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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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“Eden Project: Geothermal heat project ‘promising'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-59176729
“A three mile-deep (4.8km) borehole has shown “promising” prospects for a geothermal heat plant in Cornwall.
Drilling started in May on the borehole at the Eden Project.
The eco attraction hopes that it will lead to a geothermal heat plant, unlocking heat for Eden and nearby industries.
If successful, the scheme would use steam created from hot water found deep underground to power turbines and produce electricity.
Eden estimates that the heat produced will be the equivalent of heating more than 35,000 homes.
“The well has found its target fault structure and the early signs of high temperatures and good permeability at depth are promising,” said a statement from the Eden Project….”.
I think this is called “good fracking”
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Well worth a read, IMO – I think Brendan O’Neill pretty much nails it:
“Climate Derangement Syndrome
It’s the hysteria about climate change that poses the greatest threat to humanity.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/05/climate-derangement-syndrome/
“We need to talk about this. We need to talk about Climate Derangement Syndrome and how frankly batshit crazy it has become. More to the point, we need to talk about how dangerous this way of thinking is to reason, freedom and the future prosperity of humankind. Indeed, it isn’t climate change that threatens to undo the great gains of human civilisation – it’s the hysteria about climate change.”
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If you purchased today’s copy of the Guardian you also received gratuitously a large pullout supplement “COP 26: the time is now”, distributed on behalf of My Green Pod.com. Near the back is a two-page item upon an eco-friendly pet food.
Highlights include
“ Feeding a medium-sized dog traditional meat-based food generates the same amount of carbon in its lifetime as taking 37 return flights from London to Barcelona “
“This insect ingredient makes Yora the lowest CO2- producing premium pet food in the world”
I know either of my dogs will scoop up and devour the occasional succulent bluebottle but really.. they would never forgive me, and I would not be able to look them in the eye.
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Alan, thanks for the heads-up. I know you’ll see your dogs right, but now I know that as I don’t own any dogs, I can take 73 return flights from London to Barcelona and still have a smaller carbon footprint than you. Greta would be proud of me.
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I am surprised that two significant financial proposals impacting decarbonisation of British society have not had much comment in Cliscep. Both worry me. The first is the many and varied proposals to disinvest in the petroleum industry. Everyone from churches to supermarkets seem to be at it. What most people don’t realise is that oil companies are not very good wealth generators and are largely dependent upon raising funds to pay for exploration. They make their profits mostly from downstream activities. I recall how ill informed my undergraduate students were. They thought big oil was immensely rich and anyone with oil company shares was as rich as Croesus. In my time of teaching I could refer to several National newspapers that then published dividends different companies were paying. Oil companies were always near the bottom. So it seems to me that they must be vulnerable to any attempts to curtail investment in their upstream activities. My pensions all are heavily invested in the petroleum and petrochemical industries. I worry, I bet the pension managers are as well.
The second cause for concern is Boris’s statement that all businesses will have to submit their plans for decarbonisation. These will be “closely scrutinised. Not only will this be yet another interference but clearly will be a prelude to additional unnecessary control to counter an imaginary threat. I am worried: unnecessarily so? Discuss.
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No, Alan, you are not being unnecessarily worried. We should all be concerned about how the oil companies are being picked out for special treatment. Take the following news item on the BBC website this morning:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-59070451
Apparently the State of Massachusetts is suing ExxonMobil for ‘greenwashing’, i.e. producing adverts that are overstating their green credentials.
For heaven’s sake, there isn’t a commercial organisation or government on Earth that isn’t doing that. Green hypocrisy and lying is a one of the basic human rights when it comes to climate change, so why is ExxonMobil not allowed to do the same? Are we supposed to not have sympathy because they have become filthy rich from raping Mother Earth? And, of course, this is not just a one off. According to the report:
“Some 21 US states are taking fossil fuel giants – including Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell – to court for alleged greenwashing and, it is claimed, engaging in a decades-long disinformation campaign about the effects of climate change. The companies deny the claims. It’s part of a pattern of legal action against fossil fuel companies, which is also happening elsewhere in the world.”
Naturally enough, Oreskes gets to raise her profile by adding a quote:
“The reality of their business model is to continue to exploit, develop and sell oil and gas. But their advertising, their communications, make it seem as if they’re these great guys committed to sustainability and renewable energy.”
The worst thing though, it seems, is that they are doing all of this exploiting, developing and selling in secret. The bastards!
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Well, to the states the oil companies should direct a simple question. Do you still want us to supply oil products to you, yes or no?
A “no” would very quickly become a “yes.”
There is no world in which oil is not necessary out as far as the eye can see. If that is true oil companies are also necessary – with the caveat that rather than accept our own oil companies, we might just buy oil etc from Russia and the Gulf. (Qatar apparently being signed up to provide us emergency gas this winter, and F*** the Bowland shale.)
In the mid term there is the danger that, in extremis, oil companies try to belatedly become subsidy farmers, as I alleged a couple of months ago for BP in https://cliscep.com/2021/09/01/bps-desperate-stroke/
That will provide cash flow in the short term, but if as I expect the subsidy regime is unsustainable, it could leave them wishing that they had stuck to their guns. Perhaps indeed the answer for those companies would be to base themselves in a different jurisdiction…? Or offer our government a similar ultimatum: do you want us, yes or no?
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Sorry JIT but major oil companies are all limited public companies (except I suppose for Aramco). They are responsible to their shareholders and investors. They cannot therefore risk being turned down by posing your question. Politicians will do the stupidest things – look at their efforts at COP26. Nor in the USA can they combine to make a common threatening stance.
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A thought experiment only. You mustn’t take me too seriously. Of course it would be impossible to level such an ultimatum: it merely crystallizes what we all already know, which is that oil companies are vital, and attempts to sue them out of existence are the definition of insanity.
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BBC local news
#1 “Hull Labour MP Diana Johnson says” something about fireworks
#2 Enviro campaigners had a protest today at Hull minster ..footage
#3 An eco-student in Stamford, Lincolnshire has been likened to Greta … video package
Council voted against her proposal saying people should drive 12 miles to recycling centre.
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Alan,
While the big six western oil producers are all public limited companies, they only produce around 15% of the world’s oil. The remainder is in the hands of nationalised and state-owned companies.
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Bill, agreed but you have forgotten the contributions of small oil, particularly in producing frac oil and gas. Also much hydrocarbons produced by nationalised and state oil companies is refined and processed by the big oil companies.
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may have misheard a BBC Doom laden climate prog today by Roger Harrabin, “BBC’s environment analyst” that he will be leaving the BEEB soon. anybody else heard this ?
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We have a new game at the Guardian/Observer now – checking out their 10 “most read” stories of the day. Today, yet again, none of the top 10 are about climate change or COP 26. If even Guardian readers are uninterested in the Guardian’s climate scaremongering, maybe there is hope, after all?
At no. 6 today is “I sold my eggs for an Ivy League education – but was it worth it?”
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dfhunter, no I haven’t heard that about Harrabin, nor does a quick internet search throw anything up. But who knows? Certainly Justin Rowlatt seems to me making a pitch to take over as the BBC’s climate alarmist-in-chief.
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More Green PR in the news
Last Week’s Sunday #BBCPoliticsNorth @with BBCFHewison
” n the pioneering fully-hydrogen show homes & hydrogen energy trial that over 600 homes in Winlaton are taking part in as we begin our transition to #NetZero.”
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Here’s Rupert Read, philosophy professor and critical thinker, at his recent trial for causing criminal damage in Tufton Street:
‘Our defence of necessity is that the Global Warming Policy Foundation represents an ongoing and ongoingly imminent threat to life in the same kind of way as Anne Frank faced.’
Is that proper English?
This certainly isn’t:
‘For most of my career, I’ve been a theatre and a screenwriter.’
That’s from a co-defendant’s court statement.
The third defendant – who sometimes calls herself Totty Fuck Shame – hasn’t yet put her statement online.
The critical thinker, the theatre and Ms TFS were all found guilty. They were given the lowest possible sentence – a six-month conditional discharge – and made to pay only £200 each in costs and compensation.
Sir Jonathon Porritt, who attended the trial, reckoned that this was ‘a disappointing outcome but not unexpected. It doesn’t make the Global Policy Warming Foundation [sic] any less of a bunch of chronic liars.’
Dame Harriet Walter was also there and was also disappointed.*
URL:writersrebel.com/rupert-reads-court-statement/
URL:writersrebel.com/jessica-townsends-court-statement/
===
*The purple-haired woman standing next to Dame Harriet in this photo looks very like – but almost certainly isn’t – Dame Maggie Smith.
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Agreed.
(H/T David Appell.)
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Thanks Vinny. The Rupert Read statement is here. Is that where you found it?
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By coincidence yesterday I was looking up FLOP26 podcasts
and Rupert Read was using that hash tag in his , to say COP26 was a flop cos it’s not extreme enough
– @The_Newsmakers @trtworld
– I was interviewed by Nick Breeze for @ClimateGENN Shaping the Future
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Today’s TV bias … I usually post things first over on bBBC then copy them over to here
Today I didn’t have time to copy them over
Countryfile was an hour of super bias ..lot of errors etc.
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Richard, I found it via a tweet by Bradbrook (who might be in court herself on the 19th).
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Stewgreen. I only watched a small part of Countryfile this week and it was totally dominated by exhortations to plant trees and efforts to raise trees resistant to some of the devastating diseases that have afflicted our forests. Although it was clear that planting trees was being advocated in order to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, I see no reason to oppose this activity and every reason to support it. Replanting woodlands in my view is a win-win activity even if done for the wrong reasons.
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Alan there were points when they made out Climate Change was causing these diseases
then after they did mention foreign trees being brought in and carrying these diseases
… but surely that is the main driver.
There was a claim they had planted 250,000 tress on 1,000 acres in a project where animals wonder between the trees
That is a big claim
You’d be unlikely to get 250 proper trees on 1 acre, never mind with animals
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The other distortions were about them focusing on Asian children
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Stew, I wasn’t watching the program that intently. I never caught onto the claim that planting trees was at a density of 250 trees per acre, but at another point in the programme they were definitely planting saplings every few metres, which clearly implied they were not expecting all to survive.
As to climate change causing new diseases, many diseases are introduced and spread by insects, and some of the insects could well have been favoured by the slightly higher average temperatures that Britain has experienced.
Countryfile is commonly full of climate rubbish, but sprinkled within are occasional truthful nuggets. I wonder if you might have been a little harsh in your criticism this time?
I rarely look at bBBC. Was surprised at just how much of it wasn’t criticising the BBC at all.
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Alan, planting trees is useless in ecological terms except in the narrow circumstances of wood-pasture where the trees will be in singles fenced off from cattle. It’s worth planting street trees and specimens in parks. Other than that, no.
Dryads did not plant the original wildwood that covered Britain to its mountaintops: the woodland planted itself. Planting trees at 3 m spacing gets you a plantation. This is poor natural habitat because as soon as the canopy closes, little light reaches the ground and so there is little to no diversity. Woodlands need a diversity of tree ages, which creates complexity, which creates niches for multitudes of plants and animals.
The best way to create woodland is simply to cease doing whatever it is you are doing to the piece of land in question to prevent it from naturally becoming woodland by itself: whether mowing, grazing, ploughing, or burning. Remove all those things and a woodland will spring up out of the ground as if planted by a dryad.
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ITV local news “Clean Green energy” item with Victoria Whittam
claiming sea grass is the new rainforest.
Studio guys “oo look they are killing the carbon”
They really seemed to think that a bit of seaweed in the Humber will absorb the regions man made CO2
… FFS I reckon the magnitude would be super tiny.
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They used plastic tree guards and plastic cable ties.. throughout the prog
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Odd JIT. Most of the woods in the grounds of UEA (which you must know well) and in a small wood near my present abode have trees that are arranged in parallel lines and have equal spacing. They clearly were planted artificially and the planting has been successful.
As for leaving nature to do its thing, that commonly would take too long. The first stage would result in a nettle and bramble scrub with or without gorse.
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Alan, brambles are great for insects and birds so there is no trouble there.* Nettles are a symptom of high nutrient load, whether by fertiliser overuse or other means. Neither matter in the long term since if these woodlands are to be there in perpetuity, taking a decade longer to establish (with a rich scrub stage instead of the dead zone stage of a plantation) is no issue.
Gorse gets a big tick from me because heathlands are in short supply. In fact here the problem is stopping the woodland from shading out the gorse.
*Other than for dog walkers etc!
Stew, I presume the tree guards are vs. strimmers rather than deer? (I have not seen the program. In wood-pasture the protection I have in mind is set far enough back to prevent cattle from reaching the sapling.)
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“French couple who said windfarm affected health win legal fight
Christel and Luc Fockaert awarded €110,000 after over health problems they claim were caused by windfarm”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/08/french-couple-wins-legal-fight-wind-turbine-syndrome-windfarm-health
“A French court has recognised “turbine syndrome” after a couple complained their health was damaged by living near a windfarm.
In what is believed to be the first judgment of its kind in France, Belgians Christel and Luc Fockaert were awarded more than €100,000 in compensation by the judge in Toulouse.
The couple claimed they experienced a range of health problems including headaches, insomnia, heart irregularities, depression, dizziness, tinnitus and nausea for more than two years, insisting these were caused by six wind turbines set up 700 metres from their home at Fontrieu in the Tarn, southern France.
The turbines had been installed in 2008. However, it was reported that the couple’s health problems started five years later. The Fockaerts believed this was because woodland between their property and the nearest turbine was cut down.
They singled out the noise, which they said was “comparable to a washing machine continually turning”, and the “white flashing lights” on the turbines, as particularly detrimental to their health.”
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The above article is number 10 in the Guardian’s “most read” articles today. Again, none of the top 10 include climate change or COP 26. I wonder if the Guardian editors notice that their readers aren’t interested in their climate propaganda?
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“Rolls-Royce gets funding to develop mini nuclear reactors”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59212983
“Rolls-Royce has been backed by a consortium of private investors and the UK government to develop small nuclear reactors to generate cleaner energy.
The creation of the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) business was announced following a £195m cash injection from private firms and a £210m grant from the government.
It is hoped the new company could create up to 40,000 jobs by 2050.
However, critics say the focus should be on renewable power, not new nuclear.”
Has it finally dawned on those in charge of energy policy that the lights are going out? However, even that doesn’t stir the fanatics from their hatred of anything but “renewable” energy – “critics say the focus should be on renewable power, not new nuclear.” I would ask the critics what their answer is when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine? Why don’t they recognise the need for substantial reliable base-load?
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Sad news, and a sad reflection on Britain today, but to realists (as opposed to idealists) all too predictable:
“Nextbike: Bike share scheme suspended due to theft and vandalism”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59210989
“A bike sharing scheme is being suspended after months of vandalism, theft, and threats against staff.
Nextbike, which runs rental bikes in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, will shut down the scheme until next year.
The operator has hired private investigators after more than half of its bikes were stolen or destroyed.
Nextbike’s managing director said the amount of vandalism and theft was “staggering” and not something seen anywhere else in the UK.
The scheme will be suspended from 15 November while Nextbike repairs and replace bikes.
However, the operator has warned the scheme could be permanently shut down if the situation does not improve.
Since its launch about 136,000 people have used the bikes across more than 1.2 million rentals.
However, since then 260 bikes have been scrapped due to vandalism, and a further 300 bikes have been stolen, with just under half of those being taken since August this year.”
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“How Nicola Sturgeon has carved out a role at COP26”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-59206425
“The first minister has managed to carve out roles for herself and achieve prominence anyway.
She’s been photographed with everyone from US President Joe Biden and Germany’s Angela Merkel to climate activists Greta Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate and Al Gore.
Ms Sturgeon’s spoken at Cop26 fringe events on offshore wind, climate justice and female leadership and given interviews to media outlets from Vogue magazine – where she talked about life after politics – to CNN.
If she has half an eye on a new job beyond Holyrood, COP26 has given her the greatest networking opportunity in the world.”
It’s strange that lots of photos of a maskless Sturgeon don’t seem to generate the criticism reserved for a maskless Boris. I’m not defending Boris or criticising the criticism, per se, merely asking for a level playing-field.
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Well, this is a bit of a surprise:
“Scotland’s emission targets for 2030 could be ‘over-cooked'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59110798
“Scotland’s ambitious climate target to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 may have been “over-cooked”, according to the UK’s independent climate watchdog.
Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said Holyrood’s goal was a “huge challenge”.
His concerns come as the United Nations COP26 climate change summit begins in Glasgow.
The Scottish government said they had a “credible pathway to meeting emission targets” until 2032.”
I confess, I would never have expected Chris Stark to say that. Is reality beginning to bite?
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Typical response from an ecologist JIT, especially one with interests in insects. But those wishing to restore woodlands don’t always want to wait, perhaps more than a hundred years, nor spend time with scrubby intermediate stages before the climax flora becomes fully established. Take for example my nearest woodland. My house lies close to a very busy B-road along which humongous lorries thunder. To protect us from the noise an acoustic bund was constructed fronted by a mixed deciduous woodland. This work must have been done less than 50 years ago, yet to my untrained ecological eye, the wood now looks perfectly natural (with the possible exception that the trees look rather too close). We have loads of hedgehogs (that repeatedly infect my dogs with fleas), wood mice and a distant neighbour had a badger set, and repeatedly reports sighting a small deer. This to me seems far distant from your disparaging “dead zone stage of a plantation”. These past few weeks have seen a riot of colour as the trees start to lose their leaves. So impressed have we been that we have added three saplings to our acoustic bund and coppaced others.
Next summer, if you would be interested, I would be delighted to show you our neighbouring woodland.
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Such schemes last as long as the public money tap stays turned on.
Ofo came to Norwich with great fanfare in late 2018 and was gone by summer 2019. Half the bikes ended up in the river. The CEO could not understand the level of vandalism, which was more than in civilised cities. Where are they now?
As far as I can tell, it borrowed vast sums of money, deployed 100,000,000 bikes, had them trashed, couldn’t repay the debt, and is now defunct. “Because unusual levels of vandalism” – presumably in most cities in most countries in which the bikes were deployed.
In Norwich we currently have Beryl bikes, which I believe are similar to ofo, but require a dock, which should reduce the numbers thrown into the winsome Wensum for the lols. I must look into how much the council is sending to Beryl for this service.
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BBC Lunchtime BBC local news a full PR fest about Drax ending coal
see bbBC
.. https://biasedbbc.tv/blog/2021/11/08/start-the-week-8-november-2021/comment-page-3/#comment-1150460
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Wikipedia haven’t caught up
“The contract for the Bath bike sharing scheme ended in February 2019, and the bikes were no longer available to hire from the 8 February 2019.[22]
Described as Nextbike’s “flagship scheme” in the UK, the Cardiff bikes were used even more often during the pandemic in 2020.[23]”
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ITV local news
all the usual woke stuff
The presenter gets a £1000 bonus every time she says “clean green energy”
So today kept saying it about Minister Kwatungs
visit to the Sheffield mini nuclear reactor reset project.
God they are still putting out the daily COP26 briefing too
The prog had an item about super street violence in Sheffield, without mentioning it’s the Slovakian Roma
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“Should firms have to put carbon labels on all products?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59150008
“Lou Palmer-Masterton, the owner of three vegan restaurants, says it was a logical progression to add carbon labelling to the menus.
All three branches of her Stem & Glory mini-chain were already using only renewable energy, and participating in reusable lunchbox and cup schemes, but she wanted to go one step further.
So, now the menus at the two outlets in London, and one in Cambridge, are set to include a carbon dioxide emission score for each and every item.
“This is something I’ve thought about for a while, and even though all our products are plant-based, I was still curious about the impact they have on the environment,” says Ms Palmer-Masterton.
“This movement [carbon labelling] is exploding right now, and it makes sense.”
To work out, and display, the carbon scores for each of its dishes, Stem & Glory has gone to a UK start-up tech firm called Foodsteps.
Launched in 2020, the Foodsteps’ website and app allows food firms and restaurants to calculate the carbon dioxide produced by a particular product or dish “from farm to fork”.
Foodsteps’ software system contains a database of carbon dioxide release figures, including calculations of everything from various fertilisers, to the method of delivery of raw materials, the cooking process, the manufacturing of any packaging, and any refrigerated or frozen storage.
To gather all this data Foodsteps says it has used “thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies, alongside our own primary research”.
Restaurants and food firms who pay to sign-up to its scheme can then display their Foodsteps carbon scores on their menus or packaging, from A (very low) to E (very high). They can also add a QR code to link to a webpage focusing on the other environmental credentials of the food item in question….”.
Looks like a free advert for Foodsteps, to me. Wasn’t there a time when the BBC was forbidden from advertising?
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“Snow turns Saudi Arabia’s Mount Dhaka white
Muslims across the country offered rain prayers, known as Salaat Al Istisqaa, on Thursday”
https://www.thenationalnews.com/gulf-news/2021/11/09/snow-turns-saudi-arabias-mount-dhaka-white/
“Saudi Arabia’s Mount Dhaka turned white after the Al Shafa area in the west of the kingdom was hit by a heavy hailstorm on Saturday.
The city of Taif also experienced heavy rainfall. Videos on social media showed hail covering the mountains and roads.
On Thursday, Muslims across the country had offered rain prayers, known as Salaat Al Istisqaa.”
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“Sustainable gin and family-sized crisps! My week eating a climatarian diet”
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/nov/10/fig-rolls-out-seaweed-in-my-week-eating-a-climatarian-diet
“…Pure “climatarianism” is feasible: in 2012, Jennie Macdiarmid, professor of sustainable nutrition at the University of Aberdeen, helped devise a theoretical nutritionally balanced diet that would reduce your carbon footprint by 90%: pasta, peas, fried onions, brassicas, sesame seeds, dry wholegrain breakfast cereal and sweets. That would still apply now, Macdiarmid says, but she emphasises this kind of computer-generated solution is not remotely attainable. “We’re never going to change if it’s so unappealing,” she says. So is there a way to eat that is personally, as well as planetarily, sustainable? I spent a week trying to find out….”.
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Unbelievable! BBCs Look East News reports a new school which has no gas supply. I didn’t catch the location. Its science labs are equipped with “electric Bunsen burners” and the electricity for them comes from solar. Bunsen must be turning in his grave.
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ITV local news tonight 3 green PR items probably
#1 Labour’s Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
“Great to talk to @itvcalendar about all things #climate and #transport
as I prepare to visit #COP26.
For us to turn the tide on climate change, we must get people out of cars and freight off our roads, with commitments from Govt on HS2 East, NPR and TRU. Tune in Weds at 6pm”
# 2 “WATCH Movie camera Could our region’s canals help provide a solution to the climate crisis?”
.. https://twitter.com/itvcalendar/status/1458470291143811078
#3
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UK National Grid right now:
Coal: 2.7%
Gas: 55.9%
Solar: 0% (it’s dark, as it is for much of the winter)
Wind: 5.9%
Hydro: 1.9%
Pumped storage: 4%
Nuclear: 15.3%
Biomass: 5.9%
Interconnectors: 7.5%
Have I cherry-picked the numbers? Yes and no. They are what they were when I decided out of curiosity to take a look. Would I have posted them here right now if they didn’t show the uselessness of relying on renewables? Probably not. But the point remains – renewables are often of the least use at the time when we have the greatest need, namely late autumn, winter, and early spring, when it’s often very cold, and dark for much of the time.
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7th July 2020:
“Coronavirus: Suffolk County Council faces £23m Covid shortfall”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-53319775
“A council could face a potential shortfall of £23m because of additional spending as a result of coronavirus.
Figures from Suffolk County Council indicate costs and lost income could add up to £57.8m, despite receiving £34.7m in government support.
Gordon Jones, cabinet member for finances, said the figures were “estimates” that “continue to change”.
He said the council was “looking at ways of bridging any gap between funding and expenditure”.
The Tory-run council’s overall budget for 2020-21, set prior to the coronavirus outbreak, was £556.4m, but the authority said it was not looking to develop an emergency budget at this stage.
Among the biggest challenges faced by the council were demands for social care, the impact on highways and infrastructure projects and pressures on the safe return of children to school, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.”
10th November 2021:
“Suffolk County Council pledges £12.8m to decarbonise buildings”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-59231822
“A council has agreed to invest millions of pounds into reducing carbon emissions at more than 130 of its buildings.
Libraries, fire stations, council offices, children’s homes and archive facilities are among the buildings Suffolk County Council has pledged to decarbonise.
The authority’s cabinet agreed to the £12.8m investment on Tuesday.
Among the planned measures are new solar panels and replacing boilers.
Richard Rout, Conservative cabinet member for finance and the environment, said it was “abundantly clear” more investment was needed to meet net zero targets.
“The council has a portfolio of wide-ranging buildings including offices and fire stations in both urban and rural locations. Each have different characteristics, infrastructure, operational needs and users.
“We will need to make sure each building gets the most effective solution to specific requirements,” he said.”
Money grows on trees in Suffolk, it seems.
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Today a COP story has made it into the Guardian Ten most read stories, which must be a relief to the editor and journalists. Finally it’s happened. “Cop26 live: China and US agree to co-operate to ‘actively address climate change’” is in the charts at number 4 this evening. Trumped, at number 2, by “New Zealand beat England by five wickets in T20 World Cup semi-final – as it happened”.
So live cricket is more interesting than live COP. Oh well.
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Actually ITV local news started with 17 minutes of COP26 Climate propaganda
Included : A bit of Prescott, the Labour MP Diana Johnson speaking
Then we got 2 mins of something else
Then another 2 mins about saving CO2 by cycling
2 women cycling 2 miles to work in Sheffield.
So 19 mins of Green PR altogether
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BBC local news didn’t have much CC
Bored of it all the producers sent the enviro reporter out of the way to do a bit on 12Century village lost to erosion
so he could slip in a few words about Climate Change
but actually it was light as if they’d edited his dogma down
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The world is on fire!
“China: North-eastern city sees highest snowfall in 116 years”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59243836
“Heavy blizzards in some parts of north-eastern China have brought record snowfall, raising concerns about keeping homes warm in an area hit by power outages earlier this year.
In the capital city of Shenyang, in Liaoning province, average snowfall reached 51cm (20 inches).
This is the highest recorded snowfall since 1905, said state outlet Xinhua.
In neighbouring inner Mongolia, one person died and more than 5,600 were affected after a heavy snowstorm.
