Lakeland Against Climate Change (SLACC) will lead on a challenge to claims made by the globally connected West Cumbria Mining Company (WCM).
A national, and international, network of academics has supported SLACC’s struggle for a major and public investigation into the WCM’s proposal after the 6th UK Carbon Budget was published in December 2020.
John Ashton, CBE, independent speaker, writer and former UK climate envoy has praised the Kendal based charity, SLACC, for “doing an amazing job in holding WCM to account and forcing a reluctant government to hold a public inquiry”.
SLACC chair of trustees Carole Wood says: “The public inquiry is the next stage of a long battle to highlight the damage to the climate and environment from this proposal.
“As a small charity we are very grateful for the global support we have received, the contributions of specialist experts, and the backing of many people who have contributed to our crowd funding”.
Maggie Mason, leading the work for SLACC says: “Our expert witnesses show that the coal from this mine is not the type that the UK and EU steel industry needs, so it would not replace current imports. And, in any case, the European Steel industry is moving away from using coal because it has to meet stringent new targets to tackle climate change.”
For further information and regular updates about SLACC’s Cumbria Coal Mine Campaign visit their webpage.”
“And anyway”. So there!….Oh great.
The link to their webpage is here:
https://slacc.org.uk/campaigns/cumbria-coal-mine/
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“Tuna bounce back, but sharks in ‘desperate’ decline
By Helen Briggs”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58441142
I wondered if climate change would be shoe-horned in to the article, and of course it is, with this ridiculous statement:
“Meanwhile, on land, the Komodo dragon is moving closer to oblivion. The heaviest lizard on Earth faces threats from climate change, with fears its habitat could be affected by rising sea levels.”
As for this impressive list of threats to sharks, I’m pretty confident that climate change is at the bottom of the pile:
“However, populations of sharks and rays are continuing to plummet. When the group was assessed in 2014, around a third were deemed threatened, but this has risen to 37%, due to pressures from fishing for meat and fins, climate change and pollution.”
It’s followed by a chart purporting to show “How different actions could help restore biodiversity”. Climate change action is said to be quite a large element, but no explanation is offered, least of all a scientific one.
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“Climate change: Arctic warming linked to colder winters”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58425526
“A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to accelerated warming of the Arctic.
The scientists found that heating in the region ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex.
This allowed colder winter weather to flow down to the US, notably in the Texas cold wave in February.
The authors say that warming will see more cold winters in some locations.”
Paul Homewood is on this one:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/09/04/arctic-warming-causes-cold-winters-yes-its-that-old-canard-again/
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“Breeding seabird numbers in Scotland almost halved since 1980s”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-58414580
Tucked away in the article:
“However, guillemot numbers have increased by 17% since 2016.”
And, without offering anything to back up claims that it was climate change wot done it, and this statement as to what did do it:
“Reductions in the availability of sandworms and increased predation from great skuas are believed to have led to the sharp reduction in Arctic skua numbers.
NatureScot said other species, including herring gulls, appear to be stabilising, albeit at lower levels than the 1986 baseline year…” we get this:
“He [Simon Foster of NatureScot] said: “We know that these declines are driven by factors including climate change, fisheries and invasive non-native species.”
Climate change was the first thing he thought of, it seems.
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“Awel y Môr: Consultation for wind farm off Wales’ coast launched”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58434313
“A consultation into plans to build one of the world’s biggest offshore wind farms off the north Wales coast has been launched.
About 100 turbines could be constructed as part of plans for Awel y Môr, between Colwyn Bay and Llanfairfechan.
RWE Renewables said it would be 10.5km (6.5 miles) off the coast, to the west of the existing Gwynt y Môr turbines.
They would cover an area of 88 sq km (34 sq miles) and the turbines could be as tall as 332m (1,089ft).
The energy firm said the new farm would be able to power 900,000 homes.
The same developers are behind Gwynt y Môr, which has 160 turbines, off Llandudno, in Conwy, and is one of the UK’s largest offshore wind farms.
According to RWE, the maximum number of turbines planned for Awel y Môr has dropped from 107 to 91.”
“Would be able to power 900,000 homes” isn’t the same as “will power 900,000 homes reliably 24/7”. I wonder how Gwynt y Mor is doing against whatever claims they made about it?
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Is it April 1st?
“North Korea: Kim Jong-un calls for urgent action on climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58431010
“North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un called on his officials to deal with food supply issues and highlighted the danger of climate change.
Typhoons last year badly impacted [sic] vital crops, while weeks of drought followed by heavy monsoon rains have damaged them this year as well.
He said measures to overcome “abnormal climate” were needed, and asked also officials to tackle drought and floods.
His comments came in a speech to the ruling party’s Politburo on Thursday.
Mr Kim had said that the “danger” of climate change had become “higher in recent years adding that “urgent action” needed to be taken.”
North Korea’s many problems are rather less likely to have anything to do with climate change, and this will explain rather a lot:
“Although North Korea has not reported any Covid cases, it has sealed its borders and imposed lockdowns.
The border closures have affected vital imports from China.”
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It’s not enough to label climate sceptics as “deniers”. We’re worse than that, apparently:
“Climate change deniers are as slippery as those who justified the slave trade
Nick Cohen
Global warming sceptics should be hiding in corners. But still some defend the indefensible”
“I put “denier” in quotes at the top of this piece because the enemies of science (and of us all) are endlessly malleable shapeshifters. Once they can no longer deny the existence of man-made global warming, they shift and keet on shifting so no one can ever pin them down. In this, they mirror the defenders of slavery 230 years ago, who created the modern world’s first corporate PR campaign and provided an example for all who have followed.
The comparison isn’t harsh. One day, the attack on climate science will be seen as shocking as the defence of human bondage. Indeed, that day should have long passed. They are overwhelmingly old men or, in the case of Lawson, a very old man. They grew up in a 20th century where the carbon economy was natural: the way the world was and would always be. Slavery was equally natural to the plantation owners and slave traders of Georgian Britain. It had always existed, everywhere on Earth.”
Well, he’s entitled to his opinion, of course…..It’s just a pity that the whole article is predicated on emotion and unpleasantness and doesn’t engage with the issues. But then, very sadly, that’s standard for the Guardian today.
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“Doctors stage XR die-in outside JP Morgan offices in London
Sixty medical professionals including nurses hold protest to highlight fossil fuel investments”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/03/doctors-for-xr-extinction-rebellion-die-in-outside-jp-morgan-offices-london
“Sixty doctors, nurses and other health professionals have staged a die-in protest outside JP Morgan’s Canary Wharf headquarters in London to highlight the bank’s investment in fossil fuels.
The protest on Friday was organised by one of Extinction Rebellion’s groups, Doctors for Extinction Rebellion. The climate activist medics said this was their biggest protest so far and that JP Morgan was the biggest funder of coal, oil and gas extraction.
The demonstration was part of a two-week series of XR protests against organisations supporting fossil fuels.
The medics delivered a letter referring to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and the International Energy Association’s “net zero by 2050” report.
The words “code red” were sprayed on low walls in front of the building with chalk spray as medics called for the bank to stop investing in fossil fuels, the biggest driver of climate change. They warned the climate emergency and ecological breakdown was driving a public health crisis. The group called on JP Morgan to fit its pledges to the IEA report and set an absolute emissions target rather than its current carbon intensity target.”
Strange sense of priorities given their jobs and the apparent crisis within the NHS right now.
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“‘Climate crisis is here’ says Biden in week of storms, floods and wildfires
The president warned that ‘we need to act now’ as trail of destruction blighted west, south and north-east”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/03/climate-crisis-joe-biden-floods-wildfires-storms
“The widespread destruction caused by extreme weather coast to coast, with Hurricane Ida spreading devastation from Louisiana to New York while record wildfires scorch California, prompted Joe Biden to level with America this week, saying it was “yet another reminder that … the climate crisis is here”.
“We need to be much better prepared. We need to act,” Biden said in a speech on Thursday at the White House.”
Yes, being better prepared would be a good idea, rather than, Canute-like, trying and failing at great expense to stop nature doing what nature does.
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Sunday Times informs me that my old courting ground of Peterborough (“she who must be listened to” originally lived there) is the greenest place in England (most solar panels, highest proportion of electric cars) and at long, long last will be getting a university (of sorts). I believe Peterborough is the largest city not to have a university. Anglia Ruskin is to set up a branch awarding degrees in environmental matters and in food. Words fail me.
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7.15pm Countryfile
Presenter “There are 650 types of seaweed in Scotland
all helping to combat Climate Change”
Do they ?
.. every living thing eg humans has carbon in it that was once CO2 in the air
but when we die and burn/decay the CO2 returns to the atmosphere
If you forest an area that wasn’t forest before, then you are sequestrating CO2 for the life of the tree, and with luck some of it will become marsh and then decay without oxygen and become peat, trapping the CO2 for many years longer.
I’m not sure seaweed is as effective.
Sciency woman “we are noticing the sea is getting more acidic cos of Climate Change”
Are you really ??
“Acidic sea” is a PR word ..The sea is still alkali and I don’t think changes in alkalinity are immediately noticeable .. Rather you need sensitive methods to detect any decrease in alkalinity.
“but the seaweed actually ameliorates that and buffers the acidity”
Hmm
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Peterborough, where Labour people were found guilty of trying to rig elections
and then still used by Labour in later elections.
And where the previous Labour MP served jail time for lying about her speeding ticket.
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“Climate change: Massive Attack gig data to cut live music impact”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58442599
“Artists and bands must swap private jets for trains, festivals and venues need to generate more of their own renewable energy and gig tickets should include free public transport.
These are just some of the recommendations being made by scientists at the University of Manchester to help the music industry reduce its carbon emissions to stop climate change.
The roadmap for live music was based on tour data supplied by the band Massive Attack.
The findings are being shared across the industry and, it’s hoped, will inspire millions of fans to live more sustainably, too.”
Brought to you by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, who have, apparently, been poring over the data since 2019. Not what I’d call a proper, productive job. Some of the much-vaunted “green” jobs, maybe?
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The law of unintended consequences:
“Cardiff’s Castle Street: Work to begin for return of cars”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58424596
“Roadworks to return cars to a key road in Cardiff city centre are expected to begin on Monday.
Castle Street reopened to buses and taxis in November, but has remained closed to cars since it was turned into an outdoor dining area last summer.
Cardiff council aims to reopen the road by the end of October.
Drivers and residents have complained of increased congestion nearby, but environmental groups said more space should be given to walkers and bikes.
The council is forecasting nitrogen dioxide, a harmful air pollutant, will increase by 40% on the road after it is fully reopened, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
However, council officers said the gas had increased on nearby residential streets as a result of the closure.”
I think that last sentence is particularly important. People don’t want to give up their cars. Close a road and, by and large, you just move the problem elsewhere.
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Regarding that Massive Attack story about touring bands and climate change, inevitably the Guardian has it too:
“Massive Attack call for government plan to cut live music’s carbon emissions
Band commissioned report on industry’s footprint and criticise ministers for not doing enough”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/massive-attack-call-for-government-plan-to-cut-live-musics-carbon-emissions
In the Guardian’s case, though, perhaps inevitably, it’s used as a means by which to attack the government. Apparently the band expects the government to support the industry to reduce its climate/carbon footprint. #MagicMoneyTree.
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“UK urged to back sale of artificial meat to tackle climate crisis
Social Market Foundation says more research could help people move ‘to more sustainable dietary habits’”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/uk-urged-to-back-sale-of-artificial-meat-to-tackle-climate-crisis
“The UK should back the development and sale of artificial meat to tackle the climate crisis, a thinktank report says, calling for the government to encourage the consumption of “alternative proteins” that do not come from animals.
The report, from the Social Market Foundation, also points to a wide array of benefits to supporting alternative proteins, including opening up a green export opportunity for British businesses, reducing the risk of zoonotic diseases and improving animal welfare.
Raising cows, sheep and chickens contributes significantly to carbon emissions, with animal agriculture accounting for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The official Committee on Climate Change has said the amount of meat people eat in the UK needs to be brought down by more than a third by 2050.
While meat consumption has reduced in recent years, it is not falling quickly enough. The UK today consumes only 6% less meat per capita in the home than in 1974.”
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“More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate crisis
Editorial in publications worldwide urges leaders to take measures to stop ‘greatest threat to public health’”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/more-than-200-health-journals-call-for-urgent-action-on-climate-crisis
“More than 200 health journals worldwide are publishing an editorial calling on leaders to take emergency action on climate change and to protect health.
The British Medical Journal said it is the first time so many publications have come together to make the same statement, reflecting the severity of the situation.
“The editorial, which is being published before the UN general assembly and the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this November, says: “Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we – the editors of health journals worldwide – call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.
“Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.
“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.
“Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.
“Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health journals across the world.
“We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.”
It adds: “The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5C and to restore nature……”.
What a load of tripe. Released just ahead of COP 26, it’s nakedly political. The claim that climate change is “the greatest threat to public health” is patently rubbish.
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Bishop has a Twitter thread, and Ben Pile a longer one
Here’s the key line
“The lights did not go out as we switched to renewable energy, as so many pundits said they would. And energy bills have fallen rather than risen,
despite the assertions of the noble Lawson to the contrary.”
Who is the one denying stuff and being slippery ?
Cohen denies the fact that energy bill have risen
So Cohen is the slippery denier.
#Projection is a libMob characteristic
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Today’s BBC Breakfast TV local news .. accompanied by the PR photo
“Castle Hill Hospital has been given permission for 11,000 solar panels …”
I wonder how many times they are going to report the story
Sept 3rd they added the story to the BBC solar news page
and the original May 25th story is also there
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c302m85q132t/solar-power
I guess it is new new news that the local council has given planning permission
but the BBC page doesn’t say that
And anyway today’s Monday yet the hospital’s Facebook page had the news first thing on Friday morning
\\ East Riding Council has approved plans for a solar panel field ..
Known as “ground mounted solar photovoltaic array”//
So that means it’s physical farmland taken out of production and us importing more food.
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Saturday’s Times had a story about ambulances getting delayed cos of such traffic calming measures.
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“festivals and venues need to generate more of their own renewable energy ”
I have heard of stuff like trucking solar panels to festivals or turbines.
Such trucking has a CO2 footprint ,
and locally you lose energy through battery banks and load balancing
But if there is no proper grid power to site I guess you truck in diesel generators
So in tandem solar might decrease the amount of diesel you use.
However you could use biodiesel or offsetting to make it net-zero anyway
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11:30am local radio presenter
“Now over to stone circles in Grimsby”
..Wow that is a hook, maybe interesting archaeology
“blah blah art project, circle stones in the shape of windturbines ..like stepping stones
regeneration funding, council funding, heritage, cultural development funding ..£21m , £17.4m ”
So that’s tax money going towards WindFarm PR
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12:52pm Radio4 “climate scientists have published a guide to help musicians using data from Massive ..by Tyndall Centre “.. Prof @CarlyMclachlanthe head spoke
… https://twitter.com/carlymclachlan/status/1434796768223432706
(Note 5Live guy also asking for interview …#PRasNews)
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12:33pm Radio4 : on street charging for your Electric car
woman “We needed a bigger car, cos of Climate Change”
Presenter “Charge Fair, drive an electric van to your house and charge your car
… No mention of losses !
“£6 per week charge, plus 37p/KWh if you go over the limit”
#PRas news
… now only in London ..moving to Oxford
“Co Charger App lets you rent out your own charge space for a 12% cut”
“Youbertricity part of Shell runs lampost based chargers”
BBC “if you charge at home you pay much less”
They let the PR guy said “yes all systems are cheaper than petrol”
.. that’s fakenews cos currently they don’t pay road tax, that subsidy cannot last.
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Stew, see my recent comment on “I dream of EV” for a detailed comparison of costs with and without duty.
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Stew, good spot regarding BBC Radio 5 journalist seeking to get in touch, on top of the piece on Radio 4’s You and Yours.
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This summer Greta Thunberg was awarded an honorary membership of a normally fee-paying organisation called Faculty of Public Health. FPH has these declared aims:
(That’s from its Charity Commission page. It declares slightly different aims elsewhere. For example, from its Twitter blurb you might think that it’s a union for health workers.)
How Greta will benefit from her honorary membership is not immediately obvious:
URL:www.fph.org.uk/membership/join-us/
But then it’s not really about Greta. Here’s a BMJ blog by FPH’s president, Maggie Rae*:
URL:blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/01/tackling-the-climate-crisis-and-protection-of-our-ecosystem-must-be-at-the-heart-of-public-health-policy/
Some snippets:
It very much is, Professor Rae**, although they do sometimes collide.
===
*FPH’s annual income is about £2 million. I don’t know how much of that goes to Maggie Rae but before she became FPH’s president she got £148k pa from Wiltshire Council, where she was some sort of senior manager.
URL:www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/14783496.councils-148k-a-year-health-boss-leaves-job-after-months-signed-off/
**FPH lists Rae as a professor, presumably because she was once a Visiting Professor of Public Health at the University of the West of England.
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‘But then it’s not really about Greta’
I meant to say that it’s not much about climate change either.
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“Revealed: ‘Shocking’ carbon footprint of COP26 venues”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/revealed-shocking-carbon-footprint-of-cop26-venues/ar-AAO70qp
“Two flagship venues hosting the upcoming COP26 climate change summit have received the second lowest possible rating for energy efficiency, with work yet to commence on a raft of legally binding improvements issued by assessors in order to reduce CO2 emissions.
The SEC Armadillo in Glasgow has been graded F by inspectors, who said its owners should consider installing renewable energy sources as well as new insulation and lighting in order to curb its carbon footprint.
The SEC Centre, the sprawling conference venue which will form the epicentre of negotiations, also has an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of F. Assessors told its owners in 2012 they should consider investigating the use of low and zero carbon technologies.
Nine years on, neither it nor any of the other SEC properties have renewable energy sources installed. Cumulatively, the venues, chosen by the UK government for the summit, along with Glasgow Science Centre, are pumping around 6,659 tonnes of CO2 a year into the atmosphere.
With hundreds of world leaders set to descend on Glasgow in November, environmental groups reacted with dismay to the efficiency record of the venues.”
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“Climate impact of a transatlantic flight could cost global economy $3,000
Economic cost of climate crisis has cut 37% from global GDP this century, say researchers”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/climate-crisis-transatlantic-flight-global-economy-gdp
“A return flight from the UK to New York could cost the global economy more than $3,000 (£2,170) in the long run, owing to the effects of the climate crisis, according to a report.
Researchers examined the economic cost of the climate crisis and found it would cut about 37% from global GDP this century, more than twice the drop experienced in the Great Depression.
For every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, the global economy would be $3,000 worse off by the end of the century, they estimated.
The research was conducted by experts from Cambridge University, University College London and Imperial College London, as well as international partners from Switzerland, Germany, the US and Austria.”
There’s no link that I can see to the research, which is a shame, as I’d love to read it. However, this section from the Guardian article doesn’t leave me convinced, to say the least:
“If we stop assuming that economies recover from such events within months, the costs of warming look much higher than usually stated.
“We still need a better understanding of how climate alters economic growth, but even in the presence of small long-term effects, cutting emissions becomes much more urgent.”
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“Europe’s top 25 banks failing on green pledges, campaigners warn
ShareAction says lack of plans to tackle climate crisis and biodiversity loss casts doubts on banking’s sustainability pledges”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/06/europes-top-25-banks-failing-on-green-pledges-campaigners-warn
“Europe’s 25 largest banks are still failing to present comprehensive plans that address both the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, putting their sustainability pledges in doubt, campaigners have warned.
While some lenders such as NatWest are demonstrating leadership on specific issues – such as net zero targets and policies restricting financing for new fossil fuel – research by investment campaign group ShareAction found none of the banks it reviewed were taking action across all key areas.
These are: biodiversity; exposure to high-carbon sectors; policies restricting services to sectors such as oil and gas; and linking executive pay to progress on climate issues.
ShareAction said banks should expect protest votes against their directors unless they shape up and start following best practices of their peers. “Where investors are dissatisfied with banks’ responses, ShareAction encourages investors to vote against directors and to file and vote for shareholder resolutions on climate change and biodiversity at banks’ 2022 AGMs,” the campaign group said.
The study found that executive pay policies are failing to encourage major change across Europe’s largest lenders. In many cases, pay is only linked to cutting carbon emissions from the bank’s offices and branches rather than curbing loans for carbon heavy industries.”
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Paul Homewood has the story:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/09/06/britain-forced-to-fire-up-coal-plant-amid-record-power-prices-and-winter-squeeze/
I’m pleasantly surprised to see it making the front page of the BBC news website:
“UK fires up coal power plant as gas prices soar”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58469238
“The UK has fired up an old coal power plant to meet its electricity needs.
Warm, still autumn weather has meant wind farms have not generated as much power as normal, while soaring prices have made it too costly to rely on gas.
As a result, National Grid ESO – which is responsible for balancing the UK’s electricity supply – confirmed coal was providing 3% of national power.
It said it asked EDF to fire up West Burton A, which had been on standby.
A National Grid ESO spokesman said there had been a three-day coal-free run in mid-August.
However, the country had relied on some coal power every day since then.
Last year, coal contributed 1.6% of the country’s electricity mix. That was down from 25% five years ago.
Both the government and National Grid ESO have committed to phasing out coal power completely by 2024 to cut carbon emissions. However, coal is currently still used when it is better value than gas.”
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Meanwhile:
“Whitehaven coal mine: Planning inquiry begins into scheme”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-58467209
“An inquiry into controversial plans for a new coking coal mine is due to begin.
The planning inspectorate will consider West Cumbria Mining’s application for a mine off the coast of Whitehaven.
The mine was approved by Cumbria County Council in October but in February the authority suspended its decision.
Supporters say it will bring jobs and reduce the need to import coal for the steel industry. Opponents claim it undermines the UK’s environmental and climate change promises.
Planning inspector Stephen Normington said the inquiry, which will be held virtually and last up to 16 days, will consider how the mine would conform with:
Climate change policy
Flooding and coastal change policy
The need for coal and future demand for it in steel production
Employment in the region
Effects on tourism and the area’s heritage
The council, which had approved the mine to operate up until 2049 before suspending the permission to further consider carbon policy “implications”, has said it will adopt a “neutral position” during the inquiry.”
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The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople have today issued a joint statement on climate change.
URL:www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements/joint-statement-climate-change-archbishop-canterbury-pope-francis-and
It offers no actual solutions. It’s just the usual vague exhortations and empty hand-ringing set to the usual dodgy doom music.
An example of dodgy doom: ‘…climate change is not only a future challenge, but an immediate and urgent matter of survival. Widespread floods, fires and droughts threaten entire continents.’
Are you sure about that, your eminences? Do you mean that in a very real sense?
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Tomo found a news story with photos
https://www.nelincs.gov.uk/circles-of-stone/
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Nothing is ever enough for some people, is it?
“UK climate laws ‘falling short’ despite emissions reductions”
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/uk-climate-laws-falling-short-despite-emissions-reductions/5109698.article
“The UK’s ‘pioneering’ climate laws have been more effective than legislative efforts elsewhere in the world – but are still failing to reduce emissions by an adequate amount, a campaigning legal group reports today.
In ‘Navigating Net-Zero’, ClientEarth examines climate legislation in Mexico, France, Finland, the UK, Sweden and Victoria, Australia. It found that the laws are ‘potentially critical tools in the fight against climate change’ and that the UK has achieved some of the greatest emissions reductions of all the states studied, with an ‘effective system of interim target setting’….
…ClientEarth lawyer Sophie Marjanac said: ‘For laws that break new ground, you expect teething problems – but there is much to learn from the successes and mistakes made in these pioneering efforts. The world needs strong climate laws to accelerate action on global warming. These six jurisdictions set an example for ambition, now they must raise it by improving clarity and enforcement.’
She added that common pitfalls include a lack of hard legally binding interim targets, over complexity, delayed implementation, and a failure to regularly monitor progress.”
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8am Tuesday 5 days later and this same story is in the bulletins again
That’s PR
but i guess it’s recycling
I had to go back and check Friday’s audio, yep it was on the 9am news
Friday’s 8am news had “A windfarm info hub has opened in Grimsby, here’s little Ethan saying how great it is”
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“Coal from planned Cumbria mine may go outside UK and EU, inquiry told
Opponents say document contradicts company’s claim it will principally supply industries closer to home”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/07/coal-from-planned-cumbria-mine-may-go-outside-uk-eu-inquiry-told
“The coal extracted from the planned Cumbrian mine may go further overseas, rather than be used in Britain and the EU as the company has claimed, the public inquiry into the scheme heard on its opening day.
West Cumbria Mining’s (WCM) proposals to extract 2.7m tonnes of metallurgical coal a year from a site off the Cumbrian coast at St Bees are being examined by the Planning Inspectorate.
WCM has said its “indigenous” coal would principally supply British steelmaking and industry in EU countries, while creating hundreds of well-paid jobs for people in west Cumbria. According to current levels of domestic demand for coking coal, about 15% of the coal extracted underneath the Irish Sea would go to UK-based companies, with WCM having proposed to export the remainder to Europe.
But opponents to the project have pointed to a document submitted by WCM to the inquiry, arguing it showed that much of the coal exports the mine would produce could travel well beyond the EU markets WCM had suggested it would supply.
“The reality is the vast majority of WCM’s coal is destined to go abroad,” said Estelle Dehon, the legal representative acting on behalf of the South Lakes Action on Climate Change group (SLACC). “WCM’s coal is likely to go to Europe, [but is] not exclusive to the EU – including Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia.”
She added that markets in Japan and India had also been mooted.”
So, not really well beyond the EU markets, after all. Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are all countries that aspire, or have aspired, to join the EU, and all border EU countries. The reference to mooted markets in Japan and India is hardly convincing, without something more substantial to back it up.
I’m with the last two people to whom the Guardian gives a voice:
“The Tory MP Trudy Harrison, in whose Copeland constituency the deep mine would be constructed, told the inquiry that the opposition to the project was simply “gesture politics”.
Meanwhile, Lee Anderson, a former miner who is the Conservative MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, argued the scheme was a crucial opportunity to revitalise domestic industry. He said: “We’re on track to move away from coal in steelmaking by 2049. And that should always be our target. But we have the chance, in the meantime, to use British coal and not foreign coal.””
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“Cop26 will be ‘rich nations stitch-up’ if poorer countries kept away by Covid
Environmental activists demand delay to Glasgow climate talks if costs and travel restrictions block attendance of those worst-hit”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/07/cop26-will-be-rich-nations-stitch-up-if-poorer-countries-kept-away-by-covid
“The Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow should be postponed until the government can ensure that the talks won’t be a “rich nations stitch-up”, a diverse coalition of international organisations has said.
With less than two months to go before the talks, the Climate Action Network (CAN), a global alliance of more than 1,500 civil society organisations, is warning that many delegates from the global south will be unable to attend due to vaccine inequity and prohibitive quarantine costs.”