Meteorological researchers in the Mongolian city of Tongliao told state outlet the Global Times that the snowstorm was an extremely random and sudden extreme weather event.
A total of 27 red alerts were issued across Inner Mongolia and north-eastern China – the highest warning alert for snowstorms.”
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There’s more in that article about the Chinese snowfall – so much more:
“The cold wave, which began on Sunday, caused temperatures to plummet by at least14 degrees in some parts of north-eastern China.
In Liaoning, traffic has been severely affected by the heavy onslaught, with most expressway toll stations closed as of Tuesday.
Train and bus stations have also remained shut, except for those in the cities of Dalian and Dandong.
Authorities said they were intensifying efforts to keep homes warm by ramping up coal imports and maximizing energy production capacity. It also urged markets and grocery stores to increase food supplies and reduce prices to avoid price hikes.”
Meanwhile, despite it all, Xi’s useful idiots finish the article with:
“China is highly dependent on coal for power, though Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged that his country will reach peak carbon emissions within nine years.”
There’s also this:
“COP26: Cautious welcome for unexpected US-China climate agreement”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59243434
“Activists and politicians have cautiously welcomed an unexpected US-China declaration that vowed to boost climate co-operation.
The EU and UN described the move as encouraging and an important step, but Greenpeace said both countries needed to show more commitment.
The US and China are the world’s two biggest CO2 emitters.”
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“Coastal saltmarsh ‘engineered’ to fight climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59241053
“Re-flooding coastal wetlands could provide an opportunity to “work with nature” and use sea level rise to fight climate change, scientists say.
An ongoing study of a coastal marsh in Scotland has shown the potential to lock carbon emissions into mud.
A stretch of the Skinflats RSPB reserve near Falkirk was restored in 2018.”
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I’m in a hurry this morning, so haven’t had time to do more than skim this, but I’ll leave it here:
“Meet the ‘inactivists’, tangling up the climate crisis in culture wars
As climate science has gone mainstream, outright denialism has been pushed to the fringes. Now a new tactic of dismissing green policies as elitist is on the rise, and has zoned in on a bitter row over a disused airport in Kent
by Jack Shenker”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/11/inactivists-tangling-up-the-climate-crisis-in-culture-wars-manston-airport-kent
“n May 2020, as the world was convulsed by the coronavirus pandemic and global infections topped 4 million, a strange video began appearing in the feeds of some Facebook users. “Climate alarm is reaching untold levels of exaggeration and hysteria,” said an unseen narrator, over a montage of environmental protests and clips of a tearful Greta Thunberg. “There is no doubt about it, climate change has become a cult,” it continued, to the kind of pounding beat you might hear on the soundtrack of a Hollywood blockbuster. “Carbon dioxide emissions have become the wages of sin.”
The video’s reach was relatively small: according to Facebook data, it was viewed somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 times. But over the following weeks more videos came, each one experimenting with slightly different scripts and visuals. All focused on the supposed irrationality and hypocrisy of climate campaigners, and the hardship they wanted to inflict upon society’s most impoverished communities. “Those who demand action on climate change continue to fly around in private jets from one virtue-signalling climate conference to the next,” stated one, against a backdrop of Leonardo DiCaprio and Prince Harry delivering speeches from lecterns. “Is this fair?” Another video took aim at the idea that countries should be transitioning towards “net zero” carbon dioxide emissions, calling it an “unnecessary and swingeing plan that hits the poor and costs the earth”. In total, between May and July, the advertiser spent less than £3,000 disseminating 10 videos. Collectively, they were viewed more than half a million times.”
What’s that? “SUPPOSED irrationality and hypocrisy”? When did the Guardian become an organ for harming the poor and for attacking those who don’t want to harm the poor?
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Well, they did it when they lionised Stalin as his terror famine ravaged the poor of Ukraine.
(I just got to the bit in Churchill’s biography by Roberts where George Bernard Shaw was visiting Uncle Joe with Nancy Astor, full of praise for the big man, just as the other Manchester Guardianistas Sidney and Beatrice Webb had in 1932.)
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See also Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s closet by Jonathan Freedland in the, er, Guardian almost ten years ago. Could they be as wrong again today? It’s the sort of awkward question that can only be silenced by active demonisation of their current critics, the ‘inactivists’ following in the darstardly footsteps of the ‘outright denialists’. Time to wake up. It’s happening again.
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One of several reasons why I can no longer vote Labour:
“Ed Miliband: It’s a climate emergency…we need to declare it”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-59248858
“Countries have got to start taking the dangers of climate change more seriously, the UK shadow business secretary Ed Miliband has said.
Globally countries are struggling and dragging their feet in taking the action which is necessary, he told BBC World News’ Christian Fraser.”
A changing climate is not necessarily a climate emergency – far from it, despite the hype. And even if it is, declaring it is so won’t change a thing. It’s just grandstanding, and utterly pointless. How about doing something useful, for a change?
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Nice and simple, and a pleasant surprise to find it in the Guardian:
“Why it’s so hard to electrify shipping and aviation
Reducing emissions for cargo ships and planes isn’t as simple as sticking a huge battery in them”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/nov/11/climate-fuel-gasoline-petrol-ships-planes
Perhaps it’s beginning to dawn on them that being an idealist is all well and good, but sometimes reality intrudes.
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“Belarus threatens to cut off gas to EU in border row”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59246899
“Belarus’s leader has threatened to cut off gas supplies to Europe if sanctions are imposed over an escalating migrant crisis at the country’s border.
Thousands of people are at the border with Poland, enduring freezing conditions in the hope of crossing into the European Union.
EU officials have accused Belarus of provoking the crisis to undermine its security, an allegation it denies.
In retaliation, the EU is reportedly planning a fresh package of sanctions.
But on Thursday the country’s long-time authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko warned: “If they impose additional sanctions on us… we must respond.”
“We are heating Europe, and they are threatening us,” he said, referring to a Russian gas pipeline that runs through Belarus and into the EU.
“And what if we halt natural gas supplies? Therefore, I would recommend the leadership of Poland, Lithuanians and other empty-headed people to think before speaking,” he added.”
That’s the folly of relying on unreliable renewable energy, ditching (in the case of Germany) nuclear power, and relying on Russian gas to keep the lights on.
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And on the subject of Germany’s apparent hostility to nuclear energy:
“Germany says nuclear energy will set back turning EU green”
“https://www.rt.com/news/540009-eu-germany-france-nuclear-green/”
“Germany has voiced its opposition to the inclusion of nuclear energy within the European Union’s sustainable-finance taxonomy, claiming it would undermine the bloc’s credibility on going green.
Speaking at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow on Thursday, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the EU must avoid labeling nuclear energy as ‘green’.
Including nuclear power would lack integrity and credibility with a great majority of the population, as well as many savers and investors,” she told the Glasgow audience.
The European Commission has long faced a dilemma on whether to include nuclear energy within its soon-to-be-published sustainable-finance taxonomy rules, which will clarify what is and isn’t a green investment.
The EU’s two biggest economies, Germany and France, have long been split on the matter, with the latter continuing to invest heavily in nuclear technology. Germany, on the other hand, has raised concerns about the safety and nature of nuclear waste.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in October that nuclear power could be a stable source of energy during the transition away from reliance on gas. Her comments raised expectations that nuclear power might be included in the green finance rules.
France, which already has some 56 nuclear reactors, had previously vowed to reduce its reliance on nuclear power to 50% by 2035 – down from 75% at present. However, soaring gas and oil prices have seen a recommitment to nuclear power. “
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That French commitment was lip-service only. They had already started on a monster refurb programme (c€45 bn) for their entire nuclear fleet (bar the oldest plant) which will extend their operating lives by a couple of decades.
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Tuesday 16th The German broadcaster DW instead of doing a news article about its research into solar panels, it’s made it into a live EVENT.
More and more solar panels are popping up all over the world – and it’s easy to see why: they provide clean energy at falling prices. Awesome, right?
Well actually, there are also some not-so-green sides to this green technology.
We’ll take a closer look at three big criticisms solar energy faces and check out just how much of a problem they are.
#PlanetA #SolarEnergy
.. https://m.facebook.com/events/1127291654471762/
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“Residents’ fears grow over risks from district heating networks
Central systems that serve a whole community are seen as green, but many are old and poorly maintained”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/nov/07/residents-fears-grow-over-risks-from-district-heating-networks
“It was during a night in June that two radiators exploded in Luca’s house, jetting scalding water across the bedroom of his six-year-old son and bringing down the ceilings of the ground-floor rooms. By a fluke the family was away.
“If my son had been in his bed he would have been severely burned,” says Luca. “The disaster was inevitable. In the 10 years since I bought the house, not once have the pipes and radiators been serviced, and similar things have recently happened in neighbouring properties.”
The London housing estate where Luca lives is supplied with heating and hot water by a district heating network (DHN) operated by Southwark council.
DHNs generate heating from a central source to a whole community via a network of insulated hot water pipes, eliminating the need for individual household boilers.
There are about 14,000 in the UK run by councils, housing associations and private companies, supplying nearly 500,000 homes. They’re considered to be a cheaper, greener alternative to traditional systems, and the Climate Change Committee has estimated they need to account for 18% of the UK’s energy supply if the country is to meet its 2050 net zero target.
Many DHNs have successfully cut emissions and prices for households. However, those that are poorly designed and inadequately maintained have left some customers enduring freezing homes and enormous bills.
They are unable to switch supplier because they are locked into contracts of 25 years or longer, as soon as they buy a property supplied by a DHN. And they cannot get redress for poor service via the energy ombudsman because the sector is largely unregulated.
Campaigners have warned that thousands more people risk being trapped with unaccountable providers, as more networks are rolled out without statutory regulations.
Currently there are no controls on consumer tariffs and no technical standards to which new networks must adhere.”
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Amazingly, on the day of last-gasp attempts to cut a deal at COP 26 and wall-to-wall saturation coverage of climate change and COP 26 by the Guardian, as things stand at the moment, the 10 most read stories don’t include a single one about COP 26 or climate change. Much more important, at number 2, is:
“Blind date: ‘He mentioned he is trained to butcher animals – right after I told him I was a vegetarian’”
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WordPress was down for most of the last hour
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“Renewable energy: How Scottish Isle of Eigg relies on wind, water, solar”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-59238305
“As the world slowly moves away from using fossil fuels for electricity, a tiny Scottish island has shown it’s possible to rely almost entirely on renewables.
The community living on the Isle of Eigg were the first in the world to set up their own off-grid energy system powered by wind, water and the Sun.
Since it was launched in 2008, they have received visitors from several other countries wanting to learn more about the project.
Community Energy Malawi used their experience to set up a solar minigrid in Sitolo village, a community that previously relied on fossil fuels and firewood.”
Good luck to them. What the article doesn’t mention, of course, is the extent of islanders’ dependence on the diesel boats and ferries that bring everything they need to the island.
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It only works because they have a few small hydropower plants that can provide fairly reliable power…… it rains a lot on Eigg. Furthermore each house is only allowed a maximum of 5kW according to the BBC video. Good luck with that.
It doesn’t sound transferable to me except for areas that can tap into a hydropower source. And we already knew that.
And by the way:
“. To cover occasions when renewable generation is low, the system is supported by a pair of 80kW diesel generators”
http://isleofeigg.org/eigg-electric/
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Looking out of the window and seeing the tips of the trees immobile, I thought it was a good time to check the UK grid at https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
I paste a screenshot here by way of a permanent record:
Note that coal > wind + solar.
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@BBCNews
How Covid conspiracists are shifting to climate change denial
[That’s at the article How Covid conspiracists are shifting to climate change denial and the BBC Sounds audio of the same name as part of a series called The Denial Files (which I’d happily not heard of until now). — rd]
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Stew,
I note that the Covid conspiracist article was written by a BBC ‘Specialist Disinformation Reporter’.
Heavens, they really are into this, aren’t they? Do they have other grades of Disinformation Reporter, I wonder.
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HSBC’S full page Times advert “Climate change doesn’t do borders.
And neither do rising sea levels.
That’s why HSBC is aiming to provide $1 trillion in finance and investment to help our clients transition to net zero.”
SEARCH HSBC SUSTAINABILITYWhat’s the point there ?
They are telling me they are green.
They are not selling me anything
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Thought #1 When they say “there were more oil lobbyists that penguins at COP, so they rigged it”
they are maybe distracting from another fact
eg that Investment bank lobbyist actually dominated COP26
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Thought #2 there is a whole page from Green extremists accusing HSBC of greenwashing about this series of ads
https://adfreecities.org.uk/2021/10/hsbc-accused-of-greenwash-by-omission-with-new-sustainability-ads/
The wording of the other adverts
Advert B – “Climate change doesn’t do borders.
So in the UK, we’re helping to plant 2 million trees which will lock in 1.25 million tonnes of carbon over their lifetime.”
Advert C – “(Climate) change comes from within.
That’s why our operations will be net zero globally by 2030
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Further on is a half page green-vert for Satander Private banking
but that is a more logical advert
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‘Green-vert’
Or as the French would say, ‘vert-vert’.
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“Beijing Has Brought Western Environmental Activism Under Its Control”
https://dailysceptic.org/2021/11/16/beijing-has-brought-western-environmental-activism-under-its-control/
“At COP26 China refused to promise to phase out coal and last week the nation broke its own daily record for coal production at 12.05 million tonnes. Bizarrely, China is not perceived as a villain by many of the West’s environmental activists, who instead put the blame for global warming on nations closer to home. The reason for this is likely because Beijing has infiltrated and seized control of much of the West’s environmental institutions, creating an army of ‘useful idiots’ who turn a blind eye to the sins of the Communist regime. The Daily Mail has the story.”
Here, if you can put up with all the adverts:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10201999/Why-lack-concern-burning-coal-asks-DAVID-ROSE.html
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“EU and US face hard road to confront China’s dirty steel
Action against China is a cornerstone of a transatlantic trade truce, but the plans are still fuzzy.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-dirty-steel-eu-us-green-steel-alliance/
“The EU and the U.S. want to gang up against China’s coal-fired blast furnaces in a green steel alliance — but no one is sure how that will happen.
The proposal for a united front against Beijing was a keystone of the truce on steel tariffs struck between Washington and Brussels at the end of October to end the trade war ignited by Donald Trump in 2018. Instead of fighting each other with duties on each other’s metal, America and Europe vowed to combat the common foe.
They have, however, attempted these kinds of mobilizations against Beijing for years. Indeed, in a scarcely veiled reference to Chinese steel, the U.S., EU and Japan pledged in late 2017 to rein in global sectors with excess capacity.
The problem is that it’s always proved easier to agree to plan action, rather than actually doing anything.
No one doubts China is a mighty problem, both in terms of subsidized overproduction and environmental damage. It produces more than half of the world’s steel and its output is also one of the most carbon-dioxide intensive in the world. If there were a way to force China to go green, that would be highly significant as the global steel industry accounts for around 11 percent of total global CO2 emissions.
It should come as no surprise that the transatlantic joint statement on October’s deal was short on details. A European Commission official acknowledged both sides had not gone into any of the details of the future agreement. “There is a political commitment to try this … but it will take a while to figure out what it will look like,” the official said.
EU trade ministers in their meeting last week barely touched upon the plan to work on greening steel because it was too “premature,” a senior EU diplomat said….”
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“Insulate Britain activist says he will block more roads if not jailed
Ben Taylor, 27, was one of nine members of group accused of breaching injunction over M25”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/16/insulate-britain-activist-says-he-will-block-more-roads-if-not-jailed
“An Insulate Britain activist has told the high court he will “block the highway at the earliest opportunity” if he is not jailed for breaching an order banning the group from protesting on the M25.
Ben Taylor, 27, was one of nine members of the climate activist group to appear at the royal courts of justice in London on Tuesday accused of breaching the injunction granted to National Highways by blocking a roundabout on London’s orbital motorway.
Dr Ben Buse, 36, Ana Heyatawin, 58, Louis McKechnie, 20, Roman Paluch-Machnik, 28, Oliver Roc, 41, Emma Smart, 44, Tim Speers, 36, James Thomas, 47, and Taylor all face a potential two years in prison and unlimited fine.
All but Buse defended themselves in court and were invited to respond to points made by lawyers for the claimant. In a statement echoed by all defendants, Roc, from London, told Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, and Mr Justice Chamberlain: “I’m proud of our actions and I stand by what we have done.”
He went on: “We obviously didn’t do this for personal gain. We did take responsibility for our actions, and I did them in an attempt to mitigate the suffering of people in this country who cannot insulate or adequately heat their homes.”
Taylor told the court that if the judges did not send him to prison he would “go out and block the highway at the earliest opportunity”, adding: “And I will continue to do so until the government makes a meaningful statement and fucking acts on it,” he said, spurring a rebuke from Sharp for his language.”
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Strange thing BBC created a Climate PR film in May and put it on Iplayer
but it’s fiest airing on TV is tonight
8pm BBC2 “The People Vs Climate Change”
It’s heavily promoted by @BusinessGreen
It’s a one-hour documentary about the citizens’ climate assembly.
“it remains one of the best pieces of UK climate comms I’ve ever seen”
climate assemblies are a trick, based on “Soviets”
The elite make a decision, they then appoint a citizens assembly (a soviet in Russian)
then they guide that , to make the preordained decision
They then claim “The Citizens have made the decision”
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From the article “Covid denial to climate denial: How conspiracists are shifting focus”, this image:
From Wiki:
On the face of it, the island is about an inch above sea level and has a high chance of getting slapped by a hurricane once a decade. What is misleading here? A tad of hyperbole?
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Ben Pile tweeted today about Mariana saying that
Well the point is it’s the usual projection
It’s BBC-Trending who are branching out from campaigning against Covid skeptics, to now campaign against Climate skeptics
Ben is taken in a bit, he takes Mariana to be ONE person, rather that the BBC-Trending dept using her as a front
so they can argue that anyone who dares to challenge them , is bullying a poor little woman
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20 ships caught in the ice during #COP26 – icebreakers called in!
‘The complicated conditions with sea-ice is alarming for Russian authorities that are promoting the Northern Sea Route as a future alternative to the Suez Canal.’
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2021/11/critical-situation-might-be-making-northern-sea-route
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old story just came up on Repeal Climate Act
Economist Sep 25th
An anti-green backlash could reshape British politics
And as radically as Brexit did
by Bagehot
https://www.economist.com/britain/an-anti-green-backlash-could-reshape-british-politics/21804957
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EU blackouts to come ?
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Unfortunately this is behind a paywall, but enough can be seen to get the gist:
“Glasgow taxpayer cost for fleet of electric cars revealed”
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/19720048.glasgow-taxpayer-cost-fleet-electric-cars-revealed/
“GLASGOW taxpayers forked out almost £2million pounds for a fleet of electric cars which were left to gather dust in city parking lots.
As previously revealed by the Glasgow Times, a total of 181 vehicles were bought or hired at various points throughout April 2020 to April 2021.”
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“Vancouver storm: Minister says there is ‘no doubt’ it is linked to climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59324764
“A Canadian minister has said he has “no doubt” that a deadly storm in British Columbia is linked to climate change.
Thousands were evacuated after an “atmospheric river” – a long strip of moisture in the air that transports water from tropical areas towards the poles – dumped the region’s monthly rainfall average in 24 hours.
The storm severed road and rail links and caused mass power cuts.
One person was killed in a landslide, and at least two others are missing.
Mike Farnworth, the local minister of public safety, told reporters he had “no doubt these are climate-related events”.
The impact of climate change on the frequency of storms is still unclear, but we know that increased sea surface temperatures warm the air above and make more energy available to drive hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. As a result, they are likely to be more intense with more extreme rainfall.
The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.
The extreme weather in Canada comes days after world leaders met for the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.
The same region, British Columbia, suffered a record high heat wave in the summer that killed more than 500 people, and wildfires that destroyed an entire village.”
It’s relentless. All and any bad or extreme weather = “climate change”. It’s also unfortunate that “climate change” (a perfectly innocent and understandable phrase, in the hands of the MSM is now shorthand for man-made catastrophe.
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“SSE reveals £12.5bn boost in renewables investment”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-59318588
The interesting bit is actually at the end:
“The increase in spending on new energy generation is 65% higher than previous commitments, with the company saying it intends to take advantage of UK government tax breaks laid out earlier this year.
SSE will see 40% spent on networks, 40% on renewables and 20% on the rest of the business.
The firm revealed that pre-tax profits for the six months to September jumped 116% to £1.7bn, following soaring energy prices this year.
But the company’s renewables division was hit by poor UK summer weather, with wind levels low and dry conditions impacting its hydro business.
Despite high gas prices, SSE said it would continue to dispose of its 33.3% stake in gas distribution operator Scotia Gas Networks in the financial year.
In June Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked the entrance to SSE’s Peterhead power station with a washing machine to highlight what it claimed was the firm’s greenwashing policies.”
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“‘Journalists are PR department of Greenpeace’: Andrew Neil on climate crisis”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/17/journalists-are-pr-department-of-greenpeace-andrew-neil-on-climate-crisis
“Andrew Neil has said journalists are “basically the PR department of Greenpeace” when it comes to reporting on the climate crisis, as the interviewer indicated he would like to return to British television screens in the future.
The presenter, who had a brief but disastrous stint with the rightwing channel GB News, told a television industry conference that there was not enough critical reporting on predictions about the impact of rising global temperatures.
Neil has previously said he accepts that climate change is real and needs confronting, but accused the likes of Extinction Rebellion of “nonsense scaremongering”.
“You don’t need to be a climate reporting sceptic to challenge a lot of the reports that are coming out,” he told an event organised by Freeview, singling out recent coverage by the BBC and Sky of the Cop26 climate summit. Sky recently pledged to use its programming, including its news coverage, to nudge people to reduce their emissions.
Neil complained that the news channels gave airtime to the president of the Pacific nation of Tuvalu complaining that his country was sinking due to rising sea levels, without also covering a 2018 study arguing that some of the islands have increased in size.”
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As seems to be the case on most days, the top 10 most read articles at the Guardian don’t include any about COP 26 or climate change. Number 6 today is: “Too much bosom: why The Wheel of Time is far from ‘great for women’”.
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“‘I can’t get equity release on my eco-friendly home'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59253310
“”I just don’t understand their reasoning. I was just totally stunned.”
Andrew Bennett is describing the moment he learned that despite building a brand new, super energy efficient home, he wouldn’t be able to borrow money against its value, a process known as equity release.
The 73-year old and his wife had spent all their savings, £600,000, and three years building their eco-friendly home.
But now their financial plans are in tatters as he can’t access the capital invested in the house.
No provider in the equity release market will lend against the property because it’s been built using a construction method called Insulated Concrete Form (ICF).
Along with solar panels and triple glazing, it makes Andrew’s home very energy efficient. But because it’s not a standard brick building with a tiled, sloping roof, equity release providers aren’t interested.
“Well we’d like about a third of what the house cost to put half of that into premium bonds, so we’ve got a cash available. And to spend on a few frivolous things [for his bucket list].”
Andrew, who spent a 32-year career as a commercial airline pilot, says that bucket list includes things such as “half an hour in a Spitfire, I’d like to buy a classic car and I’ve got three cars in bits I’d like to pay someone to fix before I pass away”.
But all those plans are now in disarray.”
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Be careful the Guardian is interpreting what Andrew Neil said
I haven’t found an actual transcript or video yet
There’s a website https://www.freeview.co.uk/outside-box-2020
I registered for online access to watch the videos, but you have to wait for approval
There are some direct quotes in this official tweet stream
… https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40FreeviewCorp%20%20%20afneil%20&src=typed_query&f=live
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How many times do we hear or read something like this?
“Devizes: Fire crews tackle major fire at recycling centre”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-59330465
“Firefighters are dealing with a major blaze at a recycling centre.
The fire broke out at the centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire, overnight, and crews from five fire stations are at the scene.
Local residents have been told to keep their windows closed due to the level of smoke in the area.
Devizes Fire Station said on social media that crews would be on the site for the rest of the day.
Fire appliances from Calne, Pewsey, Royal Wootton Bassett and Trowbridge were called to the scene of the fire, as well as local crews from Devizes.”
Given the huge numbers of such fires that take place, maybe it would be more sensible to burn this stuff anyway, in energy-generating plants? At least we’d have something useful to show for all those emissions.
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“Poets pen climate change verse on recycled paper with vegetable oil ink”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-manchester-59323548
“Manchester-based poets have put pen to recycled paper to raise awareness of global warming.
The writers feature in the latest issue of Magma Poetry, which has been printed using vegetable oil for ink.
Co-editor and poet Yvonne Reddick said the arts had “a duty to respond to climate change”.”
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“From Mexico to Dumfries: Totem pole completes 5,500 mile voyage”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-59305943
“A specially-commissioned totem pole has completed a 5,500 mile voyage from Mexico to southern Scotland.
The Totem Latamat was carved by Jun Tiburcio in Chumatlán, Veracruz, from a single tree.
It has travelled throughout Britain – including a visit to Glasgow during COP26 – to highlight the climate change concerns of indigenous peoples.
It will now be “returned to the Earth” in a ceremony on the Crichton estate in Dumfries at the weekend.”
Doesn’t sound very “green” to me. But the BBC got a story out of it, to continue pushing the agenda.
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Mark, as you know I compiled a list of a few of these for Denierland (the first page of an internet search). In September I began to compile some more, but there were so many that I soon lost the will to continue. (Not all are recycling plants – some are public recycling centres.) Some headlines from my brief foray:
Blaenavon fire: Crews tackle large blaze at recycling plant
Fire at Spalding Household Waste Recycling Centre forces closure after traffic backed up to A16 this morning
Fire at Penallta industrial estate in Caerphilly
Crews fight Ettington recycling plant fire in ‘extreme heat’
Dozens of firefighters tackling huge recycling centre blaze
Bowhill Recycling Centre: “Deep-seated” fire at Cardenden facility battled by firefighters
100 tonnes of waste catch fire at waste recycling centre in Richmond
250 tonnes of waste burns in Welshpool recycling centre fire
Warning after battery sparks recycling centre fire
Firefighters still at scene of Corby recycling facility fire
Fire at recycling centre in Rufforth near York
Nine fire engines at blaze in Plymouth recycling centre
Fire breaks out at waste sorting centre in Edmonton
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They’re obviously not talking about the football teams”
“Newcastle and Sunderland named as climate leaders”, when you click on it morphs into “Grade ‘A’ status for Newcastle and Sunderland’s green plans”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-59332250
“Newcastle and Sunderland have been named among world-leading cities tackling climate change.
Newcastle retains its ‘A’-grade status, while Sunderland gains its first, from international climate research provider CDP.
Newcastle has pledged to reach net zero by 2030, with the entire city carbon neutral.
Sunderland is aiming to become carbon neutral by 2040. They are among 95 cities worldwide recognised.
The target includes making more vehicles in Newcastle electric, cutting home energy usage and recycling more.
Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the city was “incredibly proud” to have retained its top grade status.
He said: “Tackling the climate emergency remains the great challenge of our age and this very much reassures us that we are on the right track.”
He added that momentum from the COP26 climate conference held in Glasgow should be harnessed and further steps taken to “create the clean, green and inclusive communities we all want to live in”.”
Well, if it involves more electric scooters terrorising pedestrians on pavements in Sunderland my 88 year old mother won’t be pleased.
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“Luton Borough Council backs pension divestment from fossil fuels”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-59327259
“A town council has unanimously passed a motion calling for its pension fund to disinvest its holdings of almost £40m in fossil fuel firms.
Luton Borough Council is calling for Bedfordshire Pension Fund (BPF) administrators to swap investment in fossil fuel companies for those that will help reduce greenhouse gases.
The ruling Labour motion was backed by the Liberal Democrats’ leader.
BPF handles pensions of local government staff across Bedfordshire.
The resolution requested that pension administrators carry out an assessment of the pension portfolio with a view to disinvesting in coal, oil and gas companies by 2023.
Labour councillor Tom Shaw referred to the contradiction of spending millions on the council’s green agenda if nothing was done about the investment of the pension fund “in the very industries causing the problems”.
The BPF has a responsible investment policy, which it says “means considering environmental, social and governance issues when making decisions about investments”.
Divest Luton supporter Brenda Slessor told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “These holdings are stranded assets. Fossil fuels don’t have a future and tying recipients of the pension fund to a failing industry is the opposite of a responsible investment.”
Campaigners say their focus will now be on whether the Bedford Borough Council Liberal Democrat and Labour coalition will support the divestment of the Bedfordshire Pension Fund from fossil fuels.
The matter will also go before Central Bedfordshire’s council leader and the Mayor of Bedford.
The BPF has been contacted for comment.”
An interesting admission slipped out there about “spending millions on the council’s green agenda”. Notwithstanding claims about stranded assets (which are patently rubbish for the foreseeable future) the pension fund’s responsibility is to maximise returns. As it’s a public sector pension scheme, I imagine it supports final salary pension payments, where any shortfall in the fund’s assets will fall to be made up by the employer, in this case the Council. If the divestment goes ahead, and returns suffer, the Council may have to find millions more to add to its “spending millions on the council’s green agenda”.
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“The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure
Andreas Malm
If someone has planted a time bomb in your home, you are entitled to dismantle it. The same applies to our planet”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/18/moral-case-destroying-fossil-fuel-infrastructure
“So what do we do?
We could destroy the machines that destroy this planet. If someone has planted a time bomb in your home, you are entitled to dismantle it. More to the point, if someone has placed an incendiary device inside the high-rise building where you live, and if the foundations are already on fire and people are dying in the cellars, then many would believe that you have an obligation to put the device out of action.
This is the moral case which, I would argue, justifies destroying fossil fuel property. That is completely separate from harming human bodies, for which there is no moral case.
And this particular moral case for direct action is, I believe, overwhelmingly strong, if the realities of the climate catastrophe are recognised. On that premise, how could the physical integrity of fossil fuel property possibly be given precedence? Boris Johnson recently made what might generously be interpreted as an attempt to do so, when he defended the Cambo oilfield, one in the endless series of fresh investments in fossil fuel infrastructure of the kind we just can’t live with: “we can’t just tear up contracts”, he said.
In this view, a contract with an entrepreneur for augmenting the device sending the flames ever higher must be honoured. It takes priority over any other concern. Just why it should have that sanctity, however, seems to me exceedingly difficult to tell.
In the meantime, we can observe that slowing down the climate catastrophe means, by definition, the destruction of fossil capital: there can be no more profiting from fossil fuels. And if governments are incapable of initiating this work, because they take their orders from the top floors, then others should do so. Not because activists can accomplish the abolition of fossil fuels – only states have that potential – but because their role is to ratchet up the pressure for it.
So could the climate movement in the global north achieve its goals by sending cadres or crowds to actually tear machines apart? An unassailable ethical imperative does not necessarily translate into efficacious action. We have received this lesson from the highways of the UK, where the main achievement of Insulate Britain has been rising fury from working-class people on the way to their jobs.
We are deep into the catastrophe; the hour is late, but the escalation has only just begun. We don’t know what exactly will work. The one thing we can be certain of is this: we are in a death spiral, we have to break out of it, and we must try something more. The days of gentle protest may be long over.
Andreas Malm is a scholar of human ecology at Lund University”
Words fail me.
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Howling at the moon. Does this effluvium represent intentionally encouraging an offence?
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The British Columbia storm and climate change.
Yes some annual maximum 24-hour precipitation records were exceeded at a few places. But as many here have noted before, the longer data are collected the more likely a new record maximum will be established. It has been relatively quiet in this region for this type of flooding for the past 15 years. So we were “due one”. The public expect severe floods to be spread more or less evenly over the years but clustering of flood events is common here and the last cluster ended in 2006.
Soil disturbance from the summer wildfires has been touted as a contributing factor but the watershed areas that were affected are very small compared to the size of the river catchments. There were no summer wildfires on the catchment areas of the mudslides on Hwy 7. There were few wildfires in Coastal BC last summer.
I suspect the real reason for the severity of the floods was the unfortunate coincidence of a number of events. First we had above average precipitation in September and October 2021 continuing into early November. This saturated the soil and increased baseflow in numerous streams. It was also colder than normal and there was significant snowfall in the mountains. In fact there was so much snow that all the coastal ski areas were about to open just before the “pineapple express” hit.
So we had a huge frozen reservoir of snow-water-equivalent sitting up in the mountains. The severity of rain-on-snow floods is well-known to hydrologists. Even cold rain is very efficient at melting snow. With warm air in a pineapple express the freezing level rises and it rains at high elevations.
I am unaware of a preliminary rainfall frequency analysis for the storm but for arguments sake let’s say the rainfall was a 1 in 100 year event. So often a 100-year rainfall produces less than a 100-year flood because the antecedent conditions are favourable such as soils drier than average before the flood. In this case our 1 in 100 year rainfall encountered very wet antecedent conditions plus the huge reservoir of snow to melt. This could have pushed the resulting flood to a 1 in 500 year event.
So climate change? Nah! Just blame Sod’s Law.
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“I’m A Celebrity: Insects could feed the world’s population”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59337135
“When you hear about people eating insects, the chances are you think of the bushtucker trial on I’m a Celebrity, which starts this weekend.
But food ingredients made from insects could be coming to a menu near you.
This is the focus of research being carried out at Aberystwyth University.
Scientists at the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) are looking at insects as a potentially valuable source of animal feed and food for people.
The work is part of ValuSect – which stands for valuable insects – an international project aiming to improve the sustainable production and processing of insect-based products.
Insects are a common feature of people’s everyday diets in countries including Mexico, China and Ghana.
They offer a more environmentally-friendly source of protein than many other foods and could help feed the world’s growing population.”
Good grief. Coming to a menu near you – as well as cold houses that are expensive to heat, and either a ban on driving or only being allowed to buy very expensive electric cars which won’t take you as far as you’d like to go on a single charge. I don’t like their vision of the future, and I suspect that 99% of the UK population won’t be very keen on it either, if they’re ever allowed to express an opinion.
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Inevitably there’s more:
“3D-printed ‘meat’: Does the plant-based product pass the taste test?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-59335815
“For the first time, 3D-printed ‘meat’ is being served as a whole ‘cut’, with the product launching in four cities around the world this week.
Produced by Redefine Meat, the ‘meat’ is made of plant-based products, and is completely vegan.
BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis went along to London restaurant Chotto Matte to see if it passes the taste test.”
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Today’s PRasNews quotes Labour “wiped Hull off the mainline rail map”
Well here an easy way to improve Humber rail railways
BUY LOCAL : Frack for gas onsite,
& generate electricity there
Cancel the 16 massive Drax woodchip trains/day
going full & 16 coming back empty
but UK #FakeGreens madly cut US trees
& buy PutinGas
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What was that about stranded assets?
“World’s largest offshore wind farm ‘unprofitable’ for Equinor, say government-funded researchers
New Norwegian study challenges Equinor’s profitability from the world largest offshore wind project under construction, located in the UK North Sea”
https://www.upstreamonline.com/exclusive/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-farm-unprofitable-for-equinor-say-government-funded-researchers/2-1-1098012
“Equinor’s investment in Dogger Bank — the world’s largest offshore wind project under construction — will be unprofitable, according to a Norwegian government-funded study.
The new research raises challenging questions about the Norwegian state-controlled oil and gas giant’s energy transition strategy.
The study was submitted this month to Norway’s Petroleum & Energy Ministry, which financed it as part of wider research into potential energy transition opportunities for the country.
Equinor chief executive Anders Opedal set ambitious new goals in June for the company to step up its investments in “renewables and low carbon solutions” to more than 50% of its gross annual investments by 2030.
Equinor sees the Dogger Bank project in the UK North Sea as a world-class asset that benefits from strong wind conditions, innovations and unprecedented scale: It will have 3.6 gigawatts of installed capacity when completed.
One of the study’s authors told Upstream that the massive project’s rate of return does not exceed Equinor’s rate of return requirement, so the researchers deem the project to be unprofitable.
“In our estimate, Dogger Bank is unprofitable,” said University of Stavanger professor Petter Osmundsen. “The project has to compete with alternative investment opportunities.”
Equinor has not disputed the study’s conclusions, but emphasised that it had benefited from selling stakes in the project….
…The researchers calculated the Dogger Bank project’s expected net present value (NPV) at minus £970 million (minus $1.3 billion). A negative NPV indicates that the value of the investment is below the rate of return which the company should require from its investments.
They calculated the expected internal rate of return (IRR) on total capital in the Dogger Bank project at 3.6%, in real terms, with a payback period of 17 years. IRR is a method used to compare relative profitability of projects.
Oil and gas projects’ internal rates of return often are much higher than for offshore wind, which is not exposed to the volatility of oil prices because of power price guarantees.
The researchers applied industry norms and based their estimates on assumptions about capacity factor, operating and decommissioning costs, and the electricity price for the last 10 years of production.
“Public information from the project gives detailed information about capital expenditure, production capacity and prices for the first 15 years of production,” Osmundsen said….”
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“Hundreds of low income households in line for £7.8m green energy refit”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5nnn7k3yyeo
“Four hundred homes of low-income households in Cornwall are to get free new renewable heating and insulation.
Cornwall Council announced the scheme after landing a £7.8m award from the government to make homes more energy efficient and lower their carbon emissions.
Energy use in homes makes up about a quarter of all of Cornwall’s carbon emissions, the local authority estimates.
The lower costs of heating would help residents and help Cornwall hit its target of net zero emissions by 2030, said Conservative Councillor Olly Monk, portfolio holder for housing and planning.
“This is really important and everything we can do to help make homes across Cornwall more energy efficient plays into the work that is going on to reduce our carbon footprint,” he said.
It is expected that the £7.8m from the government’s Sustainable Warmth Competition will arrive in December, with installations taking place until March 2023.”
Assuming that only the £7.8M grant money is used and that neither the Council nor residents are expected to spend any of their own cash, that still works out at £19,500 per property. I think the article should have been less ambiguously worded (was the ambiguity deliberate?). They’re not going to get “free renewable heating”; rather I am pretty sure they won’t have to pay for the installation. They’ll still have to pay the ongoing costs, so the heating isn’t free. What (if anything) will they save? Even if they save as much as £500 each p.a. (and I’m being generous in suggesting it might be so much) that’s still almost a 40 year payback period. Nobody in their right mind would spend their own money doing that. So this is a bad news story, not a good news one, since it demonstrates very clearly just how costly the “green” household energy transition will be. Furthermore, as they’re talking about low income households, it’s probably a fair bet that they’ll be small houses. Bigger houses will presumably cost more to be altered in this way.
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“Dozens of academics shun Science Museum over fossil fuel ties
Pressure mounts over museum’s sponsorship deals as open letter expresses ‘deep concern’”
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/nov/19/dozens-of-academics-shun-science-museum-over-fossil-fuel-ties
“More than 40 senior academics and scientists have vowed not to work with the Science Museum as the row over its financial relationship with fossil fuel corporations escalates.
In an open letter, prominent figures including a former chair of the UN’s climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and several leading scientists, many of whom have worked closely with the museum in the past, say they are “deeply concerned” about its fossil fuel sponsorship deals and they are severing ties with the museum until a moratorium is announced.
“We are in a climate crisis and should not be doing anything to legitimise those companies that are still driving up emissions by exploring for and extracting new sources of fossil fuels when the science is clear that we need to be leaving them in the ground,” the letter states.
It is the latest blow to the museum, which has faced several resignations and growing protests over its relationship with Shell and a newly announced deal with the renewables company Adani Green Energy, part of the Adani Group, which has major holdings in coal. This week the Guardian revealed how two scientists had refused to allow their work to be featured by the museum.
Jess Worth of the campaign group Culture Unstained, which campaigns to stop fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts, said: “The Science Museum continues to dismiss all critics of its fossil fuel partnerships as wilfully misinformed activists, but in reality it is facing a profound crisis in confidence from the scientific community and losing the public’s trust.”
Last month the climate scientist Prof Chris Rapley, a former director of the Science Museum, resigned from its advisory board, saying he disagreed with its “ongoing willingness to accept oil and gas company sponsorship”.
A few weeks later two trustees – Hannah Fry, a professor in the mathematics of cities at University College London, and Jo Foster, the director of the Institute for Research in Schools charity – resigned from the museum’s board in protest at its deal with Adani.”
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@Mark at 8:16 am – your comment reminded me for some reason of – Jim Stafford – Spiders and Snakes.
hearing it after all these years it’s a bit “raunchy” if that’s the correct term !!!
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“Insulate Britain: Police arrest 30 in climate protest at bridge”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59361145
“Police have arrested 30 climate activists after a central London bridge was closed by a sit-down protest.
The Lambeth Bridge demonstration was held in support of nine Insulate Britain campaigners who were jailed this week for defying an injunction on road blockades.
Up to 250 people took part in the sit-in, shutting the bridge for hours.
Police made the arrests after imposing Public Order Act conditions on the protest.
The Metropolitan Police said the bridge was reopened at about 19:00 BST, with the final protesters removed from Vauxhall Cross a few minutes later.
Earlier, uniformed officers stood on Lambeth Bridge while traffic was diverted, with police saying it was “for the safety of all”.
Meanwhile, demonstrators made speeches, sang songs, ate lunch and chanted slogans.
Campaigners told the crowd that the nine jailed Insulate Britain campaigners were “political prisoners” who will not be the last to be locked up for their convictions about climate change,”
This bit demonstrates the extent of the brainwashing these people have suffered:
“Zoe Cohen, 51, who travelled from Warrington, Cheshire, to protest, said “ordinary people should not have to do this and risk prison”.
She said the disruption caused by the protests was “microscopic” compared to the death and suffering caused by climate change.”
This despite deaths from climate change being a tiny fraction of what they have been at any time during recorded history, and despite a substantially larger human population on the planet in 2021 than at the times when many more people died in weather/climate -related events.
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The UK government won’t let Green projects fail
they’ll just come up with another weird cross-subsidy etc.
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I had promised to write a review here of a BBC programme broadcast last Tuesday (to be repeated on the 30th of November) – “The People vs Climate Change”. It concerns the Citizens Assembly and features the experiences and views of selected participants. When I started to watch it this morning, a major deja vu set in. Referring to that weeks’ Radio Times reassured me that it wasn’t a repeat (no R) and it was featured as a programme worth watching (they would not do that for a repeat, especially for a programme later to be repeated). The programme started with a voiceover stating that it had been recorded a year before COP26 so at least the intro was current.
Still suffering from acute deja vu, I finally consulted Google and found that a programme of the same title was broadcast in May and apparently featured the same participants. So apparently the BBC is rebroadcasting old tat in support of its climate change messaging service, but not admitting to it. I continued watching until about the half way point before giving up. Neither did I confirm that the earlier broadcast was essentially the same. By this time I was beginning to lose the will to live.
However there was one redeeming feature, one of the featured participants was a 75 year old nascent sceptic from Kent called Richard. It was a delight to see him cross swords with climate anxious wet-wipes. At one point he argued that sea-level rise of a metre in a hundred years should not be considered a problem, but was shut up by another participant playing the Bangladeshi card. Unfortunately he didn’t have the Netherlands card in his pack. More successful were his arguments against imposing more taxes to control frequent flyers. He was against more and more governmental intervention. A rare instance of common sense and an equally rare instance of the BBC featuring a sceptic who was willing to challenge the dogma du jour.
I will definitely see the programme to its end, but will not research how much of it is a repeat (life’s too short) Consulting Biased BBC I found just one post about Tuesday’s programme and nary a mention of wholesale programme duplication. Isn’t that site supposed to watch out for such practices?
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Jessica Simor QC of lefty conspiracyland tweets
And Patel was this morning speaking at the Trump supporting Koch brother funded climate denying Heritage Foundation.
Reported on the BBC as Patel “speaking in Washington”
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“EU could fund gas project linked to man charged over Maltese journalist’s murder
Melita pipeline would fuel Delimara power station, which Daphne Caruana Galizia was investigating when she was killed”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/21/eu-could-fund-gas-project-linked-to-man-charged-in-maltese-journalist-murder-daphne-caruana-galizia
“EU energy ministers are pushing to allow public funds to help build a gas pipeline to a power station in Malta co-owned by a businessman who is awaiting trial for the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
On Tuesday, officials and MEPs will begin deciding new rules aimed at phasing out EU subsidies for fossil fuel projects.
However, on Friday EU ambassadors confirmed that Malta and Cyprus had secured exemptions for pipelines that would connect them to European gas networks.
In practice, that means the €400m (£340m) Melita pipeline project, designed to transport gas from Gela in Sicily to Delimara in Malta, could be built using EU funds.
Cyprus also stands to benefit from an exemption to the phaseout of EU support for fossil fuel infrastructure. The €7bn EastMed pipeline is an even bigger endeavour than the Malta-Italy link – it will join Cyprus to the European gas network along with Greece and Israel.
The move was criticised by environmental campaigners because it would lock in Malta’s dependence on the Delimara gas-fired power station, which is partly owned by the man accused of having masterminded the killing of Caruana Galizia.”
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I note none of them quote any lines from her speech
There is a 1 hour video
I loaded the transcript and neither Climate, energy, nor Green issues are mentioned at all
Just national security and crime etc
GBnews have a 4 min summary .. https://youtu.be/I-wu7gdDzD0
“British Home Secretary Priti Patel today announced banning of #Hamas in its entirety, a move that puts the UK in line with the U.S. and EU. Patel said during a speech in Washington, “Hamas is fundamentally and rabidly anti-Semitic.”
https://politico.eu/article/uk-anti-semitic-hamas-terrorist-organization/”
.. https://youtu.be/8_t7pVgVAOE
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This “they are funded by Koch”
is dirty dirty smear merchants stuff
I have searched for ages, yet none of their tweets
contain any specifics like “They donated £Xm last year” etc.
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Alan I did try to explain the contexts 5 days ago
https://wordpress.com/comment/cliscep.com/102617
“Strange thing BBC created a Climate PR film in May and put it on Iplayer
but it’s first airing on TV is tonight
8pm BBC2 “The People Vs Climate Change”
It’s heavily promoted by @BusinessGreen
It’s a one-hour documentary about the citizens’ climate assembly.”
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Re recycling centre fires
Bish did a FOI to get a 2017 list
about 200
HTML Details : https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/493068/response/1189430/attach/html/5/Recycling%20and%20waste%20site%20fires.xlsx.html
On the FOI page, there are links to the EXcel spreadsheet, and the later update to March 2018
Then there is contact details for Deborah Lader, Fire Statistics
(no Twitter)
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Stew, somehow I missed your information that The People vs climate Change was first released in May on iPlayer. (I’m not really surprised, there is so much at this venue). But it poses several questions, not least of which is why did the BBC rerelease the programme almost six months later on especially on prime time (8-9pm) on BBC2? (BBC4 perhaps). A second question for me is why the deja vu? I don’t use iPlayer so am unlikely to have seen the programme before last week. It is a puzzlement.
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“Net zero heralds a new industrial revolution, says CBI boss”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59353192
“Climate targets provide the opportunity for a “new industrial revolution” in the UK, the boss of the Confederation of British Industry will say.
CBI director general Tony Danker will also argue that new industries such as biotech offer “a shot at redemption”.
Speaking at the CBI’s annual conference later, he will say de-industrialisation has led to “shuttered high streets” and a “loss of pride in place”.
The government said levelling up the UK was “at the very heart” of its agenda.
Mr Danker will tell business leaders in South Shields later that old industries such as textiles in Lancashire, shipbuilding on the Clyde, and steel in Sheffield have been allowed to “die” since the 1980s and offered “little more than benign neglect for what got left behind”.
“It was an economic policy that was ambivalent about levelling down,” he will say.
Economic growth needs to be evenly spread around the country for the government’s “levelling up” agenda to work rather than being concentrated in south-east England, he will argue.”
It sounds as though the CBI has sniffed the air and smelled the prospect of taxpayer subsidies.
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“Why schools are failing children on climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59173478
Can’t be bothered to cut & paste – it’s just more of the usual propaganda. Read it for yourself and see.
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“More than 5,000 homes in England approved to be built in flood zones
Insurers raise alarm but builders say housing crisis leaves them with no choice”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/22/more-than-5000-homes-in-england-approved-to-be-built-in-flood-zones
“More than 5,000 new homes in flood-risk areas of England have been granted planning permission so far this year, as local authorities try to tackle the housing shortage.
Researchers analysing 16,000 planning applications lodged between January and September discovered about 200 had been approved, for a total of 5,283 new homes, in areas where more than 10% of homes were already at significant risk of flooding.
Insurers said they were concerned about the numbers of homes being built where owners were at risk of experiencing “traumatic and devastating losses”.”.
And when – as they inevitably will – they flood, it’ll be climate change wot dun it, whereas of course the reality will be that it will have nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with human stupidity and greed.
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More on the latest recycling centre fire:
“Devizes recycling centre fire extinguished”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-59372625
“Firefighters have extinguished the remnants of a fire that broke out at a private recycling centre.
The fire was spotted at about 23:00 GMT on 17 November in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire, and crews from five fire stations were called to help.
It took more than three days to extinguish the main fire at the site operated by Grist Environmental.
Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Service said the cause of the fire was unknown but thanked the public for their patience.
Temporary traffic lights on the A342 have also been removed.
Group manager Dave Adamson said: “Our thanks go to local people for their patience while we tackled this fire, as we know the smoke was an issue for many in the immediate vicinity.
He added: “Fires of this type are not unusual, so we now have a Waste Fire Tactical Advisor within the Service, who has received training through the National Fire Chiefs Council and Staffordshire Fire & Rescue Service.
“We are also exploring a memorandum of understanding with Grist Environmental, who have offered support to future incidents within our service area, following the successful use of their heavy plant and operators during this fire.””
I wonder when the BBC Reality Check Team is going to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions from all the recycling centre fires to date?
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“Men’s meat-heavy diets cause 40% more climate emissions than women’s, study finds
Research also shows 25% of diet-related emissions are from ‘optional’ food and drinks, such as coffee, alcohol and cake”
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/nov/22/mens-meat-heavy-diets-cause-40-more-climate-emissions-than-womens-study-finds
“Men’s meaty diets are responsible for 40% more climate-heating emissions than those of women, according to a UK study.
The research also found a quarter of diet-related emissions were from “optional” food and drink, such as coffee, alcohol, cakes and sweets. The scientists said policies to encourage sustainable diets should focus on plant-based foods but switching drinks and cutting down on sweet snacks presented further opportunities.
A second study found in western countries, vegan and vegetarian diets were about a third cheaper to buy than regular diets, which the researchers said contrasted with the perception that they were the “preserve of a privileged middle class”.
Food production causes 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, and previous studies have shown that meat-eating in rich countries must be sharply reduced in order to tackle the climate crisis, largely caused by the methane and deforestation associated with cattle. But these studies have looked at the average emissions of broad food categories.
The new study, published in the journal Plos One, analysed the emissions linked to more than 3,200 specific food items and examined the diets of 212 British people, who recorded their food and drink intake over three 24-hour periods. It found animal products were responsible for almost half of the average diet’s greenhouse gas emissions: 31% from meat and 14% from dairy. Drink caused 15% of emissions and 8% came from cakes, biscuits and confectionery.
The research also showed that non-vegetarian diets created 59% more emissions than vegetarian diets. Men’s diets had 41% more emissions, largely due to eating more meat but also due to more drinks….”.
Sigh.
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“Furious South London couple
‘have to pay £12.50 every time they turn left out their driveway’
after ULEZ expansion ”
https://twitter.com/i/events/1462761536141811722
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TalkingPicture have a WWF advert
I am crying “thousands of penguin chicks could be lost as the ice beneath their feet melts”
‘If you don’t donate’
FFS the cynical money grabbing bastards
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why did the BBC rerelease the programme almost six months later on especially on prime time (8-9pm) on BBC2?
They saved it for after COP
why ?
Possibly
#1 it would’ve helped COP
#2 it risked opening a discussion and skeptics would have pointed out that Climate Assemblies are a scam
A second question for me is why the deja vu?
You probably heard a trailer on Radio4 or saw one on TV ?
pet projects are widely trailed
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“Australia declares La Niña weather event has begun”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-59383008
“Australia has said a La Niña event has developed for a second consecutive year, meaning there is a greater risk locally of floods and cyclones.
Last time the weather phenomenon contributed to “once in a century” rains battering parts of Australia.
But La Niña can lead to significant weather changes in different parts of the world.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is yet to declare a La Niña but has warned one may re-emerge.
This year’s event could be weaker, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (Bom)….