What an extraordinary mix of irony and hypocrisy. They don’t argue for postponement because of the covid risks attendant on tens of thousands of people travelling unnecessarily half-way round the world. They don’t argue that in the view of the GHG emissions associated with that travel, that the conference should be held virtually. No, they argue that if it goes ahead without postponement, not enough people will be able to travel half-way round the world to get there, and that’s not fair.
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As stewgreen has already pointed out:
“Christian leaders unite to issue stark warning over climate crisis
Archbishop of Canterbury, pope and leader of Orthodox church ask for people’s prayers ahead of Cop26”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/07/christian-leaders-unite-to-issue-stark-warning-over-climate-crisis
“Global Christian leaders have joined forces to warn that the world is facing a critical moment as the climate crisis threatens the future of the planet.
In an unprecedented joint declaration, Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox church, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who is the leader of the global Anglican communion, call on the world population – “whatever their beliefs or worldview” – to “listen to the cry of the Earth and of people who are poor”.”
There seems to be no appreciation on their part that the main threat to the earth (as opposed, possibly, to people who live on it) is the rapacious nature of a growing population of people (birth control, your Holinesses?), and that poor people are those in the firing line to suffer most from “net zero”.
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It’s not all bad news, then:
“British dragonfly numbers soar as warming climate attracts new species
Study finds 40% of resident and regular migrant dragonflies and damselflies have increased in number since 1970”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/07/british-dragonfly-numbers-soar-as-warming-climate-attracts-new-species
“Six new species of dragonfly have colonised Britain in the last 25 years as dragonflies and damselflies boom in a warming climate.
More than 40% of resident and regular migrant dragonflies and damselflies have increased in number since 1970 with just 11% declining, according to a study of 1.4m dragonfly records.
Thriving species include the black-tailed skimmer and the brilliant metallic blue-and-green emperor dragonfly, Britain’s biggest species, which has increased more than any other, flying north and west into Scotland and Ireland this century.”
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How can this be?!!!
“French wine suffers worst hit in decades amid damage from frost and disease
Production forecast to plunge by 29% after unseasonal spring weather damages grapes on vine”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/07/french-wine-output-frosts-weather
“French wine makers are expected to produce nearly a third less wine this year than usual, after their vineyards were struck by frosts, poor weather and disease during the spring and summer.
The country’s wine output is predicted to tumble by 29% this year compared with 2020, to the lowest level in decades, according to France’s agriculture ministry.
Almost all of France’s wine-growing regions – including Bordeaux, Champagne and Languedoc-Roussillon – were affected by unseasonal spring frosts, which damaged grapes growing on the vine that had developed during a burst of warm weather. However, some areas were affected more than others.”
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Guess what? The BBC publishes “news” based on the same press releases as the Guardian:
“Climate change: Green groups call for COP26 postponement”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58472566
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This strikes me as rather more balanced than the piece I had the misfortune to listen to on the Radio 4 news at 6pm:
“Whitehaven coal mine: Planning inquiry risks being ‘hijacked'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-58467209
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“‘World leaders in green energy my backside’: Britain fires up two coal power stations as wind speeds drop, drawing ire”
https://www.rt.com/uk/534131-uk-coal-power-station-grid/
“Energy firm EDF was forced to turn on two coal power stations on Monday, ending the UK’s latest coal-free period, as the National Grid experienced a shortage of power due to low wind speeds across the country.
On Monday, the National Grid turned to coal to power the nation’s homes as wind power failed to meet requirements. French energy firm EDF was asked to fire up two coal units at West Burton A power station in Nottinghamshire, one of the last remaining coal-burning plants in the country, due to be decommissioned next year.
“Two units at the station have helped to balance the UK electricity system in order to ensure security of supply,” a spokesman for EDF said.
The firing up of the West Burton station marked the end of the UK’s most recent coal-free spell and the first time since March that coal has generated more than 1.5GW of power.
Wholesale energy prices in Britain and on the continent have rocketed amid low wind power generation and rising gas prices. UK National Balancing Point, a virtual trading platform for natural gas, saw prices reach £1.31 per therm, four times higher than the same time last year.
The National Grid ESO (Electricity System Operator) confirmed that 3% of the UK’s power was being generated by coal. The figure is above the average of 1.6% for the whole of last year, but considerably down on the 25% average of five years ago.
However, the news has clearly irked some people, especially on social media, where many were keen to bash Britain’s green credentials. “World leaders in green energy my backside. It’s just another lie,” one person wrote, referencing PM Boris Johnson’s assertion that the UK leads the way in the sector.
One person asked if this was “serious,” saying they could not believe that the UK cared so little for the health of its citizens, let alone the health of the planet. “So much for their Green New Deal,” another wrote, sharing a parody image of a government advert. “
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A very warm autumn evening in the UK, just as it’s going dark, and the make-up of the National Grid is:
Coal: 0.7%
Gas: 50.5%
Sola: 0%
Wind: 8.5%
Hydro: 1.4%
Pumped storage: 5.3%
Nuclear: 15.4%
Biomass: 3.4%
Interconnectors: 12.2%.
And, as Andrew Montford recently tweeted:
“Balancing system cost for the day is ten times normal level. Is this a record?”
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That is incredible that today Tuesday the local radio 8am news
reported the same Castle Hill Hospital solar farm PR as if it were brand new news
Yet the really did run the same story Friday 9am after the hospital announced they had got planning permission.
I had to go back and re-listen to make sure
The difference is on Friday they reported it as if they didn’t understand it, they failed to report that the actual new thing was that planning permission had been granted.
I have heard it on 4 different BBC sources
– from 9am Friday local radio news
– Monday BBC local breakfast TV
– Monday BBC local evening news
– Tuesday from 8am BBC local radio news (as if new)
But should the item be in a 3 minute local news bulletin anyway ?
Sure a huge new factory would be news
but a £11m project is hardly big news
except for BBC being addicted to pushing green-PR
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“new species” = “we didn’t look much before
but now we are looking and have better tech”
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grain harvest seems truly massive around here
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100% the regular pattern of BBC/Guardian being in lockstep.
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Andrew Montford tweet 9 hours ago:
“Prices on the Balancing Mechanism hit £3400/MWh today.”
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“Audit office blames UK government for botched £1.5bn green homes scheme
Spending watchdog says home insulation drive was fatally rushed and missed chance to cut heating bills and create jobs”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/08/audit-office-blames-uk-government-for-botched-15bn-green-homes-scheme
“A “botched” scheme to insulate England’s draughty homes collapsed after six months because officials rushed its design, put in place an undeliverable timetable, and failed to heed industry warnings, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.”
Probably a bit like the rush to “net zero”, then.
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FFS how long is the tale of the Scotland wind-tower factory close-downs, administrations, taxpayer grants and free stuff like harbour/roads ?
Sept 2021 Korean owner CS-Wind put into administration
2019 Factory closed but HIE had a court order preventing equipment removal, cos they’d put in £3m in grants
(The plant was shut down in 2019 and production shifted to CS Wind’s cheaper Vietnam plant in Phú Mỹ)
2016 Factory bought by Korean CS Wind
A long chain of owners since 2009
CS-Wind bought it off SSE
2011 SSE bought “The Campbeltown plant has been bought by Wind Towers Limited, a joint venture between Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) and Marsh Wind Technology.”
Jan 6, 2011 Skykon has gone into administration. (Danish owner)
Dec 29, 2010 Skykon Campbeltown’s parent company files for bankruptcy
25th March, 2009: Skykon (owned by Denmark’s Welcon) to take over Vestas wind turbine
Before then it was Danish company Vestas, and they’d decided to close it.
1 Jun 2002 Vestas opens new factory in Scotland
some Grants and subsidies
2011 “Highlands and Islands Enterprise has agreed to invest £3.4m as part of the deal.
Argyll and Bute Council is also committed to a £12m infrastructure upgrade to Campbeltown Harbour/roads”
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The ramping up ahead of COP 26 continues:
“Climate change: Fossil fuels must stay underground, scientists say”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58494391
“Almost 60% of oil and gas reserves and 90% of coal must remain in the ground to keep global warming below 1.5C, scientists say.
The forecast is based on close analysis of global energy supply and demand.
It is a “bleak” but realistic assessment of “what the science tells us is needed”, the researchers say.
And they have “painted a scenario of the future” that leaves much less room for fossil fuels to be extracted than previously estimated.”
It’s always worse than we thought, apparently. The article can be found here, if anyone is interested:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8
“Dr Price told the BBC: “The physics doesn’t care about the political will.
“We know technically how to do this, it is just about actually doing it.””
Except that’s not true, is it? Only this week the UK has had to crank up coal fired power stations to keep the lights on during a warm spell in early September. What happens in the middle of winter, for pity’s sake?
Meanwhile, the real world:
“UK-led Cop26 talks at risk of failure over China’s refusal to cut emissions
Fears of a ‘fight’ at Glasgow summit as leaked documents reveal Beijing’s tough negotiating stance”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2021/09/08/uk-led-cop26-talks-risk-failure-chinas-refusal-slash-emissions/
“International climate talks led by the UK are at risk of “failure” over China’s refusal to slash its emissions, revealed in leaked documents seen by the Telegraph….”
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“How green is Scotland’s space industry?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-58190702
“Scotland’s space industry says it wants to operate in an environmentally-friendly way.
But with plans lodged for several space ports, bringing the prospect of more regular launches, can blasting rockets into space ever be green?”
Meanwhile:
“SNP puts promised state-owned energy company on back burner”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-puts-promised-state-owned-energy-company-on-back-burner-mgl8n52j0
“An SNP pledge to create a state-owned energy company has been abandoned after almost £500,000 was wasted on the plan.
Nicola Sturgeon announced the policy to set up a publicly owned supplier, with the aim of helping people struggling with their bills, during her party conference in 2017. The first minister promised the renewable energy supplied by the not-for-profit company would be sold to customers at as close to cost price as possible.
The proposal gained some support from other parties even though similar models have failed. Robin Hood Energy, set up by Nottingham city council, went into administration in January this year leaving the authority with losses of about £38 million.
A freedom of information request last year resulted in confirmation in November.”
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“Attenborough to Climate Assembly: ‘You’ve given me a lot of hope'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-58495142
“Sir David Attenborough has met the Climate Assembly in Parliament to discuss action on climate change.
The Climate Assembly brings together people from across the country to discuss ways that the UK can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.”
I suppose the hope is that a small number of people can be rounded up to be talked at by the climate-committed, they get them to rubber stamp what’s already been decided, after a brainwashing session, and by labelling it an “Assembly” they can pretend that it’s somehow democratic.
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“UK ‘cut climate pledges’ to clinch Australia trade deal”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58493481
Whatever the pros and cons of the Australia-UK trade deal, any deal that involves transporting food and goods half-way round the world (in both directions) is bound to be in contradiction to the stated aims of a “net zero” government. I should have thought that was obvious.
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“World’s biggest machine capturing carbon from air turned on in Iceland
Operators say the Orca plant can suck 4,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year and inject it deep into the ground to be mineralised”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/worlds-biggest-plant-to-turn-carbon-dioxide-into-rock-opens-in-iceland-orca
Good luck sucking carbon out of air. My suspicion is that they really mean CO2…..
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So our ministers are now coughing up stupid little green Guardian soundbites? It is depressing that things have come to this, if the Telegraph quote is true.
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“Oxford Zero Emission Zone: Timeline set for start of pilot”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-58501791
“A wider ZEZ covering the rest of the city centre will follow later.
Zero emission vehicles will not be charged to drive in the zone.
Drivers can apply for exemptions and discounts in December, which will apply to businesses and residents in the zone, and some vehicle users.”
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A small new twist in this long-running story:
“Wokingham solar farm approved for agricultural land”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-58495363
“Plans for a solar farm on agricultural land occupied by a tenant cattle farmer have been granted conditional approval.
Andrew Lake, 58, had previously been told to vacate High Barn Farm in Berkshire by Wokingham Borough Council.
Councillors said the plans had been amended so five hectares (12 acres) of the Barkham farm would remain.
They approved the plans but a decision notice will not be issued until the secretary of state has decided whether or not to call in the application.
The secretary of state has the power to take over the application if they are unhappy with it, rather than letting the local authority decide.
The council said the 52-hectare, council-owned site, consisting of 67,000 solar panels, would be returned to agriculture after 25 years.”
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“Disastrous season means UK shoppers could pay 50% more for pasta
Price of durum wheat up by 90% after drought devastates harvest in Canada, one of the biggest producers”
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/sep/09/penne-in-your-pocket-uk-shoppers-could-pay-up-to-50-more-for-pasta
“Shoppers can expect to pay more for their pasta in coming months amid shortages of its key ingredient following a disastrous growing season.
A scramble for durum wheat has pushed the price up nearly 90% this summer after drought and soaring temperatures hit farms in Canada, one of the biggest producers.
There are also supply issues in Italy, with one food industry expert predicting a packet of spaghetti could end up costing up to 50% more.
The high price could result in pasta shortages in supermarkets, said Jason Bull, a director of Eurostar Commodities, which imports more than 10,000 tonnes of food ingredients each year.”
Or you could go to a specialist website and find out the big picture:
“Checking the 2021/22 Global Wheat Crop Ahead of August WASDE Report”
https://www.uswheat.org/wheatletter/checking-the-2021-22-global-wheat-crop-ahead-of-august-wasde-report/
“Both USDA and the International Grain Council (IGC) still expect 2021/22 global wheat crop production to reach a record level. USDA’s July estimate of 792.4 million metric tons (MMT) was down 2.0 MMT from June. IGC trimmed its latest forecasts by about 1.0 MMT to 788 MMT.
Hot, dry weather in the northern and Pacific Northwest (PNW) regions of the United States and, recently, in Canada, has attracted much of the market’s attention.”
“The Wheat Quality Council Hard Spring and Durum Tour estimated this year’s hard red spring (HRS/DNS) yield average at 29.1 bushels per acre, compared to 43.1 bushels per acre in 2019. Even so, the tour’s consensus is HRW/DNS protein and kernel size will be very good. U.S. northern durum and soft white (SW) wheat yields are also expected to be down significantly. On the other hand, hard red winter (HRW) and soft red winter (SRW) average yields and production are expected to be higher for 2021/22. ”
“Wheat growing areas of Australia, especially Western Australia, are “looking extremely good” said one analyst with the Australian Export Grain Innovation Centre. Production estimates are expected to fall 17% compared to 2020/21 when Australia produced a record crop. This year’s crop is expected to be 15% above the 10-year average to 28.5 MMT following a 1% increase to the planted area. Some areas are reporting water logging and would benefit from a couple of weeks of sunny dry weather to dry out the fields.”
Yes, some wheat yields are down around the world, but then some are up. It doesn’t like the chaotic situation the Guardian has chosen to report, if one takes the global situation in the round.
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“Earth’s tipping points could be closer than we think. Our current plans won’t work
George Monbiot
Climate policies commit us to a calamitous 2.9C of global heating, but catastrophic changes can occur at even 1.5C or 2C”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/09/earths-tipping-points-closer-current-climate-plans-wont-work-global-heating
“If there’s one thing we know about climate breakdown, it’s that it will not be linear, smooth or gradual. Just as one continental plate might push beneath another in sudden fits and starts, causing periodic earthquakes and tsunamis, our atmospheric systems will absorb the stress for a while, then suddenly shift.”
DO we know that? I notice the claim is link-free.
“Current plans to avoid catastrophe would work in a simple system like a washbasin, in which you can close the tap until the inflow is less than the outflow. But they are less likely to work in complex systems, such as the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere. Complex systems seek equilibrium. When they are pushed too far out of one equilibrium state, they can flip suddenly into another. A common property of complex systems is that it’s much easier to push them past a tipping point than to push them back. Once a transition has happened, it cannot realistically be reversed.”
OK, if a transition, once it has happened, cannot realistically be reversed, how then do you make sense of the next claim?
“A recent paper warns that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation – the system that distributes heat around the world and drives the Gulf Stream – may now be “close to a critical transition”. This circulation has flipped between “on” and “off” states several times in prehistory, plunging northern Europe and eastern North America into unbearable cold, heating the tropics, disrupting monsoons.”
It’s flipped on and off several times in prehistory, according to George, but also according to George, once a transition has happened, it cannot realistically be reversed.
George can be good for some lateral thinking, some intellectual challenges, and even occasionally common sense, but this all smacks to me as just part of the sensationalist scare-mongering which is forming part of the increasing hysteria pre-COP26.
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Coming to a farm near you – climate authoritarianism:
“Netherlands proposes radical plans to cut livestock numbers by almost a third
Dutch farmers could be forced to sell land and reduce the amount of animals they keep to help lower ammonia pollution”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/netherlands-proposes-radical-plans-to-cut-livestock-numbers-by-almost-a-third
“Dutch politicians are considering plans to force hundreds of farmers to sell up and cut livestock numbers, to reduce damaging ammonia pollution.
After the highest Dutch administrative court found in 2019 that the government was breaking EU law by not doing enough to reduce excess nitrogen in vulnerable natural areas, the country has been battling what it is calling a “nitrogen crisis”.
Daytime speed limits have been reduced to 100kmph (62mph) on motorways to limit nitrogen oxide emissions, gas-guzzling construction projects were halted and a new law pledges that by 2030 half of protected nature areas must have healthy nitrogen levels.
Now civil servants at the finance and agriculture ministry have drawn up proposals which include slashing livestock numbers [pdf] by 30%, one of the most radical plans of its kind in Europe. Two proposed scenarios include forcing some farmers to sell emissions rights and even their land to the state, if necessary.
Livestock produce manure which, when mixed with urine, releases ammonia, a nitrogen compound. If it gets into lakes and streams via farm runoff, excessive nitrogen can damage sensitive natural habitats by, for example, encouraging algae blooms that deplete oxygen in surface waters.
The Netherlands has one of Europe’s largest livestock industries, with more than 100m million cattle, chickens and pigs. It is also the EU’s biggest meat exporter.
“We are a relatively small country with a lot of inhabitants, industry, transport and agriculture, so we are reaching the limits of what nature can take,” said Rudi Buis, a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry. “There is a high level of urgency for us to tackle the nitrogen compounds problem. This means that in the near future, choices must be made.”
But the idea of expropriation, or forced sale, due to the climate crisis, is politically controversial in a country where, six months after the general election, multiple parties are trying to form a minority government.”
Politically controversial, eh? I should imagine it is, and rightly so.
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“Big oil’s ‘wokewashing’ is the new climate science denialism”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/big-oil-delay-tactics-new-climate-science-denial
“Academic researchers say the fossil fuel industry has a new tool to delay efforts to curb emissions – a social justice strategy
ExxonMobil has been touting its commitment to “reducing carbon emissions with innovative energy solutions”. Chevron would like to remind you it is keeping the lights on during this dark time. BP is going #NetZero, but is also very proud of the “digital innovations” on its new, enormous oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile Shell insists it really supports women in traditionally male-dominated jobs.
A casual social media user might get the impression the fossil fuel industry views itself as a social justice warrior, fighting on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, and women – at least based on its marketing material in recent years.
These campaigns fall into what a handful of sociologists and economists call “discourses of delay”. While oil and gas companies have a long track record of denying climate change, even after their own scientists repeatedly warned of the harm caused by burning fossil fuels, now the industry’s messaging is far more subtle and in many ways more effective than outright climate science denial.
By downplaying the urgency of the climate crisis, the industry has new tools to delay efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions. And worse yet: even industry critics haven’t fully caught up to this new approach.
“If you just focus on climate denial, then all of this other stuff is missed,” explains Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist and visiting professor at Brown University.”
Boy do they hate fossil fuel companies! There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, they can do that won’t be criticised.
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“Scottish campaigners condemn Cop26 as ‘the most exclusionary ever’
Activists say almost 2,000 people on waiting list for place to stay owing to lack of affordable accommodation”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/scottish-campaigners-condemn-cop26-as-the-most-exclusionary-ever-accommodation
“Scotland-based climate campaigners have condemned “the most exclusionary Cop ever”, as they reveal a waiting list of nearly 2,000 delegates and activists who were still seeking affordable accommodation for November’s summit in Glasgow.
The Cop26 Homestay Network, which was launched in May, and is described by organisers as a “non-corporate Airbnb”, aims to match local hosts from across the central belt of Scotland with visiting climate change campaigners, scientists and non-governmental organisations.
So far, the network has linked up 211 guests with local hosts, booking a total of 2,097 nights. But there are 1,783 more on the waiting list who are still looking for a place to stay.
Stop Climate Chaos Scotland and the COP26 Coalition – which set up the network – are concerned that official delegates from poorer countries and those hoping to attend events alongside the summit are struggling to find rooms they can afford for the duration of the conference.
They point out that at previous summits, local government worked with activists to provide hostel-style accommodation for those who could not afford expensive hotel rooms, converting gym halls and community centres into bunkhouses.
While recognising that Covid-19 restriction add an extra layer of difficulty this year, the campaign groups question why Glasgow city council and the Scottish government cannot extend this option for visitors.
Rituraj Phukan, the founder of the India-based Indigenous People’s Climate Justice Forum, has found a room through the Homestay Network but said he was aware of many others who had not.”
Good grief, criticism of the Scottish government and local authorities rather than of the UK government!
Of course, if they kept numbers to the sort of levels that wouldn’t be totally hypocritical in terms of the amount of CO2 emissions associated with tens of thousands attending, then they might not have this problem….
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Re COP26 and whether it should go ahead during a pandemic, at the moment (or about a week ago, anyway) Glasgow and all of its surrounding areas have the highest covid rates in the UK, ranging from ~990 cases per 100k people in East Dunbartonshire to ~1,250 in Cumbernaud, a rate that I think isn’t too far off the highest rate ever recorded for any similarly sized area in the UK. (1,450? Sheppey East?)
URL:coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases
I don’t really trust the data, or at least not its presentation. See how the rates switch so dramatically at the England/Scotland border? They’re currently much doomier north of that border, but about two weeks ago they were, equally implausibly, the other way around, with things much doomier in England. I very much doubt that actual covid rates can explain such a rapid switch.
But still… Is it wise at the moment for the UK government to be encouraging many thousands of people to have holidays in Glasgow?
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“But still… Is it wise at the moment for the UK government to be encouraging many thousands of people to have holidays in Glasgow?”
Of course not! But why let a real crisis get in the way of an imaginary one?
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“Earth’s tipping points could be closer than we think. Our current plans won’t work
George Monbiot — Climate policies commit us to a calamitous 2.9C of global heating, but catastrophic changes can occur at even 1.5C or 2C”
Tipping points ehh?
Maybe just Gaia’s way of dealing with elite-overproduction?
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#Climate #Soothsayer there
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Twitter pushed this Beis Green advert at me
They get a kicking in the replies
.. https://www.twitter.com/beisgovuk/status/1432998457254498304
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“Ireland freezes power exports to UK as energy costs rocket tenfold
Low wind speeds and tight supplies of gas have sent power prices spiralling”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/09/ireland-freezes-power-exports-uk-energy-costs-rocket-tenfold/
“Ireland has been forced to freeze power exports to the UK to prevent a shortage which could have sparked blackouts as surging energy prices continue to cause chaos across Europe….”
As it happens, on this warm early autumn morning, the National Grid currently breaks down as follows:
Coal: 2.9%
Gas: 54.3%
Solar: 1%
Wind: 5.7%
Hydro: 0.5%
Pumped storage: 0.4%
Nuclear: 16.8%
Biomass:
3.5%
Interconnectors: 13.7%.
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“Norwegian election set to hand big oil a win
The Greens hope to win enough seats to be able to nudge the country away from fossil fuels.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/norwegian-election-big-win-oil-industry-norway-green-party/
“Norway’s Green Party wanted next week’s general election to be about shutting down the country’s trillion-dollar oil industry.
It’s not looking like a winning campaign issue in a country that’s ridden decades of oil and gas sales to astonishing wealth.
Outside Norway’s parliament on a recent Friday, hundreds of environmental campaigners gathered to demand a stop to drilling and then roared in unison to make their point.
“We are here to make sure that nobody forgets the most important issue for this election,” Green Party leader Une Bastholm told POLITICO. “It should be climate change”.
The message is proving a hard sell. The Greens — the party with the toughest anti-oil message — are currently polling at just 5 percent. The most popular four parties ahead of Monday’s vote — the Labor, Conservative, Center and Progress parties — are all campaigning for the oil industry to be largely left alone.
While Norway touts itself as the world’s leading proponent of electric-car use, and its rivers meet much of its domestic power needs, it remains Western Europe’s leading fossil fuel state. Norway is the third-largest gas exporter in the world — after Russia and Qatar — and fossil fuels account for about half of its goods exports.
International authorities have called on Norway to follow the likes of nearby Denmark, which aims to end fossil fuel production by 2050 and is halting exploring for new reserves.
But it’s hard for true petrostates to cut their addiction to fossil-fuel revenues. Despite political differences, the parties making up the current government and the opposition Labor all agree on a plan to allow oil production beyond 2050.
That doesn’t leave much oxygen for parties like the Greens.”
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R4 now People are switching to bio-ethanol fires as an alternative to log burners
“The give off no spoke or particulates”
Chris Goodall a writer says “Sure no local pollution,
but it uses fuel grown on land that used to be used to grow food
so you need to food from elsewhere now”
Paul Chesney stove company said “the price is 90p for 3KWh vs 50p electric. 60p gas
Europe is cheaper €1 Euro”
Hmm you can’t have cheap ethanol, otherwise people will just put it in their diesels surely ?
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R4 Trailer “Electric ride UK with me Peter Curran as I drive from John o’ Groats to Land’s End”
… it sounded 100% electric Car PR
In 2010 he did a similar show
“Peter Curran Electric Car Odyssey Around Europe” .. that was repeated every year until 2016
(BTW his last tweet praises a Remainer for getting his Irish passport
BBC/Guardian bubbleworld)
Aug 10 tweet
did U see GUY MARTIN last night on C4 – he drove an electric car from lands end to J O groats & back
– the journey was a nightmare – took twice as long & cost 40% more than a diesel car !
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Farmers Guardian sent me two emails today
#1 “In tomorrow’s issue”
#2 sent minutes later “sorry, delivery problems, many areas of the country won’t get it tomorrow”
The topic issue tells me
“Global Ag View
Canadian harvest hit by draught” (sic)
As ever as things go Guardian-Woke standards slip
Agenda pushing : “Hedgerows are ‘secret sustainability weapon’
Farm Profile : Changing focus puts conservation at heart of North Yorkshire farm”
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stewgreen, I heard that piece on Radio 4 today about bioethanol. It led me to the website of one of the main bioplace fire installers and their FAQs:
https://www.imaginfires.co.uk/faq/what-are-the-disadvantages-of-bioethanol
“As with any fuel, there are a few disadvantages of ethanol use that may be helpful to note. These include:
Debates surrounding food vs fuel: Some people are concerned that the popularity of biofuel is set to increase food prices across the globe. As people’s diets start to change in line with worries surrounding climate change, however, the market for biofuel is likely to become much more sustainable.