…In Australia, La Niña increases the chance of cooler daytime temperatures – reducing the risk of heatwaves and bushfires.
But it tends to create wetter than normal conditions and can increase the frequency of tropical cyclones.
Queensland has been warned of heavy rainfall and possible flash flooding this week. Last week, floods prompted evacuation warnings in Forbes, New South Wales.
Recent torrential rain in South Australia also led to the stranding of a young family in the outback.
During the last La Niña, thousands of Australians were displaced amid flooding which caused over A$1bn (£540,000m; $720,000m) in damage.
La Niña can increase the risk of storms in Canada and the northern US, often leading to snowy conditions.
In the UK and Northern Europe, a very strong La Niña event may also lead to a very wet winter….”.
The thing is, of course, that La Nina is an entirely natural phenomenon, and has absolutely nothing at all to do with CAGW, yet whenever extreme weather events happen now, it’s always “climate crisis”, “climate chaos” etc. And sure enough, right on cue:
“…The WMO has said naturally occurring climate events like La Niña “now take place in the context of human-induced climate change”, which is “increasing global temperatures, exacerbating extreme weather and impacting seasonal rainfall patterns.”…”.
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According to the BBC, a ‘leading head teacher’ has called upon us all to stop mocking the children for being woke:
“Ms Price, headmistress of the prestigious independent Benenden School in Kent, told her organisation’s annual conference: ‘Adults comment that they feel today’s teenagers are speaking a different language; that they can’t say anything without being corrected or called out by these PC children’.”
She disapproves of this moaning. Apparently, she is ‘weary’ of hearing us say ‘you can’t say anything any more’.
So to the list of things we can’t say any more, you can add: ‘we can’t say anything any more’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-59347577
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John, here’s the pushback:
“Of course we should challenge woke young people
Identitarians are increasingly preoccupied with pushing their ideas on school kids.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/22/of-course-we-should-challenge-woke-young-people/
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“Costa prize 2021 shortlists highlight climate anxiety
Jessie Greengrass’s novel The High House, set in a flood-devastated Suffolk, was one of several of the nominees to focus on global heating, said judges”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/23/costa-prize-2021-shortlists-highlight-climate-anxiety
“Jessie Greengrass’s vision of a near-future Britain drowned by an apocalyptic flood, part of the expanding genre of climate-change fiction, is among the books shortlisted for the 2021 Costa book awards.
Greengrass’s The High House follows Caro and her little brother Pauly as they try to survive in a flooded Suffolk, in a refuge created by Caro’s climate scientist stepmother. “Crisis slid from distant threat to imminent probability and we tuned it out like static,” writes Greengrass, in a novel that judges described as a “powerful book that makes you consider the privilege of being saved and the reality of survival”.
The High House was one of several books submitted for the novel prize to tackle environmental themes, said judge and author Jessie Burton, describing books that were “preoccupied with rising waters, the world heating up, the decimation of natural wildlife and the effects of humans on the land”.
“There were a variety of books touching on this theme or examining this theme, but Jessie’s stood out, it transcended from an issue into a novel,” said Burton. “What we wanted was a novel that a reader would want to read and immerse themselves in, even if it was challenging material, like facing the reality of the world heating up. And I think Jessie’s book makes it all uneasily plausible, because she does it very subtly. She’s a brilliant writer, and that’s what elevated it out of just writerly concern for the planet.”
Greengrass said she wanted to explore the “disconnect” between our knowledge of the impending disaster of the climate crisis, and our inability to act on it – “that kind of weird space where you can watch something happening that’s terrible, and know that it’s happening, and be afraid of it happening, but still just get on with all of the ordinary things of life”….”.
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“Dozens of ships stuck in Arctic as ice freezes early in reverse of recent warming winters
Shipping firms blame the Russian Met office for a forecast that failed to predict the early ice”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/22/dozens-ships-stuck-arctic-ice-freezes-early-reverse-recent-warming/
It’s behind a paywall, but you can read more at NALOPKT:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/11/23/dozens-of-ships-stuck-in-arctic-as-ice-freezes-early/
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Top news from everyone’s favourite
global warmingclimatechangeheatingemergencyinformation website:URL:www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=5241
Wot?
SkS has been puffing dodgy NGO output from its sciencey wellsprings for more than a decade.
I’d leave that dessert on the table, SkS, if you want to freeboard being taken seriously going forward.
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@John Ridgway at 1:29 pm
the end of that “Don’t call young people ‘woke’, says leading head teacher” link is strange –
“Former US President Barack Obama is one of the highest-profile figures to call out self-righteous attitudes among “woke” young people.
In a TV interview in 2019, he said to try to bring about change by being “as judgemental as possible in 2019″ against others with different views would not achieve much.”
ps – I no longer know what I can & can’t say in public !!! (Dinosaur on the other thread seems apt)
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JIT, ignore if you wish, as it’s unfair of me to put you on the spot, but I’d love your take on this story:
“Climate crisis pushes albatross ‘divorce’ rates higher – study
Researchers say warmer waters mean birds are travelling further for food and becoming more stressed, triggering relationship breakdowns”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/24/climate-crisis-pushes-albatross-divorce-rates-higher-study
“Albatrosses, some of the world’s most loyally monogamous creatures, are “divorcing” more often – and researchers say global heating may be to blame.
In a new Royal Society study, researchers say climate change and warming waters are pushing black-browed albatross break-up rates higher. Typically after choosing a partner, only 1-3% would separate in search of greener romantic pastures.
But in the years with unusually warm water temperatures, that average consistently rose, with up to 8% of couples splitting up. The study looked at a wild population of 15,500 breeding pairs in the Falkland Islands over 15 years.
For seabirds, warmer waters mean less fish, less food and a harsher environment. Fewer chicks survive. The birds’ stress hormones increase. They are forced farther afield to hunt.”
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I take no pleasure in this sad story, but it’s definitely an irony alert:
“India’s apple farmers count cost of climate crisis as snow decimates crops
Kashmiri farmers lose half their harvest to early snows for third year, with fears for future of the region’s orchards”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/24/india-kashmiri-apple-farmers-climate-crisis-snow-decimates-crops
“The homegrown apple is in danger of becoming a rarity in India, as farmers have lost up to half their harvest this year, with predictions that the country’s main orchards could soon be all but wiped out.
Early snowfalls in Kashmir, where almost 80% of India’s apples are grown, have seen the region’s farmers lose half their crops in the third year of disastrous harvests.
Officials are trying to calculate the loss to the apple industry, which contributes almost a third – 50bn rupees (£500m) – to the local economy annually. The apples are sold in fruit markets across India and some are exported.
Researchers have warned that orchards in the Kashmir valley, which is ringed by the Greater Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountains, are likely to become unsustainable in the next few years, as the climate crisis affects production.
The last 20 years have seen gradual changes in weather patterns in the region, which have intensified in the past five years. This is the third year harvests have been affected by early and heavier snowfalls in the Kashmir valley.
According to Kashmir’s department of horticulture, 5bn rupees were lost from harvests in 2018. This rose to 22.5bn rupees in 2019, which saw the heaviest snowfall Kashmir has experienced in 60 years.
“In the light of the changing climate, apple harvesting is not sustainable [here],” said Dr Irfan Rashid, assistant professor at the University of Kashmir.
“Usually, Kashmir receives the snowfall after 15 December, but over the last two decades, we are experiencing early snowfalls. The harvest time for many apple varieties is November. In the last five years, we have had three erratic snowfalls and in the future the situation may exacerbate.””
Three erratic snowfalls are weather, not climate. And it’s interesting that whatever the weather, anticipated by models or not, if it’s unusual and not perfect then it must be due to “the climate crisis”.
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Channel4 Dispatches was billed as showing the negative side of EVs
#1 “ooh 5% of charging points don’t work”
Doh, that means that 95% do !
#2 “Ooh VOCs are really scary
and hybrids emit more VOCs, than diesels ..for VOCs diesels are cleaner than petrol
For hybrids the cold start means the VOCs are significant”
Hmm show me the bodies, the people dead from driving a hybrid.
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“The homegrown apple is in danger of becoming a rarity in India”
.. what an idiotic comment, most of India doesn’t have apples, it’s tropical
The homegrown apple may exist in cold areas like Kashmir
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3:30pm Radio4 psychiatry prog discusses Air Pollution
Will it be science or will it be dogma ?
.. Dogma, basically it seems like he is SELLING Sadiq’s ULEZ
‘”more ULEZ = less mental health problems”
The researcher falsely equates ROAD air pollution
ie what’s detected by the road, with actual air pollution intake
.. most of which happens inside your home
which is largely unconnected to road levels.
Tweet #1 https://twitter.com/NIHRMaudsleyBRC/status/1463467720968712205
“Air pollution is a risk factor, that is easily modifiable
which suggests that these public health initiatives : Ultra Low Emission Zones
could improve mental health outcomes
and reduce health care costs by long term mental health conditions”
Unpacking : There are long term mental health conditions
in his London Survey, he spots there is a correlation between them and district pollution
He admits “Whilst causation cannot be proved”
Paper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344899478_Mental_health_consequences_of_urban_air_pollution_prospective_population-based_longitudinal_survey
1698 adults living in 1075 households in South East London, from 2008-13
We found robust evidence for interquartile range increases in PM2.5, NOx and NO2
to be associated with
– 18–39% increased odds of common mental disorders *
– 33% of psychotic experiences only for PM10
– 19–30% increased odds of poor physical symptoms
* weirdly precise
Anyways he’s suggesting that with zero traffic there’d be 20% less mental illness and 33% less psychotic experiences.
He claim to have adjusted for other factors
eg that mental health people are poorer, and live in cheaper places, which are often right next to the road.
Tweet #2 has a PR photo
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Less than eight hours after her election by Parliament, the new Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was forced to resign after the defeat of her budget, and the departure of her environmental allies from the government #AFP
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Mark, I don’t know the answer. I do know this is nonsense:
We may think tropical waters are clear because they have low productivity because they are hot, but there is more to it than that. The key things we need for productivity are sunlight and nutrients. After that, temperature increases won’t reduce productivity until some cap is reached that seems unlikely round and about the Falklands. Everything below the albatross in the food chain lives at the ambient temperature and growth and reproduction etc respond to that.
My first thought was that since nutrients often come from deep water reaching the surface, then slightly varying currents could easily explain productivity changes without reference to “climate heating.”
Looking at Wiki, I find that at the confluence of the Brazil and Falkland (Malvinas if you prefer) currents,
(It then goes on to extoll the zone’s role as a carbon sink…)
I don’t know much about albatrosses and their pairing beyond what is widely known. Of course, these tend to live far away from those of us in the UK, Albert Ross aside (I’ve never seen the poor beggar).
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Thanks Jit. Next up:
“Brentwood: Solar farm to power 10,000 homes is approved”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59406644
Note the unqualified headline, which differs substantially from the reality. Note also that planning officers recommended refusal as it’s in breach of the Council’s planning policy:
“A solar farm claimed to be able to power almost 10,000 homes in Essex has been given the go-ahead.
Brentwood Borough Council’s planning committee approved the proposals for the development just outside the town on Tuesday.
Planning officers had said building the solar farm on greenbelt land was “unacceptable” and against policy.
But councillors agreed the plans could be categorised as a special circumstance.
The solar farm is planned for land on Herongate, north of the A127 and just west of Dunton Wayletts.
It would generate approximately 30MW of clean renewable energy to power the equivalent of 9,968 homes, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).”
What is the LDRS? The BBC report creates the impression (at least it did with me( that it’s some sort of objective, neutral and authoritative reporting body. I’d never heard of it, and was somewhat surprised when I clicked on the link:
“Local Democracy Reporting Service
The Local Democracy Reporting Service created up to 150 new journalism jobs to help fill a gap in the reporting of local democracy issues across the UK.”
https://www.bbc.com/lnp/ldrs
“The journalists are funded by the BBC as part of its latest Charter commitment, but are employed by regional news organisations.
A total of 165 reporters are allocated to news organisations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
These organisations range from television and radio stations to online media companies and established regional newspaper groups.
Local Democracy Reporters cover top-tier local authorities, second-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.
Principles of operation: Questions and answers
Stories written by the democracy reporters are shared with more than 1,000 media titles and outlets that have signed up to be part of the Local News Partnerships scheme.
To be awarded the democracy reporter contracts, the successful news organisations had to pass stringent criteria which included financial standing and a strong track record of relevant journalism in the area they were applying to cover.
The award decisions were made by senior editorial BBC figures.”
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Well, the solar panels will be able to power 10,000 homes some sunny day.
Meanwhile, the case of the litigious climate prof is in the news at Retraction Watch again:
“Stanford prof fights efforts to make him pay at least $75,000 in legal fees after dropping defamation suit”
Mark Jacobson, we remember, sued Christopher Clack and PNAS because the former wrote a criticism of a paper of his that said the US could be powered entirely by renewables and the latter had the gall to publish it. When he dropped the suit Clack and PNAS sued for costs, and won. Sounds like Jacobson won’t cough up.
https://retractionwatch.com/2021/11/19/stanford-prof-fights-efforts-to-make-him-pay-at-least-75000-in-legal-fees-after-dropping-defamation-suit/
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Is he like most of the PR hucksters
In that having lost one, they just push another scheme ?
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Tonight, @BBCPanorama investigates *the electric vehicle revolution*
as Tesla leads the charge.
Reporter Darragh MacIntyre asks where does Tesla get the rare metal for its car batteries, and how ethical is its supply chain?
another tweet similar phrase
“*The electric vehicle revolution*
is being powered by cobalt but up to 30% is dug by hand in artisanal mines”
I have seen claims that Tesla has one car that has zero Cobalt batteries.
(I doubt it sells many)
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Mark – thanks for LDRS link
another example of how all powerful the BEEB is with it’s seemingly unlimited funds.
no wonder few question the BBC agenda on anything in other news org’s.
from 2nd bottom from your link –
“Credit
LDRs should be credited as “First Name, Last Name, Local Democracy Reporter”.
By-lines or references within copy are acceptable.
Broadcasters should acknowledge LDRs when they appear on air or when the format allows.
Shared credit with other reporters is acceptable if LDRs’ content is copied, edited or incorporated into new pieces of work.
The LDRS logo can also be used in print, online or on TV, but is not compulsory.
LDRs should refer to themselves as “Local Democracy Reporters”, not “BBC Local Democracy Reporters” in all forms of communication, including social media profiles.”
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I think this is a huge development – one of the west’s strongest economies, one which largely props up the EU, is going down the “green” road (let’s not kid ourselves that Germany has been “green” to date). Give this a few years to play out (assuming the coalition lasts that long) and the negative implications for the German economy – and therefore for the EU – could be massive.
“Germany’s Scholz seals deal to end Merkel era”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59399702
“Olaf Scholz will head a three-party coalition with broad plans for Germany’s transition to a green economy, under a deal to end 16 years of government led by Angela Merkel.
Almost two months after his Social Democrat party won federal elections, he will go into power with the Greens and business-friendly Free Democrats.
Climate protection forms a big part of the coalition deal.
The parties aim to phase out coal use by 2030, eight years ahead of schedule.
They will also seek to use 2% of German territory for wind power and focus on hydrogen-based energy too. By 2030, the parties want 80% of electricity to be sourced from renewable energy and 15 million electric cars to be on German roads.”
The BBC agrees with me, though it’s not so negative:
“Germany is Europe’s biggest economy, so decisions taken by the new government will have a big effect on its neighbours.”
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The Guardian’s 10 most viewed articles again include nothing about climate. In at number 3 is:
“The seven types of rest: I spent a week trying them all. Could they help end my exhaustion?”
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Calling all carpenters, did you know that yesterday was World Walrus Day? (Info from The Guardian with a magnificent two-page photograph of four of the mustachios, with nary an oyster in sight). Apparently WWF want to count them using satellite imagery.
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Robin Guenier, who some of you know of, has written a short article using elementary arithmetic and the IPCC’s own numbers to show that, if the IPCC’s ficures are correct, both the 1.5C and 2.0C targets are unachievable.
Click to access why-1.5ac-is-unachievable-.pdf
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BBCPanorama investigates *the electric vehicle revolution* as Tesla leads the charge.
Reporter Darragh MacIntyre asks where does Tesla get the rare metal for its car batteries, and how ethical is its supply chain?
The implication of the programme was that artisanal mining is unethical because of the hazards. Glencore Mining in the DRC want to take over the area currently occupied by artisanal miners and create a conventional mine. The local miners were quite clear that this would destroy their livelihoods and oppose the big mining company. The programme did not resolve this conundrum. The main takeaway was that nuns don’t really like artisanal mining even though it provides employment and income for thousands.
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Alan, regarding World Walrus Day, see this tweet (comments aren’t going well):
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Re: yesterday’s Panorama and C4’s Dispatches from a few days back.
Panorama first – mostly about how evil Elon Musk was for buying untraceable cobalt that was being mined in truly horrendous conditions in the DRC. They certainly went out of their way to make Musk look like a jerk. There was however a curiously ambivalent attitude to the mines themselves: after saying how terrible the artisanal mining was, they then found a way to condemn the mining corp for planning to expel the miners and wall the place off so they could use machines to do the work. (This would put the miners out of work. But it is surely something that a student of history would be able to bat away easily enough.)
I found a noticeable contrast between the “Who cares?” approach to the DRC miners seemingly adopted by Musk and his earlier half-crazed efforts to pull off a cave rescue with that bizarre coffin-like apparatus. (Not that this was mentioned by Panorama.)
Dispatches was a rather lightweight collection of anecdotes – how terrible VOCs are coming out of the back of hybrids, how terrible the charging network is, how chargers are often busted, how ludicrous range management is. There were plenty of talking heads stating that gov’t had to lay out a comprehensive charging network and bemoaning how many different companies were involved, each with different apps, etc. Strangely no-one reminded us how in the booming days of petrol cars there was no need for government mandates or infrastructure: people made fuelling stations as a commercial enterprise.
Dispatches could not understand why the lion’s share of the chargers are where the lion’s share of the EVs are based – London and the South East. Yes, they are that stupid. They want private companies to build charging stations in the **** end of nowhere, where they will get used twice a year, thus earning their owners about £2.50, on an outlay of tens of thou plus operating costs. Ah, but when we’re all driving EVs, they’ll be quids in. Except if you had any hope at all of charging at home, you wouldn’t touch commercial chargers.
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potentilla, I see you noted the same “cake and eat it” approach by Panorama that I did.
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Tragic news about hurricanes (aka typhoons or cyclones): there haven’t been nearly enough of them. It’s simply not alarmist enough folks.
Needless to say attribution studies are in full swing trying to detect the reasons. Or are they?
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“Essex: Make £6.5bn pension fund greener, council told”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59423691
“A £6.5bn pension fund should be invested in more sustainable and net-zero firms, a council has been told.
The recommendation was from the Essex Climate Action Commission, which has advised Essex County Council on climate change.
The authority has agreed to several proposals from the commission to move Essex towards net zero by 2050.
Commission chairman, Jules Pretty, said: “There are opportunities there to show sustainable investment policies.”
He said money from Essex County Council’s pension scheme, one of the largest in local government, could be put into “the green finance that was discussed at COP26”.
Conservative leader of the council, Kevin Bentley, said he was due to discuss the pension fund and would “accelerate” the work into investing it into sustainable firms.
“I couldn’t agree more and I know my colleagues in the cabinet would agree with that too,” he added.”
How naive am I? There I was thinking that the job of pension fund trustees is to ensure that funds are safely and profitably invested for the benefit of the ultimate pensioners.
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“Isle of Man’s potential to play ‘key’ renewable energy role discussed”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-59418563
“The Isle of Man’s potential to play a “key” role in renewable electricity generation was recognised at the latest British-Irish Council summit, the deputy chief minister has said.
Climate change was among the issues discussed as Jane Poole-Wilson attended the conference in Cardiff last week.
She said delegates agreed the island’s central location meant it could help others “maximise” renewable output….
…At the council’s 36th summit, hosted by the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford, representatives from nations across the British Isles outlined the actions they were taking to tackle climate change.
Ministers had recognised the Isle of Man could be a “key partner” in the generation of renewable electricity, as it was “sitting in the middle” of all the administrations, “surrounded by the sea”, Ms Poole-Wilson said.
There were discussions on how the island’s own green energy capacity could be developed, after the Welsh delegation spoke about the research its government has done into tidal power, she added.
Ms Poole-Wilson said “contracts for difference”, a mechanism used by the UK government to support low-carbon electricity generation, were identified as an issue that would need to be resolved so that the island “could export into energy markets once its offshore wind capacity was up and running”.
Returning from her first international conference since taking the role in October, Ms Poole-Wilson said there was “real benefit in going physically to these summits”.
“We can learn from other administrations about how they are tackling problems, what solutions are available to them, and all of that is facilitated by the personal relationships built up between politicians”, she added.”
Oh yes, real benefits for the climaterati to travel, it’s just the rest of us who have to get used to the idea of not travelling so much.
The Isle of Man might be able to generate and export some renewable energy, but whether it goes east, west, south or north it will all be dependent on underseas cables, and as I’ve discussed in “20,000 Volts Under the Sea” that isn’t without its own issues.
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“Solar farm: Bristol site set to be granted permission”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-59421459
“Plans for one of the UK’s biggest solar farms near Bristol are set to be granted permission.
The proposed development would span 16 agricultural fields on 167 acres (676 sq m) of land a mile west of Wickwar.
The application has “strong support” from the authority’s climate change team.
However, some parish councils have concerns about the the “industrial” scale of the proposals.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), a report to members said the site was rural but not in the greenbelt and the quality of the soil was mostly poor for agriculture.
The site is bounded to the east by Rag Lane and to the west by the B4058 Bristol/Bagstone Road, while Cowslip Lane is further north.
It said: “The proposed solar energy farm, in providing power to 17,000 homes, would make a significant contribution towards renewable energy production in South Gloucestershire as well as moving towards the national commitment.
“These benefits therefore carry significant weight in considering this planning application.”…”.
A few comments. I note they allege “rural but not greenbelt and the soil was mostly poor for agriculture”. How convenient. That’s the sort of “degraded peat” argument used by Viking Energy in Shetland, but some of the photos of disturbed peat I’ve seen there doesn’t look at all degraded to me. As for providing power to 17,000 homes, of course that will largely not occur in witner when it’s most needed. And 167 acres is a heck of a lot of land. Finally, I note the BBC is again pushing the Local Democracy Reporting Service as though its some sort of independent third party source of news, when it’s funded by the BBC and subject to BBC-imposed conditions of use.
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As with most religions, there’s usually somebody ready and willing to cash in on the gullible:
“Sales of eco-friendly pet food soar as owners become aware of impact
Number of products in UK containing MSC-certified sustainable seafood has grown by 57% in last five years”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/25/eco-friendly-pet-food-sale-soar-uk-owner-become-aware-impact-msc-certified-sustainable-seafood
“Eco-friendly pet food is on the rise as dog and cat owners become more aware of the impact of their beloved pet’s diet.
New figures released exclusively to the Guardian show that the number of pet food products containing Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-certified sustainable seafood has grown by 57% in the UK during the last five years, from 49 to 77. In the last year alone consumers bought more than 7m tins, pouches and packs of MSC-certified pet food.
Globally, pets consume about 20% of the world’s meat and fish, a number set to rise with the trend for consumers to feed them human-grade meat. An area double the size of the UK is used to produce dry pet food for cats and dogs each year, while approximately 3m tonnes of fish are used in pet food in the UK every year. Pet food is estimated to be responsible for a quarter of the environmental impacts of meat production, such as the release of greenhouse gases, phosphates and pesticides.
But there are now a growing number of environmentally friendly alternatives available. Dog food containing insects went on sale for the first time in 2019 and can be bought in high street pet food shops, and vegan brands are increasing in popularity. The market continues to grow as people realise the food their pets eat could increase their carbon emissions and contain meat from animals kept in poor welfare conditions.”
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“Discussion: Hard Truths and the Climate Crisis”
From an SDP Green Paper (that’s the UK’s SDP):
Click to access 211106_The_End_of_Indifference_SDP_Green_Paper.pdf
“When political leaders and businesses have discussed environmental concerns, they have mostly been preoccupied with reducing Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions. While a noble goal, the problem is that no reduction in Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions, including their entire elimination, can make any significant difference to global emissions. The United Kingdom contributes only 1% of total carbon dioxide emissions, compared to China’s 28% and the United States’ 15%. Britain is towards the bottom of emissions league tables, with per capita emissions lower than they were in the 1850s (Union of
Concerned Scientists, 2020).
On a global level, we must face a hard truth: current global policies and agreements regarding emissions have failed, are failing, and will continue to fail. The rise in global greenhouse gas concentrations continues to accelerate, driven by developing nations who are seeking to improve output and living standards – most prominently, China and India.
A plan to tackle climate change that hinges on hitherto impoverished nations curtailing their pursuit of prosperity is not realistic. Despite the long-run risks that climate change poses for China, India, and other developing nations, it is unlikely that they will resist a common pattern for human civilisations: no society in human history has made the conscious decision not
to grow, not to expand, and not to deploy its ingenuity and efforts to secure what it sees as its material improvement.
The prime responsibility for growing CO2 emissions now lies with developing nations. A preoccupation with domestic carbon emissions in Britain is, effectively, a displacement activity which diverts attention from environmental restoration which the
UK could actually achieve.”
Now I need them to put forward a candidate in my constituency at the next general election!
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Nope.
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Jit, indeed. So much for the BBC’s much-vaunted Local Democracy Reporting Service.
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Worth a read, IMO:
“The catch with Germany’s green transformation
Incoming government’s coalition deal foresees decarbonization of Europe’s economic engine, but that’s easier said than done.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-catch-with-germanys-green-transition-transformation-coalition/
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Richard Nov 25, 8.31pm. When we climate-heathen used to remonstrate with the climate change virtuous that hurricanes and their like would be expected to decrease in frequency in a warming world, not increase we were onto a winning ticket. A warming Arctic meant a reduction in the temperature gradient from tropics to poles and a consequent reduction in the number of hurricanes that essentially were heat transport devices. So why don’t the climate-sanctified seize our old clothes and argue that an absence of hurricanes and cyclones is proof of a warming world? We heathen wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
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Alan, no-one is afraid of a little warming – hence the rebranding of “global warming” to “climate crisis”. The alarmists need to demonstrate grave harms.
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JIT. Ah! I see what you’re getting at. If the emphasis is upon a future of grave harms, then a decrease/absence of hurricanes due to climate change is not something to emphasise since, by definition, all things climate change are negative. How stupid of me.
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Maybe XR is learning a little – by blockading Amazon they’re doing less to annoy ordinary people and complaining about an organisation that many people dislike. On the other hand, it remains to be seen if the generation of young internet junkies who order just about everything from Amazon on smartphones and expect next day delivery will be too pleased about it:
“Extinction Rebellion blockades Amazon UK hubs on Black Friday
Activists target distribution network to highlight company’s treatment of workers and environmental impact”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/26/extinction-rebellion-blockades-amazon-uk-hubs-on-black-friday
“Climate activists have blockaded Amazon distribution centres across the UK to highlight the company’s treatment of its workforce and what they say are its “environmentally destructive and wasteful business practices”.
Scores of Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists locked themselves together and used bamboo structures in an attempt to disrupt the online retail company’s distribution network on Black Friday – one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Unveiling banners reading “Infinite growth: Finite planet”, protesters said the blockade was part of an international action by XR targeting Amazon “fulfilment centres” in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.
In the UK, activists targeted sites in Dunfermline, Doncaster, Darlington, Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester, Peterborough, Derby, Coventry, Rugeley, Dartford, Bristol, Tilbury and Milton Keynes.
Rob Callender, 31, from Uxbridge, west London, was one of the XR protesters at the Dartford blockade. “We need to make Amazon pay for the damage it is doing to the environment … for the terrible damage hyper-consumerism is doing to our planet, creating emissions, poisonous waste and burned out workers who are denied the right to unionise in most places,” he said.
Protesters say they hope to continue the blockades for several hours – possibly into the weekend….”.
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I don’t know what to make of this – is China doing good in Kenya or causing harm? Why is China there, anyway? WHat’s its game plan?
“Kenya tree felling sparks anger over Nairobi’s new highway”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59383324
“Rubble, bare earth and tree stumps mark the route of a super highway under construction in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, upsetting environmentalists – especially in the wake of the COP26 summit.
Rows of mainly indigenous trees that once lined the route of the new four-lane 27km (16-mile) Nairobi Expressway have been felled as construction nears completion.
Ornamental palm trees – some of them planted soon after independence from British colonial rule in the 1960s – have not been spared either.
Last year a century-old fig tree targeted for removal was saved by the president after a public outcry – but campaigners’ voices about the hundreds of others have been drowned out.
Elizabeth Wangithi, from the Green Generation Initiative, who earlier this month was among those rallying world leaders in Glasgow to reduce the impact of climate change, is devastated by the destruction in the heart of one of the city’s main thoroughfares.
“We previously geographically mapped out 200 trees marked for felling along Kenyatta Avenue alone. It’s a sorry state of affairs,” she told the BBC.
The devastation has already seen flocks of marabou storks and other birds that perched and nested on the trees migrate to tall buildings in the city centre.
The Chinese-financed highway, some of which is elevated, will link the main airport in the east to western suburbs. It is intended to make it easier to cross the city and free other roads from Nairobi’s notorious traffic jams.
Before the $550m (£410m) project started last year, an official environmental impact report said that more than 4,000 young and mature trees would be cut down.
It also flagged its “major negative impact” on air and water quality during construction.
In response government officials said the Chinese contractor building it would plant trees elsewhere – five for every one felled.
But this will not be in Nairobi – and environmentalists fear such promises may not be kept…
…The highway’s design has subsequently been tweaked – but a coalition of environmental organisations, including Green Generation Initiative and Nature Kenya, went to court in June 2020 to stop the project, arguing that it had gone ahead without public consultation.
Yet construction and the chopping down of tress has continued, despite the law requiring a suspension of works pending the environment court’s decision.
According to Mark Odaga, from Natural Justice – which is also part of the coalition, the problem comes down to details.
The report approving the project gave little away about how the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) would deal with the environmental impact before, during and after construction….”
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John Cook has a new (open-access) report about contrarianism/denialism*:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01714-4
It’s based on a survey that applied a tendentious classification scheme inconsistently** – so it’s standard Cook fare and will probably do very well.
===
* It’s ‘contrarianism’ in the main paper. In the SI, which shows how the report’s classifiers were taught to classify things, it’s ‘denialism’.
** E.g., supporting nuclear energy is denialism even though…
(That ‘overwhelming majority … directly challenge’ is, even when based on their own dodgy analysis of their own dodgy survey, bollocks.)
Another major problem is that the paper sometimes makes a thing about separating criticism of climate science from criticism of climate activism but at other times lumps them together under the title ‘Science is unreliable’.
Nature should be ashamed.
*** Orphaned footnote: Ben Pile’s Climate Resistance blog was one of those surveyed/judged. I did a random skim of how the Cook report classified some of his blogposts. Lots of 5-2s – activists are unreliable – but also some dodgy 1s, 3s and 4s. Spreadsheet here:
https://socialanalytics.ex.ac.uk/cards/data.zip
(The numbers in Column D are based on carriage returns in the blogs/articles. They don’t necessarily signal new paragraphs. #xxxxx0 –> CR –>#xxxxx1, etc.)
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@Vinny – thanks for heads up on crapoligy
the title – “Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change”
he gets paid & papers for the same old sh*t !!!
to late at night to comment further, but to those you know his history “sad days”
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Vinny, thanks, I think. I’ll write about this if I have time.
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Oh my days. It looks like ATTP did some of the classifying used in the new Cook bollocks.
Astrophysics, eh? Everything is so far off that you’ve got infinite time to piddle around at SkS.
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Lewandowsky shows, yet again, that he thinks a conspiracy produced Brexit:
Also that he has no idea about British politics: ‘data show British public was totally unconcerned about EU membership till early 2015’.
Wot?
Numpty.
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An old story being recycled:
“Developers challenged over carbon footprint of new buildings in UK
Critics say retrofitting rather than demolishing and constructing buildings has less climate impact”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/28/developers-challenged-over-carbon-footprint-of-new-buildings-in-uk
“There is a new front in Britain’s planning wars. Rows over obstructed views and architectural style are being elbowed aside by concerns about the carbon footprint of new buildings.
This week, Marks & Spencer became the latest company challenged over its climate impact, when opponents warned that the planned demolition of its 90-year-old flagship store on Oxford Street and replacement with a new structure will create so much carbon dioxide that 2.4m trees would need to be planted to offset it.
The City of London is facing pressure over designs for new courts and offices on the site of six demolished buildings off Fleet Street after an independent academic estimated it would cost 19,000 tonnes of CO2 more than an alternative scenario based on refurbishment and extension. The destruction of almost an entire city block was granted consent earlier this year.
And in Derby, plans to bulldoze the 1970s brutalist concrete Assembly Rooms rather than refitting it for future use are reckoned to use CO2 equivalent to driving around the world 738 times.”
The world CO2 pie can be cut in many ways, it seems:
“The World Green Building Council calculates that buildings are responsible for 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions: 28% from energy needed to heat, cool and power them, and 11% from materials and construction. The production of cement accounts for 8% of global carbon emissions, according to research by the Chatham House thinktank.”
One way or another, I think I’ve seen CO2 emissions attributed in so many ways to so many countries/sectors that it all seems to add up to more than 100%.
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“Decarbonisation and rationality: a master-class”
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/decarbonisation-and-rationality-a-master-class/?sfw=pass1638132250
“Testimonies before Parliamentary Committees rarely make riveting reading. Dr John Constable’s House of Lords evidence published in full in the BfB ‘document’ section, is an exception and has been described by one international energy expert as “a master class”, outlining a rational decarbonisation policy based on moving via gas to modular nuclear instead of the present ‘crash course in wishful thinking’.”
Transcript here:
“Toward a Rational Decarbonisation Policy”
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/toward-a-rational-decarbonisation-policy/
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“Will they build back green?”
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/11/28/will-they-build-back-green/
“This is an extract from my latest book Build Back Green
We live in revolutionary times. A movement to harness the state to root carbon out of our lives has now entrenched itself in government as the prevailing policy. Joe Biden’s America joins hands with the European Union in declaring war on carbon dioxide. A clever China agrees in principle and corners the market in many green products, whilst still increasing her output of the unpopular gas.
The protagonists strike an optimistic tone. They assure us the revolution will be carried through with a wide range of new green jobs. They hold out the promise of skilled people running windmill and battery factories, joyously powering the revolution of their dreams. They comment little on the other side, as they effectively sign the redundancy notices of all those in the oil and gas business, in drilling technology, in internal combustion engines, conventional ships, planes and vehicles, gas heating and much else. They have in mind a huge transition from the fossil fuel economy to the green electricity economy. They want us all to dump our diesel and petrol cars, replace our gas boilers, change our diet away from meat, give up foreign holidays and take to our bicycles.
The conversion to carbon free has not developed the same momentum and pace yet that the petrol and diesel vehicle enjoyed when they were introduced. The problems include a perception that the newer green products are not as good as the fossil fuel products they wish to replace, and a view that the green items remain too expensive. Where the advent of the car, van and bus widened people’s choices and offered longer range journeys to people who otherwise had to walk, the arrival of the electric car or heat pumps does not offer the consumer any new service or capacity they do not already enjoy. The problem with the green revolution is it comes from the top down. Government are the revolutionaries, not the hordes at the gates of power urging change. Government is trying to persuade or make people change their lifestyles without convincing them they will be better off if they do.
It is a paradox that a revolution should come from the very establishment that is threatened by it. Car companies making a good living selling excellent diesel and petrol cars queue up to decry their old products and promise a new range of electric cars as soon as they can get round to making them. Governments that enjoy huge revenues from oil and gas taxes, vehicle excise and fuel taxes sacrifice them with abandon, pretending that electric cars or electric heating will come tax free in contrast to their predecessors. The elite who have enjoyed dining out on the finest cuts of meat complain about the number of cattle on grassland. The powerful who have lived a charmed life flitting by first class jet to another five star hotel in a remote country warn us off such a lifestyle. The press delights in uncovering hypocrisy, as some of the staunchest advocates of a new austerity or restraint in lifestyle fall foul of their own recommendations to others to cut the carbon miles.
It is time for a proper debate about this ersatz revolution, these grand plans often drawn up by people who think they should have some kind of exemption from the rules they set. So far the green movement has spawned so many long haul flights for delegates to arrive in air conditioned five start hotels to urge the world to stop international flights and much else that many aspire to. It is now at the point where it has to translate aspirations into practical policies, and vague distant targets into shorter terms targets with bite. It will only do so if it unleashes a range of popular products that are affordable and better than the ones they seek to displace.”
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Homelessness is a terrible thing, a blight on our consciences and an ongoing crisis. But made worse by the “climate crisis”? I don’t think so?
“Climate crisis posing growing risk to the homeless, UK charities tell ministers
Letter calls for urgent action this winter to help those with no, or inadequate, housing”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/29/climate-crisis-posing-growing-risk-to-the-homeless-uk-charities-tell-ministers
“Homeless people and those in poor housing are at increasing risk from the climate crisis, while suffering the consequences of our dependence on costly fossil fuels, housing charities have warned.
The leaders of three of the UK’s biggest housing charities have written to ministers to call for urgent action for this winter for people facing homelessness, and to improve inadequate housing.
They also want a coherent strategy for the future on how to meet the UK’s net zero emissions target while building the new homes needed around the country.”
I’d like a coherent policy too!
“The letter, seen by the Guardian, and signed by the chiefs of three major housing and homelessness charities – Shelter, Homeless Link and Crisis – is the first time they have jointly intervened with ministers about the climate crisis. They are increasingly concerned about the impacts of extreme weather on the vulnerable, and fear that the opportunity to improve people’s housing while reducing greenhouse gas emissions is being lost.”
For some reason, though, there is no link to the letter.
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Nothing on COP 26 (what was that? Old news) or climate change on the Guardian’s 10 most-read stories this morning. Unless you count this at number 3: “Minus 10C Arctic blast predicted as Storm Arwen rages on”, but that doesn’t really fit the narrative (-10C, surely not? Oh, I forgot, it’s now climate chaos and extreme weather).
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Another article by Robin Guenier. This time on the impossibility and absurdity of ‘Net Zero’.
Click to access britain-and-net-zero.pdf
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Fossil fuels fundamental #1
– Carbon taxes are a fair tax that keeps the economy alive.
Unlike other taxes there is no easy escape
Amazon have to pay a lot of tax on the fuels in their vans.
In an all electric economy, where are the taxes going to come from ?
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Fossil fuels fundamental #2
– A fossil fuel economy is an inherently diverse one
Look at the all electric home in the recent cold snap power cuts
What did the family do ?
The one with a heat pump depending on an electric motor
The one with a an all electric car, dependent on the grid always working.
“Let me jump in my electric car and fetch some food for granny,
oh the car has no charge in it.”
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“Lot of communist flags here in Quebec and the anti-oil pipeline demo”
says Viva Frei in his video
..See my reply tweet
.. https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1465295965976510466
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I traced that image to a September tweet
.. https://twitter.com/LRsocialiste/status/1441518034225610767
Similar July protest
.. https://twitter.com/LRsocialiste/status/1279555895505149952
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“Storm Arwen: ‘We can’t go another night without power'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59457927
It’s awful, but it’s merely a glimpse of hat the future holds unless our politicians get a grip on energy policy.
“…”It’s been pretty horrific,” Rebecca told BBC Scotland. “The power went off on Friday. I live in a little council house and I’m a single mum of a three-year-old. In our house you can see our breath.
“Thankfully I could go round to my mum and dad’s house and they’ve got a gas heater, but aside from that we just had nothing.”…”.
“…Meanwhile in Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Debbie Martin has bought a second-hand generator after recently switching to fully-electric heating.
She has been told she could be without power until 11:00 on Tuesday because it is still too dangerous to remove trees which have fallen on to power lines.
She told the BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “You can’t do the things you would normally do.
“You can’t brush your teeth because your toothbrush is flat. You have to drive round in the car to charge your phone….”.
Good job it’s not an electric car.
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“Russia’s Gazprom reports record earnings amid global gas crisis
Company expects higher profits for final months of 2021 as customers in Europe face soaring energy costs”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/29/russia-gazprom-reports-record-earnings-amid-global-gas-crisis-energy
“Russia’s state gas company has reported record earnings for the third quarter of the year after profiting from a global gas crisis that has ignited historic energy market highs across Europe.
Gazprom, the world’s largest gas producer, said it expected even higher profits for the final months of the year as its customers in Europe brace for a winter energy crisis and record high costs.
Its better-than-expected financial results included a net income of 581.8bn rubles (£5.86bn) from July to September compared with a net loss a year ago after the average gas price it earned from buyers in Europe increased to $313.40 per 1,000 cubic metres from $117.2 in 2020.
Famil Sadygov, Gazprom’s deputy chairman of the management committee, said: “Given the current dynamics, we are expecting even more impressive results in the fourth quarter.”…”.
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Thread of Guardian Green people in their bubbleworld
they don’t realise they are the bad people
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SmartEnergyGB and Grantham making claims
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“Estimated to lead to £1.5 Bn of energy savings”. I never trust estimates in advance, especially from those charged with justifying an enormously expansive roll-out (£18Bn last time I checked, probably more now, since the expense of such projects only ever goes one way, and it isn’t down).
We all know this is about reducing demand on a compromised National Grid.
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“Quest begins to drill Antarctica’s oldest ice”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59475410
“Efforts are about to get under way to drill a core of ice in Antarctica that contains a record of Earth’s climate stretching back 1.5 million years.
A European team will set up its equipment at one of the highest locations on the White Continent, for an operation likely to take four years.
The project aims to recover a near-3km-long cylinder of frozen material.
Scientists hope this ice can help them explain why Earth’s ice ages flipped in frequency in the deep past.”
If we don’t understand this rather important fact, how can we be so sure about climate science at all? And, by the way, in the context of the 4.5bn year old planet earth, 1.5 million years isn’t “the deep past” – it’s very recent history, the blink of an eye.
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Levelling up?
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Monbiot’s clickbait headline about XR offshoot IB
“Jailed for 51 weeks for protesting? Britain is becoming a police state by stealth”
I doubt it is 51 weeks
I’d say 12 months
but person will probably get out in 4 if that
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stewgreen, in fairness to Monbiot, his piece is about amendments to a bill currently going through Parliament, that seek to clamp down on protest, and his comments don’t refer to anything happening to protestors and activists right now:
“This is proper police state stuff. The last-minute amendments crowbarred by the government into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill are a blatant attempt to stifle protest, of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt. Priti Patel, the home secretary, shoved 18 extra pages into the bill after it had passed through the Commons, and after the second reading in the House of Lords. It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence.
Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on – a crucial tool of protest the world over – illegal, but they are so loosely drafted that they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.
It would also become a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out, again with a maximum sentence of 51 weeks. This looks like an attempt to end meaningful protest against road-building and airport expansion. Other amendments would greatly expand police stop and search powers. The police would be entitled to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they might be carrying any article that could be used in the newly prohibited protests, presumably including placards, flyers and banners. Other new powers would grant police the right to stop and search people without suspicion, if they believe that protest will occur “in that area”. Anyone who resists being searched could be imprisoned for – you guessed it – up to 51 weeks.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/01/imprisoned-51-weeks-protesting-britain-police-state
I share his disquiet, but my concern is with regard to all forms of peaceful protest, rather than just with regard to people setting out quite deliberately as part of their protests to cause huge problems potentially for thousands, even tens of thousands of people, with possible threat to lives as part of the picture (e.g. ambulances incapable of reaching patients or of getting them to hospital).
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A record, however flimsy, si always being broken somewhere, I suppose:
“Northern Ireland has warmest but dullest autumn on record”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-59489484
“Northern Ireland has had its warmest autumn on record, according to figures from the Met Office.
With an average temperature of 11C, the months of September, October, and November collectively were 1.5C above normal.
This follows the third warmest summer on record for Northern Ireland.
Official thermometers hit 31.3C in Castlederg, County Tyrone, in July, which set a new highest temperature record.
However, this autumn has also been the dullest in 75 years and the second dullest on record with just 194.3 hours of sunshine recorded.
That is 77% of the sunshine we normally have – the average sunshine for Northern Ireland in the autumn is 251.5 hours.
It has also been slightly drier than normal in the three-month period with 87% normal rainfall recorded.”
“Slightly drier than normal”. Terrifying.
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“Warning of ‘sharp decline’ in Scotland’s ptarmigan”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-59476458
Astonishingly, nobody has blamed climate change:
“The charity said that due to a lack of formal surveys it was difficult to understand the reasons behind the fall in numbers of ptarmigan.”
Not having been born by 1961 I can’t comment on the claim (below), but it does surprise me, since I’ve been walking and scrambling in the high Scottish mountains for 40 years, I regularly see ptarmigan when I’m out and about, and I haven’t noticed any decline in numbers – I see them as regularly now, and apparently in the same numbers, as I did 40 years ago. I’ve regularly been entertained in late spring/early summer by a female ptarmigan, with a brood of chicks nearby, pretending to have a wounded wing, dragging it along the ground while she (apparently) pathetically scurries away from me, thereby leading me away from her chicks (I always follow her, as she wants, to avoid causing unnecessary distress, and then miraculously, the wing is fine, and she flies back to them). The size of the claimed decline in numbers seems disappointingly high based on my (admittedly relatively limited) experience:
“RSPB Scotland said there had been an 81% decline in numbers since 1961, and the birds had been moved from a green list species straight to a red.”
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“Prepare for more extreme weather, Britons warned in wake of Storm Arwen
Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng says climate crisis likely to cause future extreme weather events”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/01/storm-arwen-uk-must-prepare-for-more-extreme-weather
“…“Clearly Storm Arwen was an event the likes of which we haven’t seen for certainly 60 years since the record starts. We have to be prepared for similarly extreme, difficult weather conditions in the future. We have to make sure that our system is resilient in that eventuality,” the business secretary told the House of Commons.
He was responding to questions from the shadow climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, who said: “Faced with the climate crisis, extreme weather events will sadly become all the more common in the future. We cannot be this vulnerable in the future. There is real concern that some lessons haven’t been learned and on this occasion we must face up to those lessons and learn them.”…”.
I share your concern, Ed. We do indeed need to learn the lesson that we need reliable energy supplies, not intermittent and reliable ones. We also need to learn that making everything dependent on electricity as its source of power isn’t too wise when electricity supply can go down for days on end.
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If you believed in extreme weather
you’d not be building solar and wind farms
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“2021 hurricane season was third most active”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59489559
“The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season has now officially ended, and it’s been the third most active on record.
Though the last month has seen little tropical storm activity, all the pre-determined names have been exhausted for the second year in a row.
There were 21 named tropical storms, including seven hurricanes, four of which were major hurricanes – where wind speeds were 111mph or greater.
This puts 2021 behind 2020 and 2015 – the first and second most active years.
Matthew Rosencrans, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (Noaa) Climate Prediction Center in the US, said: “Climate factors, which include La Nina, above normal sea surface temperatures earlier in the season, and above average West African Monsoon rainfall were the primary contributors for this above average hurricane season.”…”.
La Nina is certainly a climate factor, though it isn’t a human-made one. It won’t stop them banging the drum about hurricanes, though.
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“Climate cost study authors accuse Bjørn Lomborg of misinterpreting results”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/02/climate-cost-study-authors-accuse-bjrn-lomborg-of-misinterpreting-results
“What will it cost to get greenhouse gas emissions down to net zero by mid-century, and are people around the world prepared to pay it?
This was a question posed by the Danish thinktank head Bjørn Lomborg for a column in the Australian on Saturday.
In the wake of the Glasgow climate summit, Lomborg argued that asking voters to “pay for these draconian climate policies” was proving difficult for politicians.
Versions of Lomborg’s op-ed have been run in publications around the world including the Herald in Scotland and the Economic Times in India.
But a key claim made in these columns – and one that appears in other Lomborg articles going back to October in the likes of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post – has frustrated scientists, who are accusing him of taking their modelling work about climate policies in the US out of context.
Lomborg wrote in the Australian that a study “in the renowned journal” Nature, “shows that reducing emissions 95% by 2050 – almost Biden’s promise of net zero – would cost 11.9% of gross domestic product, or more than $US11,000 ($15,300) for each American citizen every year”.
That seems like an eye-watering figure, or in Lomborg’s words “spectacularly costly”.
The cited figure does appear in a supplementary section of the paper. But the authors of the study (which actually appeared in Nature Climate Change, not Nature) have told Temperature Check they have been asking Lomborg since early November to stop making that claim.
Prof David Victor, of University of California San Diego, said Lomborg’s summary “took the results out of context and used them for a purpose that we explicitly said they were not to be used, and which he was reminded of when he asked for the underlying data”.
The study used models to examine the methods and costs of reducing emissions through state-based policies compared with nationwide approaches.
But the authors say that as they model different levels of ambition, the dollar numbers produced by the model become less reliable.
They say that’s why the model’s outputs for beyond 80% were only placed in the supplementary section of the paper as a way to show the sensitivity of the modelling, rather than to deliver a genuine cost estimate….”.
Rather undermines the study, at least at first glance, surely?
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“New Zealand city becomes one of first in world to introduce a ‘climate tax’ for residents
Proceeds will go towards greening Auckland with more trees, buses and routes for cyclists”
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/new-zealand-auckland-climate-tax-b1967640.html
“One of New Zealand’s largest cities, Auckland, has proposed a climate tax for its residents in what is likely the world’s first such tariff. The proceeds will go into the city’s fund to support efforts to reduce emissions and generally make the city greener.
Auckland mayor Phil Goff announced the plan on Wednesday, and said that homeowners will be taxed on average a little over one New Zealand…..”
The rest is behind a paywall, unfortunately.
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“Shell pulls out of Cambo oilfield project
Oil giant cites weak economic case as reason for deciding not to go ahead with controversial project off Shetland”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/02/shell-pulls-out-of-cambo-oilfield-project
“Shell has pulled out of a controversial new oilfield off the Shetland Islands, plunging the future of oil exploration in the area into doubt.
Shell, which was planning to exploit the field along with the private equity-backed fossil fuel explorer Siccar Point, cited a weak economic case as its reason for deciding not to go ahead with the project.
“After comprehensive screening of the proposed Cambo development, we have concluded the economic case for investment in this project is not strong enough at this time, as well as having the potential for delays,” Shell said.”
More likely the uncertainty made them decide it isn’t worth the hassle. Well done green Britain haters.
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Again, this evening the Guardian’s 10 most read articles include nothing about climate change. At number 8 we have “Trapped in Ikea: snowstorm in Denmark forces dozens to bed down in store”.
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Good news, and no climate change in the story:
“‘It is phenomenal’: Farne Islands seal numbers expected to reach new high
National Trust rangers predict record year as they begin count of grey seal pups”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/02/it-is-phenomenal-farne-islands-seal-numbers-expected-to-reach-new-high
“In 1956 there were 751 pups counted. In 2019 there were 2,823. This year, the expectation is that there will be many more, making it a record year for grey seals on the islands.
“It is looking that way,” said Bevan, a senior lecturer at Newcastle University. “Some of the outer island groups look incredibly dense.”
The grey seal was the first animal to be protected by modern UK legislation with the Grey Seals Protection Act of 1914. About 50% of the world population now lives in British and Irish waters.
The recent Storm Arwen had a devastating effect on some UK grey seal colonies with more than 800 pups estimated to have died at St Abb’s Head in the Scottish borders. Remarkably, the Farne Islands colony appears relatively unscathed.”
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Bill Nye (The FAKE science guy) and Joe Biden made this promo for the Build Back Better massive infrastructure bill and hoo boy is it cringeworthy.
https://notthebee.com/article/bill-nye-and-joe-biden-made-this-promo-for-the-massive-infrastructure-bill-and-hoo-boy-is-it-cringeworthy
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bad news : there is less of whatever seals eat
.. and that is caused by climate change
… not seals eating it
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FFS the other clown
has also made a cringeworthy Build Back Better tik tok
… https://www.twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1445104926431006722
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Parody advert for Tesla
“carbon shaming the poor”
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Stossel on Facebook censorship
They signed up a lefty org Poynter Institute to appoint other lefty fact checkers like Science Feedback who are effectively Fact Blockers
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Ha, they think they can predict the weather 100 year in advance
My contact keeps calling to help him at the market.