Efficiency: Biofuel fires tend not to get as hot as their wood-burning alternatives. They are, however, much more environmentally friendly and often much more attractive.
Cost: Biofuel is often a little more expensive than other fuels. However, its environmental and health credentials mean that many people are willing to pay a little extra. Remember to check our store regularly to see if we have any great offers on our bottles of bioethanol!”
They also have a lovely little diagram explaining that the CO2 emitted by burning ethanol is an essential food for plants which take it up from the atmosphere, so enabling a delightful virtuous (or is that virtue-signalling?) circle of the CO2 leading to plant growth leading to more ethanol which can be burned and so on. So now it’s official – CO2 emissions are part of a virtuous circle. Why has nobody told Boris and the UN? Cancel COP 26! The crisis is over!
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I’m not sure where this is going – do they want COP 26 postponed, or do they just want the UK government to shell out loads of money to pay for delegates from around the world to attend?
“COP26: Poorest countries fear not reaching UK for climate summit”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58360996
“The world’s poorest countries say they are worried about getting to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.
Twenty are on the UK’s Covid red list – meaning hotel quarantine for arrivals.
They say the fortnight-long talks may involve being away for seven weeks as they will also have to isolate on return.
And they warn that flights from Pacific islands have virtually stopped and that some transit hubs are refusing non-residents.
The warning comes from the group made up of the world’s 46 poorest countries which are on the United Nations’ list of Least Developed Countries (LDC).
The 20 countries that are also on the UK’s foreign travel red list include Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nepal.
The chairman of the LDC group, Bhutan’s Sonam Phuntsho Wangdi, said: “It’s our people who are hardest hit by this ever worsening crisis. They must be well represented in the climate talks.
“The world cannot risk unambitious and unfair decisions being taken at COP26, there is far too much at stake.”
This follows a coalition of 1,500 green groups calling for the summit to be delayed because of Covid arrangements.
But the UK government and the UN say they are planning to go ahead because the massive gathering is so important and they are working to keep it safe.”
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Is there any part of life, from the cradle (and before!) to the grave, that is to be left unaffected by the climate worriers?
“Newcastle mother uses ‘climate-friendly’ gas machine in labour”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-58520743
“A mother is said to have been the first in the UK to use a so-called “climate-friendly” gas machine during labour.
Kaja Gersinska, 33, gave birth at the Newcastle Birthing Centre on Thursday using Entonox, a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen, for pain relief.
Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust said nitrous oxide was a powerful greenhouse gas which would normally get into the atmosphere after being exhaled.
The new machine was used to stop it escaping into the environment.”
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More on bio-ethanol:
“Burning crops – where should ethanol come from?”
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/09/02/burning-crops/
“The government is keen to introduce plant based material into petrol for our vans and cars. They see this as a green option, and claim that moving to a ten per cent content in petrol is the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road.
Given their strong wish to limit the number of cars this is another good argument to limit the number of additional people we invite into our country each year to live here, as many of them will naturally want a car.
I have other important questions for the government about its belief in the power of ethanol. Which crops does it recommend for the production of this material? Is the aim to grow more corn or wheat, or to take it from willow and other trees, or some other plants? Is the intention to grow our needs in the UK or does the government wish to add to our import bill? If the aim is to grow more at home, what crops will it displace or can it be an extension to the useful growing areas?
I would want the government to facilitate home production of the ethanol feedstock and the home processing of the crops. I would wish to see these fuel crops as an addition to what we are already growing for food. My concern rests with the current policy from the agriculture section of the Environment Department, which seems keener on wilding, taking land out of useful production.
We cannot afford to simply add ethanol to a long list of things we import, transferring the jobs and incomes out of the UK and reducing the taxable capacity of our economy as a result. We do not want another Drax on our hands, where we import timber across the Atlantic to burn in the power station, with considerable environmental costs for long distance transport, and a net loss to the UK economy of the work and incomes timber growing and logging produces.”
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“‘I care about the climate but my dad works in the oil industry'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-58522466
“Stephanie is concerned about the impact burning fossil fuels has on climate change. But her dad Andrew is a senior employee at BP and worked in the oil industry for more than 20 years.
The 13-year-old from Surrey questions: “Does this mean he doesn’t care about my future? Does this mean by default that I don’t care about the planet?”
Climate change is a hot topic at home. While Stephanie worries about the Earth’s future, she hopes BP’s sustainability commitments could make her dad part of the solution.”
I wonder if her dad ever explains to her about all the things she takes for granted that are made from oil?
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Balanced reporting?
“States across American west see hottest summer on record as climate crisis rages”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/10/american-west-states-hottest-summer-climate-crisis
It’s gone from global warming to climate change to climate crisis, and now it’s “climate crisis rages”. What will they come up with next, I wonder?
As for that raging crisis, what’s the reality?
“Across the lower 48 states, the average temperature in June, July and August was 76F (24C), 2.6F (1.4C) above average, which slightly exceeds that of the Dust Bowl summer of 1936.”
And this rather ignores the fact that California has gone hell-for-leather for wind turbines (which are unreliable and unpredictable) and also ignores the fact that it’s humans’ increasing water extraction from rivers through deserts that’s a large part of the problem of rivers running at lower levels:
“As extreme heat places greater demands on California’s power grid, the drought is hampering its ability to respond. Last month the state shut down a hydropower plant at Lake Oroville for the first time due to low water levels. The drought is forcing California to rely more on gas-fired plants, which could interfere with its efforts to transition to carbon-free electricity.”
In this country, I don’t know about “extreme heat”, but this rather pleasant Indian Summer means that it looks as though our central heating will be going on a little later than usual (which is good, since it stayed on for much later than normal during our very cold spring), so maybe the warm autumn will return our fuel usage to normal following the cold start to the year?
By the way, this is what NOAA actually said about records and the Dust Bowl summer:
“Summer 2021 neck and neck with Dust Bowl summer for hottest on record”
https://www.noaa.gov/news/summer-2021-neck-and-neck-with-dust-bowl-summer-for-hottest-on-record
“The average temperature during meteorological summer for the contiguous U.S. was 74.0 degrees F, 2.6 degrees above average. This technically exceeds the record heat of the 1936 Dust Bowl Summer, but the difference is extremely small (less than 0.01 of a degree F).”
What else does NOAA say about the climate crisis “raging” across the USA?
“A record 18.4% of the contiguous U.S. experienced record-warm temperatures. California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah each reported their warmest summer on record, as 16 other states had a top-five warmest summer on record.”
So for 82.6%, it wasn’t a record summer.
“The average temperature for August across the contiguous U.S. was 74.0 degrees F, 1.9 degrees above average, making it the 14th-warmest August on record. ”
14th warmest, huh?
“The average precipitation for August for the contiguous U.S. was 3.09 inches (0.47 of an inch above average), ranking 14th wettest in the 127-year record. ”
14th wettest, too….
What about the year to date?
“The average U.S. temperature for the first eight months of 2021 was 55.6 degrees F — 1.8 degrees above the 20th-century average — making it the 13th-warmest such YTD on record.
California and Maine each reported their third-warmest YTD, while 16 other states had a top-10 warmest YTD.
The nation saw an average of 21.19 inches of precipitation for the YTD, 0.48 of an inch above the long-term average, which ranked in the middle third of the record.
Mississippi had its third-wettest YTD on record, while Montana had its fifth driest. California, Minnesota and North Dakota all had a top-10 driest YTD on record.”
Raging climate change? Doesn’t look it to me.
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In outrageous news from the Antipodes, some media outlets are to allow free speech and an exchange of views (unlike the Guardian):
“News Corp Australia won’t muzzle commentators as it ramps up climate coverage
Newspapers to cover ‘all views’ and ‘not just the popular ones’, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/11/news-corp-australia-wont-muzzle-commentators-as-it-ramps-up-climate-coverage
In a particularly disgusting move:
“We will endeavour to ensure that all views, not just the popular ones, are heard.”
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Peter Boghossian, the creator of the conceptual penis, has been forced to resign.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/my-university-sacrificed-ideas-for
Excerpt from Conceptual Penis as it pertains to climate change:
Apparently he was censured for that spoof article, as the journal’s editors had not agreed to be experimented on:
The saga outlined in the resignation letter must have been very hard on Boghossian. Hopefully he will find a gig at another university.
Edit: paragraphing of quote from pdf
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Jit, there’s a piece in the Times, bit it’s pay-walled:
“Peter Boghossian: ‘The woke don’t give a reason for their faith. It’s different rules of engagement’
The academic says social justice orthodoxy forced him out of his university post. It’s coming for Britain next, he tells David Charter”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/peter-boghossian-the-woke-dont-give-a-reason-for-their-faith-its-different-rules-of-engagement-323hccf73
“After ten years trying to do the job he loved, Peter Boghossian describes writing his resignation letter as brutal. He always felt that it was his professional duty as an assistant professor of philosophy to apply the same spirit of rigorous interrogation that underpins his own discipline to the “dominant moral orthodoxy” on campus: wokeism.
He ruffled feathers. He was repeatedly investigated by his university’s “global diversity and inclusion office”. He really upset many of his fellow academics by writing spoof research papers and placing them in social science journals to highlight questionable academic standards in fields such as gender studies.”
That’s as much as you can see without paying.
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Irony alert:
“Merkel: Car industry ‘part of the solution’ to climate change
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged car manufacturers to keep an open mind about carbon neutral car technology beyond electric cars.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/merkel-car-industry-part-of-the-solution-to-climate-change/
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel today warned against focusing exclusively on electric cars in the race to decarbonize transport, urging carmakers at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Munich to stay open to alternative technologies.
“I am pleased that it is now unmistakable that the trend is clearly toward electric mobility,” Merkel said at the car show’s official kick-off. She noted that manufacturers had come a long way since the IAA four years ago, when most were only able to present concept vehicles.
But the chancellor also warned against focusing exclusively on battery-powered cars, saying automakers should explore alternatives such as hydrogen and ensure the industry is a “central part of the solution” to climate change.
Merkel’s appearance marks the eighth time she has opened the car show, which this year focuses on climate protection and sustainable mobility and includes dozens of manufacturers of bikes, autonomously shuttle buses and e-scooters.
The industry is committed to the goal of climate neutrality “without any ifs or buts,” said Hildegard Müller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).
Critics of the show have slammed its efforts to shift toward climate-neutral mobility as little more than “greenwashing.”
Its climate focus “cannot hide the fact that the business model of the German automotive industry is based on climate destruction through the sale of far too many cars and far too many combustion engines,” said Greenpeace campaigner Marion Tiemann.
Police are expecting up to 60,000 demonstrators on Saturday in protests against the show.”
You’ve got to hand it to the Germans – they’re pretty good at saying one thing and doing another, and always putting their own perceived interests first, from continuing to burn lignite, to going ahead with Nordstream2, to screwing over Greece to protect German banks, and now the continued protection of one of the great drivers of their economy, the car industry. They’re almost as cynical as the Chinese when it comes to saying what the climate alarmed want to hear, while quietly getting on with doing what they want regardless. Maybe there’s a lesson there for UK politicians?
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Cartoonist John Nash @CartoonsPan documents 30 of Packham’s porkies in a way that even BBC HR will understand.
https://countrysquire.co.uk/2021/09/10/chris-packham-serial-liar/
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“SNP members call for creation of state-run energy company
Motion will be seen as rebuke to party leader Nicola Sturgeon, who pledged to establish national firm in 2017”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/11/snp-members-call-for-creation-of-state-run-energy-company
“Scottish National party members backed a call for a state-run energy company to be set up on the second day of their autumn conference, four years after leader Nicola Sturgeon first pledged one. The move will be seen as a direct rebuke to the leadership’s failure to make good on the promise.
On Saturday activists overwhelmingly supported a motion demanding the creation of a Scottish national energy company, which first minister Nicola Sturgeon first promised in October 2017 at a previous conference.
It emerged recently that ministers had shelved the plan, with efforts re-focused on a new national public energy agency.
Sturgeon told 2017 conference delegates that a “publicly owned, not-for-profit energy company” with charges “as close to cost price as possible” would be set up by 2021.
The Scottish government has since said that work on the plan was halted by the pandemic and altered because of changes in the energy market.”
Robin Hood Energy anybody? Some people never learn.
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“New Thames tunnel will make London pollution worse, warn climate activists
Campaigners say Sadiq Khan’s support for a four-lane road under the river is at odds with his environmental aims”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/11/new-thames-tunnel-will-make-london-pollution-worse-warn-climate-activists
“Burrowing deep under the Thames, Silvertown tunnel is scheduled as the first new road link across the capital’s river for 30 years. But, the four-lane highway, due to be completed in 2025, is about to become the focus of environmental protests in the lead-up to the Cop26 global climate summit in Glasgow in November.
Preliminary construction work has begun and tunnelling is due to begin next spring, but campaigners insist it is not too late to halt the £1bn-plus engineering project and are planning protests at both ends of the tunnel later this month.
A major target of the protest is Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, who is one the tunnel’s chief advocates while also championing decisive action to “avert a catastrophic climate crisis”. Khan claims the tunnel will ease congestion and reduce pollution.
But a letter sent on Friday from the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Campaign urged the mayor to commission new studies on the impact of the scheme. “Spending billions on new road capacity for cars is not a policy that is consistent with acting on the climate emergency, or improving London’s air,” it said.”
I don’t know enough about it – London is a foreign country to me (NB that is not a comment on its ethnic make-up, just that I’m more comfortable in the wild places, hate big cities, and haven’t been to London for a long time). Could it be, however, that making traffic flow more smoothly might reduce air pollution?
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“Does Nicola Sturgeon care more about oil revenue or climate change?”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-nicola-sturgeon-care-more-about-oil-revenues-or-climate-change-
“‘Now, as I’ve hopefully made clear throughout all of my remarks, the North Sea will continue to produce oil for decades to come. It still contains up to 20 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. Our primary aim – and I want to underline and emphasis this – our primary aim is to maximise economic recovery of those reserves.’
The words are from a speech made in June 2017, a few months after the Paris Agreement that aimed to limit climate change came into effect. A speech by a pro-oil Conservative, or perhaps the head of an industry group working on behalf of the oil sector? No. They are, in fact, the words of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaking at the Oil and Gas UK Conference that year.
Skip forward to a few weeks ago and we find a far less confident First Minister struggling to respond to climate activists who challenged her to ‘oppose Cambo’, a reference to the Cambo oilfield development off Shetland. A decision on whether Cambo, which was granted an exploration licence in 2001, becomes a commercial field (it is thought to contain 800 million barrels of oil) currently sits with UK regulators and is proving controversial in light of the climate challenge….”
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Andrew Montford has just tweeted:
“There are two coal-fired power stations remaining on the GB grid. They are currently generating twice as much electricity as around 40 offshore windfarms and hundreds of onshore ones. ”
And he’s not wrong. The National Grid just now:
Coal: 3%
Gas: 56.2%
Solar: 0%
Wind: 2.7%
Hydro: 0.9%
Pumped storage: 3.5%
Nuclear: 15.6%
Biomass: 3.4%
Interconnectors: 12.1%
https://grid.iamkate.com/
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“COP26: UK still lagging on climate policy, report says
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58520330
“Britain is lagging way behind its schedule for cutting carbon emissions in the run-up to November’s climate summit in Glasgow, a report says.
Think tank the Green Alliance says current plans will deliver less than a quarter of the cuts needed to meet the UK’s 2030 climate goal.
Little progress has been made in areas such as farming (a 7% improvement), power (12%), and waste (15%), it warns.”
Green Alliance’s net zero tracker is here:
Click to access Net_zero_policy_tracker_April_2021.pdf
It’s actually a useful read to help understand how bonkers this all is, not that this is their intention. 😉
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What a marvellous use of scarce resources!
“COP26: Armed police prepare for biggest deployment”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58515311
“Armed police will be visible like never before in Scotland when world leaders arrive in Glasgow for COP26 at the end of October.
The UN climate change conference is expected to see the biggest ever deployment of armed officers in Scotland.
Police Scotland has 500 officers trained to use guns and they will be joined by many others from around the UK. The exact number is not being released but one former chief constable has suggested it could be about 1,000.
Operation Urram (Gaelic for respect) will see a total of 10,000 officers deployed on each day of the two-week conference, which takes place at the Scottish Exhibition Campus between 31 October and 12 November.
It is one of the largest mobilisations of police ever to take place in the UK.”
At a time when the police are complaining ever more loudly about scarce resources and the pressures on them, this is yet more madness on the part of our smug, self-satisfied, world stage-strutting political class.
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Next Monday @BBCRadio4 Marr show
“Climate activism: the next generation”
Yet another #BiasedBBC show promoting
Global Warming Alarmists & Green Magical thinking
#GreenExtremists #Brainwashing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zsdg
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R4Today now has some WWF guy banging on
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“Poland’s carbon price conundrum
Soaring prices of EU emissions permits are upending Poland’s coal and gas plans.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-carbon-price-conundrum/
“Spewing out carbon dioxide is getting ever more expensive — and that’s a problem for Poland’s utilities and the Polish government.
The EU’s Emissions Trading System is aimed at putting a price on CO2 emissions to encourage investment in low-carbon sources of energy. With the price of a ton of carbon topping €60 — 12 times more than four years ago, that price signal is becoming increasingly painful in Poland, which generates about 70 percent of its electricity from highly polluting coal.
It’s causing squeals of complaint from Polish utilities and worry from politicians who fear the impact of rising power prices.
Speaking at a conference last weekend, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki put the blame squarely on the EU.
“We have here the very expensive climate policy of the European Union,” he said, adding that customers and energy consumers will bear the brunt of any price increase.
It’s a dilemma that’s facing politicians across the bloc. Soaring power prices are causing a political crisis in Spain, where the ruling left-wing coalition is under pressure from demands to rein in power prices. Similar tensions are causing headaches for the government in Portugal.”
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“M25 junctions blocked by Insulate Britain campaigners”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58543603
“Climate change protesters have blocked some M25 junctions demanding government action on home insulation.
There are reports of protests at junctions 20 for Kings Langley, Herts, 14 for Heathrow terminal five, three for Swanley in Kent, six for Godstone, Surrey and 31 for Lakeside, Essex.
Essex Police said 11 people had been arrested for highways obstruction.
Protest group Insulate Britain said action would go on until a “meaningful commitment” was made.
It tweeted it was “disrupting the M25” to “demand the government insulate Britain”.”
Who do these people want to insulate Britain from? I thought they were mostly opposed to Brexit? 😉
Meanwhile, loads of pollution from cars, vans and lorries piled up in traffic jams caused by the protest.
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https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/19576857.climate-protesters-arrested-drivers-turn-violent-m25/
Do these dolts not realise that if at length some authority forces me to insulate my house against my will, I will only end up leaving the window open?
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12;35pm r4 “emmns from gas boilers are adding to global warming
and the govt needs us all to switch to cleaner fuel
..none of the ways are easy or cheap”
…PR https://twitter.com/NGNgas/status/1434880420882141188
@JonDouglasBBC “Winlaton, village, Gateshead, where 20% of gas is hydrogen, just like towngas used to have hydrogen”
“At this level the same gas appliances can be used
but higher than this ..all need to be replaced
It’s far from certain that route will be taken, cos the hydrogen may be used by industry
Here we have a 100% hydrogen hob”
“Here I am speaking to octopus energy
.. It’s a crazy expensive way of heating homes we favour electric heat pumps
gas costs are huge £22bn for networks , plus cost of changing eqt”
“Chris Goodall, thinks we need both”
.. “The problem is H is 4-5 times more expensive than gas
..it will get cheaper, but always more expensive
Homes that can’t use heatpumps would need hydrogen”
… Doh other alternatives are easier eg electric heating or biofuel, biogas
It’s bizarre that Goodall didn’t mention that
As ever you have to do full cycle calculations
eg it’s not zero CO2 cos when you grow biocrops
you have to account for the £ & CO2 cost of importing the food that used to be grown on that land.
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Insulate Britain is another of Roger Hallam’s jolly japes. Its e-mail address was used by Hallam about six months before IB was set up, he gave a (typically long-winded and nonsensical) speech about it in July, and most of the M25-blockers who have been named so far are involved with his Beyond Politics/Burning Pink/Bespoke Panic jolly jape.
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2:15pm Monday short dramas
#1 KEIGHLEY – Jyoti, a successful West Yorkshire businesswoman, resists when Tara, her daughter, pushes for a more environmentally friendly business. (ie become vegan)
South Asian tappay, call and response rhyming couplets accompanied by the Dholki drum, help them to resolve their differences.
song “we start an organic revolution here in Yorkshire
,, grassfed meat is the answer
..no stop eating meat”
“Wow I had a dream it was strange we were speaking English” (ie not Urdu)
millionaire mother “I started the biz by saying all the meat should be halal”
written by Anjum Malik
Performed by Balvinder Sopal and Sameena Hussain
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I forgot to mention the final proof that Insulate Britain is one of Hallam’s toys: its sparse one-page website manages to find space for a fake quote from Einstein. Very Hallamesque, that.
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Here’s a globe-trotting gong-bath therapist from Clapham explaining why she was about to block the M25:
URL:www.sarasasound.com/news/2021/9/8/news-about-starting-sessions-again
Eastburn has been arrested at XR protests… five times? (Once was for flashing her tits outside Downing Street.) So let’s hope that blocking the M25 will finally deliver her full expectations – that she be arrested *and* imprisoned as a martyr for a while.
Gong! Gong! Booooo-hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
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“Whipsnade Zoo plans lion-shaped solar farm”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58550656
“The UK’s largest zoo plans to install a solar farm in the shape of a lion.
ZSL Whipsnade in Bedfordshire said it would cover two acres of its 600-acre (243 hectare) site and provide a third of the electricity used by the zoo.
It will be in the shape of the chalk lion cut into the hillside at the attraction.
Owen Craft from the zoo said he hoped it would be “a beacon of light reminding people that change is not only necessary, but possible”.
The zoo said it aimed to become carbon neutral by 2035.”
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Vinny, almost 2 and a half years ago the Express wasn’t impressed:
“DLR eco activist who caused chaos in London lives in £700,000 home
A FEMALE eco activist who allegedly climbed on top of a DLR train at rush hour is a Cambridge graduate yoga instructor who lives in a £700,000 home.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1116379/cathy-eastburn-eco-activist-DLR-train-court
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The irony of all the pollution the demonstrators caused by their “climate change” actions:
“M25 climate protest: Aerials show long traffic queues as junctions blocked”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-58544189
“Climate change protesters have blocked some M25 junctions demanding government action on home insulation.
Footage filmed from a helicopter shows long queues of traffic on Monday morning.
Police said a number of arrests had been made, but protest group Insulate Britain insisted that action would go on until a “meaningful commitment” was made.”
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“Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds
Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/meat-greenhouses-gases-food-production-study
“The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.
The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.”
The study can be found here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00358-x
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I love these articles claiming that a country, individual, or organisation, has “plans to tackle the climate crisis”. First of all, what crisis? The climate may be changing, we may be responsible in part for that, but crisis? And how can any country, individual or organisation, tackle it? Never mind:
“Walmart has a plan to tackle the climate crisis. Can it pull it off?
Walmart is attempting to erase its huge climate footprint while continuing to sell tens of millions of low-priced products”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/walmart-climate-change-plan-can-it-work
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Did I fall asleep and wake up on 1st April?
“Cows ‘potty-trained’ in experiment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Calves taught to use toilet area with rewards and mild punishments, limiting ammonia release”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/cows-potty-trained-in-experiment-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions
“A herd of cows has been “potty-trained” in an experiment that scientists say could pave the way for more environmentally friendly farms.
Waste from cattle farms often contaminates soil and waterways and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and the acidification of soil. For this reason, toilet-training cattle has long been viewed as desirable, but several previous attempts have been unsuccessful.
In the latest study, scientists tried a method they called the MooLoo approach to teach calves to use a toilet area in their barn, meaning that urine could be collected and treated.
“Cattle, like many other animals, are quite clever and they can learn a lot,” said Jan Langbein, an animal psychologist at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Germany. “Why shouldn’t they be able to learn how to use a toilet?”
The calves were trained via a system of rewards and mild punishments. When they urinated in the assigned area, they were given a sweet drink or some mashed barley, and when they relieved themselves elsewhere, they were surprised by a short blast of water from above.”
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“Rain fell on Greenland’s ice sheet for the first time ever known. Alarms should ring
Kim Heacox
Climate scientists believe that if Greenland continues to rapidly melt, tens of millions of people around the world could face yearly flooding and displacement by 2030”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/13/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-fridtjof-nansen
My money is on – even with no change in policies – that prediction being falsified in 2030.
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Mr WGAP and Mr Rotten Politics
discuss todays migrnt and Climate issues
https://odysee.com/@WEGOTAPROBLEM:f
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Massive number of police assisting XR in blocking the road
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The ramp-up ahead of COP 26 continues unabated:
“Climate change: World now sees twice as many days over 50C”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58494641
“The number of extremely hot days every year when the temperature reaches 50C has doubled since the 1980s, a global BBC analysis has found.
They also now happen in more areas of the world than before, presenting unprecedented challenges to human health and to how we live.
The total number of days above 50C (122F) has increased in each decade since 1980. On average, between 1980 and 2009, temperatures passed 50C about 14 days a year.
The number rose to 26 days a year between 2010 and 2019.
In the same period, temperatures of 45C and above occurred on average an extra two weeks a year.
“The increase can be 100% attributed to the burning of fossil fuels,” says Dr Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.”
That doesn’t sound so very scary to me. 26 days a year across the entire world, with its myriad of deserts and places where it’s unwise for humans to live anyway. Bear in mind that the temperature just has to hit 50C for one minute of the day to count in the figures. I remember climbing in the Olga Mountains in Australia 30 years ago and it was 50C (or so we were told at the time). I note the quote has been supplied by Mr Ridgway’s favourite climate scientist.
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If you brainwash them from nursery, and all through school and university, then continue relentlessly every day at the BBC, what do you expect?
“Climate change: Young people very worried – survey”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58549373
“A new global survey illustrates the depth of anxiety many young people are feeling about climate change.
Nearly 60% of young people approached said they felt very worried or extremely worried.
More than 45% of those questioned said feelings about the climate affected their daily lives.
Three-quarters of them said they thought the future was frightening. Over half (56%) say they think humanity is doomed.
Two-thirds reported feeling sad, afraid and anxious. Many felt fear, anger, despair, grief and shame – as well as hope.
One 16-year-old said: “It’s different for young people – for us, the destruction of the planet is personal.”
The survey across 10 countries was led by Bath University in collaboration with five universities. It’s funded by the campaign and research group Avaaz. It claims to be the biggest of its kind, with responses from 10,000 people aged between 16 and 25.