The standard procedure is that we check Weather.Com and BBC the night before for the hourly forecasts
cos a clothes stall can get wiped out if there is a lot of rain.
Wednesday they said no chance of rain but early frost then cold
I double checked the rain radar, it showed that snow would be sweeping the east coast 25 miles east of us, but not reaching us
So the guy said he was coming.
6am Thursday the predictions had completely changed ..that snow would be reaching us.
at 7am there was no ice or snow
But at my warning we put up clothes back in the van and put up the extra rain protection
7:30 a few flakes
7:40 Snow came steady other traders started to pack up
I warned him not to go home cos the weather can reverse as quick as it came
It did At 8:45am only 4 stalls survived , and suddenly it was sunny
leaving us with 1.5 inches of snow over the stall roofs
We did trade but few customers, cos the public had all changed plan.
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Tom Burke ex FoE boss is still tweeting to the ether
about his defence of wind against Farage
zero likes and replies to his tweets
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Rory Stewart ex Tory MP tweets a conspiracy theory thread
.. https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1466556106445148161
Many campaigners and some policy-makers are pretending to support these farmers in nature-based farming.
But they are actually intending for the environmental payments to cease, the farms to fold,
and the land to be abandoned for rewilding.
This is deliberate policy.
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The Guardian 10 most read articles again include nothing on climate change this evening. We do have:
2. ‘I was offered $35m for one day’s work’: George Clooney on paydays, politics and parenting
8. ‘Risky levels’: Australia is the drunkest country in the world, survey finds
While French drank most times a week, Australians got drunk an average of 27 times a year, almost double the global average
10. From utopian dreams to Soho sleaze: the naked history of British nudism.
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“Carbon-cutting app aims to help Londoners ease into net zero future
Councils are planning to deploy version of Finnish online tool that helps people monitor carbon footprint”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/03/carbon-cutting-app-aims-help-londoners-ease-net-zero-future
“For those who want to be part of a zero carbon future but find the prospect of giving up flying, ditching the car and turning vegan daunting, help may be at hand. A Finnish-made online tool that promises to give users the key to their own “sustainable good life” by taking control of their carbon footprint is set to be launched in the UK.
London Councils, the body that represents all London boroughs, is looking at developing a version of the tool, which aims to be helpful rather than hectoring, letting people create their own tailor-made path to reducing their CO2 output rather than giving out blanket prescriptions such as stopping flying or eating meat.
Its developers say users in Finland who answer the tool’s 20-odd questions and commit to change commonly reduce their carbon footprint by 30% in 12 months, through simple steps such as buying secondhand clothes, cycling more and eating locally produced food.
Philip Glanville, the mayor of Hackney and chair of London Councils’ transport and environment committee, said the tool could help show citizens that “even small tweaks to their daily lives” could contribute to tackling the climate crisis.
“The vast majority of our residents are motivated to help prevent climate change – our recent polling suggests 87% feel this way,” he said. “But Londoners can only make the choices they are given, and how important government and businesses are in enabling real sustainable choices that fit into their lives.”…”.
I very much look forward to reading the follow-up reports on each anniversary of this one, when they can tell us how it’s going.
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Big news in the Guardian:
“Winter heatwave breaks records in four US states
Wednesday brings hottest December weather on record for Montana, Wyoming, Washington state and North Dakota”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/03/us-winter-heatwave-december-records-montana-wyoming-washington-north-dakota
“The climate crisis is causing longer, and more severe, heatwaves to reach all corners of the US, with this summer being the hottest ever recorded nationally.
It is winters, however, that are heating up more rapidly than summer, with researchers finding that winter is the fastest-warming season in 38 US states.”
Of course! Meanwhile (at the Guardian, at least) tumbleweed:
“Hawaii under blizzard warning as 12 inches of snow and winds up to 100 mph expected”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/12/03/hawaii-blizzard-warning-weather/8850338002/
“The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning until Sunday morning on the Big Island of Hawaii.
The warning remains in effect from 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Sunday as up to 12 inches or more of snow is expected on the island. NWS also warns residents to stay indoors as forecasters predict winds gusting over 100 mph.
“Travel could be very difficult to impossible. Blowing snow will significantly reduce visibility at times, with periods of zero visibility,” NWS’s weather warning reads.”
One might have expected an article in the Guardian about unusual winter weather in the USA to mention that. I wonder why it didn’t?
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“I’m A Celebrity: ‘Keep show in UK to help climate change'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59335665
“After being taken off air because of storms and intruders in the castle, I’m a Celebrity bosses could be forgiven for thinking “UK, get me out of here!”
But makers of the hit reality TV show hosted by Ant and Dec have been urged to “set an example” and keep filming in Wales to help tackle climate change.
The Size of Wales charity said ITV’s flagship show should no longer fly celebrities out to Australia.
ITV has not commented but pledged to have net zero carbon emissions by 2030.”
“…has been urged…”. By whom? “…said Kevin Rahman-Daultrey, of the Size of Wales climate change charity.” It’s not a news story, it’s a PR puff piece. I looked at Size of Wales climate charity in my piece “Big Green Charity”:
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Funny tweet from an account that writes in English and says it’s Climate Justice Indonesia
apparently non-parody
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= offered money for putting his name on something.
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BBC local news : 17,000 acre cabbage cauliflower farmer
“Big pressures this year …. but the weather has been very good for growing Cabbage”
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“Why Intermittent Wind & Solar Are The World’s Most Expensive (Occasional) Power Sources”
https://stopthesethings.com/2021/12/05/why-intermittent-wind-solar-are-the-worlds-most-expensive-occasional-power-sources/
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“With eye on far right, French conservatives take aim at wind power”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/with-eye-far-right-french-conservatives-take-aim-wind-power-2021-11-08/
“Two front-runners in the race for the centre-right ticket in France’s 2022 presidential vote took aim at wind farms on Monday, as the conservatives seek to win back the support of rural voters drawn towards the far-right.
Xavier Bertrand, a one-time insurance salesman from the provinces, said profit-hungry wind farm developers were destroying the French countryside and that France’s energy security lay with nuclear power.
Michel Barnier, the European Union’s former chief Brexit negotiator, said local backing would be needed for new wind power developments were he to be elected president.
“I will fight against the anarchic development of wind turbines,” Bertrand said during a debate between the five challengers for the Les Republicains party’s nomination.
Citing the need to scale up the infrastructure rapidly for electric vehicles, Bertrand continued: “You think we’re going to do it with those damn wind turbines?”
Opposition to wind farms has coursed through the hills and fields of France for some two decades and the issue has become increasingly politicised as the government strives to hit climate policy targets.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National party, last month said she would end all subsidies for renewable energy and take down the country’s wind turbines if she is elected next April.”
What a shame it takes politicians well to the right of the spectrum to speak up for the countryside and for the poor. What on earth has happened to the left? Why do they continue to let me down so badly?
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@ Mark Hodgson – 02 Dec 21 at 9:23 am
thanks for the digging & link -“Climate cost study authors accuse Bjørn Lomborg of misinterpreting results”
he is “Danish thinktank head” so boo, and frustrates scientists who modelled reducing emissions – boo X 2
but never worry – Temperature Check is a Guardian column examining claims about climate change made by governments, politicians, business and in the media. See the latest column and follow the series here
Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing (think it’s Graham Readfearn)
you made me go into the “pit” to find that 🙂
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“Climate change: Free tree offered to every Welsh household”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59541262
“Every household in Wales will be offered a free tree to plant in an effort to help tackle climate change.
People will have a choice of native species to plant in their gardens or have added to woodland on their behalf.
About 1.3 million trees will be made available by the Welsh government, in a scheme which will cost £2m.
Deputy climate change minister Lee Waters said the scheme could help, but there still needed to be a greater increase in planting trees.
“To meet our climate change targets, we have to plant 86 million trees by the end of this decade,” he said.
“That’s an increase every year of 15-fold. So it’s a hell of a challenge, as well as a climate emergency.”
Scientists have debated whether tree planting should be used as a way of combatting carbon emissions, but Mr Waters said there was an urgent need to try new initiatives and the benefits of tree planting go beyond capturing carbon.
He said: “We are in a climate emergency and that word emergency is really important. We can’t wait for a perfect solution and we have got to try stuff and we’ve got to do it fast….”.
This is increasingly the politicians’ way of ramming through measures without scrutiny, as it has been with covid. It’s an emergency, we have to do this NOW! No need for debate or discussion or cost benefit analyses. Aren’t you listening? It’s an emergency!
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Stewgreen 5 Dec 9.19am
On the Indonesian volcano, either CNN or Skynews was suggesting that weather or climate may be responsible for the eruption, since heavy rains heve been eroding the top. Apparently there was a storm on Java just yesterday – so unexpected in the tropics.
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Has anyone seen the new Franny Armstrong video on COP26, just ten years after her Splattergate success with “No Pressure”? Features George Monbiot and Ed Miliband playing parody versions of themselves. Thanks to Richard Betts for recommending it.
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Mark Hodgson 5 Dec 9.04pm
Your Reuters report was right that wind farms are a big subject in France, with opposition even among voters for the ecology party, though the two politicians mentioned are both out of the presidential race, which is between four right wing candidates: Macron, two way out anti-immigrant loonies, and the newly chosen Republican candidate, Valerie Pecresse, who comes over as a less kindly version of Madame Thatcher.
Vying for fifth place on 8-10% in the polls are the ecology candidate and the far left Jean Luc Melenchon – a brilliant orator and a civilised, highly cultured, intelligent, warm human being, whose views on tackling the climate catastrophe are even more loony than the ecologist’s. The televised debates are going to be fun, if you like ribtickling tragedy.
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An article on Euractiv caught my eye – it’s about extracting lithium from underground reservoirs as a by-product of geothermal projects.
I would be pleased to read Alan K’s views on this: is it realistic or just more green hype? Are such reservoirs common?
There seems to be substantial potential:
“Vulcan Energy is in the process of building five geothermal power plants in the Upper Rhine Valley, above one of the world’s richest reserves of lithium in geothermal brine.
Together, these would represent the largest lithium reserves in Europe, at 15.85 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, Kreuter said. The extracted raw lithium will then be sent to a nearby central refinery, where it will be converted to lithium hydroxide and be delivered to battery and automobile factories across Europe.
By 2025, Vulcan Energy plans to extract emission-free 40,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide from the Upper Rhine Valley – enough to supply batteries for the equivalent of about one million cars per year.
Once the plants are up and running, Vulcan Energy could support 100% of the battery industry in Germany – or 25% of the expected demand in Europe, Kreuter continued.”
Here’s the article: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/lithi…
Similar moves are underway at Cornish geothermal projects with aims to start producing Lithium by the end of next year.
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I know just a little about sources of lithium. Some granites and, especially late stage very coarsely crystalline granitic pegmatites are associated with concentrated volatiles and light elements like lithium. I suppose that some lithium dissolves in hot hydrothermal waters where they are associated with granites and pegmatites and can be extracted from those brines. However the resource with be relatively small compared with those in other brines, especially those concentrated by evaporation in salt lakes and salars (or which sank down into underlying rocks after being concentrated – as in Southern California).
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@Geoff Chambers at 9:57 am
thanks for the link “Franny Armstrong video on COP26” – I found it quite funny, a hapless reporter at COP26 who at the end seems convinced the world is about to end 😦
ps – when you say “George Monbiot and Ed Miliband playing parody versions of themselves”. are you sure that’s accurate ?
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“Old UK oilwells could be turned into CO2 burial test sites
Exclusive: Consortium of energy firms and universities says underground storage of hydrogen can also be investigated”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/06/old-uk-oilwells-co2-burial-test-sites-hydrogen
“Exhausted oil and gas wells would be turned into the UK’s first deep test sites for burying carbon dioxide next year, under plans from a consortium of universities and energy companies.
There are hundreds of active onshore oil and gas wells in the UK. But as they come to the end of their lives, some need to be redeployed for trials of pumping CO2 underground and monitoring it to ensure it does not escape, the group says. The test wells could also be used to assess how hydrogen can be stored underground.
CO2 capture and storage (CCS) will be a significant part of tackling the climate crisis, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UK’s official advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC). The reservoirs under the North Sea provide the biggest potential storage for CO2 from fossil fuel burning, but the consortium said reusing existing onshore wells was the fastest and cheapest way to research and develop safe and effective systems.
The Net Zero Rise (Research Infrastructure for Subsurface Energy) project involves the universities of Newcastle, Oxford and Durham, and the fossil fuel companies IGas and Third Energy.”
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“All coral reefs in western Indian Ocean ‘at high risk of collapse in next 50 years’
Reefs from Seychelles to South Africa may become functionally extinct due to global heating and overfishing, study finds”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/06/all-coral-reefs-in-western-indian-ocean-at-high-risk-of-collapse-next-50-years-global-heating-aoe
“All coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean are at high risk of collapse in the next 50 years due to global heating and overfishing, according to a new assessment.
From Seychelles to the Delagoa region off the coast of Mozambique and South Africa, the reef systems are at risk of becoming functionally extinct by the 2070s, with a huge loss of biodiversity, and threatening the livelihoods and food sources for hundreds of thousands of people.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Sustainability, examined coral reefs in 10 countries around the western Indian ocean. It analysed the health of 11 sub-regions using the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of ecosystems framework, akin to the method used to examine a plant or animal’s risk of extinction.
The assessment found reefs in island nations in particular were highly threatened due to rising water temperatures driven by global heating, which is making bleaching events – when corals expel algae living in their tissue, causing them to turn completely white – more common. Reefs in eastern and southern Madagascar, the Comoros and Mascarene Islands were all classified as critically endangered.”
Yet another news item based on “a study says”… For those interested, the study in question can be found here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00817-0
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“‘Detail lacking’ in Scotland’s climate change plan”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59555876
“The credibility of Scotland’s plan for tackling climate change this decade risks being undermined, an independent report warns.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) says the latest framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions contains relatively little detail.
It calls for a clear breakdown of how annual targets will be achieved.
Ministers have pledged to reduce emissions to net zero by 2045 in a “just and fair” way.
The report assesses Scotland’s climate change plan, which was updated in December last year, to take into account new legal targets to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030.
It says the aim is laudable with a “highly ambitious decade of decarbonisation ahead.”
But it adds that the framework contains relatively little detail on how emissions with be reduced in practice and calls for a thorough and transparent quantitative breakdown.
Targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland have been missed for the last three years.
The report warns that credibility will be undermined if there is a widening of the gap between those targets and what is actually achieved.
Committee chairman Lord Deben said: “Strategies alone won’t reduce emissions. Major changes are needed across the Scottish economy, requiring lasting, systemic action in most sectors.
“Clarity and transparency on policy, supported with detail on how these policies will be delivered has been lacking. My committee cannot assess future progress without this vital assurance.”
The report comes ahead of a debate at Holyrood on delivering a “just transition” to net zero, where our remaining emissions are offset.
Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The CCC is not convinced by the current Scottish plans and calls for more work to show that we are on track to meet targets.
“We would go further and say that the last climate plan needs to be urgently strengthened.”…”.
So the BBC calls the CCC “Independent”, then goes on to obtain a quote from an alarmist group which echoes the call for the Scottish government (which has already blighted Scotland’s landscape with ugly hordes of wind turbines) to do more and only mentions in passing that all this will require “Major changes…across the Scottish economy, requiring lasting, systemic action in most sectors.”
Why no focus on how people’s lives are to be turned upside down at enormous cost?
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Inevitably, the Guardian has the story too, though spiced up a little compared with the BBC version:
“‘Vague and weak’ policies mean Scotland could miss emission targets
Climate Change Committee says Holyrood administration cannot show how it will cut CO2 by 75%”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/07/vague-and-weak-policies-mean-scotland-could-miss-emission-targets
“There is an “acute risk” that Scotland will miss its targets to heavily cut carbon emissions because government policies are too vague and weak, an influential advisory body has warned.
The Climate Change Committee, which advises all the UK’s governments on climate policies, said the Scottish government was currently unable to prove how it would hit its ambitious promise to cut CO2 emissions by 75% by the end of the decade.
In an unusually critical statement, Lord Deben, the CCC’s chair, said “the credibility of the Scottish climate framework is in jeopardy.”
His challenge comes after Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, staked her government’s reputation on a partnership deal with the Scottish Green party in August which commits them to tougher policies on combating climate heating….”
As if Scotland – responsible for perhaps 0.1% of global GHG emissions, can adopt ANY policies which will make the slightest difference to “combating climate heating”! They can make a hugely negative impact on the lives of people living in Scotland, though.
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A tweet from Mike for @cliscep and a few interesting others:
I assume that was meant to be “used to think”. I confess I haven’t watched the video yet.
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“Are storms Barra and Arwen linked to climate breakdown?
Analysis: why the UK is bracing for a second winter storm and where it is coming from”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/07/are-storms-barra-and-arwen-linked-to-climate-breakdown
“”Are storms Barra and Arwen linked to climate breakdown?” Of course, the answer is “no”:
“Is it usual to have two big storms so close together?
Jones says it is not that unusual. “If anything it’s very common to get named storms in close proximity; when you’ve got the disturbed weather pattern we’re currently seeing over the Atlantic, you can often see consecutive storms over a two- to three-week period.”
Can we link them to climate breakdown?
It is too early for these storms to be directly attributed to climate breakdown.”
It doesn’t stop the Guardian doing its best to create precisely that impression and to create an arguably misleading headline and story out of something that isn’t a story
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The Times is so often like the Guardian
On Nov 27the the book section ran an article of Climate Apocalypse books,
The 7 books Included
Bill Gates : How to avoid a Climate Disaster
Michael Mann : The New Climate War
The reviews are very fawning.
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“What is AdBlue and why could an international shortage bring Australia’s economy to its knees?”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-08/adblue-shortage-a-serious-threat-to-australias-supply-chain/100683230
“…Demand for AdBlue has risen as fuel standards – particularly in Europe – have become more strict.
A supply crunch of another product is causing the AdBlue problems.
Globally, stocks of the key ingredient, urea, are running dangerously low.
China is the world’s biggest producer of urea and in recent weeks has been moving to dramatically tighten its grip on supplies to keep a lid on surging prices.
That’s hit Australia particularly hard given we source up to 80 per cent of our urea supplies from the Middle Kingdom.
National Road Transport Association chief Warren Clark said there were a few theories about what drove China’s actions, but the most likely one was self-interest.
“We’ve heard things like the cost of fertiliser in China has internally gone up dramatically and a large portion of that is urea,” he told the ABC recently.
“So what they’ve said is that they do not want to export any urea to try and keep the price of local fertiliser down.
“It may be that there’s some sort of trade issue that they’ve got with other countries around the world.
“It’s not just Australia that’s being impacted by this, you know — the whole world is going to be impacted by the lack of this AdBlue chemical.”…”
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“Climate change: How will Wales go green by 2050?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59567895
“A plan for how Wales will rely only on renewable energy by 2050 has been set out by the Welsh government.
A five-fold increase in green power generation, a shake-up of the planning process and more funding are among the measures being proposed.
A new role for an energy system architect will oversee the process of upgrading energy infrastructure.
The latest data suggests just over half of Wales’ electricity requirements can currently be met by green schemes.
So if the country aims to quickly move away from its reliance on fossil fuels to help stop further climate change, there is still some way to go.
One major challenge is that heating and transport will also need to be fuelled by electricity in the near future.
Making sure local communities and businesses profit – rather than big overseas firms – is also a priority, according to deputy climate change minister Lee Waters.
Mr Waters said it was “crackers” that the country’s biggest renewable schemes, such as windfarms off the north Wales coast, were benefiting “German pension funds”….”.
Well, at least I can agree with him on that final point. But if it was cheap, easy and desirable, why does it have to involve “a shake-up of the planning process and more funding”? “Funding” means, of course, taxpayer or customer-funding.
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“Majority of universities in UK ‘not on track to meet emissions targets’
People and Planet’s annual sustainability league table finds patchy progress across sector”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/dec/09/majority-of-universities-in-uk-not-on-track-to-meet-emissions-targets
“More than half of universities are not on track to meet their emissions targets, according to an analysis.
The student network People and Planet has published its annual sustainability university league, which found that 46% of higher education institutions were on course to meet the target, up from a third in 2019.
But the majority were still not on track to meet the target set for the 2020-21 academic year by the former funding agency the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) in 2010.”
“According to an analysis” – yet another news story that is based on a report. Much of the “news” in the Guardian and the BBC is generated this way now.
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I have periodically returned to these pages due mainly to an old Quote that used to be on the About Section.
In the immortal words of Professor Phil Jones;
“The Internet has allowed all these people to find one another- unfortunately”
I used it in a Blog I did today.
https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2021/12/09/innovating-to-zero-debt-a-model-answer/
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“How will humanity endure the climate crisis? I asked an acclaimed sci-fi writer
Daniel Aldana Cohen
In Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel The Ministry for the Future, climate disasters kill tens of millions of people – and that’s a scenario he portrays as relatively optimistic”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/09/climate-crisis-kim-stanley-robinson
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“Climate change: Brighton Green MP Caroline Lucas seeks tough new pledges”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-sussex-59601355
“England’s only Green MP, Caroline Lucas, says the UK needs to overhaul its laws to tackle the climate emergency.
She has introduced the Climate and Ecology Bill to Parliament, which includes ambitious new targets for reaching net zero and is backed by groups including Extinction Rebellion.
But how likely is it to change the law?
BBC South East’s Political Editor Charlotte Wright investigates.”
This is the great problem, isn’t it? As the Boris omnishambles lurches from one mess to another, the simple fact remains that all the alternatives are dire. What a damning indictment of the opposition that the only real opposition to Boris is coming from his own back-benchers. Meanwhile, the Green Party obsesses about forcing industrial and economic suicide on the UK ever faster, while the rest of the world looks on in amusement.
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“Wind-powered net zero McDonald’s opens in Market Drayton”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-59603244
“A net zero carbon McDonald’s has opened in what the company believes is a UK first.
The wind turbine and solar panel-powered restaurant is in Market Drayton, Shropshire.
Recycled IT equipment and household goods make up the building’s cladding, signs are from used coffee beans and insulations is provided by sheep wool.
The fast-food company said it would be used as a “blueprint” for other sites and work has started to roll it out.”
Weren’t there once rules preventing the BBC from advertising?
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Alan K: thanks for your reply to my Lithium post – sorry it has taken me a few days to catch up.
My own, layman’s guess is that they are making a virtue out of necessity. Circulating hot brine through some sort of heat exchanger and/or power generation kit seems bound to suffer with deposition and scaling. Maybe someone, looking at a pile of sludge, realised that there might be brass in that there muck!
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There’s no new Climategate threads so I thought I’d mention this here. Brandon Shollenberger has tweeted that he thinks he’s figured out the identity of the Climategate hacker. He says someone gave him the password to CG3. He says he’s had a $10K offer to disclose if he’s right. You can find the details in his Twitter feed:
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“Jury clears Extinction Rebellion activists who targeted commuters
Group of six argued obstruction in London’s financial district was lawful protest against government inaction”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/10/jury-clears-extinction-rebellion-activists-who-targeted-commuters
“Six climate crisis activists whose protest halted transport links serving London’s financial district have been acquitted by a jury.
The group of Extinction Rebellion protesters targeted the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which runs commuters around the City, Canary Wharf and other parts of east and south-east London, saying they wanted to draw attention to the financial industry’s contribution to the climate emergency.
Five of them climbed on top of the train with banners that read “Business As Usual=Death” and “Don’t Jail the Canaries”; a reference to fellow protesters who were facing prosecution at the time. The sixth, Dr Diana Warner, glued herself to a train window.
They were charged with obstructing trains or carriages on the railway and, during their trial at Inner London crown court, acknowledged their roles in planning and carrying out the protest on 25 April 2019. They argued that their action was a lawful protest against government inaction on the climate crisis.
Warner, Ruth Jarman, Ian Bray, Richard Barnard, Nick Cooper and Phil Kingston were found not guilty in a unanimous verdict delivered by the jury on Friday.
“The defendants’ motives chimed with the concerns of 12 citizens representative of the wider public,” their lawyer Mike Schwartz, of Hodge Jones & Allen, said. “The jury all agreed the climate crisis requires radical action. This reinforces the importance of both civil disobedience and juries in a healthy democracy.””
By the way, have you noticed that the concerns of XR and Insulate Britain activists seem to be less important (i.e. don’t require protests) in winter when it’s cold and wet?
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“John Kerry calls for investing ‘trillions’ to get big emitters to quit polluting
US climate envoy tours Europe to build support for global investment drive.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/kerry-calls-for-paying-trillions-big-emitters-quit-polluting/
“U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is in Europe, plotting with fellow ministers on getting a handful of big emitting nations to “up their game.”
They are zeroing in on a simple answer: buy them off.
If the world is to “avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis,” said Kerry, the challenge boils down to changing economic policy in a small group of large countries that he said were not doing enough to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
He called them out by name: “China, Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.”
Kerry spoke to POLITICO from a train leaving Brussels, where earlier on Thursday he met with Germany’s newly-appointed Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans. He’d arrived on the Eurostar train from London, where he held talks with U.K. COP26 climate summit President Alok Sharma. On Friday, he will meet French officials in Paris.
A focus of those conversations, according to Kerry and others who were present, was working out how to weave together the differing priorities of rich, Western donor countries with the needs of less wealthy nations that rely on fossil fuels or deforestation.
First comes the money.
“Trillions can clearly — and will need to — be invested,” said Kerry. That would come from a variety of sources, including partnerships under development among rich countries, multilateral development banks, philanthropies and the private sector.
“We are working out the details of these different options right now. We want to be very specific. None of this should be pie in the sky. It needs to be real and economically viable,” he said.”
Two observations.
1. CO2 emissions are not “pollution”.
2. It IS pie in the sky – it isn’t economically viable.
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Someone should tell John Kerry to come back to us when the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of the US is as low as the rest of the world’s. Till then, he can stop lecturing. At a guess the only country on his list with a per capita rate that exceeds the US is Saudi Arabia. The rest are by definition in a better place to lecture him than he them. [Albeit their trends are in the wrong direction.]
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Minister : Trudi Harrison : the poor should not own cars , just share them
video : https://youtu.be/ND8HCLKIkC8
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Andrew Lawrence comedy
.. the climate activist
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Times : Canada Artic scare story
by their Canada correspondent, I think it’s pretty easy to pick apart
“‘This should all be ice’: the Arctic melt leaving Inuit without food
The nomadic people have roamed the Canadian Arctic for 1,000 years.