Many of those questioned perceive that they have no future, that humanity is doomed, and that governments are failing to respond adequately.
Many feel betrayed, ignored and abandoned by politicians and adults.
The authors say the young are confused by governments’ failure to act. They say environmental fears are “profoundly affecting huge numbers of young people”.
Chronic stress over climate change, they maintain, is increasing the risk of mental and physical problems. And if severe weather events worsen, mental health impacts will follow.
The report says young people are especially affected by climate fears because they are developing psychologically, socially and physically.”
No link to the report is provided, to enable readers to judge its quality for themselves. We do see, however, that leading questions were asked:
“Young people were asked their views on the following statements:
People have failed to care for the planet: 83% agreed globally, UK 80%
The future is frightening: 75%, UK 72%
Governments are failing young people: 65%, UK 65%
Governments can be trusted: 31%, UK 28%”
I wonder why Bath University chose to partner with Avaaz for these purposes?
“”Avaaz—meaning “voice” in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.
Avaaz empowers millions of people from all walks of life to take action on pressing global, regional and national issues, from corruption and poverty to conflict and climate change. Our model of internet organising allows thousands of individual efforts, however small, to be rapidly combined into a powerful collective force.”
https://secure.avaaz.org/page/en/about/
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More on 50C temperatures too:
“Life at 50C: The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-58549010
“Joy and her family are among two million Nigerians living within 4km of a gas flare in Nigeria’s oil-rich south.
Climate change has had a devastating impact on Nigeria. Fertile lands are turning into deserts in the north, while flash floods have become more common in the south.
The country’s oil industry is making things worse as the practice of flaring – the burning of natural gas that is released when oil is extracted from the ground – is common despite its illegality. The practice is a major source of greenhouse gases and a contributor to climate change.”
No links to justify the rather dubious climate change claims. And do they count standing next to a gas flare as one of their 26 days a year when the temperature somewhere in the world reaches 50C? Or are they claiming that it reaches 50C anyway in that part of Nigeria? Nothing like a bit of propaganda that is difficult to decipher by the ordinary reader, eh?
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“German election: Hunger strikers want greater action on climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58550337
“A group of young people are in the third week of a hunger strike in Berlin, claiming Germany’s political parties aren’t adequately addressing climate change ahead of this month’s general election.
The protestors – aged from 18 to 27 – have vowed to continue their hunger strike until the three leading candidates vying to replace Angela Merkel agree to meet them.
There’s a subdued atmosphere among the little tents and hand-painted banners close to the German Chancellery in Berlin.
The six young people who’ve been on hunger strike for more than a fortnight say they’re feeling weak.”
Mental illness is a terrible and depressing thing. I’m not sure the BBC should be capitalising on it in this way.
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Mark, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr got it right with his “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The juf are stressed out about climate change but so were we during our so-called formative years. But we were concerned about something very real – nuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis still lives with me. Today’s juf worry about an imagined future, we worried about not having one at all.
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“Experts condemn plan to install thousands of gas boilers across UK
Experts say effective subsidies for new gas boilers run contrary to government targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/14/experts-condemn-plan-install-thousands-gas-boilers-uk
“Energy bill-payers will be asked to subsidise the installation of tens of thousands of new gas boilers across the UK under government plans, at a time when experts say gas boilers should be urgently phased out.
Experts said it was baffling that ministers should be promoting the installation of new fossil fuel boilers, instead of low-carbon dioxide alternatives such as heat pumps.
At least 20,000 new gas boilers will be installed under the energy company obligation (Eco) scheme, which requires energy companies to fund improvements that should cut greenhouse gas emissions. The long-running scheme has been criticised in the past for providing discounts to well-off households to replace ageing gas boilers with more efficient models, rather than focusing on more difficult but more effective improvements, such as helping low-income households with home insulation.
In a consultation document, slipped out this summer without fanfare, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy laid out plans for how the Eco should work from March 2022 to March 2026. The government’s “preferred option”, shown in the 62-page document, is for 20,000 new gas boilers to be installed in homes that currently lack central heating.
A further 25,000 homes will have broken heaters repaired or replaced, which could also involve the repair of gas boilers or the installation of new ones.”
Shocking – government help to install, repair or replace broken heating systems with up-to-date, state-of-the-art, efficient ones. Bringing central heating to homes that don’t have it! Whatever next? And “experts” criticise this. What a strange looking-glass world we now inhabit.
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>“If you brainwash them from nursery, and all through school and university, then continue relentlessly every day at the BBC, what do you expect?”
The fact that the children are being canvassed smacks of performance measurement and I think that we can consider this ‘mission accomplished’. So now all that remains is for us to do something to help our poor children in their mental distress.
Mind you, there isn’t much different here to the plight of the child being brought up in the Cold War. The differences are that the distress wasn’t orchestrated and children in those days were to be seen and not canvassed.
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Energy prices rocket to new high amid global gas crunch
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/13/power-prices-rocket-amid-global-gas-crunch/
Still no-one questions the premise on which all this is built.
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Listening to the BBC World Service news at 11.30am today, they said the annual number of days over 50C has ” more than doubled.” Maths clearly isn’t someone’s strong point. “About” 14 to 26 sounds like less than doubling to me. Still, why let accurate reporting get in the way of a bit of alarmist propaganda?
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Mark,
And yet more on 50c too:
The BBC article states:
“’The increase can be 100% attributed to the burning of fossil fuels,’ says Dr Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.”
For that to be true, there has to be no natural variability at all behind the warming. However, AR6 states:
“Natural climate variability can temporarily obscure or intensify anthropogenic climate change on decadal time scales, especially in regions with large internal interannual-to-decadal variability. At the current level of global warming, an observed signal of temperature change relative to the 1850–1900 baseline has emerged above the levels of background variability over virtually all land regions (high confidence).”
If there is background variability then Otto is talking rubbish. Being 100% confident that fossil fuels are a factor is not the same as being 100% confident that fossil fuels are the only factor.
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P.S. I also see that the BBC has taken to adorning its climate change articles with Ed Hawkins’ warming stripes. You know, the ones that break every rule in the ‘scientific use of colour’ rule book.
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Jit – “Still no-one questions the premise on which all this is built.”
Indeed, and even when the Guardian wakes up and smells the coffee, the penny still doesn’t drop (apologies for the mixed metaphor):
“UK government should take note: an energy crisis is quietly building
Nils Pratley
Overreliance on gas as ‘transition’ source of energy and system’s lack of resilience is being exposed”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2021/sep/13/uk-government-should-take-note-an-energy-crisis-is-quietly-building
“Price spikes in the global energy market are meant to happen during the cold months of a northern hemisphere winter, which is why their arrival now is alarming. It suggests the current mini-crisis – which, embarrassingly, is seeing the UK shovel millions in the direction of coal plant producers just ahead of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow – has the potential to become much worse come January or February.
As ever in the energy market, it takes a combination of factors to produce a price surge of the degree seen on Monday in the UK – record levels for short-term electricity prices. Wind speeds have been low across northern Europe for most of the year. The UK’s gas stocks are low. And a few plants have gone offline for repairs at a bad moment.
In international markets, economic recovery in China and parts of Asia has accelerated demand for LNG (liquified natural gas). US shale gas producers, now under political pressure to curb fracking, are not producing the same volumes as of old. Russia, some argue, is underproducing gas ahead of the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany. The UK is certainly not alone in experiencing the storm in the fossil gas market.
A few factors – wind speeds, for example – could reverse to relieve the immediate pressure. But one can also diagnose a basic overreliance in the UK on gas as the “transition” source of fossil fuel energy on the way to net zero. There’s not much resilience in the system, with so many nuclear plants due to come offline this decade. The Bank of England may even been obliged to take notice: we’re now at the point where the year-on-year hikes in consumers’ energy bills have a meaningful impact on overall inflation numbers.
In the end, high prices encourage more supply and dampen demand. The definition of a proper crisis, perhaps, is a situation where there is not enough gas to satisfy demand, which could mean rationing for businesses for short periods. That prospect is still unlikely this winter, thinks independent energy analyst Peter Atherton, but is “a greater possibility than it has been at any time since the 1990s”.
A lot can happen between now and the properly cold months, but politicians should take note: an energy crisis is quietly building.”
Well, that final sentence is certainly right – he got that bit right.
The obvious conclusions might be – don’t place such reliance on unreliable wind; don’t close down all the coal plants; frack for gas. But not in Guardian-land. Instead, we get the ominous phrase: “politicians should take note: an energy crisis is quietly building.” But no meaningful analysis and certainly no doubts about the direction of travel, and no solutions.
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In 2018 a farmer on the River Humber won in court
as he was awarded 14 extra acres due to the opposite of coastal erosion.
https://www.farminguk.com/news/lincolnshire-farmer-gains-14-acres-of-land-due-to-natural-process-of-accretion_48950.html
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BBC2 9:42pm Olusoga said “I used to stand giving out leaflets about apartheid and about climate change”
..as now he talks about Victorian protesting against British gov making concentration camps for Boers
.. “what these Victorians didn’t know was that the British also put Black Africans in concentration camps and almost 20,000 of them also died”
big claim there
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GMB weather dolly *FLEW* to Norway to do a crying piece about polar bears and little children
The video is cringing
Twitter is normally talking about her leather trousers, or leather skirts.
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Offsetting
I spend about 60 hours per week improving the natural environment, not in actual physical terms of picking up litter etc.
No, all the time I spent countering Climate Alarmist PR counts as credit-offsets against my work cleaning the environment.
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2019 ..when we fly it doesn’t count
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ITVs own Twitter video
… https://www.twitter.com/GMB/status/1437686397780086785
30 people quote tweeted it positively
many call her out
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“Wiltshire Council climate change plan aims to develop eco-careers”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-58475671
“Carbon emissions can be reduced by giving people the skills to make buildings eco-friendly and expanding recycling projects, a council has said.
Wiltshire Council is working with colleges and businesses to address a current skills shortage.
Portfolio holder Nick Botterill said the council would not achieve its targets unless it tackled the issue.
The authority is seeking views on its Climate Strategy, which plans to meet carbon targets between 2022 and 2027.
Mr Botterill added: “We feel there’s a missed opportunity to get buildings up and running with renewable electricity.”
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“Spain targets energy firms as European bills surge”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58556073
“Spain’s left-wing government has agreed emergency measures to cut spiralling energy bills as electricity prices climb to record levels.
It aims to channel €2.6bn (£1.9bn; $3bn) in energy company profits to consumers and slash electricity taxes over the winter months.
Energy bills are climbing across Europe as gas prices soar in particular.
Greece is promising subsidies to consumers and Italy is also aiming to review electricity bills.
But it was Spain that moved first on Tuesday. It has seen some of the highest energy prices in Europe in recent weeks, prompting protests over the summer in a number of cities.”
The article doesn’t mention these inconvenient facts:
“By year end 2015 Spain was the world’s fifth biggest producer of wind power with 23,031 MW installed capacity (including 11 MW of wind-hydro capacity), providing 48,118 GWh of power and 19% of the country’s total electricity production in that year. In 2014, a record breaking year for renewable electricity production, wind power accounted for 20.2% of total electricity generation in Spain making it the second most important electricity source after nuclear power (22%) and ahead of coal power (16.5%).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Spain
Is it a coincidence that 2 of Europe’s nations most dependent on wind farms to generate electricity are struggling most with high prices, because they’re forced to fall back on gas, which is now expensive because supply is exceeding is demand. Join the dots?
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“Green” universities?
“University of York: Students housed 50 miles away in Hull”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-58562201
“University of York students who missed out on a place in halls have been offered rooms 50 miles away – in Hull.
About 150 undergraduates face a 100-mile (161km) round trip to attend lectures due to huge demand and a housing shortage.”
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“‘Cake’ mentioned 10 times more than ‘climate change’ on UK TV – report
Exclusive: study also shows ‘banana bread’ heard more in 2020 than ‘wind power’ and ‘solar power’ combined”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/15/cake-mentioned-10-times-more-than-climate-change-on-uk-tv-report
““Cake” was mentioned 10 times more often on UK television shows than “climate change” in 2020, data has revealed. The research showed “banana bread” was a more frequently heard term than “wind power” and “solar power” combined.
The report, from albert, a Bafta-backed sustainability project, also found that individual action, such as recycling, was far more frequently featured than issues that are much bigger drivers of the climate crisis such as energy and transport.
While terms describing the issue – climate change, climate emergency and climate crisis – had 14,540 mentions, those referring to tackling the problem – climate justice, climate action and climate solution – only had 296 mentions combined.
The report was based on analysis of subtitles from almost 400,000 programmes from all the main broadcasters, but did not include news broadcasts. ”
Please tell me that this is a joke. Link to “albert” here:
https://wearealbert.org/
“We are the authority on environmental sustainability for film + TV. This is the place to share, learn and act on our impact.
We’re funded by the industry, allowing us to make our tools, training and resources totally free to use.”
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More pointless “research”:
“Generational conflict over climate crisis is a myth, UK study finds
Research disproves perception young people want to save planet while older people do not care”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/15/generational-conflict-over-climate-crisis-is-a-myth-uk-study-finds
“But a new UK study, Who Cares About Climate Change: Attitudes Across The Generations, has found that the generational divide over climate action is a myth, with almost no difference in views between generations on the importance of climate action, and all saying they are willing to make big sacrifices to achieve this.”
Link to the pointless study here:
Click to access who-cares-about-climate-change.pdf
Who pays for all this stuff? And why?
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I agree with the second and first line of the third paragraphs of this letter, but not with the rest of it:
“Why is the UK still in thrall to dirty energy?
To meet climate promises, Boris Johnson must redirect billions from biomass energy into real renewables, says Elly Pepper”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/14/why-is-the-uk-still-in-thrall-to-dirty-energy
“I was pleased to read your article exposing government bias against genuine renewables (UK ministers ‘met fossil fuel firms nine times as often as clean energy ones’, 10 September). The dirty energy industry still has Boris Johnson’s government completely under its thumb, despite the climate and biodiversity crises we are facing.
Over the past year, Johnson has repeatedly promised to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. Yet the UK remains Europe’s top subsidiser of biomass electricity, which is made by logging our planet’s forests and burning the trees in power stations. Enormous sums of money flow to Drax and others because the UK has wrongly defined biomass energy as “green” despite the objection of scientists, communities and public interest organisations. The reality is that just like burning fossil fuels, burning trees for electricity pumps enormous amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and exacerbates climate change. It also results in the logging of forests that we need to suck up and store carbon, threatens wildlife, harms vulnerable communities and emits deadly air pollution.
The even bigger scandal is that it appears the UK government will rely even more heavily on burning biomass over the years to come. Scientists warn that one million species face extinction and that we must slash our greenhouse gas emissions in half within this decade to avert climate disaster. But instead of doing everything it can to reverse course, the government continues to cosy up with lobbyists on the wrong side of science.
Now that this scandal is coming to light, the UK government should immediately redirect billions in dirty biomass electricity subsidies to real renewables such as wind and solar. Doing so would not only guarantee emissions reductions at a fraction of the cost, but also create billions in economic value and more jobs.
Elly Pepper
Natural Resources Defense Council”
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I note that the insulators have returned to the M25. What a pity Boris’s armoured water cannon have been scraped. Those slip roads need a good clean.
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Alan, among the demonstrators is a subgroup calling themselves Insulate Britons, whose demands include cardigans.
[Sorry, I made that up. They’re actually demanding a dramatic increase in doughnuts.]
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JIT. Tokamak doughnuts?
[ Sorry, I’m being silly, I know most will be against nuclear]
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albert says that…
Why, then, did they count ‘cake’, ‘gaga’, ‘goldfish’ and ‘zombie’ but not ‘holistic’, ‘stakeholder’, ‘synergy’ and ‘toolkit’? Net Zero can’t be actioned until holistic stakeholder synergies are mainstreamed in every climate change toolkit. Countless reports from green NGOs have shown this.
And why have they stopped counting ‘poo’? Is poo not an important contributor to climate change – or at least to key core multidisciplinary capacity-building climate change strategy dialogue paradigms? There should be a roadmap for ‘poo’ – 13,719 mentions in 2019 – to be reinstated going forwards.
(Incidentally, as with so many similar Green Blob organisations almost all of albert’s employees are women, with men employed only in tech roles. In this case there are ten women plus one man to do albert’s comms and social media and another who probably does the maths for its carbon calculator – hard to be sure because he doesn’t even merit a proper job description.)
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The school bullies keep blocking my way into the common room
.. the teachers stand by and say “It’s just non-violent protest”
FFS calling “obstruction” “non-violent protest” is PR trickery
It’s bullying it’s controlling etc.
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There’s a full 15 minute video
.. https://youtu.be/h_gr9iKKEyM
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The big girls have turned up to cheer the school-bully-gang
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Mercy Muroki hits out at Hallam & ‘climate extremists’
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ITV local news
“Why too much laundry might be bad for your clothes and bad for the planet
It turns out that our weekly laundry could also be adding to the amount of plastics in our oceans”
so what ?
Making houses, means more brick dust in the environment
we live with that
microplastics are not causing dead animal bodies to pile up
The environment is pretty much the same
except for mega polluted rivers in Asia full of of all kind of toxins.
They lectured us that we should have less washdays and use lower temperatures.
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2021-09-15/why-too-much-laundry-might-be-bad-for-your-clothes-and-bad-for-the-planet
Friends of The Earth were featured
and some green biz people.
I’m not sure which org or PR agency is behind the item.
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A delicious irony on BBC Radio 4 at lunchtime today, on “You and Yours”. They had a piece on about the blight that is too much “street furniture”. I think they got more than they bargained for one their final commenter said that one of the greatest problems was electric vehicle charging points in the middle of pavements causing problems for the visually challenged, wheelchairs, prams etc.
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“Unmanned submarine earmarked for Irish Sea freight crossings
By Roger Harrabin
Energy and environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-58571143
“A self-driving hydrogen-powered submarine is among the winners in a UK government competition to tackle emissions from shipping.
A start-up consortium has been given £380,000 to develop the sub to deliver parcels without a captain or crew.
Call it blue seas thinking – the submarine will follow shipping routes but 50 metres below the surface.
It will be able to deliver goods in shallow waters where container ships can’t operate.
Then it will dive beneath the waves to weather storms on the open ocean.
The firm awarded the grant, Oceanways, has flagged Belfast to Glasgow as a possible route for the submarine.
The grant is part of a £23m UK fund for environmental maritime projects.
The cash is too small to put a dent in carbon emissions in time to stave off dangerous heating of the planet but it does demonstrate the explosion of innovation that climate change has prompted.”
Is it just me, or is the world going crazy?
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Good news?
“Australian bushfire smoke caused massive phytoplankton bloom in Southern Ocean
Scientist compares bloom caused by iron particles in smoke aerosols to ‘the entire Sahara desert turning into a productive grassland’”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/16/australian-bushfire-smoke-caused-massive-phytoplankton-bloom-in-southern-ocean
“The researchers estimate the amount of carbon taken up by phytoplankton cells as a result of the bloom was equivalent to around 95% of the emissions generated by the 2019-20 bushfires.
For that carbon to be permanently removed from the atmosphere, however, the phytoplankton cells would have to sink into the deep ocean and be stored there, Strutton said.
“There’s a lot of recycling of energy and biomass that happens in the surface waters. It’s likely that a lot of that carbon that was initially taken up might have been re-released to the atmosphere when those phytoplankton cells started to break down or were eaten.”
The team did not look specifically at the wider marine ecosystem effects of the large Southern Ocean bloom, but the moderate increase in phytoplankton activity over several months could also have had an impact on fish populations, Strutton said.”
Hmm. “…could have had an impact…”. Positive, presumably.
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“Technocrats Want “Mandatory” Carbon Credit Cards to Control Every Facet of Your Life”
https://summit.news/2021/09/14/technocrats-want-mandatory-carbon-credit-cards-to-control-every-facet-of-your-life/
“Technocrats are preparing “mandatory” personal carbon allowances that would introduce rationing into every area of your life via an app that would record your travel, heating expenses and even the food you eat.
Yes, really.
The proposal was presented in the science journal Nature by four environmental “experts” as a means of reducing global carbon emissions.
Everyone would be issued with a ‘carbon allowance card’ “that would entail all adults receiving an equal tradable carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national [carbon] targets.”
The authors make it clear that the program would be a “national mandatory policy.”
Carbon units would be “deducted from the personal budget with every payment of transport fuel, home-heating fuels and electricity bills,” and anyone going over the limit would be forced to purchase additional units in the personal carbon market from those with excess to sell.”
This means that the private jet-flying rich could simply bypass the system entirely (which they would part-own via investments anyway) by simply buying carbon credits and carrying on living their luxurious lifestyle.
The proposal makes clear that the means of measuring a person’s uptake of carbon units for travel would function “on the basis of the tracking the user’s movement history.”
The authors note how the normalization of contact tracing via COVID-19 apps will ensure a similar system could be used for keeping track of carbon credits with minimum fuss.”
Here’s the link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00756-w
This is what the abstract says:
“Here we discuss how personal carbon allowances (PCAs) could play a role in achieving ambitious climate mitigation targets. We argue that recent advances in AI for sustainable development, together with the need for a low-carbon recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, open a new window of opportunity for PCAs. Furthermore, we present design principles based on the Sustainable Development Goals for the future adoption of PCAs. We conclude that PCAs could be trialled in selected climate-conscious technologically advanced countries, mindful of potential issues around integration into the current policy mix, privacy concerns and distributional impacts.”
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“Soaring power prices drive anxiety over EU climate plans
Concerns about a ‘bloody hard’ energy transition dominated climate debate in the European Parliament.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/soaring-power-prices-anxiety-eu-climate-plans/
“Surging energy prices are weighing on European wallets — and the bloc’s climate plans.
Concerns over a popular backlash were evident Tuesday when members of the European Parliament debated the European Commission’s Fit for 55 climate legislation proposals.
“Citizens start asking questions,” said Anna Zalewska of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party. “First of all, they ask about price increases across the board, because it’s them who are going to foot the final bill. It’s them who are going to unfortunately pay for the ambitions of the EU.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki points the finger at Brussels. “Polish power prices are tied to the EU’s climate policies,” he said last week.
The Commission insists that those prices aren’t the fault of the EU’s Emissions Trading System, which has seen the cost of a permit to emit a ton of CO2 more than double over the last year to around €60. The power price increase is instead largely driven by high gas prices and structural issues in Europe’s electricity market — but the Commission is still wary of its net-zero Green Deal project getting the blame.
Commission Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans told MEPs Tuesday that just “one-fifth” of the higher power costs could be attributed to the rising ETS price, with the rest caused by low gas supply.
He argued that those increasing costs actually strengthen the case for a rapid shift to cleaner energy sources.
Some MEPs sided with Timmermans. “We need to act radically, but there is a problem: Slovakia and Europe are facing rising power prices, and this puts the most vulnerable and poorest at a disadvantage. Why? Because of our dependence on fossil gas,” said Slovak lawmaker Martin Hojsík of Renew Europe.
The political danger to the Commission’s Fit for 55 program is obvious.
Pascal Canfin, the French MEP who chairs the Parliament’s environment committee, said his liberal Renew Europe group opposed the Commission’s proposal to expand emissions trading to road transport and buildings.
“We believe that the political cost is extremely high and the climate impact is very low,” he said.”
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Oceanways Technologies Ltd, which has just got £370k from the govt to develop an ‘Unmanned submarine earmarked for Irish Sea freight crossings’ (see Mark Hodgson above), was founded on 1st April:
URL:find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13307554
One director: Dhrubajyoti (aka Dhruv) Boruah:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dhrubajyotiboruah
Yet another nutty narcissist from the world of solutionary TED talks and leadership coaching.
So don’t hold your breath (unless you’re in his sub).
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I take some of that back. Dhruv isn’t a typical spiv. He doesn’t just wave his arms about at TED talks, he actually does some actual good sometimes:
URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsbFtJzOwco
(Albeit in a somewhat inefficient and look-at-me way.)
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Mark, a lot of new posts there
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Saturday’s Times “Lancaster University say IT emissions could be twice what thought ie 4% not 2%”
so that is double that of airlines
Of course any science that suddenly says are figures were 100% out before ..is dodgy
Source : Kelly Widdicks,
She’s done these press releases before
eg May 2019
“ICT will soon make up 14% of global CO2 emissions, half of the transportation sector today” and streaming is a huge part.
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pg17 Magic new fuel
“Gold Hydrogen” : Natural hydrogen gas is found at some places in the world
and already powers some places eg by Hydroma in Mali
Profs Gluyas and Ballentine
Wow
Prof Jon Gluyas says that in the crust water oxidises some metals, thus releases some hydrogen
Sparse picking on Twitter
This Times story is the first news
And for Hydroma Mali the news was 15 Sept 2020
— After eight years of an experimental phase, Hydroma Inc., the precursor of natural hydrogen in Mali, is moving up a gear.
https://www.afrik21.africa/en/mali-hydroma-inc-launches-industrial-production-of-hydrogen-based-electricity/
Same as always : This would seem to be a Holy Grail, that somehow Big Oil has missed
.. That article doesn’t mention amount of energy, so that means it’s small
And accounting for optimism of PR I expect extraction costs are big.
I spot only one tweet since the Sept 2020 thing (there are a handful in French)
@HNatSummit Apr 23
“Aliou DIALLO, President of HYDROMA will host the opening keynote ceremony of #HNAT21! Get your Conference Pass now ”
@HydromaInc’s account is very quiet, looks like a vehicle for bringing in investor’s cash
.. could be fishy
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pg 20 Full page Advert from Sky TV “Net Zero”
…. on this tweet too https://twitter.com/justinhewelt/status/1436435557182283790
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“Environmental projects in the Lake Districts [sic] meet criticism”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19585953.environmental-projects-lake-districts-meet-criticism/
[The typo in the heading is not a surprise – News & Star is the Cumbrian equivalent of the Grauniad in this respect].
“PEOPLE aren’t convinced by the new low-carbon projects currently underway in the Lake District.
A number of low carbon projects are running throughout the Lake District to help tackle the climate emergency and promote best practice in the National Park.
Some of the projects already underway include: A Low Carbon Lake District Green Grants Scheme to help small businesses and community organisations cut carbon.
Electric car charging points being installed at various National Trust and National Park locations throughout the Lake District.
Solar panels installed at Ferry Nab car park on the shore of Windermere.
Planning for new and improved walking and cycle routes at Derwentwater in Keswick and a South Windermere trail.
A new hired electric fleet of cars for Lake District National Park operations.
A number of new green technologies at the National Park Visitor Centre, Brockhole.
Shovel or spade said: “Yet they continue to pass plans for barns to be converted into holiday lets, attracting thousands of visitors a year in their cars.”
U6D3 agreed, adding: “The old barns are great locations for nesting Barn Owls, Little Owls, House Martins and Barn Swallows. Once they’re converted to holiday homes the nesting opportunities are lost forever.”
Norman G said: “An excuse to squander money on electric vehicles whilst still attracting millions of visitors to drive and fly! Well done. Tourism is a massive contributor to CO2 and is a frivolous pastime. Surely they should be looking to minimise?”…”.
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“Penrith and Natland selected as part of UN climate pilgrimage”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19584966.penrith-natland-selected-part-un-climate-pilgrimage/
“PENRITH and Natland have been selected as be stops on a climate change pilgrimage for the UN.
The pilgrimage will see land groups walking the length of UK.
UN climate talks are to urge world leaders to protect nature pass through Natland and Oxenholme on 3 October and Penrith on 7 October.
They will also be urging local farmers or landowners to ‘be part of historic climate walk’ by hosting pilgrims overnight.
This will provide a chance for the people of the Natland, Oxenholme and Penrith areas to have their say on the health and future of nature when a group conducting an epic climate change pilgrimage pass through in early October.
20 ordinary people will be walking the 500 miles along the length of the UK to urge world leaders to protect nature.
The group, called Listening to the Land, sets out to build the numbers, diversity and advocacy power of those speaking up for nature and to ensure those voices are heard at the landmark UN Climate Conference COP26 in Glasgow this November.
“This is a once in a lifetime walk, and we hope that by the time we arrive in Glasgow we will have spoken to thousands of people about nature, and inspired tens of thousands more to upload a photograph of their own sacred walk and their own thoughts on nature.
“We want to include as many voices as possible in this beautiful, creative act of reverence for earth, and as we call on world leaders to walk the walk on climate,’ said co-founder of the project Jolie C. Booth, who is one of the group walking all 500 miles.
“We’re phenomenally excited to visit Penrith Beacon, and we hope, with local residents, light a fire to burn for action on the climate emergency.
“We really want to hear your ideas about what world and business leaders should do to protect the earth.
“All we ask in return is somewhere to lay our heads for the night.
“We’ll leave no trace but hopefully some fond friendships and lasting memories.””
Irony alert – “light a fire to burn for action on the climate emergency.”
Comments below the line don’t go well for them.
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Let them eat cake!
“Climate change: Lord Deben says street lights not needed in rural areas”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-58585374
“Street lights should not be installed in rural areas where people could use a torch instead, an influential climate adviser said.
Lord Deben chairs the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on emissions targets.
He also said councils should not allow housing developments where residents would commute by car.
Lord Deben said local authorities “must be looking at everything they do” to tackle climate change….
…He said street lighting in rural areas was unnecessary, adding: “When people move into the countryside you just have to say to them, ‘this is not the town, we do not have street lighting in this village, you have a torch, that’s just how we do it’.”
But Lord Deben, who was environment minister under John Major and Suffolk Coastal MP until 2010, said street lighting was important in towns where it can make people feel safer and more likely to walk….”.
How to win friends and influence people. I love it that his Wikipedia page simply says that he lives in Suffolk – no mention of his “sprawling country house” (as per the Mail on Sunday).
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“Climate change: NFU Cymru wants incentives for farmers to plant trees”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58581212
“Farmers should be incentivised to plant trees on their land, a farming union has said.
A report by National Farmers Union (NFU) Cymru said more trees on farmland could help Wales mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change.
It recommends rewarding farmers for existing and new tree and hedgerow cover on Welsh farms.
It also recommends support for developing the supply of home-grown saplings in Wales.
Future schemes should be properly resourced and simple to apply for, the report says.”
#MagicMoneyTree
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“Labour condemns new trade secretary for tweets rejecting climate science
Anne-Marie Trevelyan dismisses those who believe in global heating as ‘fanatics’ in resurfaced posts”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/16/labour-condemns-anne-marie-trevelyan-trade-secretary-tweets-rejecting-climate-science
“The new international trade secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has been accused of rejecting the science behind the climate emergency after a series of tweets came to light showing her dismissing those who believe in global heating as “fanatics”….”.
Well, quite a few, such as those who dismiss as deniers people who raise legitimate questions about the policies relating to climate change, and the wisdom – or lack of it – relating to some of those policies, can fairly be labelled fanatics, IMO.
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“Facebook steps up fight against climate misinformation – but critics say effort falls short
New efforts will let vast amounts of false material slip through the cracks, according to climate advocates”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/16/facebook-climate-change-misinformation
“Facebook has announced new efforts to combat climate crisis misinformation on its platform, including by expanding its climate science center to provide more reliable information, investing in organizations that fight misinformation, and launching a video series to highlight young climate advocates on Facebook and Instagram.
But critics say the new push, announced on Thursday, falls short and will allow vast amounts of climate misinformation to slip through the cracks.
Facebook has long been criticized for allowing misinformation about the climate crisis to proliferate on its platform. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, admitted in a 2021 April congressional hearing that climate misinformation is “a big issue”. In the past, the company has said such misinformation accounts for “a very low percentage of total misinformation on the service” but declined to share figures.
Climate change and misinformation experts have said lies on the platform can spread quickly. The climate denial watchdog groupInfluenceMap in October 2020 found dozens of climate denial ads had been viewed more than 8m times after slipping through the social network’s filters.”
As that last paragraph makes clear, of course, they’re not interested in fact-checking alarmist stuff, just censoring those who aren’t signed up to the religion.
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“Why are the cops so soft on eco-protesters?
Their treatment of those loons blocking the M25 was almost fawning.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/09/16/why-are-the-cops-so-soft-on-eco-protesters/
“If you’ve got any questions at all, just ask. And if any of you are in any discomfort or need anything just let me know and we’ll try and sort you out in a nice way.’
You might assume that this lovely message was delivered by a particularly attentive cabin-crew member in the lengthy preamble before a flight. Or perhaps it came from a kindly nurse as she started a shift on a new ward.
No, this caring little speech was delivered by a police officer on the M25 yesterday. She had been tasked with dealing with a bunch of eco-psychos who had blockaded the motorway, causing huge disruption to thousands of drivers. Supposedly, she was giving them their ‘final warning’, as if they were just a bunch of unruly schoolchildren….
…Maybe it’s not surprising that the police were so generous to those losers on the M25. Last year, a judge reportedly lauded the actions of some Extinction Rebellion protesters at the very moment he was supposed to be sentencing them. He reportedly said they ‘have to succeed’. He seemed delighted to be faced with some lovely middle-class criminals for a change, reportedly saying it was a ‘pleasure to deal with people so different from those I deal with in my regular life’. And when Extinction Rebellion protesters returned to London’s streets last month, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement saying the activists were championing an ‘important cause’.
The whole establishment is in on the act, so we can’t be too surprised when the rank-and-file follow suit. As always, it’s ordinary people who suffer.”
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Tits oot for the spads! XR strips off outside DEFRA to protest against bottom trawling:
URL:show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news-content-600ed2733c68d80019a19bc7/search?tagId=614259887205b7001be84525
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“Extreme weather slows Greece’s coal phaseout
Fears of blackouts during emergencies is forcing ministers to reevaluate shutdown plans.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/extreme-weather-greece-coal-phaseout/
“Greece’s plan to phase out coal is coming under stress from the very thing the government is seeking to address: climate change.
Extreme weather, like this summer’s scorching heat wave, is putting the country’s energy supply under strain.
In August, the government was forced to announce cuts after power plants were unable to cover demand. Earlier this year, record snowfall triggered days-long power outages and saw the government urging Greeks to conserve power.
Those kinds of stresses on the power grid are raising doubts about Greece’s ambitious timetable for scrapping its lignite-fired coal plants, which play an important role in the adequacy of the power generation system. Current plans call for shutting down all existing plants by 2023 and leaving only one new plant (currently under construction) operating until 2028.
Greece is rapidly ramping up wind and solar power, which already account for almost a quarter of power generation and are supposed to be 95 percent by 2050. But the rapid shutdown of coal-fired plants raises the risk of blackouts, especially in emergencies, some experts say. That’s a dangerous prospect as extreme weather becomes more common thanks to climate change.
Continuing with the phaseout will create capacity problems and “gaps in the system,” Manousos Manousakis, president and CEO of ADMIE, Greece’s transmission system operator, said at a conference in July.
Manousakis called for a careful transition “between the lignite era and the green era,” saying it was better to be “safe than sorry.””
When will our politicians say “Better safe than sorry”?
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Irony of the week:
“Carbon dioxide ‘threatens food security’ says meat industry”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58600583
“Meat processors are in talks with the government over a shortage of carbon dioxide that could hit meat production.
Poultry producers said the shortage “threatens national food security”.
The gas is used to stun pigs and chickens prior to slaughtering, and also in the packaging process.
The carbon dioxide used by the meat industry is a by-product of fertiliser production, but fertiliser factories have been halting production due to soaring natural gas prices.
The government said it was monitoring the situation “closely”.
Fertiliser producers have been struggling with natural gas prices that are at record highs as economies around the world begin to recover from the Covid crisis.
In the UK, lower winds have meant less renewable energy is generated, there have been outages at some nuclear stations, and there have lower flows into the UK of natural gas from Norway, pushing up the price of natural gas.
This week, two large UK fertiliser factories owned by US firm CF Industries Holdings suspended operations due to soaring gas prices, and on Friday Norwegian firm Yara said it would also cut production at a number of its European plants.”
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“Climate change: Biden urges world leaders to cut methane gas emissions”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58590194
“Addressing world leaders at a virtual meeting on Friday, Mr Biden said cutting global methane emissions would not just help tackle climate change in the short term, but also improve public health and agricultural and fuel output.”
Does anyone know if any of those claims have any merit at all?
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Fake news?
“Turkana: The front line of climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-58598819
“There are few places in the world where the consequences of a changing climate are as plain to see as in Turkana, in northern Kenya.
The pastoralist communities who live there have been buffeted by recurring droughts, as inadequate rainy seasons become a normal part of life.
Now the land is so dry, some people are forced to spend their days simply searching for water.
As world leaders prepare to meet in Scotland this October to discuss climate change, the Turkana community say they need help now.”
It took me a few seconds of googling to find this:
“Aoyate drought”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aoyate_drought
“The Aoyate drought was an acute meteorological drought that according to Turkana tradition affected much of the Rift Valley region of Kenya during the late 18th century or early 19th century
The word aoyate is from the Turkana language and means long dry time. It is the word that the Turkana use to describe this dry period in their history.
Lamphear (1988) noted that chronological reckonings based on the Turkana age-set system suggested a date in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. He notes that concurrent drought traditions suggested in the chronological reconstruction of neighboring communities indicates that the drought affected much of the Rift Valley region.
Records of Nile River flood stages date back to the 7th century AD and an analysis of the flood patterns and comparison with water levels in Lake Chad revealed a correlation between high Nile discharge and greater rainfall in equatorial East Africa. The analysis of Nile flood stages indicates a ‘Minor Low’ for the period 1800 to 1830, this was preceded by a ‘Minor High’ during the years 1725 to 1800 and was followed by a ‘Minor High’ which lasted between 1830 and 1870.
Studies in Ethiopia by Pankhurst indicated major famines in 1880–1881, 1835 and in 1829. These studies are significant in that the country of Ethiopia borders present-day Turkana county. Meanwhile, Samburu historians interviewed by Straight et. al (2016) state that the Samburu separated from a society known as Burkineji in the wake of the 1830s Mutai. According to a Samburu Laibon interviewed by Fratkin (2011), the Sambur ‘Il Kipkeku’ age-set were warriors during the period c.1837-1851.
The various narratives, records and reports thus point to a long dry period starting about 1800 seemingly peaking with an intensely arid time during the mid-1830s. This would be congruent with Krapf’s (1860) mention of a “great famine of 1836″
There are a number of oral traditions from various communities across much of southern Africa that point to the region having experienced declining rainfall levels from about 1800 to about 1830. This saw the progressive desiccation of lakes, rivers and springs, a phenomenon observed by an employee of the East India Company in the 1820s who noted;
…in many parts of the interior of the country the springs and rivulets are drying up and annual rains become more scanty and irregular. The traveler often meets with houses and farms that have been deserted by their owners on account of a permanent failure in the supply of water which they once enjoyed.
— Quoted in Clifton Crais, Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa”
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A rather fawning piece from the Guardian:
“Motorway blockades and green new deal crusaders: the UK’s new climate activists
With Cop26 on the horizon, activists are finding new ways to make politicians and public pay attention”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/17/motorway-blockades-and-green-deal-crusaders-the-uks-new-climate-activists
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“Keir Starmer will address green new deal plans at conference, say team
Labour sources say climate crisis and green jobs will be key themes, amid concerns about leader’s commitment to policy”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/17/keir-starmer-green-new-deal-debate-labour-party-conference
What a travesty of democracy, when the Government is strangling the country with its mad rush to net zero, and the main opposition party just says “faster, faster” and the minor opposition parties say “even faster!”. Where’s the choice?
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“Gas price rises prompt urgent government talks”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58605735
“The government is to hold urgent talks with representatives from the energy industry amid growing concern about a spike in wholesale gas prices.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng will talk to gas suppliers and others on Saturday to hear how wide-reaching the impact of the surge in prices could be.
High global demand, maintenance issues at some gas sites and lower solar and wind output are blamed for the rise.
The high prices have already led two large UK fertiliser plants to close.
Government sources have said there is no threat to UK gas supplies and the impacts on small energy companies that might be the most exposed are being monitored.
But the BBC has been told that officials are looking at whether products that could end up being in short supply, such as fertiliser, could be imported from abroad.
Natural gas prices are at record highs as economies around the world begin to recover from the Covid crisis.
In the UK, lower winds have meant less renewable energy is generated. There have also been outages at some nuclear stations and lower flows into the UK of natural gas from Norway, pushing up the price of natural gas.
It is understood the discussions with senior figures from the UK’s energy sector were requested urgently.
Mr Kwarteng will be talking to chief executives from gas producers, the National Grid, suppliers including Scottish Power, EON and EDF and the regulator Ofgem to hear how far-reaching the impact of the surge in prices is likely to be.”
It’s all very well having talks now, but it seems Mr Kwarteng and his civil servants have been asleep at the wheel. Is he belatedly now waking up? I don’t suppose, when he does stir from his slumber, that he’ll listen to those of us who’ve been warning of exactly these problems for years.
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“More than half of Department for Transport cars still diesel”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58602884
“The UK government department overseeing the phasing out of diesel cars still relies on them for its own fleet.
Figures obtained by the BBC show the Department for Transport operates 1,234 cars – 672 run on diesel, 63 on petrol, with the rest electric or hybrid.
The sale of new diesel and petrol cars is to be banned from 2030, under plans to tackle climate change.
The department said it was committed to switching to greener vehicles.
A spokesperson added it had “already exceeded” a government-wide target to electrify more than a quarter of its fleet by next year.
But a campaign group said the government should lead by example – and the figures would make it harder to persuade the public to switch vehicles.”
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“Climate change: Aberystwyth green department store opens”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58571595
“It has been described as the world’s greenest department store, that recycles and re-sells household items.
The Climate Shop, in Lampeter, Ceredigion, is opening a second store in Aberystwyth on Saturday, and is a stop on the Climate Cymru Green Tour.
Over the next week, two electric vehicles will visit renewable energy sites, farmers and cycling initiatives.
It aims to raise awareness of climate change ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November.
The aim of the tour is to present the thoughts of people from around Wales to the Welsh government in October, so the “often under-represented areas and demographics” are able to contribute their views ahead of the summit on tackling the climate emergency,” said Climate Cymru campaign manager Sam Ward.”
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“The computer chip industry has a dirty climate secret
As demand for chips surges, the semicondutor industry is trying to grapple with its huge carbon foot print”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/18/semiconductor-silicon-chips-carbon-footprint-climate
“The semiconductor industry has a problem. Demand is booming for silicon chips, which are embedded in everything from smartphones and televisions to wind turbines, but it comes at a big cost: a huge carbon footprint.
The industry presents a paradox. Meeting global climate goals will, in part, rely on semiconductors. They’re integral to electric vehicles, solar arrays and wind turbines. But chip manufacturing also contributes to the climate crisis. It requires huge amounts of energy and water – a chip fabrication plant, or fab, can use millions of gallons of water a day – and creates hazardous waste.
As the semiconductor industry finds itself increasingly under the spotlight, it is starting to grapple with its climate impacts. Last week Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, which supplies chips to Apple, pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The company aims to “broaden our green influence and drive the industry towards low-carbon sustainability”, said the TSMC chairman, Mark Lui.
But decarbonizing the industry will be a big challenge.”
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“Boris Johnson to call for climate action during US visit”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58613389
“Boris Johnson will urge world leaders to take “concrete action” on climate change during meetings at the UN’s General Assembly in New York this week.
The PM will also visit the White House for the first time since Joe Biden became US President.
He is expected to push Mr Biden on the looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and the potential of reopening UK to US travel.
The visit comes ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.”
Really? Is there a COP 26 conference in Glasgow in November? You never said. Why didn’t you mention it?
Given the energy crisis in the UK, BoJo increasingly looks like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Those of us of a certain age remember Jim Callaghan jetting back to a UK struggling under the Winter of Discontent, from a sun-kissed international conference in the Caribbean, getting off the ‘plane, and saying (as the Sun mis-quoted him) “Crisis? What crisis?”. He lost the general election held that spring, and that headline, following on from the miserable winter we had endured, probably cost him and the Labour Party deeply (the Tories were in power for the next 18 years and Thatcher changed the face of the country – for better or for worse, depending on your point of view).
BoJo, Kwarteng et al seem to be replicating Sunny Jim’s behaviour. The tragedy is that, clueless as they are, others even more clueless are waiting in the wings to replace them.
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Never mind “peak oil” – we seem now to have reached peak political stupidity:
“Gas price rise: ‘UK not seeing risks to supplies right now'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58615356
“High global demand, maintenance issues at some gas sites and lower solar and wind output are blamed for the rise.”
OK, so problems with “renewable” (and unreliable) energy is at least a significant part of the problem. What’s the solution the politicians have in mind? To double down on the thing that caused the problem in the first place, of course!
“Mr Sharma said: “A significant part of our gas supply comes domestically. The imported gas primarily comes from countries like Norway so we are securing that.”
He said the situation showed that the UK needed to do “even more in terms of renewables.”
“That’s how we ensure you have a clean energy mix and you have security of supply in our country,” he said.”
The depressing thing is that it seems HM’s Loyal Opposition thinks just the same:
“Meanwhile, shadow economic secretary to the Treasury, Pat McFadden, said the issue “should have been foreseen”.
He told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme: “This should act as a spur to get on with the transition to net-zero, more renewable and sustainable supplies because the effect of all this will be rising prices for consumers just when they’re being hit with other things too.””
They might do well instead to read this:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/09/19/aep-finally-wakes-up-to-the-green-nightmare/
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This article says much that we sceptics have been saying for years, yet fails to draw the obvious conclusions:
“Energy market crisis: what caused it and how does it affect my bills?
UK wholesale energy markets have hit record highs in recent weeks. Here’s what you need to know”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/19/uk-energy-market-crisis-what-caused-it-and-how-does-it-affect-my-bills
I won’t cut & paste – the whole thing’s worth a read, IMO.
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“Devon teenager to cycle to Glasgow for Cop26 climate summit
Jessie Stevens, 16, plans to pedal 570 miles to represent young people at UN conference in November”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/19/devon-teenager-plans-cycle-to-glasgow-for-cop26-climate-summit
“Unable to afford the exorbitant train fare and refusing to fly, a 16-year-old environmental campaigner has decided to cycle 570 miles to the Cop26 summit in Glasgow – and has invited the public to join her for the ride.”
Really? It sounds as though the train would have been cheaper and less disruptive. Looks like a PR stunt for publicity to me (in which case it’s worked):
“She is being supported by the Adventure Syndicate, a collective of top female cyclists renowned for their ultra long-distance marauding.
They are looking for volunteers to take part in a cross-country cargo bike relay to accompany Jessie on her mission, carrying everything she needs. In addition, they are crowdfunding to co-produce a film exploring her story and of those of people she meets along the way.”
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I simply don’t have time to keep up with all the BS
If I travel I make the mistake if listening to local news and Radio4
yet either Climate madness or wokeness is stuffed into every orog
Saturday’s R4 PM the presenter first heard that lack of gas was caused by demand to cover low wind output
but she let guests make the case that simply more wind farms is the answer, without questioning that they too wouldn’t run without wind.
– BBC Chelsea Flower show prog had a COP26 garden thing
– The end of Countryfile gave CC a mentiin
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Radio 4 Profile the weekend was Ed Davey
… it was on 3 times
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Countryfile : Breeding new varieties of British hops.
Apparently if British buy them instead of foreign, it’s saving transport CO2
and if foreign corps buy them the transport CO doesn’t count
WTF
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Likewise each hour the BBC has adverts promoting progs that are Woke/Green
eg Global Citizen Live: 24 hour Music Festival for the Planet
Sat, Sep 25, from 5:30pm
a worldwide music event to create awareness around climate change, vaccine equity, & famine
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18:27pm BBC1 Angelica Bell “Chelsea Flower Show is also the stage to explore the big issues of the day
With the COP26 taking place in early November
It’s fitting that the subject of Global Warming* is reflected at the show
* (actually she said Climate Change)
As Adam Frost has been finding out”
The on screen graph named Marie-Louise Agius as the designer.
Adam “It’s to tell the story of Climate Change, where we are now, but also where we could go in the future
Wow it’s grim cos it’s a representation of all the WORST things that are going on in our built landscape
.. the overuse of paving ..it’s meant to shock
but there is hope
.. this part has been designed to show the ever changing weather conditions and the RISE in temperature, these plants will sit well in the Mediterranean conditions
… us gardeners can play our part “
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“Record Power Prices & Blackouts Hit Germany”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/09/19/record-power-prices-blackouts-hit-germany/
Worth a read.
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Is there nothing they won’t blame on climate change?
“Climate crisis leaving ‘millions at risk of trafficking and slavery’
Droughts and floods forcing workers from rural areas, leading to their exploitation in cities, report warns”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/20/climate-crisis-leaving-millions-at-risk-of-trafficking-and-slavery
“Millions of people forced to leave their homes because of severe drought and powerful cyclones are at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking over the coming decades, a new report warns.
The climate crisis and the increasing frequency of extreme weather disasters including floods, droughts and megafires are having a devastating effect on the livelihoods of people already living in poverty and making them more vulnerable to slavery, according to the report, published today.
Researchers from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Anti-Slavery International found that drought in northern Ghana had led young men and women to migrate to major cities. Many women begin working as porters and are at risk of trafficking, sexual exploitation and debt bondage – a form of modern slavery in which workers are trapped in work and exploited to pay off a huge debt.”
Link to the report, for anyone who can be bothered, is here:
https://www.iied.org/climate-induced-migration-modern-slavery
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Human Swan serious crash, team member killed, she serious injuries.
All MSM actively promoted the PRasNews tour
where she flies around the country in an *electric* paraglider to prove we don’t need fossil fuels.
TedX talks recently promoting her October 7th talk
which in light if COP26 they have tagged #MakeOrBreak
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9am R4 climate activism and the next generation
with @simonmundy @BirdgirlUK & Richard Powers
on Start the Week with Andrew Marr
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… official statement
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A Twitter advert gets me to a rigged National Grid Opinion Survey
“every voice matters in *the fight against climate change*. Make sure you’re a part of it.”
https://www.nationalgrid.com/cop26/voice-of-all
The last face on the page is a white male, that’s 1 out of 7
“Using cutting edge artificial intelligence technology, the real-life messages we collect will be collated, analysed for common themes and crafted into a single, totally unique, emotional and impactful speech. at COP26 this November.
It will begin…
“World leaders, I am the voice of many, and we have something to say.”
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9 pm R4 Electric vehicle series
9:30pm Climate Activists discussion from this morning
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The EV show will feature the guy planning to drive from Pole to Pole in an EV
..My guess guess is by wasting a load of CO2 and using generators in the Arctic.
There were 10 tweets around April 7th
Theoretically you’d send a small unmanned car first
after setting up generator dumps.
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In 1976, during the summer without end, the government tired of all the good weather and appointed a minister for drought. Given this precidence and the recent calm weather in the North Sea are we likely to see a Mininster for Wind appointed? and should we seculate about who would be best fitted for such an turbulent position.
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billbedford, I think the PM himself would have to do the job, since he seems to be the source of much of the hot air coming from the government. Having said that, Kwasi Kwarteng seems to have been giving it a good go today.
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“Poland vows to keep coalmine open despite €500,000-a-day ECJ fine
Warsaw argues suspension of operations at Turów on Czech border would put its energy security at risk”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/20/poland-vows-to-keep-coalmine-open-despite-500000-a-day-ecj-fine
“Poland’s rightwing government has said it will continue to mine coal on its border with the Czech Republic despite being ordered to pay €500,000 for every day that it defies a European court of justice order to stop.
The fine was issued by the EU’s highest court on Monday after four months of Warsaw ignoring an earlier order to suspend extraction of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, at the Turów opencast mine in south-west Poland.
The government said it would continue to operate Turów, arguing that its suspension would put the country’s energy security at risk. The mine fuels a power station providing about 7% of the country’s electricity supply. It employs about 3,600 people.
“The fine mentioned by the [court] is disproportionate to the situation and is not justified by facts,” a government spokesperson said. “It undermines the ongoing process of reaching an amicable settlement.v
Marcin Romanowski, a justice minister, tweeted: “The [ECJ] demands half a million daily fines from Poland for the fact that Poland did not leave its citizens without energy and did not close the mines overnight. It is judicial robbery and theft in broad daylight. You won’t get a cent.”…”.
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With COP 26 getting ever closer why have we not heard anything about the disappearing Arctic sea ice? With catastrophic climate change now upon us we should be pretty much ice free by now.
Well it’s because the Arctic Ocean is not cooperating with the agreed narrative. The annual minimum has just passed with about 4.7 million square kilometres of ocean with a minimum of 15% of sea ice. This is about 40% more sea ice area than the recorded minimum in 2012 over the period 1979 to 2021. As Basil Fawlty might have said “Don’t mention the Arctic sea ice!”
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
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Speaking of melting sea ice…:
“Climate reporting reaches melting point”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58600725
I actually thought it was about the frenzy that is climate reporting these days, everywhere, but especially at the BBC. Instead, it’s about an unnecessary and very non-green trip by the BBC’s climate editor, to the Antarctic. He manages to combine irony with hyperbole:
“When we finally flew over the front of the enormous glacier after weeks of travelling, I found myself staring down at an epic vision of shattered ice.
As I wrote at the time, it felt like I’d reached the frontline of climate change; a place where the equilibrium that has held our world in balance for thousands of years was slipping and crashing.”
Of course (“as I wrote at the time”) there’s nothing new here, it’s just more pre-COP26 propaganda.