Now they say climate change is making it inhospitable”
Yeh except it is not an inuit traditional area
The Americans had a big cold war base
when they left the Canadian gov relocted inuit there
so of course it’s going to be an artificial environment rather than traditional hunting gound.
Beyond the bay lie seal, caribou and polar bear hunting grounds. They have sustained Inuit life in this harsh climate for millennia but have been inaccessible all year. “It’s absolutely scary,” Irniq says.
I suspect Greenpeace prepared the article for the journo
Charlie Mitchell tweeted
My first report from Iqaluit, in the Canadian Arctic: “This should all be ice”
On Iqaluit’s frozen river, while I watched through frozen eyelashes,
Ted Irniq stabbed the ground three times with a thin metal rod and heaved out a large slab of pristine ice, demonstrating the specialised knowledge that has long allowed Inuit to thrive here.
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ECIU promotes it
..Steve Milloy debunks it
A couple points:
1. The Arctic has been warming since before industrialization.
2. The Inuit were a roaming civilization, probably chasing food. They no longer roam while the food still does.
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My Times is missing the magazine today so I missed this
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Swampy seems added with photoshop
and the solar panel is at the wrong angle to work
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“UK universities took £89m from oil firms in last four years
Anger after investigation finds Imperial College London, Cambridge and Oxford among institutions to have accepted funding”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/dec/11/uk-universities-took-89m-from-oil-firms-in-last-four-years
“Some of Britain’s most prestigious universities are among those to have shared in funds totalling at least £89m from major oil companies in the last four years, an investigation has found.
Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London are among the universities to have been given funding from some of the world’s biggest companies, according to new research by openDemocracy.
In recent months there has been increasing pressure on institutions to break links with fossil fuel companies. Last month, more than 40 senior academics and scientists signed an open letter vowing not to work with the Science Museum over its financial ties to major oil corporations. The museum faced several resignations over ties with Shell and a newly announced deal with the renewables company Adani Green Energy, part of the Adani Group, which has major holdings in coal.
The new research found that Imperial College London had accepted £54m since 2017 – by far the most of any institution surveyed. It included £39m from Shell, with which the college has said it has a “longstanding and fruitful partnership”. Imperial said the confidentiality of private contracts meant it could not reveal exactly what the money was used for, stating that it funded research into “energy transition, lowering carbon emissions in extraction and in carbon mitigation measures”.
Cambridge University received more than £14m from oil giants, while Oxford got almost £8m. These include large donations to Oxford’s Said Business School Centre for Corporate Reputation.”
Imperial College London the biggest “offenders”, eh? Would that be the Imperial College, London which is hand in glove with the Grantham Institute?
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/about-us/the-grantham-foundation/
Funny that the Guardian article failed to mention the connection. They must have inadvertently overlooked it.
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@Mike Dombroski at 8:18 pm
not sure how to take the Brandon tweets – only titbit for me is this comment “They didn’t cover their tracks that well”
well since nobody else who has followed the tracks back has found MRFOI, that seems an odd statement.
I seem to remember Brandon having a hissy fit at the time for not being given credit for his role (maybe wrong – long time ago now)
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11am Preparing for President Biden
The staff of Cornwall Airport Newquay prepare to receive President Biden and other world leaders for the G7 summit in June.
… Talk about not being green.. they had o spend £7m on tarmaccing land
so big jets could be parked
Masses of equipment had to be rented to service these wide body jets
.. like £1m highloaders, widebody steps
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Rowlatt family
‘Justin Rowlatt’s sister, Cordelia, is a twice-arrested Insulate Britain activist
whose name even appears on a National Highways injunction for her repeated protests.’
Mail in Sept
His wife is events organiser at the British Library
& has organised Green events with him
She praised an XR activist
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“Extinction Rebellion activists fined for Dundee drilling rig protest”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-59608830
“Seven Extinction Rebellion activists whose dinghy began sinking during an oil rig protest have been ordered to pay compensation to the RNLI.
The group had previously admitted causing alarm by scaling and occupying the drilling rig during treacherous weather conditions in Dundee.
They were each told to pay the lifeboat charity £250 at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Six of the group were also fined £150 for taking part in the incident in January last year….
…The court was told the incident cost police, coastguard and the lifeboat charity £30,000
It heard that the group’s inflatable boat started sinking and the planned week-long sit-in was ended after a few hours because of the stormy weather….”
I reckon they got off very lightly. Too lightly.
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“US tornadoes: Is climate change to blame?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59641376
Refreshingly, the answer is basically said to be “no”. I appreciate this honesty from the BBC. Still, it would have been nice if the headline therefore, in order to avoid the potential to mislead (since some people do just skim websites and don’t bother reading beyond the headline) had accurately mirrored the content of the article and said something like: “US tornadoes: climate change is not to blame”.
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“Music industry unites to pledge net-zero emissions by 2050
Major labels Sony, Universal and Warner join independents signing up to climate schemes that guide companies toward cleaner futures”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/14/music-industry-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-sony-warner-universal
“A number of the world’s biggest record labels have united to commit to action on their environmental impact.
The three major labels – Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – plus independents such as the Beggars and Secretly groups of labels, Warp, Ninja Tune and more, have signed the Music Climate Pact which will see them pledge “actionable climate targets”.
The companies will sign up to one of two existing schemes, Science Based Targets or the SME Climate Commitment, the latter part of the the UN’s Race to Zero initiative. Both schemes require signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, and achieve a 50% reduction by 2030.
Under the terms of the pact, the companies have also pledged to collaborate on measuring carbon emissions in the music industry, to help their artists to speak out on climate issues, and to communicate with artists’ fans about how the music industry impacts on the environment. They will aim to work with streaming companies such as Spotify “to obtain data and drive emission reduction projects in a collaborative fashion”….”
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“Russia vetoes UN security council resolution linking climate crisis to international peace
The resolution proposed that the climate crisis could potentially threaten ‘global peace, security and stability’”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/13/russia-vetoes-un-security-council-resolution-climate-crisis-international-peace
“Russia has vetoed a first-of-its-kind UN security council resolution casting the climate crisis as a threat to international peace and security – a vote that sank a years-long effort to make global heating more central to decision-making in the UN’s most powerful body.
Spearheaded by Ireland and Niger, the proposal called for “incorporating information on the security implications of climate change” into the council’s strategies for managing conflicts and into peacekeeping operations and political missions, at least sometimes.
The measure also asked the UN secretary-general to make climate-related security risks “a central component” of conflict prevention efforts and to report on how to address those risks in specific hotspots.
The council has occasionally discussed the security implications of climate change since 2007 and it has passed resolutions that mention destabilizing effects of warming in specific places, such as various African countries and Iraq. But Monday’s resolution would have been the first devoted to climate-related security danger as an issue of its own.
Stronger storms, rising seas, more frequent floods and droughts and other effects of warming could inflame social tensions and conflict, potentially “posing a key risk to global peace, security and stability”, the proposed resolution said. Of the UN’s 193 member countries, 113 supported it, including 12 of the council’s 15 members.
But India and veto-wielding Russia voted no, while China abstained.”
So, again we see the triumvirate of Russia, China and India – with probably something close to 3/8 the world’s population and huge dependence on fossil fuels (both now and going forward) – saying no. With that level of opposition, the whole COP process is utterly doomed to failure in its own terms.
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“Conservation documents for half of all critically endangered species don’t mention climate change
Australian Conservation Foundation report found that climate change was not mentioned for 178 out of 334 critically endangered species and habitats”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/conservation-documents-for-half-of-australias-endangered-species-dont-mention-climate-change
“Conservation documents for more than half of Australia’s critically endangered species and habitats fail to mention climate change according to new analysis that argues there is a significant “climate gap” in the management of Australia’s threatened wildlife.
The report was commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and prepared by the Australian National University’s GreenLaw project, which is led by students in the ANU’s law faculty.
The analysis examined the extent to which conservation documents for Australia’s most imperilled wildlife discussed and addressed the threat of global heating.
It found that for 178 out of 334 critically endangered species and habitats the threat of climate change was not mentioned in the government’s conservation information at all.
When it was mentioned, the analysis found the information “tended to be brief and generalised” and the recommended actions to mitigate the threat were limited.
“Our results demonstrate there is a significant climate gap in the management of Australia’s threatened species,” said GreenLaw chief executive and lead researcher, Annika Reynolds.
The report argues that without such an analysis there was a risk that management of wildlife or decisions about developments affecting it would not factor in the impact of the climate crisis.”
Talk about getting things the wrong way round. Attributing everything to climate change allows the eye to be well and truly taken off the ball in many cases. Why doesn’t it dawn on them that there are many varied pressures on threatened species – often (usually?) attributable to human interference, but NOT due to climate change?
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“Gas prices near record highs as Berlin rejects pipeline from Russia
Germany says escalating tensions over Ukraine are one factor in Nord Stream 2 not getting green light”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/13/gas-prices-near-record-highs-berlin-rejects-pipeline-russia-germany-ukraine-nord-stream-2
“Gas prices across the UK and Europe are on course to return to record highs after Germany said a controversial pipeline from Russia could not be approved amid deepening tensions on the Ukrainian border.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could not be given the green light in its current form because it did not meet the requirements of EU energy law.”
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10:22am Monday TalkRadio John Redwood is dissing windpower and EU reliance on Putin gas
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“Arctic heat record is like Mediterranean, says UN”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59649066
“The highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic, 38C (100F), has been officially confirmed, sounding “alarm bells” over Earth’s changing climate.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Tuesday verified the record, reported in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June last year.
The temperature was 18C higher than the area’s average daily maximum for June.
The WMO, a UN agency, said the extreme heat was “more befitting the Mediterranean than the Arctic”.
It is the first time the agency has included the Arctic Circle in its archive of extreme weather reports.”
Stated as facts at the end of the article:
“Human activity is contributing to a rise in world temperatures, and climate change now threatens every aspect of human life.
Left unchecked, humans and nature will experience catastrophic warming, with worsening droughts, greater sea level rise and mass extinction of species.”
Out of curiosity, I’ve been searching online, without success, for any reference to the previous record, and when and where it was set, with a view to putting it in context. All the internet throws up, however, is reference after reference to headlines screaming about the new record. Algorithms, eh? I did find this, however:
“Since this was a new climate category in the archive, the experts did not provide a previous record temperature for the region, but said they had established that no temperatures of 38C or above had ever been measured there previously.”
https://www.spacedaily.com/afp/211214070306.ddmsuzly.html
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“What price the UK net-zero target?”
https://www.icaew.com/technical/corporate-finance/corporate-finance-careers/what-price-the-uk-net-zero-target
“…When taking out insurance – which is what climate policy is – we’d normally ask a few key questions. Does the policy offer real cover against the hazard? Is the premium proportionate to the risk insofar as we understand it? Is the premium so large that it would require such sacrifices that we’d be better advised to live with the risk uninsured?
Climate policies pass none of these tests. There’s no cover. Even if the UK was to reduce its emissions to nothing by 2050, it would have no detectable effect on climate change unless the rest of the world did the same thing. But there’s no sign at all that this will happen. China (28% of global emissions), India (7%) and Russia (5%) have not made adequate commitments. Even if they did, who would believe them? Unilateral action in Britain will not protect us. Is united action achievable?
The premium is also wholly disproportionate to the risk insofar as we understand it. As Professor Steve Koonin – one of the world’s pre-eminent, if controversial, writers on the subject of climate change – says: “The impact of human influences on the climate is too uncertain (and very likely too small) compared with the daunting amount of change required to actually achieve the goal of eliminating net-global emissions by, say, 2075….
…This brings us to affordability. We have been told repeatedly, most recently by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his address to the UN, that going green is not only easy but economically attractive. His optimism is admirable in its way, but if he were right, why is it that Asia – the emerging economies generally and China in particular – still relies on fossil fuels and plans to do so for the foreseeable future?
We’ve made a big effort in Britain, with renewables generators now awash with subsidies amounting to £10bn a year (and rising). This largesse was supposed to bring about competition and a reduction in energy costs, but the accounts of wind farms reveal little to suggest this. We remain, like Germany, just under 80% dependent on natural gas, oil and coal. It seems going green is actually very hard indeed.
Even the ever-enthusiastic Climate Change Committee (CCC) admits that the annual cost of net zero will be £50bn a year through to 2050, adding up to more than a trillion pounds or so over the period. Well-informed critics suggest that the CCC has greatly underestimated the cost, and that it could be several times that. Indeed, if the UK adopted expensive net-zero activities and China did not, the trade advantage of China would obviously increase at the expense of UK growth.
Optimists say that the bill for net zero is manageable in a growing economy. But costs on this scale could easily prevent economic growth altogether. The energy sector might expand, but there would be nothing left for other activities. Declining living standards would ensue.
You can easily conclude that the UK’s net-zero target is a very bad deal for the British people. It won’t protect them against climate change; the costs are disproportionate to the threat; and those costs are ruinous in themselves. This legally binding target doesn’t make sense. Readers should rely more on numbers and less on emotion.”
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Mark,
I don’t know about Siberia’s temperature history but extreme variations in temperature seem to be the norm:
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/coldest-air-on-earth-sends-temperatures-below-50-celsius-in-siberia
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No comment, but I’ll leave this here:
“Heavy rain and snow pummel California after a season of historic wildfires
A powerful atmospheric river formation has led to flash flood and avalanche warnings but brings relief from dry conditions”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/14/california-weather-latest-snow-rain
“The most powerful storm yet this season is pummeling California, drenching the northern part of the state on Monday and dumping several feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountaintops before sliding south Tuesday.
The deluge was a welcome relief from dry conditions, but wrecked havoc on roads, caused power outages, and raised the threats of mudslides in areas scarred by wildfires.
The National Weather Service warned that the risk of heavy rainfall would continue in southern California through Wednesday morning. “The associated heavy rain will create mainly localized areas of flash flooding, with urban areas, roads and small streams the most vulnerable” the agency said, adding that heavy snow in the northern region will create hazardous driving conditions and reduced visibility through Tuesday.
California’s snowpack was dismally behind this year, just 19% of normal as of 10 December, but the multi-day storm, a powerful atmospheric river weather system sucking up moisture from the Pacific Ocean, was expected to dump more than eight feet (2.4 meters) of snow on the highest peaks in California and Nevada.
“Total snow accumulations will be tremendous,” NWS in Sacramento said, calling it “easily the biggest snowstorm so far this season.”…”.
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“EU urged to rachet up green energy standards for buildings
Call comes after ambitious early draft of EU energy performance in buildings directive ran into opposition”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/eu-urged-to-rachet-up-green-energy-standards-for-buildings
“The EU executive is under pressure to ratchet up green energy standards for buildings, as it prepares a further batch of legislation to tackle the climate emergency.
The European Commission is expected to propose mandatory energy efficiency upgrades for buildings in the EU in legislative proposals published on Wednesday, but MEPs and Green NGOs fear they will not be strict enough.
The Guardian understands that the worst-performing houses and flats will be required to be renovated to energy-efficiency standard F by 2030, then to E by 2033. The most energy-wasteful public and non-residential buildings will have to hit the F grade by 2027 and E by 2030.
EU energy efficiency classification runs from A to G, with G being the worst in class.
Buildings account for 36% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, meaning millions of homes, offices, shops, schools and hospitals will have to be renovated, if the bloc is to meet a pledge of net zero emissions by 2050.”
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Some important news!
Jem Bendell, the world-leading eschatonanist and bitcoin guru who is the Professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria, has formed a band called Sambiloto, which is a Balinese* word meaning ‘bitter’**. But Bendell isn’t bitter. He’s angry.
Or he was. He’s trying to put that right with a new song he’s made with the help of some fellow Ubudians***.
URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMy4PMOZ2YY
Prof, you were born beyond your time.
That song is free but you’ll have to subscribe if you want more.
===
*Professor Bendell lives in Bali, a town in the southeasternmost corner of Cumbria that has its own dialect.
**’Sambiloto’ is also the Balinese name for Andrographis paniculata, a herb that can cure covid as long as you also take lots of garlic and film yourself doing it.
***’Ubudian’ is Balinese slang for ‘grockle’.
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“Insulate Britain activists vow to continue breaking law”
Insulate Britain activists vow to continue breaking law
“An Insulate Britain protestor says she will continue breaking the law to convince the government to fix Britain’s “leaky homes”.
Anglican priest Reverend Sue Parfitt, 79, told the Royal Courts of Justice that it was of “no consequence” if she was jailed for breaching a High Court injunction by blocking a highway.
Seven members of the climate group appeared and admitted the allegations.
They are set to be sentenced on Wednesday.
The breaches relate to an Insulate Britain protest on the M25, which led to tailbacks of 2.5 miles (4km), when activists blocked the carriageways and glued themselves to the road.”
Have you noticed the crisis seems to have ended now it’s cold, dark and (often) wet? No need for protests in winter, apparently, which seems a bit odd, given what they’re protesting about…
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“Paris taxi firm suspends use of Tesla Model 3 cars after fatal accident
Tesla denies any technical problem with the car as authorities investigate the accident which killed one person and injured 20”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/paris-taxi-firm-suspends-use-of-tesla-model-3-cars-after-fatal-accident
“The biggest taxi firm in Paris said it was suspending the use of Model 3 Teslas in its fleet after a fatal accident in the French capital at the weekend.
A driver lost control of his Tesla on Saturday night in the southeastern 13th district of Paris, killing one person and injuring 20, with three people in intensive care.
Paris prosecutors on Saturday opened an investigation into the incident.
Given the speed and the trajectory of the vehicle, which struck multiple objects as it careened down the street, there were initially suspicions of a malfunction such as a stuck accelerator.
The G7 taxi company, which claims to be the biggest firm in Europe on its website, said 37 of its drivers used the Tesla Model 3, and other Tesla models would remain in service.
After checking the crashed vehicle’s data remotely, Tesla denied any technical problem with the car. The US group said it would share all details with French authorities if requested.
Tesla’s safety record has been questioned in the past over a series of fatal accidents linked to its cars’ Autopilot driver assistance programme, which can steer, brake and accelerate a vehicle on its own.”
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MH: ‘Have you noticed the crisis seems to have ended now it’s cold, dark and (often) wet? No need for protests in winter, apparently, which seems a bit odd, given what they’re protesting about…’
That’s not true of all of the protesters. Diana Warner was due at the High Court with the other Insulate Britain protesters yesterday but she was busy trying to block a trainload of American woodchips bound for Drax power station. Brave? Yes, probably. She’s 62 and I think she acted alone. Stupid? Yes, certainly. She blocked the wrong train.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/extinction-rebellion-attempts-to-block-wooden-pellet-train-heading-to-drax-but-stopped-wrong-train-3494539
(She’s the retired GP who thinks that we have only three years to stop an explosion of plankton robbing the atmosphere of all of its oxygen.)
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Irony alert:
“CO2 shortage forces Cannock swimming pool closure”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-59671714
“A swimming pool has been temporarily closed after leisure centre staff ran out of carbon dioxide.
Bosses at Chase Leisure Centre in Cannock, Staffordshire, made the announcement on Tuesday and apologised to users.
Carbon dioxide is used in swimming pools to manage water quality.
A delivery is expected on Wednesday evening which should allow the pool to reopen on Thursday, the district council said.
It added there were plans to alter the system in use at the pool to one which does not rely on carbon dioxide, saying its availability was a “national issue”.
A deal had to be agreed in October between the government and CF Industries, a key CO2 producer in the UK, to continue supplies of the gas.
It is produced as a by-product of making fertilizer and the firm had suspended production at two sites due to the rising cost of natural gas.”
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“(She’s the retired GP who thinks that we have only three years to stop an explosion of plankton robbing the atmosphere of all of its oxygen.)”
Maybe prison isn’t quite the right place to keep her safe?
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Local history group
the organiser is a right Climate cultist so he just posted on the Facebook page
– Antarctic Glacier could collapse in a decade
– “Bees exposed to pesticide could…”
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Richard at 07 Dec 21, 11:29 am
“I think to think @DrJamesEHansen
a bit full of himself, but this is a good interview.”
“I assume that was meant to be “used to think”. I confess I haven’t watched the video yet.”
I meant to change ‘I tend to think’ into ‘I think’ in order to make room for the last Twitter address on the list.
I definitely still think Hansen is a bit full of himself!
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“IS THERE ANYBODY IN?”
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/12/15/is-there-anybody-in/
“This is an open letter from former MSP Mike MacKenzie in the Highlands and Islands to Patrick Harvie. He asked me to publish it on my blog which I am happy to do. The headline is my own.
Dear Patrick
Please accept my congratulations on your promotion. I am writing to you in your capacity as the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings because I am concerned that the Highlands and Islands, as ever, will bear the brunt of policies which may well work well in urban Scotland but will be extremely onerous for those of us who live in the Highlands and Islands….”.
Worth a read, IMO.
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“Plans for carbon-neutral homes in England are a step back, say experts
Newly published building policy said to be a ‘missed opportunity’ to help the UK reach net zero by 2030”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/16/plans-for-carbon-neutral-homes-in-england-are-a-step-back-say-experts
“The government’s new building regulations were supposed to be the blueprint for carbon-neutral homes, helping the country reach net zero by 2030, but instead are a step backwards, industry experts have said.
The government policy, published on Wednesday and due to be introduced by 2025, has mandated a 30% carbon cut in all new buildings and a 27% cut in others. The new rules will come into force in June in England, with a transition period to allow for planning applications that are in progress at the time.
The housing minister, Eddie Hughes, said the change would pave the way for the future homes and future buildings standards in 2025 and would mean all future homes would be ready for net zero and not need any retrofit work.
“The changes will significantly improve the energy efficiency of the buildings where we live, work and spend our free time and are an important step on our country’s journey towards a cleaner, greener built environment,” he said.
However, construction industry experts said the new regulations are “a tiny and far cry from what is needed” especially considering Cop26 commitments. They argue, in particular, that allowing large building companies to use their own performance metrics does not bode well for a reduction in emissions.
“From a first glance it may seem that the interim uplift is positive. From the face of it, it looks like buildings under the 2021 uplift will emit 30% less carbon,” explained Clara Bagenal George from LETI, a network of 1,000 built environment professionals that are working together to put London on the path to a zero carbon future.
She argued that in fact, “due to the methodologies behind the regulation, this is more likely to translate into only a 5%-10% improvement in energy efficiency in practice”.
Joe Baker, head of carbon management at Haringey council, reacted on Twitter to the regulations, saying: “This is disappointing and lacks ambition. Industry experts, investors, and citizens have shared with the government what is possible and what they want to see. They have given examples of where development is delivering better building far beyond this proposal. Showing the benefits to the industry, investors, and building occupiers. However, their views, expertise, and experiences, have been disregarded for a lower standard.”
Good grief – “head of carbon management at Haringey Council”. I thought I must have mis-read that, but it seems not.
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“Science Museum ‘must lay down conditions’ to fossil fuel sponsors
UK’s former chief scientific adviser Sir David King adds to growing pressure on the London museum”
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/dec/16/science-museum-fossil-fuel-sponsors-sir-david-king
“Sir David King, one of the UK’s leading scientific figures, has intervened in the row over fossil fuel sponsorship at the Science Museum, calling for the institution to end any deals with big oil corporations unless the companies meet strict environmental criteria.
The UK’s former chief scientific adviser said fossil fuel companies should have to prove they were serious about winding down their oil and gas operations before being awarded high-profile deals with prestigious scientific institutions.”
No comment necessary.
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BBC local news
Gustavo Chavez Pavo and his Climate Change mural in Hull
.. He’s Mexican & doesn’t speak English
#PRasNews for Climate activists
… https://www.twitter.com/RonDearingUTC/status/1471442887023988741
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BTW XR lost their complaint about a Telegraph article.
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/ruling/?id=06518-21
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Apropos nothing, I was amused to read the following tonight in a BBC article concerning the RAF’s shooting down of a hostile drone in Syria:
“The pilots identified and destroyed it using an advanced short range air-to-air missile called Asraam.”
Or to spell it out:
“The pilots identified and destroyed it using an advanced short range air-to-air missile called Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile.”
Journalism is easier than it looks.
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Relax – the world is saved:
“NI energy strategy sets out 2050 decarbonisation target”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-59691426
“Northern Ireland could become a world leader in green energy generation, according to Stormont’s Department for the Economy.
Its new energy strategy sets a target of 70% of local electricity supplies coming from renewable sources by 2030.
The strategy includes a plan to fully decarbonise by 2050.
It said moving to an indigenous fuel source will protect the consumer and the economy from the effects of volatile fossil fuel prices.
All of Northern Ireland’s oil, gas and coal is currently imported.”
An indigenous fuel source – I assume that’s wind, rather than peat. It might protect the province from volatile prices, but not from volatile supply.
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Well, it also reads as if the pilots used the missile to identify the drone. But that’s just the pedant in me talking.
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“Wood burners cause nearly half of urban air pollution cancer risk – study
Exclusive: Wood smoke is a more important carcinogen than vehicle fumes, finds Athens analysis”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/17/wood-burners-urban-air-pollution-cancer-risk-study
“Wood burning stoves in urban areas are responsible for almost half of people’s exposure to cancer-causing chemicals found in air pollution particles, new research has shown.
The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in tiny pollution particles are produced by burning fuels and have long been known to have carcinogenic effects. The new study examined the sources of the PAHs and found wood burning produced more than the diesel fuel or petrol used in vehicles.
The analysis was done in Athens, Greece, but the researchers were clear that this was not an unusual case. They said that home wood burning was a significant issue for urban air quality throughout Europe and that excessive exposure to wood smoke could cause severe health effects.
“Athens is not an exception – it’s more representative of a rule,” said Athanasios Nenes, at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas in Patras, Greece, and one of the team behind the new study. “On the one hand, it’s: ‘Oh, my goodness, this is terrible.’ But on the other hand, it points to something people can actually do to reduce this risk without too much effort. You basically stop burning wood. That’s the bottom line.””
Any comments?
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“Warmer winters can wreak as much havoc as hotter summers, say scientists
Warmer winters are happening across the globe, and can be drivers of catastrophic weather events and profound changes”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/17/warmer-winters-climate-crisis-scientists
“As climate scientist Kai Kornhuber walks around New York City this winter, an eerie feeling creeps into his body. It’s warm enough for a T-shirt in December, and the birds are chirping loudly.