“Of course, the BBC has been reporting climate change for decades and we’ll be keeping up that tradition, especially during a crucial UN climate conference in Glasgow in November, where nations will be asked to renew their commitments to cutting emissions.
But however ambitious the deal there is, we need to continue to report the latest science on climate change and the effect it is having on our world.
And use that science as a yardstick to judge the progress our societies are making to reduce emissions.
That means scrutinising what politicians, business people and – yes – all of us consumers are doing to try to reduce our impact on the climate.
I do not want to nag or hector. We all face the same dilemmas over how the choices we make in our lives affect the climate.”
No nagging or hectoring, eh? I’ll be watching.
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“Lake District National Park Authority goes green with carbon cutting projects”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19589263.lake-district-national-park-authority-goes-green-carbon-cutting-projects/
“A number of low carbon projects are running throughout the Lake District to help tackle the climate emergency and promote best practice in the National Park.
The National Park Authority and a range of partners are collectively looking at ways to help local businesses, residents and visitors lower their carbon footprints.
The Low Carbon Lake District initiative is funded by the European Structural Investment Fund and European Regional Development Fund.
Some of the projects already underway include A Low Carbon Lake District Green Grants Scheme to help small businesses and community organisations cut carbon, electric car charging points and planning for new and improved walking and cycle routes.
The Low Carbon Lake District initiative is a comprehensive programme to help tackle climate change in the National Park, working in partnership with local businesses and communities to reduce greenhouse gases and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
Led by the Lake District National Park Authority, other key partners include the Lake District Foundation, the National Trust, South Lakeland District Council and Cumbria Tourism.”
There it is again – the unthinking regurgitation of the “climate emergency” narrative by a cut and paste journalist, content with reprinting a press release. I very much doubt the projects will make even a tiny dent in the increased CO2 emissions from the massive increase in visitor numbers this year, the vast majority of whom will have travelled by diesel or petrol car to get here.
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Wow amazing blank section inside a programme
at 9:17am Boardman made a claim about home LED savings the sound went blank
but on Iplayer it’s the same blank
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zt8v
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New BBC Climate-Disinformation journo
she thinks it means debunking disinformation
but as we know the BBC are champions of Climate-Disinformation
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This morning Insulate Britain blocked both carriageways of the M25 near Woking. Among those who were arrested on the westbound carriageway were a bespoke joiner, a gong therapist, a Buddhist doorknocker, four vicars (including The Revd Tim ‘No Chews’ Hewes), a 45-year-old medically retired school nurse assistant, two age-retired GPs, a social worker who is taking a sabbatical to campaign on behalf of bicycles, and a chemist who co-founded Operation Noah and apparently holds a patent for using an oxygen plasma to reduce corrosion after aluminium etching. All had already been arrested for similar protests this month and all have been arrested in the last few years at protests organised by supposedly different groups – Extinction Rebellion, Burning Pink, Palestine Action, etc.
Perhaps more interestingly, their blockade was right next to the Chatley Heath Semaphore Tower, the last surviving link in a semaphore chain that ran from Whitehall to Portsmouth. (If it’s the only one left, is it still a link?) Before electricity came along and ruined everything, it took Whitehall about 15 minutes to send Portsmouth the postal address of a company that could supply an etching of a puppy riding on a duck’s back, or whatever. These days, it takes milliseconds, but at what cost?
Electricity is killing the planet. Bring back the semaphore! Flags don’t cause cancer, like what 4G does. And don’t get me started on 5G! Wake up, sheeple!
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Jeepers. Are we all dead yet?
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Today, Tim Davie, the Director General of the BBC, told the House of Commons media select committee:
“The BBC is nothing if it’s not a good facilitator of proper open debate and diverse views”.
So the BBC is nothing then?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58637968
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Irony alert:
“Gas price crisis: Government to pay millions to restart CO2 supplies”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58641394
“The government is set to pay out tens of millions of pounds to restart production of carbon dioxide at a key plant in the UK amid fears over food supplies and the nuclear industry.
The government will meet the full operating costs to run CF Industries’ Teesside plant for three weeks.
US-owned CF Industries recently shut two sites that produce 60% of the UK’s commercial carbon dioxide supplies.
The plant in Billingham will need up to three days to start producing new CO2.”
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“M25 protests: Protesters ‘may cause serious injury or death'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-58636399
“Protesters who targeted the M25 five times in just over a week have been warned by police their tactics may cause “serious injury or death”.
Thirty eight people were arrested after climate activists held a further protest, police have confirmed.
Insulate Britain stopped traffic on both carriageways of the M25 between junctions 9 and 10, near Cobham in Surrey, just after 08:00 BST.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said the protest was “unacceptable”.
Ch Insp Mike Hodder and Ch Supt Jerry Westerman from Surrey Police said protesters charging into motorway traffic were putting drivers at a “very high” risk of death, but the admitted police powers to charge them were “pretty limited”.”
I’m not sure Surrey Police are correct with that comment. I can think of several offences they could charge them with, just off the top of my head, and I’m not a criminal lawyer.
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“Ineos confirms £1bn green investment in Grangemouth”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58642266
Watch this space for developments. It strikes me as curious that nowhere does the article mention any “green” jobs to be created by this initiative. So, what will it amount to?
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Mark,
Regarding the M25 protests, I urge everyone to look up the interview of Insulate Britain’s Liam Norton on Good Morning Britain earlier today. It’s the funniest thing ‘ve seen for ages and I guarantee that it will brighten up your day. Absolutely hilarious! I kid you not, it is absolutely priceless. If it appears on Youtube I will be sure to post it here.
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The also had a Green item
“It’s part of drives to reduce exposure to vehicle emissions
The roads around several primary schools in Barnsley have been temporarily closed off as part of a drive to encourage families to swap cars for walking or cycling.
Today, 22 September, and tomorrow, ..”
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BBC local news.. Hull climate murals are on the screen
the item is question is whether such supported street art is encouraging graffiti vandalism
.. they switched to shots of masses of walls with rough tagging etc.
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I tweeted a thread earlier
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Full link here:
Sadly I’ve only just watched it, so it hasn’t made my day, but it has made my evening.
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“Russia forest fire damage worst since records began, says Greenpeace
Analysis shows over 18.16m hectares were destroyed in 2021, an absolute record since satellite monitoring began”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/22/russia-forest-fire-damage-worst-since-records-began-says-greenpeace
“Russia has endured its worst forest fire season in the country’s modern history, according to recent data from the Russian Forestry Agency analysed by Greenpeace.
Fires have destroyed more than 18.16m hectares of Russian forest in 2021, setting an absolute record since the country began monitoring forest fires using satellites in 2001. The previous record was set in 2012, when fires covered 18.11m hectares of forest.
The record was surpassed late last week after a long fire season that has also produced unprecedented levels of global wildfire emissions and upturned daily life for hundreds of thousands of people living in Siberia and elsewhere in central Russia.”
Yet according to this website:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-brush-and-forest-fires-in-recorded-history.html
“The Siberian forest fires of 2003 resulted in an exasperating 47 million acres of land engulfed in flames. Emissions from these fires equaled the emission cuts promised by the European Union under the Kyoto Protocol. Increasing temperatures and the thawing permafrost in Siberia are the most likely cause of the growing number and intensity of forest fires in Siberia. Satellite images of the fire show Eurasia covered in smoke. The effects of these fires are seen in present day environmental studies on ozone depletion.”
If my sums are accurate, 47m acres is more than 19m hectares, so something doesn’t add up. Maybe, conveniently, this is the explanation:
“Burning forests in Russia helped produced some of the worst global emissions in recent months. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service of the EU found that burning forests released 1.3 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide last month, the highest since the organisation began measurements in 2003.”
Maybe they started monitoring just too late in 2003 to be aware of the scale of the fires in that year? So, “worst since records began”, and “an absolute record since satellite monitoring began” possibly translates to “worst in the last 18 years”.
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Mark,
Thanks for finding that for me. With all due respect to Stew, I think you have to see the full interview to get the benefit. That is now playing on a loop on my laptop. 🙂
The Nick Ferrari interview is also quite a peach:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/insulate-britain-clash-m25-protest/
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That was on ITV local news
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Liam “People have been protesting for 30 years”
.. FFS why haven’t you insulated yout home in all those years
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I couldn’t have posted that GMB video as they didn’t put it up until 3pm
There are benefits to seeing the full story of course
but the 1 minute clips did quickly get the gist
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Stew,
No citicism was intended. I too had been trying to get hold of the full clip but, as you point out, it took a while for it to appear. In the meantime, the shorter clips served as a good appetiser.
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I liked this total lack of self awareness from Monbiot’s latest column in the Guardian
Enlightenment of any kind is possible only through long and determined engagement with other people’s findings and other people’s ideas. Self-realisation requires constant self-questioning. True freedom emerges from respect for other people.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power
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“Boris Johnson: Humanity is reaching a turning point on climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58657887
“A climate summit of world leaders in 40 days’ time will be the “turning point for humanity”, PM Boris Johnson has said in a speech to the United Nations.
He warned that global temperature rises were already inevitable, but called on his fellow leaders to commit to major changes to curb further warming.
Four areas needed tackling – “coal, cars, cash and trees”, he said.
Countries must take responsibility for “the destruction we are inflicting, not just upon our planet but ourselves”.
“It’s time for humanity to grow up,” he added ahead of the UK hosting the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
The prime minister also said it was time to listen to the warnings of scientists. “Look at Covid if you want an example of gloomy scientists being proved right.””
Oh dear, I don’t want to re-open the covid debate, but I’m not sure his analogy works – those same gloomy scientists accused Boris and his Government of taking a dangerous risk when they “re-opened” Britain (a month late) on 19th July 2021. So far as I can see they were wrong.
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
“Energy firms’ collapse hits 1.5 million customers”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58657802
“Nearly 1.5 million customers have been affected by energy firms collapsing under soaring gas prices.
Avro Energy and Green ceased trading on Wednesday and their 830,000 combined customers face being switched to a new, potentially more expensive, provider.
All affected customers will still receive energy while a new supplier is appointed by watchdog Ofgem.
Neil Lawrence, director of retail at Ofgem, said its “number one priority is to protect customers.”
The regulator’s price cap also limits how much firms can charge.
But providers have complained that they are unable to pass on rising costs to customers because of the cap on energy bills.”
That’s what your government’s policies have caused, Boris. It’s not “Crisis, what crisis?” but “Crisis, which crisis?”
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“Watchdog to launch crackdown on ads falsely claiming green credentials
The ASA will conduct a series of inquiries into environmental advertising claims and practices”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/23/watchdog-to-launch-crackdown-on-ads-falsely-claiming-green-credentials
“Airline ads that encourage taking too many flights and carmakers that show SUVs tearing up the countryside are set to fall foul of a crackdown on marketing that encourages environmentally irresponsible behaviour.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is to launch a series of inquiries into the environmental advertising claims and practices across a range of sectors – starting with energy, heating and transport – in a drive to support global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and battle the climate crisis.
Next spring the the watchdog will expand its investigation to look at the accuracy of green claims made by companies around waste, such as products being biodegradable, recyclable or a “plastic alternative”. Later next year the spotlight will turn to meat and food sustainability advertising, for example checking the accuracy of claims around environmental good practice by sellers of beef products, a hugely carbon intensive industry…
…The watchdog has clamped down on several major companies in recent years over their green claims in adverts, including Ryanair – which got caught using outdated information to claim it was the UK’s lowest emission airline – BMW and Shell….”
Not a word about all those energy companies claiming to supply 100% “green” or “renewable” electricity. Why not?
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“Climate crisis: fifth of London schools now susceptible to flooding
Sadiq Khan to warn time is running out to tackle emergency as he puts pressure on UK government to act”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/23/climate-crisis-fifth-london-schools-susceptible-flooding-sadiq-khan
“A fifth of London’s schools are now susceptible to flooding and millions of people living in the capital are at “high risk” of suffering from the effects of the climate crisis, according to analysis from City Hall, as Sadiq Khan warns time is running out to tackle the issue.
In a speech on Thursday, the London mayor is due to pile pressure on the UK government to ensure bold action is taken when it hosts world leaders for Cop26 in Glasgow in two months’ time, and add that without a significant commitment there will be “catastrophic” impacts on the environment and air quality.
The outcome of the UN conference will “determine whether we are going to avert the worst consequences of climate change, which could be devastating”, Khan is expected to say, alongside the launch of a public awareness campaign designed to encourage residents, communities and businesses in London to do their bit.
Figures have been published by the London mayor’s office showing that 200,000 homes and workplaces, as well as 25% of rail stations in the capital and 10% of the network, are at high risk of flooding if extreme temperatures and flooding get worse. The six boroughs at the highest risk are Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Brent, Tower Hamlets and Newham.”
So the headline and storyline are fake news. The risk is only IF extreme temperatures and flooding get worse. And even then, is it really anything to do with climate change, or is it more to do with building in flood zones, not keeping drains clear of obstructions, that sort of thing? Still, never let facts get in the way of a bit more pre-COP propaganda, eh?
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is that an April 1 st story ?
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Don’t worry I don’t take things personally
Usually Detect cropped clips
but this time I do think they did a good job
as most people won’t sit through an 18 min video
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Guardian stories are always misleading
that’s why I stopped debunking them 10 years ago
The story used “if could”
and the headline wrote that as “now are”
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Right 11am local news
Mr smooth PR Dale Vince of Ecoctricity
He’s all over the media as he’s got a gotcha angle.
“We have only 1% of gas storage in Europe,yet have 10% of the demand.
This is a failure of planning!”
We ended up with low gas storage for a few reasons
#1 we have LNG terminals
whereas other countries don’t
so we can quite-quickly bring liquid gas from anywhere in the world
#2 Greens convinced government that zero gas is needed
and that investment in the tech should end
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Dave Vince got stick last week for the campaign in the Daily Express which he basically owns.
The “ban all CO2 fuels” part of the green movement really laid into him.
They do have a point that if land wasn’t used for his grass-for-gas then it might be full of trees storing CO2
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@stewgreen
“We ended up with low gas storage for a few reasons
#1 we have LNG terminals
whereas other countries don’t
so we can quite-quickly bring liquid gas from anywhere in the world
#2 Gazprom convinced Greens to convince the government that zero gas is needed
and that investment in the tech should end”
That’s better…
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Bill., Storage of gas in the U.K. does not require particularly high tech. The technology of creating large storage caverns in thick salt deposits is well understood. In the early 90s several wells were drilled into the Permian salt deposits beneath the North York Moors with some of the longest continuous cores I have ever seen. I was asked to describe them and calculate the percentage of non salt that, when dissolving a storage cavern would break off, accumulate on the floor of the cavern reducing the storage space. I thought I was set up for years of consulting work, but the project was dropped with no explanation as to why. Even then there were loud murmurings about how the U.K. was under supplied with respect to gas storage space and that was at a time when the North Sea was supplying most of the U.K.’s gas requirements.
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Now on R4 in w few mins
“where we are going to get our energy from in the UK.
Gas prices are soaring, a fire has knocked out a key power cable, and the weather has affected the amount of power that can be generated from our wind turbines.
And to meet our climate targets we’re going to become ever more dependent on renewable, *and* variable, sources.
Tom Butcher from the Met Office talks about wind forecasting.
He says that the winds have been between 10% and 20% lower in intensity this summer.
Professor Deborah Greaves, of Plymouth University and Head of the Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy Hub, explains how the UK is planning to increase the number of wind turbines, moving into deeper waters.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zv3t
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8pm R4 Britain’s Energy Crisis
Joining David Aaronovitch are :
David Sheppard, Energy Editor at the FT
Dr Sharon George, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, University of Keele
Michael Bradshaw Professor of Global Energy at the Warwick Business School
Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zv4b
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MetO guy this year’s winds are similar to 2018
so not so unusual
‘blocking system’
Said the low winds were predicted
The Plymouth uni prof didn’t speak confidently
She was pushed to say that wind tech would move into deeper water, too deep for pillars
so would be floating
‘storage is the key, probably by using spare wind to make hydrogen’
… She didn’t mention losses.
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More pre-COP26 propaganda:
“Luisa Neubauer: Climate change concerns higher than ever in Germany”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-58668313
“The German climate change campaigner Luisa Neubauer says that awareness about the “climate catastrophe” is “higher than ever” among Germans as they prepare to go the polls.
The 25-year-old activist, who is one of the organisers of school strikes for the climate in Germany, told BBC World News that more than 80 per cent of people were concerned about extreme weather events.
Action taken to tackle climate change needed to be just and fair she said.
“Using potential disadvantages as an excuse to not stop the biggest catastrophe of humanity that is already causing so much suffering across the is globe is hypocrisy,” she added.”
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And some more….
“Emergency climate debate in York”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment
At 13.57 today:
“”An “emergency climate debate” is taking place in York today with the Archbishop of York and the city’s Labour MP Rachael Maskell among those involved.
York is one of the worst affected cities in the country when it comes to flooding, with experts believing extreme weather events are becoming more common due to climate change.
Today’s debate is co-hosted by Christian Aid and the University of York and is taking place in the Berrick Saul Building on the university campus.
It’s called “Rise to the Moment – Yorkshire” and will discuss the upcoming COP26 summit in November on a local and national level.
It comes after Boris Johnson urged world leaders at the UN last night to take radical action to tackle climate change, insisting humanity has to “grow up.”
Today’s panel will include Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, alongside key local leaders from the church, science and politics.
Also on the panel is Jen Morris from the Young Christian Climate Network who told BBC Radio York: “It’s all very well us sitting here in a relatively well-off country telling people what needs to be done, but we’re not stepping up to the plate in providing the funds for other countries to also mitigate, adapt and protect themselves.””
When they say “debate” I wonder if any alternative views will be permitted?
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RE: Inside Science
–Mark Butcher of the Met Office. I thought this phrase was interesting:
So we are now vulnerable to nice weather. Good job team! Keep it up!
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“COP26: Police dogs in training ahead of the summit in Glasgow”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-58659556
“About 200 police dogs will be involved in policing COP26.
Dogs and their handlers have been taking part in training exercises ahead of the summit in Glasgow.
The event is the biggest policing event Scotland has seen since the G8 in 2005.
Support units from Scotland other parts of the UK will be involved.”
What a waste of scarce resources.
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And some more propaganda:
“£30bn greenprint for Glasgow”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58661390
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If you want to depress yourselves, read BoJo’s speech here:
“Boris Johnson’s climate speech annotated: what he said and what he meant
PM’s speech to UN general assembly is revealing in several ways. Fiona Harvey reads between the lines”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2021/sep/23/boris-johnsons-climate-speech-annotated-what-he-said-and-what-he-meant
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Insulate Britain asked the world why an 82-year-old would step out onto the M25 to get the government to launch (yet more bonkers) insulation schemes:
I think I’ve found the answer but I don’t know what it means.
IB’s tweet implied that the 82-year-old was a man but they were actually referring to Judy Bruce, who can be seen here talking at an IB event:
URL: drive.google.com/file/d/11b1UAX_MNqdaRKM5my4mfLDNB1XXh_Wk/view
Bruce is the one standing in front of the 45-year-old medically retired school nurse assistant holding up a sign saying ‘JUDY – 82yrs – SCIENCE TEACHER – CREATE good JOBS’.
Bruce was indeed a science teacher for a while but her LinkedIn and other sources show that most of her adult life has been about pursuing The Headless Way, also known as Seeing*.
This is a
woo woophilosophy devised by someone called Douglas Harding. Here’s Bruce in 2013 trying to explain its attraction:URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctN6dBOTI5U
Nope. Don’t get it.
But Seeing/Headless Way is prolly why the wacky old bird invaded the M25.
===
*Explanations of this particular woo-woo would be very welcome. I can’t make any sense of it at all.
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Alan, The reference Gazprom was not a reference to gas storage, but more to the alleged bankrolling of anti-frakking NGOs by the Russians.
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Local BBC news opens by playing Boris’s climate speech
as an intro into item about Raithlin Energy oil field.
Their shocking headline was
“OMG during a Climate Crisis the council planning dept will not object to the oil field”
..emm that is NOT news
The planning dept merely has a list of tick boxes
eg what’s the number of lorry movements ?
Has a risk assessment been done ?
etc.
The fact is the company has met the tickboxes
means the planning dept can’t object.
The real news is in 5 days time when the councillors vote.
So today’s item is just PR to help the objectors next week.
The presenter said ‘lookat this windfarm next door”
The argument is
: ‘Oh oil scary, scary’
vs ‘there are 285 million barrels in the field’
if they take out 100 million at $100/barrel
that’s $10bn in revenue flowing through the local economy
Plus whatever mining tax which could run into billions of pounds too.
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Now its the morning, and local radio news item #4 is
“protesters will object to Raithlin oilfield at next weeks planning meeting”
BBC is giving them a high level of PR
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7:04am Radio4 Harrabin is banging on about Demolition CO2
#1 One reason old buildings are demolished is cos its cheaper to rebuild than make an old building comply with eco laws
#2 He said people dont realise that making a kitchen extension has a CO2 impact
Ridiculous of course they do.
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Stew Green, the BBC website version of that story is here:
“Climate change: Construction companies told to stop knocking down buildings
By Roger Harrabin
BBC energy & environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58667328
“Britain’s top engineers are urging the government to stop buildings being demolished.
Making bricks and steel creates vast amounts of CO2, with cement alone causing 8% of global emissions.
They say the construction industry should where possible re-use buildings, employ more recycled material, and use machinery powered by clean fuels.
They are concerned about “embodied emissions”, which is the CO2 emitted when buildings and materials are made..”
And:
“The report, steered by the Royal Academy of Engineering, said a new way of thinking is needed before planning new homes, factories, roads and bridges.”
Funnily enough, not a word about the “carbon footprint” of wind turbines.
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“Half a million acres in Highlands to be ‘left to nature'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-58663615
Great news, but what about the wind turbines?
“The plan is to link up a network of landholdings to create “one vast nature recovery area”, which would include glens Cannich, Affric, Moriston and Shiel.”
Interesting. Glen Affric is one of the areas targeted by wind farm operators. We’ve been doing our little bit to object to them, and regularly receive emails from the anti-wind farm campaigners there. Despite previous planning rejections, the company behind the wind farm proposals keeps coming back, and has had another go this year.
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I can’t wait until it’s all over. Still the propaganda ramps up:
“Young global climate strikers vow change is coming – from the streets
Mass youth protests to hit more than 1,400 locations weeks before Cop26 climate summit”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/24/young-global-climate-strikers-vow-change-is-coming-from-the-streets
“A global climate strike by youth protesters on Friday will hit more than 1,400 locations with a message that “change is coming – from the streets”.
The strike is the first such worldwide action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, and is taking place just weeks before the vital Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Tuesday the world was “seemingly light years away from reaching our targets”.
The youth strikes, along with the increasingly severe impacts of extreme weather, have been credited with raising the profile of the climate emergency.
In Germany, two days before the general election, mass protests are planned in 420 towns and cities, and Greta Thunberg will address protesters in front of the Bundestag in Berlin.”
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Julia Bradbury the Climate campaigner in 2018
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“‘Cop26 is dream gig’: Magic Circle chief wants to aid planet with climate show
Megan Swann is first female Magic Circle president and has been conjuring since she was five”
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/sep/23/cop26-is-dream-gig-magic-circle-chief-wants-to-aid-planet-with-climate-show
“The first female president of the Magic Circle has said her dream gig would be to perform her environmental magic show in front of world leaders at the climate summit in Glasgow.
Megan Swann, 28, is the youngest person ever to be elected to a society set up in 1905 to guard the secrets of magicians. She is determined to use the role as a platform to call for action on the climate emergency.
And she is open to any last minute bookings at Cop26, which begins in Glasgow at the end of October….
…She said: “For Cop26 I would probably do my piece that describes the basic science of climate change. I have a clear balloon that represents the Earth’s atmosphere and I have a black ball that represents gases such as carbon dioxide. And that appears inside the balloon to show pumping those gases into the atmosphere.”
She added: “I proceed to use a needle to represent the sun’s energy and it gets stuck on the ball. It’s a really clear demonstration of the basic science behind climate change, which I’m sure they will know, but I think sometimes seeing it demonstrated really brings the message home.”
Swann reckons her experience of performing for children would help convey the basic message to world leaders….”
What a fabulous last line! Children and world leaders on the same level. Seems about right.
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“Why aren’t more big bike firms tracking their environmental impact?
Trek’s sustainability report appears to be the first of its kind in a sector that has had a free ride on the issue”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2021/sep/23/why-arent-more-big-bike-firms-tracking-their-environmental-impact
“Trek, one of the world’s biggest bicycle brands, recently released its sustainability report for 2021. Remarkably, this appears to be the first time a major bike company has published such a document.
While some other manufacturers make broad sustainability pledges or tout their success in reducing packaging waste, Trek’s report offers an ambitious array of concrete environmental commitments and a comprehensive analysis of the carbon footprint of its bikes.
This fills in an important gap in data. But many companies in other sectors have been releasing such environmental impact assessments for years. Why is this the first time we are seeing such a report from a major bicycle company, especially given that cycling is so widely touted as green?
That perception is a big part of the answer. Bike manufacturers have had a free ride in terms of tracking their own environmental impacts largely because of the assumption that biking is inherently environmentally friendly.
To be sure, cycling is one of the least environmentally impactful forms of transportation. Trek mentions this in its report, claiming, “If you ride about 430 miles you would have otherwise driven, you’ve saved the carbon equivalent of what it took to make your bike.” And Trek is right: in comparison with cars there is no contest.
An older and widely cited figure (based on a Dutch study and used by the European Cycling Federation) for the manufacturing footprint of bicycles is 96kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). According to Trek, the production of a basic model of its bestselling bike – an entry-level mountain bike – emits about 100kg of CO2e.
The report provides a new figure for e-bikes. While the ECF estimates a manufacturing carbon footprint of 134kg, Trek’s figures show that electrifying any bike adds about 65kg of CO2e to production emissions. Making a basic commuter e-bike would therefore produce about 165kg of CO2e.”
Nothing and nobody is safe from interfering climate worriers.
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stewgreen, would that be the Julia Bradbury who jetted all over the world for her TV walking programmes?
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“Megan Swann is a magician,
she has a degree in wildlife conservation and she uses magic to teach kids about climate change”
At 28 she is the Magic circles first woman president
& also *youngest* ever.
ITV news trailed that for their news last night
.. but I don’t see any tweets about it ..that means the item didn’t cut through.
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BBC is there now
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She changed her name it used to be Megan Knowles-Bacon
She’s also the Vets Association BVA policy officer.
Interesting old tweet of hers
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She’s been doing Green magic show since October 2018
Her tweet says #BuildBackBetter
.. https://www.twitter.com/MeganSwannMagic/status/1284446414144249858
Some similar tweets … https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=campaign%20%40MeganSwannMagic&src=typed_query&f=live
eg #BuildBackCleanerAir
The lockdown proved cleaner air is possible and that the public want to keep walking, cycling and working from home to keep it that way
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The BBC continues to give the extremists publicity, but seems to be aware that they may not be entirely popular, hence the headline is:
“Queues grow as activists block Dover port”. It’s only when you click on the link that the headline changes and you leatrn who the “activists” are:
“Port of Dover: Arrests made as Insulate Britain blocks port”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-58676610
“Seventeen people have been arrested as climate activists blocked the Port of Dover, causing queues of vehicles attempting to cross the Channel.
Insulate Britain said more than 40 people gathered at the port, after the group brought chaos on the M25 five times in the past fortnight.
The Port – Europe’s busiest ferry terminal – said passengers should take extra time for their journeys.
The protest began about 08.20 BST and was cleared by police two hours later.
However, Kent Police said it had caused miles of traffic to form on the A20 and the A2, approaching the port.”
That must be really good for CO2 emissions.
“The protest follows a court ruling won by the government which means climate change protesters could be jailed if they continued their campaign of blocking the M25.
More than 200 campaigners forced the closure of the motorway in parts of Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent on 13 September.
They also targeted the M11 near Stansted Airport in Essex and the M3 in Surrey.”
Surely the Government lawyers had enough wit to ensure that the Court injunction was more broadly drafted than just to refer to protests on the M25. Oh good grief, it didn’t:
“The High Court injunction, which was taken by National Highways, the government body which runs motorways, covers every part of the M25 and the Dartford Crossing, including slip roads and bridges.
It states that demonstrators are banned from “causing damage to the surface of or to any apparatus on or around the M25 including but not limited to painting, damaging by fire, or affixing any item or structure thereto”.”
Just how incompetent is this Government?
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I look forward to seeing a second injunction to cover Dover, the M3 and the M11 (but only the bit near Standstead airport). It’s as if the courts don’t want to stop IB so much as to take them on tour.
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Mark
“ Just how incompetent is this Government?”
You need to ask? With a focus solidly locked onto the political disaster that is to be COP26, we are surely doomed. But then again, for a government seemingly successfully selling the current energy crisis upon the two-pronged excuse of not enough wind and not enough wind turbines (how are they getting away with this?) they ought to be able to get away with anything.
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Big tent in Glasgow – November … it’ll need heating, light and laptop phone chargers … they’ve turned off the webcam on the Radisson RED hotel – I think it a fair bet that there’s propane bottles and a fleet of diesel generators … – anybody nearby who’ll take a peek?
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Link broke… I can see one generator (green item centre) – suspect there’ll be 4 or 6 white items lurking in a cluster nearby… and – the hot air propane heaters
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https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/welcome-to-blackout-britain/
Much that the average sceptic would agree with here (first ten minutes of the podcast is on the present energy situation). You can also listen on Spotify if you have that sort of thing.
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BBC again pushing the narrative that the current energy crisis is purely about rising gas prices and nothing to do with unreliable electricity production and rising electricity prices:
“Heat pumps: What are the alternatives to gas boilers?
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57159056
“With soaring gas prices, some people are looking into alternatives for staying warm in the home.
It fits with government policy that no new gas boilers should be sold from 2025 in order to meet environmental goals for the middle of the century….”
At least Roger very fairly points out the costs and problems associated with heat pumps:
“Climate advisers anticipate that most homes in future will be warmed by heat pumps.
These devices extract warmth from the air or the ground, or from water – a bit like a fridge operating in reverse.
They are on the market already but they are costly – between £6,000 and £18,000, depending on the sort you install and the size of your home.
Heat pumps are subsidised under a scheme called the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive. People receive payments for seven years based on the amount of renewable heat made by their heating systems.
However, MPs have called for better incentives to have heat pumps fitted.
What are the drawbacks?
Depending on the type of technology used, installation can be a lot of hassle – involving fitting bigger radiators and sometimes digging into floors.
What’s more, heat pumps need high levels of insulation which aren’t always possible on older solid-walled homes that populate many of the UK’s cities.
The recent Green Homes Grant was supposed to help get heat pumps established. But it failed and was scrapped after six months, to the dismay of MPs who want a multi-decade scheme to help people heat their homes cleanly.
The government has promised to produce a new incentive scheme before November.
Even with the grants it’s not clear yet whether the new scheme will make heat pumps cheaper to run than gas boilers.”
However, I have to take issue with his next sentence:
“One thing is certain though – the bills will be much more predictable and you won’t have a spike in price like the one that’s currently troubling people.”
If I understand heat pumps correctly, in order to warm your home to anything like an acceptable standard, you may well find yourself using large amounts of electricity. Given the recent hike in costs to the National Grid of bringing enough electricity generation on-stream to keep the lights on, it seems to me that there is absolutely NO guarantee that home owners dependent on electricity to heat their homes will be any more protected against price spikes and will have much more predictable bills than they do now when relying on gas boilers. Indeed, if we carry on down the mad road of making our electricity generation system even more dependent on unreliable and unpredictable sources of power, I should have though that bills would be more likely to be unpredictable and subject to price spikes.
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“What happened to Scotland’s state-run energy company?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58677769
“As many customers face uncertainty over their household energy bills, we take a look at why plans for a state-owned energy company in Scotland fell by the wayside.
In 2017 the Scottish government pledged to set up a publicly-owned, not-for-profit company to sell gas and electricity to customers at low prices by 2021. Why has this plan not come to fruition?…
…Has the government scrapped the plan?
Not in so many words.
In their 2021 manifesto, the SNP said that work on the public energy company had been “halted” during the pandemic, and efforts were being “refocused” on a public energy agency.
It said the agency would “coordinate and accelerate” the delivery of heat and energy efficiency work as well as “informing and educating” the public on required changes.
There have been fresh calls to revive the plan by SNP activists, but when asked if the Scottish government had dropped it altogether, Energy Secretary Michael Matheson said the party “had not anticipated” as great a need for decarbonisation in 2017.
He told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “The reality is a public energy company will not resolve what are very serious systemic problems in the UK energy network and the UK energy system that the UK government have failed to address over many decades.
“There’s been a significant change in both the market and what we now need to do to meet our climate change targets.”
Rather than having a state-owned company, Mr Matheson said the Scottish government hoped to move to a model based on district heating – taking heat energy from a number of different sources and passing it to consumers through insulated pipes.
He said this would help meet the target of decarbonising the heating of more than one million homes and 50,000 businesses….”
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“Judge issues protest warning as Paralympian jailed for plane stunt
Disruptive protesters will face serious consequences, says judge in sentencing Extinction Rebellion activist”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/24/judge-issues-protest-warning-as-paralympian-jailed-for-plane-stunt
“A British Paralympic gold medallist has been jailed for a year for glueing himself to the roof of a passenger jet in an Extinction Rebellion protest – the first custodial sentence for any action linked to the group.
XR said it was “shocked and devastated” by the sentence handed to James Brown, 56, at Southwark crown court in London on Friday afternoon, by a judge who warned that protesters who disrupt people’s lives “will face serious consequences”.
Judge Gregory Perrins said Brown, from Exeter, who has been registered blind since birth, “cynically used” his disability and put his own life at risk when he staged his protest at London City airport on 10 October 2019, at at the height of XR’s second extended campaign of protests in London.
That day, as hundreds of other XR protesters demonstrated at the airport in protest at expansion plans, Brown had climbed on top of a plane heading to Amsterdam, glued his right hand to its fuselage and wedged his phone in a door frame. He spent an hour livestreaming his protest before he was removed.
Brown’s trial at Southwark crown court heard his direct action led to 337 passengers missing their flights, and that it cost British Airways about £40,000.”
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“Climate crisis: do we need millions of machines sucking CO2 from the air?
From turning CO2 into rock to capturing the breath of office workers, a growing number of companies think the answer is yes”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/24/climate-crisis-machines-sucking-co2-from-the-air
“Direct air capture (Dac), as the technology is known, is challenging in more ways than just financially. Despite its potent climate heating properties, CO2 makes up just 0.04% of air and so trapping a tonne of the gas means processing a volume of air equivalent to 800 Olympic swimming pools.”
Yes, 0.04% sounds so much less than “400 parts per million”, doesn’t it?
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Portaloo entrepreneur James Brown was blind enough to qualify for the Paralympics but XR spinoff Heathrow Pause thought it was OK for him to fly drones near Heathrow Airport.
===
Very OT footnote: I was about to add something about Brown’s daughter Alice when a bat suddenly appeared and started circling what I proudly call my office. It must have come down the chimney. I left the room so that it could calm down and perhaps find a way out. Five minutes later and there’s no sign of it, but it might still be lurking somewhere.
That’s the first time that’s happened. Voles, shrews and yellow-necked mice are frequent visitors to the house – but a bat!
Clearly, better insulation is needed.
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Vinny, you obviously need a Cumbrian-made Chimney Sheep:
https://www.chimneysheep.co.uk/
As featured in the Guardian, so it would make you proud. Actually, I’ve met the lady behind the business, and she’s very nice. She’s the local bat expert who I eventually persuaded to obtain for me a permit under the Wildlife & Countryside Act so that when our resident maternity bat roost departed for the season I could block up the hole and stop them returning in the following year. (She did try to persuade me to let them stay, but the bat faeces and urine under the eaves were a bit much for me to allow that. Call myself an environmentalist!).
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See you didn’t get bats in the house
but now with CLIMATE CHANGE you do
#ConfirmationBias
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Obviously the sea has some natural radiation in it
so what you could do is put a pump at Bridlington and push the water thru a radiation filter
and then back into the sea
Now when you pump in the next batch wouldn’t you be pumping in much of the very same water molecules ?
Yep … same problem applies to global AIR filters.
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11:30am R4 will claim India is set to give up coal
“With a growing population of more than 1.3 billion, and a burgeoning middle class, India is facing an energy crunch in the near future.
Its needs are set to rise more than any other nation’s during the next 20 years,
according to the International Energy Agency.
India is currently the world’s third-largest emitter by country
and it still relies heavily on coal to keep its industries running.
As other nations are urged to phase it out, how easy will it be for such a fast-growing AND fast- developing nation to ditch one of its favourite fuels?
Rajini Vaidyanathan explores the dilemma in Odisha state.(ah new name for Orissa .. Puri is a town there )
He’s already done a TV piece ; https://twitter.com/BBCRajiniV/status/1440940877313191937
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Thanks, Mark. As it happens, I’ve bumped into Chimney Sheep’s chimney sheep before and have been tempted because they are an elegant solution, but bin bags full of loft insulation do quite a good job.
Stew, you’re right. Twenty years ago a sparrowhawk flew in through the front door and landed on the back of the chair I was sitting in. Hasn’t happened since. Climate change, obvz. More indoor bats, fewer indoor raptors. It’s not going to end well.
(Still no sign of the bat.)
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“Regulator sues Tesla Big Battery in Federal Court over power grid promises”
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/regulator-sues-tesla-big-battery-in-federal-court-over-power-grid-promises-20210923-p58u1b.html
“Australia’s Tesla Big Battery, one of the world’s biggest lithium-ion batteries, is facing legal action amid allegations it failed to deliver on its promise of providing services essential to maintaining the stability of the power grid.
The Australian Energy Regulator has filed Federal Court proceedings against the Tesla Big Battery, known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, which is owned and operated by French renewable energy giant Neoen.
It is alleged the Hornsdale Power Reserve failed to provide “frequency control ancillary services” – services used to maintain the safe operations of the grid following power disruptions – despite making offers and receiving payment from the market operator to be on stand-by to provide them.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla built the huge battery in a remote area of South Australia in 2017. Paired with the adjacent Hornsdale wind farm, the 150-megawatt battery with 193 megawatt-hours of storage has helped reduce intermittency and manage increased demand during periods when the grid is under the most strain.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) informed the regulator of Hornsdale’s alleged conduct after a power system disruption at Queensland’s Kogan Creek power station in October 2019.”
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“Climate change: Whisper it cautiously… there’s been progress in run up to COP26”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58678937
BUT:
“Despite the cautious sense of progress at the UN meeting, some major questions remain.
Many countries including China and India haven’t yet submitted new carbon cutting plans, as they are expected to do before the summit.
Just as important, the developed world is still scrambling to come up with the $100bn per annum that’s meant to flow to the developing world from 2020.
With just five weeks left until Glasgow, diplomats are working hard to try and secure a figure that has become a symbol of trust between rich and poor nations.
To get to the key number may require some creative accounting.
“One of the things that is floating around but is by no means certain to land, is this idea of $500bn over five years,” Jennifer Tollman told BBC News.
“It’s something I’ve heard come up more and more frequently, it’s not going to be $100bn in 2021, but maybe that needs to be $120bn by 2022.”
Coal is one of the other major questions.
It will be part of the discussions next week in Milan at what is termed the Pre-COP meeting. But critically it will also be on the agenda when the heads of the G20 group of countries gather in Rome, just days before Glasgow.
The G20 nations represents 80% of global emissions – if they can agree a strong statement that signals that coal has no future, this will be a major boost for COP26.
“The next 5 weeks are key,” said Laurence Tubiana, from the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris agreement.
“In particular we need G20 countries to deliver when they meet in Rome, and for those countries yet to submit stronger plans to do so – now!””
Nothing is ever enough….
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“Can green energy power Africa’s future?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58652848
“While much of the world is looking at how it can use more green energy and cut C02 emissions ahead of the COP26 climate summit, across Africa the challenge is somewhat different.
For many across the continent, it’s the challenge of accessing any energy supply at all. Some 600 million people in Africa don’t have access to energy – limiting their ability to start and run businesses.
Even in the mega-cities of South Africa and Nigeria, businesses have to deal with rolling power blackouts. So governments, entrepreneurs and innovators are working to fix this.
In Ghana, the country’s Ministry of Power says more than 80% of the population has access to electricity on the national grid. But reaching those in remote communities has been a challenge.
So the country is using microgrids – independent energy systems serving specific areas – to provide low-cost, clean energy, powered by solar and wind power to isolated communities.”
Heaven help them if they go down the road chosen by UK politicians!
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“Can sustainable fashion turn the red carpet green?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58515849
“It’s been a big few weeks for showbiz award ceremonies – and for many, the fashion glitz of the red carpet, from the Met Gala to the Emmys, is a huge part of the fun.
But increasingly it’s the question of sustainability, not just designer labels, that’s making the biggest fashion statement.
Just ask Northern Irish singer and presenter Hannah Peel, who turned heads at this month’s Mercury Prize ceremony in an eco-friendly rainbow dress – based on the Pantone colour chart.
Peel told the BBC’s Chi Chi Izundu that its designer Kitty Joseph made her outfit from eucalyptus trees, grown and harvested in the world’s driest regions.”
Sod the koala bears, eh?
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“Soaring electricity prices could add £500m to value of energy firm Drax
Share value of North Yorkshire power plant’s owner climbs to highest price in almost seven years”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/25/soaring-electricity-prices-could-add-500m-to-value-of-energy-firm-drax
“Britain’s gas crisis could add half-a-billion pounds to the market value of the energy company Drax as the company prepares to sell its biomass electricity at record market prices.
The FTSE 250 owner of the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire has climbed to its highest share value in almost seven years, as wholesale prices have spiralled to all-time highs, claiming seven small energy suppliers in the past seven weeks.
The company is not exposed to the cost of gas, which has quadrupled on the UK markets in the last year, but it will benefit from the impact of rising UK wholesale electricity prices, which were already some of the highest in Europe.”
Despite that last sentence, it’s apparently a gas crisis, not an electricity (or energy) crisis. No apparent understanding on the part of the Guardian that the UK having some of the highest wholesale electricity prices in Europe is thanks to the cost of renewables.
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John Ridgway, it does look as though Insulate Britain’s tour of Britain is set to continue:
“Injunction granted to stop Insulate Britain activists blocking port of Dover
Move follows arrest of 39 climate protesters who sat down on roads in and out of the port on Friday”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/24/port-of-dover-blocked-by-insulate-britain-activists
“The high court has granted an interim injunction preventing protesters from occupying roads around Britain’s busiest port.
It comes after Kent police arrested 39 people when activists with Insulate Britain – an offshoot of climate change group Extinction Rebellion – sat down on roads in and out of the Port of Dover at about 8.20am on Friday.
The demonstration, part of an ongoing campaign to tackle fuel poverty and reduce the UK’s climate emissions, created long queues of vehicles, with several drivers remonstrating with the activists.”
By the way, note to Guardian journalists – it’s the High Court, not the high court. I know there’s a tendency these days to dumbing down, avoiding the use of punctuation, good grammar, capital letters, that sort of thing, but please do try.
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“Cop26: Women must be heard on climate, say rights groups
Those worst hit by global heating are left out of talks, says feminist coalition calling for systemic change”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/25/cop26-women-must-be-heard-on-climate-say-rights-groups
“Women must be enabled to play a greater role at the Cop26 summit, as the needs of women and girls are being overlooked amid the global climate crisis, a coalition of feminist groups has said.
The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice has laid out a call for action at the UN general assembly, including demands that world leaders meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this November, must end fossil fuel expansion and move to 100% renewable energy.
More than 120 groups have signed the call, to be presented at a six-day online forum starting on Saturday, which also includes demands to promote women’s leadership and equity, protect the rights of indigenous peoples, improve food security, recognise a human right to water, and to protect forests, oceans and other ecosystems.
Osprey Orielle Lake, of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, and convener of the assembly, said: “Every day, we can see for ourselves forest fires burning, massive flooding, extreme droughts, people losing their livelihoods and lives– – we are in a global climate emergency.
“As the world prepares for one of the most important climate talks since the Paris agreement, we know solutions exist, and that women are leading the way.”…”.
For anyone interested:
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly-cta
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I think this is very true:
“An anti-green backlash could reshape British politics
And as radically as Brexit did”
https://www.economist.com/britain/an-anti-green-backlash-could-reshape-british-politics/21804957
“Whatever a british voter’s natural political hue—Tory blue, Labour red or Liberal Democrat orange—these days it ends up green-tinged. The Tory government talks effusively about “building back greener”. Labour wants a “green industrial revolution”. Liberal Democrats have used their position as the third party to argue for everybody to go further and faster. And then there are all the people who want to raze the carbon economy to the ground the day after tomorrow: not just the Green Party but also extremist groupuscules such as Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain.
Which leaves a gap in the market for something different: anti-green politics. Brexit transformed Britain by tapping into ordinary people’s resentment of distant elites, and anti-greenery could do the same. Environmentalism is driven by populists’ two big bogeymen, scientific experts and multilateral institutions. Green campaigners vie to befuddle the public with acronyms and jargon. Multilateral institutions override democratic legislatures in order to co-ordinate global action. In the public mind, greenery is coming to mean global confabs that produce yet more directives, and protesters who block city centres and motorways.”
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“Greta Thunberg pokes German politicians to up their game on climate
‘Germany is objectively one of the biggest climate villains,’ the activist said ahead of Sunday’s election.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/greta-thunberg-berlin-germany-climate-change-election/
“No German political party has a credible manifesto to fight climate change, said activist Greta Thunberg, ahead of a tightly fought general election Sunday.
The Swedish activist, who began a worldwide youth climate movement with her Friday school strikes, is in Berlin for the final days of campaigning. The strikes restarted this week after a prolonged hiatus due to the pandemic.
“It is clearer than ever that no political party is doing close to enough … but it’s even worse than that — not even their proposed commitments are close to being aligned with what would be needed to fulfill the Paris Agreement,” Thunberg said in a speech to thousands of cheering climate strikers in front of the Bundestag.
Her remarks are particularly awkward for the Greens, who argue they are the only party in the German election race that takes climate change seriously. Their chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock even attended a climate strike in Cologne on Friday.
“The election on Sunday is a climate election. Just like in Cologne, tens of thousands of children, adolescents and people of all ages across Germany attend [climate strikes], take to the streets and make it clear: They want a new departure because they know that our future is at stake,” Baerbock said on Twitter, posting a picture of herself in Cologne.
Had she attended the Berlin strike, it would have been hard for Baerbock to depict herself as siding with the protesters, given Thunberg’s frank rejection of the climate proposals put forward by all parties, including her own.
Thunberg’s criticism was based on a study published earlier this month by the German Institute for Economic Research that found that of the parties currently represented in the Bundestag, none is ambitious enough to keep the global temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Last week, the Greens’ co-leader Robert Habeck acknowledged that his party’s plans would not be enough to reach the goal, but insisted that they come closer than the other parties.
Either way, Thunberg showed no mercy in her typically uncompromising speech. “If you look at the different parties’ climate policies and compare them to the CO2 budget provided by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] … you can see that there’s a huge gap,” she said though she added that didn’t mean people should refrain from voting.”
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News of more BBC Climate propaganda
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Propaganda 24 hours has just started
5:30pm BBC1 Global Citizen Live ..mainly focused on Climate Change
across all bbc channels
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Friday local news “and Ben Murray CEO of Maritime UK
says jobs at the coast need to be green jobs”
Hang on is that a one man NGO
Is it a XR/Greenpeace front ?
No seems legit
“The collective voice for the UK’s maritime industries. We champion and work to enable a thriving maritime sector.”
Yet I see no founding date
Ben was described as Chairman and in 2017 as manager of Maritime UK
Pre 2017 “He was previously a Labour Party campaign manager, and is a director of a digital communications agency.”
The org has a green jobs campaign page
https://www.maritimeuk.org/spending-review/bid/
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He opened with “There will be jobs in responding to Climate Change and offshore wind “
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Irony alert:
“Long, cold winter ahead for Britain could keep gas prices soaring to record levels
Meteorologists and energy market experts predict a grim season for hard-pressed and vulnerable families”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/sep/25/long-cold-winter-ahead-for-britain-could-keep-gas-prices-soaring-to-record-levels
“The UK faces a greater than normal risk of cold winter weather this year, according to meteorologists, which threatens to ignite greater demand for gas and keep gas market prices sky-high until 2023.
Both meteorologists and energy market experts are predicting a grim season ahead for UK households, millions of which could lose their energy supplier as companies collapse under the pressure of rising gas prices….
…Early weather-pattern modelling by the US forecaster DTN points to a colder winter for the UK and northern Europe this year, with signals of a weakening of the polar vortex “which helps send Arctic air on the move”.
Although it is too soon for official forecasts, DTN said there was “certainly a greater than normal risk of a cold winter for the UK”, with February earmarked as “the coldest of the three winter months”.
Experts fear that a long, cold winter will expose the UK to gas shortages and severe market shocks because its gas storage levels are dwarfed by stores in neighbouring European countries.”
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Maritime UK shares the same address as UK Chamber of Shipping
which was founded in 1878, that makes it seem like the parent org
It’s as if Maritime UK was founded to broaden out and include other sectors and the port owners etc..
One would think that ship owners would want cheap fuel.
As I ever I think oil corps love Climate Policies cos they push up prices without really pushing down global consumption
So overall Mariitme UK funders have vested interest in pushing green dream
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Coop is inviting people to 8 hours of online COOKERY conferences from Oct 13-21st
Bizarrely then says the events will cover 4 woke strands
“What topics will we cover?”
One is “Fairer for our environment & planet
Find out more about the impact we’ve had together on tackling
climate change and how we can do even more together.”
I think thet just mucked up the email
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An XR media coordinator called Alanna Byrne said this about James Brown’s 12-month prison sentence for gluing himself to the top of a jet that was to have taken people from London to Amsterdam:
I like the Kermit the Frog and Wombles bits but where was Paddington Bear?
Here’s Ms Byrne’s current LinkedIn:
URL:uk.linkedin.com/in/alanna-byrne-0ab943127
Plenty of Peru (etc) in there.
Another self-penned profile by Ms Byrne from about five years ago:
URL:www.couchsurfing.com/people/alanna-byrne
That can’t be Waybacked, alas. Some cut-and-pastes:
Gawd, is that all, Ms Hypocrite? I visited three times times as many countries before I hit 30. You didn’t travel hard enough.
===
*Alice is a somewhat squiffy wombstriker.
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Is being partially blind now a defence to committing a criminal offence? News to me (and to the Judge, thankfully).
Globe-trotting warrior hypocrisy is nothing new, but we should continue to call it out wherever we find it. If sacrifices have to be made to “save the planet” then they should have to be made by everybody. Virtue-signallers shouldn’t get a free pass, and very rich virtue-signallers shouldn’t be able to carry on with their lifestyles unchanged, just because (unlike the masses, whose lives they want to impoverish) they can afford to pay for “carbon offsets”)
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“COP26: Australia PM undecided on attending crucial climate summit”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-58703128
“Australia’s prime minister has signalled he may not attend the UN’s landmark climate conference in November as his government faces continued criticism of its poor climate record.
In an interview, Scott Morrison said he had “not made any final decisions” on attending, suggesting it was a burden.
“It’s another trip overseas… and I’ve spent a lot of time in quarantine,” he told the West Australian newspaper.
The COP26 summit will be the biggest global climate crisis talks in years.
It is hoped that the 12-day meeting between world leaders in Glasgow, Scotland will produce the next emissions standards to slow global warming and keep temperature rise below 1.5C.
But Mr Morrison said he would consider other priorities, including the reopening of Australia’s borders.
“I have to focus on things here and with Covid. Australia will be opening up around that time. There will be a lot of issues to manage and I have to manage those competing demands,” he told the newspaper.”
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Still the pre-COP26 propaganda ramps up:
“How climate change is making inequality worse, especially for children”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-58677993
“Children born in high-income countries will experience twice as many extreme climate events as their grandparents, new research suggests.
But for children in low-income countries, it will be worse. They will see three times as many, say researchers at the University of Brussels.
The BBC’s population reporter Stephanie Hegarty has been looking at how climate change is already making poverty worse.”
It’s a dilemma, though, isn’t it? Action to “deal with” “climate change” is making poverty much worse.
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“Police diver patrols on River Clyde for COP26 conference”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-58699120
“Police divers are searching the River Clyde as part of security operations in the run up to the COP26 conference.
Specialist officers will monitor a four mile stretch of waterway during the climate summit in Glasgow next month.
Ministry of Defence police will provide a “24/7 armed policing presence” on the river alongside Police Scotland’s dive and marine unit.
The River Clyde will also be subject to movement and mooring restrictions for about three weeks.
…”The unit has six high-speed patrol boats that can respond quickly to incidents around Scotland….”.
Surely they should be setting an example by relying on oars and sails?
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“Covid has wiped out years of progress on life expectancy, finds study
Pandemic behind biggest fall in life expectancy in western Europe since second world war, say researchers”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/27/covid-has-wiped-out-years-of-progress-on-life-expectancy-finds-study
“The Covid pandemic has caused the biggest decrease in life expectancy in western Europe since the second world war, according to a study.
Data from most of the 29 countries – spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile – that were analysed by scientists recorded reductions in life expectancy last year and at a scale that wiped out years of progress.
The biggest declines in life expectancy were among males in the US, with a decline of 2.2 years relative to 2019 levels, followed by Lithuanian males (1.7 years).
Life expectancy losses exceeded those recorded around the time of the dissolution of the eastern bloc in central and eastern Europe, according to the research, led by scientists at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science.”
If true, might it suggest that our dear leaders have taken their eyes off the ball and are concentrating all their efforts on the wrong “crisis”?
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“Will taxpayers bear the cost of cleaning up America’s abandoned oil wells?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/21/infrastructure-bill-taxpayers-oil-cleanup-costs
It’s a fair question. I look forward to the next article in the series entitled “Will taxpayers bear the cost of cleaning up the UK’s abandoned wind farms?”
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Not every BBC bias issue is a Green issue
so if there is , I tend to first post it on biasedBBC and then repost it here
I am no sure how many people get to see the post twice,
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Labour going back to being moderate ?
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If clean up provisions are not written into planning permission
then the authorities are idiotic.
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No past archive
but the current page is archived https://archive.is/WjV3l
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I see our friends at Insulate Britain have been up to their old tricks. Does this mean they have to go directly to jail and stay there until they roll a double?
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Last September South Lanarkshire Council Scotland, took delivery of the flagship fleet of Renault Zoes on a three-year lease.
But a year on, they’ve hardly turned a wheel
They blamed the pandemic for leaving most of the 141 state of the art cars, bought by public money, unused.
That number seems high cos the quoted cost is £32K each, making it £4.5m
I wonder if it’s just 41 cars not 141
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/green-row-over-scots-council-25072357
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Thanks, Stew.
When I tried to Wayback it, a message said something like ‘This domain has been excluded from the Internet Archive’.
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Stew, the discrepancy is probably because they have to give them back in 2 years. But my question is, now that the batteries have run completely flat, are they actually ruined?
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Mark: ‘Globe-trotting warrior hypocrisy is nothing new, but we should continue to call it out wherever we find it.’
Willard would call such call-outs whataboutery or hippie-punching or summat and the very act of applying a label to it would be deemed a more than sufficient counter-argument.
(Does anyone know why he got banned from Twitter?)
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Was it for snide pomposity that was likely to cause offence?
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An excess of snidery might have been involved. Michael Tobis said that Willard ‘was playing around with racist tropes, apparently, though only to mock them’. Someone else said: ‘There was nothing racist about [Willard’s tweets] but they were violent. No doubt he was trying to be sardonic but that can be hard to detect.’
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The irony is that Willard is the one who is forever telling us that language is a social art. Anyone whose own artistry is insufficient to prevent a ban from twitter needs to keep his advice to himself.
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“Labour conference: Reeves promises £28bn a year to make economy greener”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58699072
“Labour has promised to spend an extra £28bn a year on making the UK economy more “green” if it wins power.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the money would go on offshore wind farms, planting trees and developing batteries.
In her speech to Labour’s annual conference in Brighton, she also pledged to phase out business rates to help the Covid-damaged High Street.
And she said giant tech firms would pay more tax in future.
An aide to Ms Reeves told the BBC the £28bn would come from government borrowing and the investment should “have a positive impact” on the wider economy.
In her speech, Ms Reeves said: “I will be a responsible chancellor. I will be Britain’s first green chancellor.””
The oxymoronic nature of this statement seems to have escaped her.
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“Hertfordshire’s first net-zero carbon school approved”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58691205
“Plans for a county’s first net-zero carbon school have been approved by councillors.
Hertfordshire County Council granted planning permission for a 300-pupil primary school and nursery in Buntingford.
The school will have triple-glazed windows and solar panels to power electric vehicle charging points.
Planning officer at the authority, Rob Egan, said there was a “compelling need for this school”.
The two-storey building, to be built on part of the former Sainsbury’s depot site, off the A10, hopes to open for September 2022….
…Councillors were told air-source heat pumps will heat the building and its water.
The school will include a rooftop outdoor classroom, play areas and a “forest school”.
All the teaching spaces in the school will face north, without south-facing windows that could cause rooms to over-heat, while the “social functions” of the school would face south.
There would also be conservation measures incorporated to limit the amount of water used.”
The idea of having classrooms facing north is bizarre, or at least would be where I live, especially if relying on ineffective air-source heat pumps. Here, houses with useful south-facing rooms are much sought-after.
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Jit, as regards the M25 protestors:
“Insulate Britain: M25 targeted near Heathrow as activists stage protest”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58704508
“”You can throw as many injunctions at us as you like, but we are going nowhere,” the campaign group said.”
Actually, you might be going somewhere – to prison.
At the end of the day, as they appear to be in contempt of Court, it’s for the Court, not ministers, to decide whether or not they go to prison, but they do seem to be showing contempt, in the very real sense of the word, so realistically, prison should be a very real possibility. If they aren’t sent to prison to stop them doing this (since the obtaining of an injunction hasn’t worked) then the injunctions are effectively pointless.
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“The trillions in our pension pots could be key to tackling the climate crisis
Richard Curtis
Ahead of Cop26, the UK could take the lead in diverting investments away from carbon emitters
Richard Curtis is a filmmaker and activist”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/27/pension-pots-climate-crisis-cop26-carbon
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
“‘I blew a £150,000 inheritance in wind farms and fear it’s gone for good’
Mini-bond investors may only receive 30pc of their money back”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/invested-150000-inheritance-wind-farms-fear-gone-good/
“Holders of “mini-bonds” issued by Future Renewables Eco, a wind farm investment company, are braced to lose more than half their investments after it collapsed into administration on Sept 17….”.
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The comments with the most recommendations on the article by Richard Curtis are not very supportive. These are Guardian readers! Maybe there is hope. Green policies are great- as long as they don’t impact your finances and standard of living
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“Climate Change: Don’t sideline plastic problem, nations urged
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58711403
“Scientists are warning politicians immersed in climate change policy not to forget that the world is also in the midst of a plastic waste crisis.
They fear that so much energy is being expended on emissions policy that tackling plastic pollution will be sidelined.
A paper from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Bangor University says plastic pollution and climate change are not separate.
It says the issues are actually intertwined – and each makes the other worse.
Manufacturing plastic items adds to greenhouse gas emissions, while extreme weather such as floods and typhoons associated with a heating planet will disperse and worsen plastic pollution in the sea.
The researchers highlight that marine species and ecosystems, such as coral reefs, are taking a double hit from both problems.”
I half agree with this, but only half. We can’t do anything about climate change, but we’re obsessed with it. There are, on the hand, practical measures that could be taken about things like plastic pollution, if politicians and the elites put a fraction of the effort into it that they do into climate change.
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“Climate change: New planning policy in Wales a UK first”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58711041
Well, I’m not sure I agree with the need to factor in climate change, since nobody knows how that will pan out, but it’s encouraging to see the authorities waking up at last to the fact that so many problems, such as flooding, are made so much worse by allowing developers to build on flood plains, etc.
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This is clearly the latest push from the Guardian and the BBC:
“Green investing: How your savings can fight climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58544966
“A year ago Bethan Batiste started wondering whether she could be putting her savings to better use.
“I’ve always been very concerned about the climate,” the 23-year-old says. “I’ve watched a lot of YouTubers. And I think it was one of them that made me go, yeah, I should look at my money.”
Bethan works part-time in a shop in Guernsey, and doesn’t manage to save a great deal, but she has £1,000 put away for a rainy day, and she would like to know it’s not doing more harm than good.
“I don’t want to be funding fossil fuels or big mining operations,” she says.
As the urgency to act on climate change has become clearer, many people feel the same: wondering whether by moving their money they could make a difference.”
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“Power shortages in China hit homes and factories prompting global supply fears
Factories were closed to avoid exceeding limits on energy use imposed by Beijing to promote efficiency”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/power-shortages-in-china-hits-homes-and-factories-prompting-global-supply-fears
“Widening power shortages in China’s north-east have left homes without power and halted production at numerous factories, while some shops operated by candlelight as the economic toll of the squeeze mounted.
Residents in the north-east, where autumn temperatures are falling, reported power cuts and appealed on social media for the government to restore supplies.
Rationing has been implemented during peak hours since last week, while residents of cities including Changchun said cuts were occurring sooner and lasting for longer, state media reported.
China’s power crunch, caused by tight coal supplies and toughening emissions standards, has hurt production in industries across several regions and poses a risk to already strained global supply chains.”
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Is there no hopeless argument that they won’t use?
“Weatherwatch: the threat to Trident from global heating
Rising sea levels present a hazard to the UK’s nuclear deterrent that could cause a major accident”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/25/weatherwatch-the-threat-to-trident-from-global-heating
“The US has acknowledged that global heating is a significant threat to its defence capability, with 79 military bases, including 23 nuclear installations, subject to sea level rise and frequent flooding.
While the UK has far fewer military bases to worry about, the key Trident nuclear deterrent requires a submarine to be constantly at sea ready for action. A series of coastal sites is needed to keep these boats and their weapons serviced at all times.
In 2010, a UK National Security Strategy acknowledged that sea-level rise was a hazard to this programme that could cause a major accident. In the 11 years since then, nothing seems to have happened to address the problem even though the estimates of future sea level rise and storm surges have become ever more alarming.”
No link to support that last claim, needless to say. I suspect that’s because there’s nothing in it in reality, just computer-generated “estimates”.
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“COP26: Man walks from Liverpool to Glasgow in climate change challenge”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-merseyside-58721281
“A 70-year-old man has embarked on a 290 mile (466km) walking challenge to raise awareness about climate change.
Andrew James set off from Pier Head in Liverpool and aims to reach the UN climate change conference hosted in Glasgow, which begins on 1 November.
“The most critical issue of the day is the climate and ecology emergency,” Mr James said.”
And that, apparently, is a news story. Of course his walk won’t “raise awareness about climate change” – for goodness’ sake, it’s rammed down our throats morning, noon and night. It does, though, give an opportunity to the likes of the BBC to run yet another propaganda piece ahead of COP 26.
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Dear Page Turner your services will soon be desperately needed as Open Mic becomes ever more bloated and reaches 400 entries. My iPad is currently suffering from St Vitus Dancing when I attempt to read Mark or Stew’s latest wisdom pearls.
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“Roath Park: Flood defence work at Cardiff park to begin”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58720236
“Major work is set to begin to make a Cardiff park’s lake safe from climate change-induced flooding.
Engineers from Arup will begin month-long ground investigations at the southern end of Roath Lake in November.
Major upgrade work to the dam at the 30 acre man-made lake will begin shortly after and run until late 2023.
Cardiff council said the risk of the city being hit by extreme floods or heavy storms was growing due to climate change.”
In a nice irony…
“The work could include chopping down trees and the council has said it will “seek to replace any trees that are felled”.”
And as Greta might have said, blah, blah, blah:
“Cllr Michael Michael, cabinet member for clean streets, recycling and environment, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Climate change means we are likely to have more frequent and more intensive storms in Cardiff, so the dam spillway needs to be able to cope with the potential for these more extreme weather events.””
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Switch on bingo 3:45pm Radio4
Banging on about storms getting stronger cos of “Climate Change”
The speaker was firm laying out his version of the science
and saying ..’see Ida was stronger’
Ida was a US storm but the prog is” Qasa’s Farm – Building Resilience in Bangladesh”
The prog blurb “Qasa Alom explores the future of his farm on the frontline of climate change in Bangladesh
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Here’s a Drax twitter advet
inserted into the search page, when I searched on the topic “NHS portal”
It says “lead the world in fighting the climate crisis.”
.. That’s the Pioneer fallacy
where people assume being first is good
Whereas in reality you make a lot of costly mistakes
that other countries get to learn from for free.
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4 replies/quotetweets to that tweet
All criticise Drax
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I bet the Labour Party ..Climate Change debate was impartial
given that the only named sponsor was DRAX
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Interesting that Sandbag The green PR outfit now renamed Ember
are opposed to Drax
and got a Sun article published
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Yes, My mistake I compared the 3 year lease price to the buy-outright price
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11pm GBnews : Rod Liddle argues against wind power
..need to invest in nuclear
It will appear as a clip later
Ah it’s based on his 23 Sept article in The Sun
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16216536/windfarms-only-give-a-fraction-of-the-power-we-need-we-should-have-been-investing-in-nuclear-power/
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Insulate Britain’s Fiona Atkinson vs JHB
as protesters defy court order to block the M25 again.
Julia: “If you claim your concern is people living in cold homes, why are you not in favour of cheap reliable energy?”
6m 50s Fiona: “You’re a climate change denier”
… https://youtu.be/7OacDmcX5Nk
=============
#1 IB seem to post videos even if their own speaker does badly
#2 Fiona argued that the poor would need less energy if insulation was better
but is happy to make sure much more of the energy the poor use is expensive solar/wind
The upshot is the poor would not have cheaper energy so would still be cold.
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Testing, to be honest.
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Time to send them to prison, for contempt of Court, surely?
“Insulate Britain protesters block Swanley M25 junction”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-58732308
“Insulate Britain protesters have glued themselves to the road and are blocking a roundabout on a junction of the M25.
Kent Police was called to junction 3, the Swanley Interchange, at 07:30 BST and the road has been closed.
Congestion is building anti-clockwise towards the Dartford crossing and has backed-up along the London-bound stretch of the A2 from Gravesend.
Motorists are advised to expect delays and find alternative routes while officers work to remove the protesters.”
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More pre-COP26 propaganda from the UK’s national broadcaster:
“Life at 50C: Mexico’s struggle for water”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-58724297
“In Mexico’s Sonora desert, many towns struggle for water. Climate change is causing once-mighty rivers to dry up and temperatures to rise to deadly levels.
In Rio de Colorado village, the river has not flowed for decades.”
If the river hasn’t flowed for decades, it’s not a new situation, is it? I suspect the reason is rather more complex than the usual “it’s climate change, innit?”:
“The efforts at modernization and economic development begun in the Díaz period would continue through the Revolution and on through the rest of the 20th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the process of electrification greatly increased the demand for copper, which led to a boom in mining in Sonora and neighboring Arizona. Cananea grew very quickly from a village of 900 to a city of 20,000. It also led to a network of roads, railroads and other connections across the border. However, organized development of the state’s agriculture was put on hold because of the Revolution, the Great Depression and other political upheavals.
In the 1930s, Sonora benefitted from a number of national policies aimed at developing the cities on the border with the United States and at building a number of dams to help develop agriculture and the general water supply. Major agricultural reform was begun in the 1940s in the Mayo River area, when the delta was cleared of natural vegetation and made into farmland. Water for these farms was secure through the building of the Mocúzari Dam about 15 miles (24 km) from Navojoa. When it was completed in 1951, there was a system of canals, wells and highways to support large-scale agriculture for shipment to other places.
In the last half of the 20th century, the state’s population has grown and foreign investment has increased due to its strategic location along the border and its port of Guaymas. More than 200 international and domestic enterprises moved into the state, allowing for the development of modern infrastructure such as highways, ports and airports, making the state one of the best connected in the country. A bridge was built over the Colorado River to link Sonora with neighboring Baja California in 1964. One important sector of the economy has been industry, culminating in the Ford automotive plant in Hermosillo and a number of assembly plants called maquiladoras on the border with the United States. One of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy has been tourism, now one of the most important sectors of the economy, especially along the coast, with the number of visitors there increasing every year. This has led to a surge in hotel infrastructure, especially in Puerto Peñasco.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonora
Where are the BBC’s fact-checkers when you need them?
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Journalism Researcher in Climate for BBC
retweeting Ed_Miliband , official Labour Party tweet
BTW hydrogen steel is not currently economically viable
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Today’s More or Less energy expert blamed UK wind for recent crunch Her colleague just tweeted a link to their data bank but it is actually much more like the usual pro wind corp PR spin “Looking for the facts behind the headlines of UK energy crisis then check out the @SPGlobalPlatts Atlas of Energy Transition™. Key data maps showing wind capacity, LNG imports, solar and energy fundamentals in one place.. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/1e05ebf390554cb8b7cefa80e521afda Once you get into those pages, they are actually very noisy and his two Twitter pics cover the essentials #1 The wind graphic put’s Germany as biggest by far, but that might be CAPACITY rather than output Output is claimed at 24.5% of demand … https://twitter.com/baldersdale/status/1439891342574989318 #2 The UK is the one with most offshore wind … https://twitter.com/baldersdale/status/1439891342574989318
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Re Reader-View ..my post on More or Less is a little less readable ..
cos the system doesn’t show the linebreaks that I put in
Ah The facebook trick of using Shift-Enter, instead of just enter ..seems to give a proper linebreak
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Stew: On the joys of Shift-Enter:
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Local news continues to have lots of Green activist PR here
1# Rathlin oil field PP application
They made out the decision would come on Monday so had a big build up last week
but that was just the pleading meeting
They never actually reported what happened there
– Today ITV news was live from the site where old ladies were blocking the road
The presenter said the actual decision will be “on Thursday night”
– Today BBC now have Yorkshire Greta called Charlotte
=====================
But both preceded the item with another item
massive PR job for the army’s new solar farm
daft cos it’s built over perfectly good land
so we’ll be cutting down trees abroad to clear land to replace the food
The reporter said ‘a saving £0.25m here every year”, smile smile
FFS .. and costing taxpayers more
Jeremy Quinn MP was on doing the PR
The additionally precede the item with another item
saying “a lot of new solar farms will be coming to Lincolnshire.
Oh next item a Dutch lorry driver/owner driving in Dutch produce to the UK
.. oh it’s an item claiming the UK producers can’t harvest/transport the food we have.
Oh its’ Jeremy Quinn speaking again
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Surely enough is enough. What’s the point of the time and expense of going to Court for an injunction if those at whom it is aimed continue to ignore it with impunity?
“Insulate Britain: Protesters block M25 junction twice in a day”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-58732308
“Insulate Britain protesters blocked the same junction of the M25 for a second time on Wednesday.
Eleven activists were arrested after police were called to junction 3, the Swanley Interchange, at 07:30 BST.
The roundabout was reopened but protesters returned at about 13:00 BST, with one gluing himself to a police car while others superglued themselves to the road.
Police said they arrived within three minutes and arrested 16 more people.
All 27 were held on suspicion of obstructing the highway and conspiracy to commit criminal damage and are in custody, a police spokeswoman said.”
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Tonight more BBC green promo tweets
Local BBC promo tweets against oil field
#1 video tweet https://twitter.com/looknorthBBC/status/1443275633195249666
“This is not a drill – the schoolgirl trying to stop gas exploration in East Yorkshire to save it for future generations.”
#2 same video “The schoolgirl trying to stop gas drilling in West Newton to save it for future generations.”
.. https://twitter.com/looknorthBBC/status/1443305831773081604
Local BBC promo tweets for army solar farm
#1 59s video https://twitter.com/looknorthBBC/status/1443262582442373121
#2 Reporter 44s video https://twitter.com/looknorthBBC/status/1443299288373620736
#3 59s video https://twitter.com/looknorthBBC/status/1443299288373620736
#4 story https://twitter.com/looknorthBBC/status/1443309727178502149
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Local ITV Green PR tweets tonight
anti-oil-field tweet https://twitter.com/itvcalendar/status/1443263861679865856
Their pro army solar farm tweet
.. https://twitter.com/itvcalendar/status/1443247019515129858
Their special WWF carbon calculator tweet https://twitter.com/itvcalendar/status/1443208712663994368
oh also a PR video from the ITV reporter for Jo Coxes sister
.. https://twitter.com/harry_horton/status/1443263216285622272
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Hotscot’s tip
yet another journalist to join the ranks of the BBC’s Harrabin et al. A quite unbelievable article in the spectator from this no nothing journalist who doesn’t recognise that converting a 3 bedroom house to NetZero standards will cost between £75,000 and £100,000 for the householder.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-gas-crisis-shows-how-important-net-zero-is
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stewgreen, I’m surprised by that in the Spectator, to say the least. It is normally the source of sensible scepticism. Still, I suppose to give them credit, they allow differing views on the subject to be expressed on their website, which is more than can be said of the Guardian and the BBC.
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“Comic series curated by celebrities for climate causes”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-58711401
“What do Cara Delevingne, Andy Serkis, Richard Curtis and Taika Waititi all have in common? They are just some of the celebrities turning their environmental concerns into comics.
It is all the idea of Paul Goodenough, a writer and producer who has spent the last two years leading a campaign pairing stars with eco-experts and comic book writers and animators. The strips they then develop are published online every month, as part of Rewriting Extinction, a campaign raising awareness.
Money from the project go to conservation charities such as Greenpeace and Born Free.”
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ICYMI
Grant Shapps announces all EV chargers will now be fitted with timers to stop them working at peak times and a random 30 minute turn on delay to stop them all turning on at once. It’s unclear if the timers will be extended to public chargers and if retrofits will happen…..
Given this “logic” – tea breaks are going to get interesting when the timers are added to kettles? – in the meantime will the council be switching off those nice new chargers at peak times?
Energy wardens seem a possibility?
A diesel generator looks to be the new “must have” EV accessory?
It’s not easy being Green
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Another irony alert:
“The photographers recording climate change in Scotland
Published9 hours ago”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58722127
“The impact of climate change has been noticeable in Scotland over the last few years with higher summer temperatures, summery conditions lasting longer, increased incidences of flooding and heavier snow.
BBC Weather Watchers, who regularly take photos of their local areas or places they have visited – for use by the BBC, have been intentionally or inadvertently recording the changing environment.
Four of them, Sam Jarvie, Jackie Selcraig, Graham Ross and Martin Burnett feature in a BBC One Scotland programme Our Planet Now – Scotland Climate Change Special which will be broadcast at 20:00 on Thursday.
They spoke to BBC Scotland about the changes they have noticed in recent years.”
“”The weather has changed quite a bit,” she says. “I’ve never seen the river so low, which is concerning. You would expect things to be green this time of year. We have not had the rainfall we would normally have.””
I thought rain and floods were the problem?
Oh hang on, they are:
“We are getting more and more rain now that’s causing more and more floods compared to what we had years ago”
“”There was a really frosty April and I’m certain that impacted on wildlife. The vegetables have all been eaten and this year’s crop has been poor.””
I thought heat was the problem?
Oh, hang on, it is:
“We never used to get temperatures of 27-30C, certainly not in September.”
Oh, hang on, it IS cold that’s the problem (very next sentence, too):
“We’re getting events now which we didn’t get before – the Beast from the East a few years ago – the snow was so deep I couldn’t walk through it.
“I had to get a farmer to rescue me after six days. That’s unheard of round here. It is worrying seeing all these dramatic changes. ”
[1947? 1963? Unheard of?].
“There’s more wind than we used to have, which in turn will give you coastal erosion”
Ha, ha, ha! Nice timing, given that this year has seen very low wind levels.
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“Italy climate minister accepts Thunberg’s ‘blah, blah, blah’ criticism”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58743515
Never mind the content of the article. My grump is about the BBC’s increasing failing to use possessives. Why isn’t the headline “Italy’s climate minister” or “Italian climate minister”?
As for the article itself:
“Italy’s climate minister says he accepts the criticism of Greta Thunberg who this week accused politicians of “30 years of blah, blah, blah”.
Roberto Cingolani told the BBC Ms Thunberg raised “a serious problem, we were not credible in the past”.
He criticised those who “want renewable energy ” but don’t want “the power station in their back yard”.
Mr Cingolani was speaking as climate ministers gather in Milan for the final UN talks before COP26 in Glasgow.
They are under pressure to clear the way for their bosses, the world’s presidents and prime ministers, who will arrive in Glasgow in early November, the BBC’s environment correspondent Matt McGrath says.”
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“Police say charging M25 climate protesters ‘difficult’
Police arrest 11 after climate crisis protesters defy court injunction and glue themselves to road”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/29/insulate-britain-activists-block-m25-by-glueing-themselves-to-road
“Police have claimed it is “very difficult” to bring charges against environmental activists after 27 members of Insulate Britain were arrested for blocking a roundabout at a junction with the M25….
…But Townsend said: “It has been very difficult for the police because if they charge the protesters with a relatively minor offence, it is likely to be discontinued.
“If they try to elevate the charge to a more serious one, they are finding it is not reaching the necessary threshold….”.
I would, in different circumstances, have some sympathy with that opinion. The police may find that whatever they do, the CPS will disagree. However, in this case, the answer is obvious. These people are wilfully, contemptuously and repeatedly breaching a Court injunction. The answer is to return them to the Court that granted the injunction, in order that they may be sentenced for their contempt. It’s not rocket science. If they are not going to be dealt with by the Court in that way, then there was absolutely no pint in obtaining the injunction in the first place. What’s the problem? Is the government afraid of creating climate martyrs? If so, they’re not reading the public mood. Most people, I imagine, will be delighted to see them locked up and the disruption brought to an end.
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They really are determined to deny us reliable, efficient and cheap methods of heating our homes:
“UK’s home gas boilers emit twice as much CO2 as all power stations – study
Data highlights urgent need for government action to introduce low-carbon heat pumps, researchers say”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/29/uks-home-gas-boilers-emit-twice-as-much-co2-as-all-power-stations-study
“The millions of gas boilers in the UK’s homes produce twice as much climate-heating carbon emissions as all the nation’s gas-fired power stations combined, according to an analysis.
The finding highlighted the urgent need for a strong government policy to rapidly introduce low-carbon heating such as heat pumps, the researchers said.
The data also shows that home gas boilers collectively produce eight times as much nitrogen dioxide as the power plants. NO2 is an air pollutant linked to tens of thousands of early deaths a year in the UK.”
As for this:
“Heat pumps run on electricity and are efficient but they cost much more to install than gas boilers. The CBI has said the installation of new gas boilers must be banned from 2025 or the UK’s net zero climate target will be “doomed”.”
What on earth does it have to do with the CBI? And I question the use of the word “efficient”. We once holidayed in an eco-house in Scotland which relied on a heat pump, and it was desperately cold – in July. I jest not. Everything I have read suggests that gas boilers are much more efficient.
As for this:
““Amid a frightening gas price crisis, and a decade of opportunity wasted by the government to insulate our homes, supporting households to begin switching to clean heat pumps has come suddenly into focus.
“It’s high time the government finally gave us all the tools we need to modernise our homes, and ensure a safer, cleaner future.””
Why concentrate on high gas prices? They seem determined to close their eyes to high electricity prices, which are (to use a phrase much loved by climate worriers) “baked in” to the system they have created, whereas the spike in gas prices might be temporary. As for insulation, yes, in principle it’s a good idea, but as ever the simple solutions often aren’t what they seem. I’m aware of three households which have been left wringing wet after inappropriate cavity wall insulation was fitted, and their heat bills are higher than ever, in a desperate attempt to keep their homes dry.
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More re last nights Green PR items on local news
The radio station published a map of the Lincolnshire solar farms proposal
It centres on Gainsborough
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That’s the Guardian narrative
that doesn’t prove that is what the police are actually saying today.
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Too late! Please comment on the next Open Mic page.
Thank you for your input.
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