The temperatures tell birds and trees that it’s time for action, but the systems are out of sync for December, says Kornhuber, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
“It’s not right, there’s a disconnect between how it should be and how it is.” Kornhuber said.
Warmer winters are happening across the globe, and leading to some big impacts: 2021 brought the planet’s 16th-warmest February since records began.
While the popular imagination might associate the climate crisis with scorching summers and their attendant droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and heat waves, milder winters can also be drivers of catastrophic weather events and profound changes. They range from shifts in agricultural use, triggering changing weather patterns to boosting the likelihood of violent events, like the swarm of tornadoes that wreaked havoc in the American midwest and south over last weekend.”
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“‘Really abnormal’ storms and tornadoes tear through Great Plains and midwest
At least five people have died after unseasonably warm temperatures spawned hurricane-force winds and possible tornadoes”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/16/great-plains-storms-tornadoes-tear-through-midwest
“At least five people died as a powerful and extremely unusual storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably warm temperatures, spawning hurricane-force winds and possible tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.
In south-eastern Minnesota, Olmsted county Sheriff’s Lt Lee Rossman said a 65-year-old man was killed Wednesday night when a 40ft tree blew onto him outside his home.
In south-western Kansas, blinding dust kicked up by the storms Wednesday led to two separate crashes that killed three people, Kansas Highway Patrol trooper Mike Racy said. And in Iowa, a semitrailer was struck by high winds and rolled onto its side in eastern Iowa Wednesday evening, killing the driver, the Iowa State Patrol confirmed.
The storm shifted north of the Great Lakes into Canada on Thursday, with high winds, snow and hazardous conditions continuing in the upper Great Lakes region, the National Weather Service said. More than 400,000 homes and businesses were without electricity in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.”
The BBC Reality Check team said this was nothing to do with climate change. The Guardian can always find someone who will say otherwise:
“Scientists have said that extreme weather events are probably due to human-caused climate change, but trying to find a cause for a specific weather event, such as storms throughout many regions in the US, requires additional analysis that requires time and can be inconclusive.
“I think we also need to stop asking the question of whether or not this event was caused by climate change. All events nowadays are augmented by climate change,” said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini.
“We need to be asking, ‘to what extent did climate change play a role and how likely was this event to occur in the absence of climate change?”’”
“We need to be asking”? Hmmm.
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“Preston’s City’s carbon neutral aim poses ‘financial challenge'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-59696406
“A city council’s aim to become carbon neutral by 2030 poses a financial challenge, a report has found.
A cross-party task group has spent almost two years exploring what Preston City Council needs to do to fulfil the pledge made in April 2019.
The report said decisions would have to be taken ensure “the greatest carbon reduction can be achieved at the earliest opportunity”.
But its fleet of 124 vehicles will remain diesel-driven.
Councillors voted for the authority to invest a further £4.8m over the next five years in replacing the vehicles, but an accompanying report said it was not currently possible to purchase “alternative fuelled” vehicles, because of the lack of the necessary infrastructure to operate them.
Environment and community safety cabinet member Robert Boswell defended the decision not to shift the fleet to electric at this point, warning that if the council had to charge all of its vehicles “there might be power failures in Preston, because there [are] other factors [to consider]”.
He suggested that the authority faced the same practical barriers to electric vehicles that were experienced by some members of the public, including a lack of charging points….”.
Welcome to the real world.
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“Environmental activists ‘spat at by drivers’ at Rome protest
Protesters say they were slapped, kicked and spat at by angry drivers during roadblock in Italian capital”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/environmental-activists-spat-at-by-drivers-at-rome-protest
“talian activists have blocked a major road in Rome as part of a series of protests aimed at urging the government to take action to tackle the climate crisis.
The activists, from the group Last Generation, which is supported by Extinction Rebellion, claim they were slapped, kicked and spat at by angry drivers after they assembled along the Maglianella viaduct on the A90 motorway.
It was the eighth time that the environment campaigners have blocked a road in Rome in the past 10 days, with eight activists arrested on Wednesday.
Peter, who was among seven people protesting on Friday morning, said: “I expose myself to danger and uncertainty because I am aware of the danger we are running to humanity.”
It is the first time Italian climate activists have used the road-blocking method to raise awareness, and comes as a civil court case, brought by 203 plaintiffs who are suing the government for failing to address the climate crisis, gets under way in Rome.
The main objective of the Last Generation activists is to force the government to establish a citizens’ assembly as a way to urge politicians to take swift action to address climate issues…
…A further roadblock is planned on Saturday.
“The point of taking disruptive action is to make people agree with the cause. Some drivers have shown their support,” Costantino said. “We are not looking to be loved by people, but to talk about the problems.””
That last paragraph seems to show confused reasoning.
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Elsewhere others are pointing out the current failure of renewables in the UK at the moment, but here we are in the depths of winter, and this is what the National Grid looks like right now (news that you won’t find being reported at the Guardian or the BBC):
Coal: 2.4%
Gas: 53.2%
Solar: 0% (it’s dark, and will be for many hours)
Wind: 4.7%
Hydro: 2.2%
Pumped storage: 4.7%
Nuclear: 12.8%
Biomass: 5.8%
Interconnectors: 13.2%.
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“EU leaders quit without compromise on energy price hikes”
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-summit-drops-energy-conclusions-after-disagreements-over-ets-and-nuclear-power/
“The EU leaders’ summit ended early this morning with a failure to agree on common language on energy issues, forcing the topic to be dropped from the Council conclusions.
The two key differences were over the Emissions Trading System and an upcoming effort to include nuclear in the EU’s taxonomy of sustainable investments.
“There is not a secret that there were different opinions around the table,” Charles Michel, the European Council president, said after the summit.
The Czech and Polish delegations reportedly pressed for an exemption from the ETS — blaming the soaring price of permits for the bloc-wide jump in power prices, a contention that many experts reject.
Going into the summit, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denounced the ETS as a “European energy tax” but admitted that Poland has “adversaries” in Western Europe who don’t agree with Warsaw’s views.
After the summit, Morawiecki tweeted, that the ETS “does not work” and needs deep reform. “We could not allow for the acceptance of empty conclusions.”
There were also splits over the taxonomy, with pro-nuclear countries pushing for the issue to be mentioned in the conclusions, something rejected by anti-nuclear Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.
Although several draft revisions of the energy conclusions circulated, in the end the effort failed and resulted in a rare abandonment of conclusions for an item on the summit’s agenda.”
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I just went thru last Saturday’s Times
The only Climate story was Rowlatt’s correction story
.. That is such a difference compared to COP26 and before.
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The previous Saturday they had a double page spread on “an eco friendly Christmas”
and a page of HS” PR..asNews
Also “The collapse of Bulb &20+ other energy providers in UK since the summer,
will cost a UK household between £80/£85 on top of their energy bills next yr
The regulator’s initial assessment of cost of crisis”
Tube bans e-scooters , after one caught Fire
“Sturgeon putting energy supply and jobs at risk by rejecting oil field”
as ever the end quotes were from Greenepeace and Client Earth
Little Emily did a fawning interview with Eon boss Michael Lewis
“decarbonisation”
“we need to get off gas, that’s an enviro and economic benefit”
Tosh of course that shows us he’s not really about reducing CO2
There’s an advert “Go to the Arctic on our hybrid powered ships”
FFS going to Arctic has a colossal arbon footprint howver you do it.
I can’t imagine what the hybrid actually is
Oh and full page Leigh Day adverts ‘were you mis-sold diesel cars ?”
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“Scientists watch giant ‘doomsday’ glacier in Antarctica with concern
Cracks and fissures stoke fears of breakup that could lead to half-metre rise in global sea levels – or more”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/18/scientists-watch-giant-doomsday-glacier-in-antarctica-with-concern
“This week, ice scientists meeting in New Orleans warned that something even more alarming was brewing on the West Antarctic ice sheet – a vast basin of ice on the Antarctic peninsula. Years of research by teams of British and American researchers showed that great cracks and fissures had opened up both on top of and underneath the Thwaites glacier, one of the biggest in the world, and it was feared that parts of it, too, may fracture and collapse possibly within five years or less.
Thwaites makes Larsen B look like an icicle. It is roughly 100 times larger, about the size of Britain, and contains enough water on its own to raise sea levels worldwide by more than half a metre. It contributes about 4% of annual global sea level rise and has been called the most important glacier in the world, even the “doomsday” glacier. Satellite studies show it is melting far faster than it did in the 1990s.”
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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All you need to know about the Thwaites Glacier
https://thwaitesglacier.org/about/facts
But then there is a paper about the end of the last interglacial
Global sea-level fluctuations during the Last Interglaciation (MIS 5e)
Paul J. Hearty,, John T. Hollin, A. Conrad Neumann, Michael J. O’Leary, Malcolm McCulloch
This is a survey of raised beaches produced at the end of the last interglaciation (Eemian). The full paper can be downloaded from this site.
Click to access hearty-et-al-2007-warm-peak-at-end-of-eemian.pdf
This is the relevant part of the conclusions as it relates to the Thwaites and WAIS:
The geologic and geomorphic record of sea-level changes during MIS 5e reveals intervals of transition and stability. During the early half of the highstand (132–125ka), sea level remained relatively stable at +2.571 m, followed by a minor regression, then rose again to +3 to 4 m. The end of the interglacial period (ca 120–118 ka) was marked by abrupt shifts of sea level between +6 and +9 m, forming multiple notches and narrow benches. Sea level fell from this late peak into the glacially lowered sea level of MIS 5d. Associated with the end of MIS 5e are oceanographic reorganization, dramatic climate shifts, and intense storminess. The global coherence of our empirical determinations suggests that MIS 5e was far more complex than portrayed in previous models and interpretations.
We attribute the early stable period at +2 to 3 m to an increased early interglacial contribution from the GIS, compared to today, as suggested by Otto-Bliesner et al. (2006). Late in the interglacial, multiple incised bioero- sional notches were formed between +6 and +9m. This series of notches provide evidence that sea-level changes occur abruptly and successively, probably associated with ice-sheet collapse. The increased volume of global sea level during MIS 5e requires the partial or complete disintegration of the WAIS. During this time, the North Atlantic experienced a period of intense storminess, large waves, and submergence of low-lying coastal areas.
The abrupt fall of sea level implies a rapid build-up of the Northern Hemisphere and perhaps WAIS ice at the end of MIS 5e. ‘‘Cold-trap’’ conditions (higher albedo and dramatic ice build-up caused by perennial snow cover, then ice over vast Arctic areas) and enormous exposed lowland areas all were factors in this catastrophic transition from extreme interglacial highstand to mid- glacial lowstand conditions in only a few thousand years.
The sea-level stability of the first half of MIS 5e highstand interval is not unlike the previous 6–7 ka of the Holocene. The prolonged stability expressed in the former case ended abruptly in a catastrophic collapse of climate over a period of only a few centuries, and hints at potential future changes in the Holocene.
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I note with a mixture of interest and concern that the NHS intends extending its use of so-called ‘virtual wards’ to deal with the tsunami of omicron infections sweeping the country. Put simply, rather than occupying precious NHS real estate and pre-occupying NHS staff who would rather not be in work, the patient is kept at home with their own oxygen monitor, sat by the phone waiting for a medical student to regularly call up to ask health status questions from a standard script. They say it is safe, effective and efficient. I do hope so. But the same NHS also says that people don’t like the hassle of having to see their GP anymore and now much prefer to have their vital examinations done over the phone.
There are people out there having vital and urgent biopsies cancelled on the day of their supposed admission to hospital, and then being told it will have to wait now until the end of January. In the meantime, they stay at home in their virtual wards…
The NHS is still there for you – virtually.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2119
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There you go…
Virtual wards for virtual patients in a virtual pandemic.
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“Calls for ‘reasoned debate’ over oil and gas future”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-59717784
“Business leaders have written a joint open letter to party leaders calling for a “reasoned debate” over the future of oil and gas in the UK.
The call comes after plans for the controversial Cambo Oil field off Shetland were put on hold.
The letter says any statements calling for an end to new exploration have shaken investor confidence, placing tens of thousands of jobs at risk.
It warns politicians against creating a “hostile investment environment”.
The letter, from Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, supported by The British Chambers of Commerce and Scottish Chambers of Commerce, has also been signed by 58 leading figures from business and civic life in Aberdeen.
It says the economic wellbeing of whole communities across the UK is also being put at risk….”
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“Welsh budget: Climate change a priority says Rebecca Evans”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-59720795
“Climate change will be a central part of the Welsh government’s tax and spending plans, the finance minister has said as she prepares to deliver her budget….
…The Welsh government wants Wales to be a net-zero nation by 2050, but will examine a target date of 2035 as part of its deal with Plaid Cymru….
…Ms Evans said: “This budget will leave Wales in a better place to manage the effects of the climate and nature emergency that are already affecting so many communities in Wales, and will only affect more in the future.”…”.
From the very limited reporting of quotes, I’m far from clear what the Welsh government proposes to spend money on with regard to its climate change “priority”. Is it on adaptation? Or is it on mitigation? If the latter, it’s an example of futility and hubris, since Wales must contribute around 0.05% of human-produced greenhouse gases. I regard the article as an example of more headline-pushing and a puff piece from the BBC, without any real substance.
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“Awel y Môr offshore wind farm plans scaled back”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59712566
“Plans for a large offshore wind farm off the north Wales coast have been scaled back following local concerns.
The proposed Awel y Môr wind farm has now been significantly reduced from 91 turbines to between 35 and 50.
The move comes as a public consultation raised concerns about the visual impact.”
Public concerns rarely succeed in stopping these things altogether. If they’re inappropriate, reducing the number of turbines doesn’t change that. Still, it’s good to see public concerns starting to make a difference.
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Times : “‘The bill to go green will cost me £10k per house’
now landlords are being forced to improve energy efficiency
70% of UK homes are lower than energy performance Certificate grade-C
but there’s a 2025 deadline for landlords to get there or be fined.
In principle they can get a delay if costs are huge
In the example double glazing wasn’t enough the landlord had to do the walls or heating system as well
and that was greater than £10K/house
Plus it will be illegal for banks to loan
I bet there will be a huge market in fake certificates etc.
Plus it will be illegal for banks to loan
Page also has a big advert for posh green investment scheme
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-bill-to-go-green-will-cost-me-10k-per-house-2t6ln7g7m
Comments say “stuff the landlords”
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Farmdrop gone bust
Countryfile is always featuring stories of happy schemes where people get veg boxes from the famrmer
A stockbroker set up Farmdrop , got 10,000 customers
but now can’t get more investment cash so has gone bust.
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“Solar farm to power 15,000 homes near Tetsworth approved”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-59732812
“A solar farm that will generate electricity for about 15,000 homes will be built on farmland in Oxfordshire.
Land at Harlesford Farm, near Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, will be used to generate solar power for 40 years.
The local branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said it feared it would cause “massive industrialisation” of the countryside.
But South Oxfordshire District Council’s planning committee gave it the go-ahead at a meeting on Thursday.
The solar farm will be built across 78 hectares (193 acres) of land and produce about 49.99 megawatts of electricity.”
We really do need much more accurate and informative reporting. Will it really “power 15,000 homes”? At any period even in high summer? It’s obvious that at this time of year it will produce the square root of nothing. Why does reportage of such things not make clear the hopeless intermittency of such power generation, and particularly that at the time of year when power is most needed (winter) solar farms are effectively useless?
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“Miners experiment with hydrogen to power giant trucks”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59576867
Actually, read the report, and they’re experimenting with a single giant truck. That suggests it’s all rather expensive and speculative. I look forward to the BBC reporting on the failed outcome of the experiment in due course…..
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“Climate lawyer loses supreme court appeal over Heathrow leak
Tim Crosland was found in contempt for prematurely revealing court’s decision on third runway”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/20/climate-lawyer-loses-supreme-court-appeal-over-heathrow-leak
“A lawyer and climate campaigner who leaked the result of a supreme court ruling on the Heathrow airport expansion has lost an appeal against a contempt of court finding.
Tim Crosland, the director of environmental campaign group Plan B Earth, was found in contempt of court for prematurely revealing the court’s decision on Heathrow’s third runway 22 hours before it was made public in December 2020.
The lawyer, from Elephant and Castle in south London, previously described breaking an embargo on the judgment as “an act of civil disobedience”.
In May, three supreme court justices found Crosland in contempt of court for his “deliberate and calculated breaches” and fined him £5,000, as well as ordering him to pay costs of £15,000.
Crosland challenged the contempt finding at a hearing in October, arguing that the judges failed to consider his “intentions, motivations and belief” when breaching the embargo.
He said he broke the embargo to draw attention to the government’s use of a “historic” 2C temperature limit above pre-industrial levels, rather than the current 1.5C target required by the Paris agreement, when considering the airport’s expansion….
…”In a statement after the ruling, Crosland said he plans to take his case to the European court of human rights.
He said: “It’s no great surprise that the supreme court has decided to side with itself, in continuing support of the carbon economy, which is driving us all to destruction.
“The government knows Heathrow expansion will cause the 1.5C Paris temperature limit to be breached, with devastating consequences for us all. But it has concealed that information from the public to pave the way for the £14.5bn project of its corporate sponsors.
“They are the real criminals, not those of us taking action to defend our communities and the people that we love.
“Retribution against the whistleblower is wrong. The case concerns the right to freedom of expression, which is fundamental to any democracy. I will now appeal to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.”
Righto.
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“Complaint to Ofcom about Sky’s Breach of the Broadcasting Code Over its Promotion of ‘Net Zero’”
https://dailysceptic.org/complaint-to-ofcom-about-skys-breach-of-the-broadcasting-code-over-its-promotion-of-net-zero/
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“By ditching landmark climate legislation, America makes the world unsafe”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/21/us-build-back-better-climate-crisis-legislation
An extraordinary article – pretty much everything is the fault of the USA, it seems. Not a single mention of China.
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“Poland rakes in the carbon cash it pretends to hate
Poland is complaining that the EU ETS is costing its utilities dearly, but the money from selling permits flows into the national budget.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-emission-trading-eu/
“The issue for Poland is that while a high ETS price raises money for the government, it also hugely ramps up costs for Polish utilities, which generate about 70 percent of their electricity from super-polluting lignite and black coal. Most of those utilities are state-controlled, and they’re passing those costs on to their consumers — who are also voters.
Last week, Poland’s energy market regulator URE approved new higher tariffs for electricity and gas that will send bills next year soaring.
“High wholesale energy prices and the costs of purchasing CO2 emissions rights are the main reasons for the increase in bills,” URE said in a statement.
Poland’s heavy industry has a tougher time passing any increase in ETS costs to its customers, as companies face competition from rivals elsewhere in the EU.”
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“No, climate change is not a ‘women’s issue’
Environmentalists say women emit less carbon and are more climate conscious. What sexist tripe.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/21/no-climate-change-is-not-a-womens-issue/
“If we want to debate environmental issues, let’s do that. But we’ve got to stop framing women as the angels of climate activism. It’s unhelpful, patronising and incredibly sexist.”
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“EU in row over inclusion of gas and nuclear in sustainability guidance
Activists including Greta Thunberg criticise ‘fake climate action’ in response to planned investment taxonomy”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/21/eu-in-row-over-inclusion-of-gas-and-nuclear-in-sustainability-guidance
“The European Commission is facing a backlash from Greta Thunberg and fellow climate activists over plans to include gas and nuclear energy in a “green” investment guidebook.
Both energy sources are expected to feature in the next part of the EU’s “taxonomy for sustainable activities”, which is expected at the end of the year, following a period of intense political bargaining between the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; and Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
The EU taxonomy is a green classification system that is intended to guide investors to projects that are in line with Europe’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050 and better protection of nature.
An EU official said gas and nuclear were likely to have “amber” status, meaning they would not be in the “green” category with wind and solar power, but would feature in the taxonomy. A senior EU diplomat said they expected to see nuclear in the text because “Von der Leyen seems to have promised it to Macron and the other nuclear states”.
EU efforts will be closely watched by the UK, which is developing its own green taxonomy that the government says will “help clamp down on greenwashing – unsubstantiated or exaggerated claims that an investment is environmentally friendly”.
The EU taxonomy became law in July 2020, but legislators left important details to be resolved through so-called delegated acts – secondary legislation meant for technical issues that is not subject to the same degree of ministerial and parliamentary oversight.
Since then, the project has been overshadowed by a fierce political row that culminated when EU leaders meeting in Brussels last week were forced to abandon plans for a joint statement on energy policy. France wants a stamp of approval for nuclear, while Poland and eastern European states insist gas is labelled a “sustainable” investment.”
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“Europe’s Power Crunch Shuts Down Factories as Prices Hit Record”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-22/european-power-surges-to-record-as-france-faces-winter-crunch
“European power climbed to a fresh record as France faces a winter supply crunch, with heavy industries forced to curb production across the region.
Electricity for delivery next year jumped to an all-time-high in both Germany and France, two of the biggest economies in the European Union. France, facing outages at nuclear plants, will need to suck up supplies instead of exporting power to neighboring countries.
The situation is so severe that it is forcing factories to cut output or shut down altogether. Aluminium Dunkerque Industries France has curbed production in the past two weeks due to high power prices, while Trafigura Group’s Nyrstar will pause its zinc smelter in France in the first week of January. Romanian fertilizer producer Azomures SA temporarily halted output.”
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“Most northerly mainland port poised for wind farm work”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm45p8rnl88o
“Scrabster Harbour Trust has signed an agreement with Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm to explore the potential of developing construction support facilities at the Caithness port.
Danish company, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partner, is planning to build the 100 megawatts wind farm.
The proposed site in the Pentland Firth is about four miles (6km) off the former Dounreay nuclear power complex near Thurso.
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partner said once completed its 10-turbine project would generate power for about 70,000 homes.”
Where are the BBC’s fact checkers when you need them? Would it hurt to point out that the power will be intermittent and often won’t power anything like 70,000 homes. Another Danish company, I see.
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One of my grandsons (age 8) took part in the annual Christmas Concert at his elementary school. Except, this year, they changed the name of it to “Winter Concert” with the twin themes of recycling and climate change. No Christmas songs but they did sing about recycling to the tune of Jingle Bells. The lad thought ti was all pretty funny so good for him. I asked the parents if this stuff was bothering the boys and they said “No. It just goes in one ear and out the other!” So there is hope.
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Needless to say, I profoundly disagree, especially with the last 2 paragraphs:
“At last I have good news on the climate crisis: all of us really can do something about it”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/23/trust-government-climate-individuals-lifestyle-changes
“Yet the granular work done by the Climate Change Committee shows the lifestyle changes this crisis will ask of us are in fact pretty manageable. The most demanding will probably be the switch to battery-powered cars (60% of vehicles by 2035). Otherwise, the number of miles per driver will need to reduce by 4%; plane kilometres per person by 6%; meat and dairy consumption by 20%. Arguably, this is the time to start new conversations – is net zero, in this time frame, ambitious enough? Can the disproportionate carbon usage of the affluent somehow be reflected in redistributive policy, so everyone has an allocation of plane miles and those who can’t afford to use theirs can sell them instead? Would it make sense to subsidise meat and dairy alternatives in the same way renewables were initially supported? Is it feasible to make a carbon budget, as a nation, that doesn’t take into account the footprint of your imports? (Not really.)
What is now unarguable is that all this is within our grasp. Radicals and progressives may maintain the longterm goal of bringing down capitalism and re-evaluating what life is for, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing constructive that we can do in the short term. I’m not sure that I would make a different or more certain prediction of what life will look like in 30 years’ time. But the idea that the changes required are too radical or the people who need to make them too timid, I’ve completely put aside.”
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“Climate change: Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-59452614
“Wikipedia has for so long been plagued by climate change denial. But a group of dedicated volunteers around the world is working tirelessly to keep the deniers at bay….
…David is part of a small but dedicated group of volunteers who have made it their mission to curate and protect articles about climate change on English Wikipedia. And they’re not afraid to pick a fight.
“I’ll send [the deniers] a note on their personal page on Wikipedia saying, ‘This is vandalism, this could have consequences,'” says David. “Sometimes these people get kicked off Wikipedia.”…
…Sometimes the errors are obvious. But it didn’t take long for Su-Laine to realise some users were twisting the facts in subtler ways, especially in less-trafficked articles.
“When you’ve got an article about a climate science denier, people will try to soften that by saying so-and-so is a ‘climate policy analyst’. That’s a way of making the person sound more credible,” she says….
…And bad information, even outright conspiracies theories, are more common on climate pages in languages other than English, according to a recent BBC investigation.
For now, it is entirely down to volunteers to hold the fort.”
Hmm. Any article that refers unthinkingly to “deniers” looks suspiciously like misinformation to me.
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Time for comfortable middle-class climate worriers to campaign against working class jobs again:
“New Wales coalmine may soon be approved despite Cop26 pledges
Conditional licence granted in 2016 at Aberpergym has led to row between Whitehall and devolved administration”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/24/new-wales-coalmine-may-soon-be-approved-despite-cop26-pledges
“Plans for a new underground coalmine in Wales could be approved imminently despite pledges made at the Cop26 climate conference to move away from the dirtiest fossil fuel.
The Coal Authority is imminently expected to decide whether the conditions have been met to allow work to begin at an old deep-shaft site at Aberpergwm in south Wales.
A row has emerged since Cop26 between ministers at Whitehall and the devolved Welsh administration over which government office holds responsibility for reviewing and making a final decision on the impending permit.
In 2016, Energybuild Ltd was given a conditional mining licence that would allow the firm to extract up to 40m tonnes of anthracite over the coming two decades. But the company says that if the Aberpergwm project were to go ahead, it would seek to dig up only about 7.3m tonnes at a rate of about 350,000 tonnes a year.
Anthracite (sometimes referred to as “hard coal”) has the highest carbon content of all coal varieties, although it has relatively low levels of sulphur and produces less particulate matter than other forms of coal. It can be used for a number of industrial purposes, but is also burned as a domestic fuel.”
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“Rio Tinto puts Serbia lithium mine on hold
Chief executive seeks public dialogue, suggesting protests against Loznica project have hindered any ‘reasonable debate’”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/24/rio-tinto-puts-serbia-lithium-mine-on-hold
“Rio Tinto will put its controversial western Serbia lithium project on hold, a news agency has reported, quoting the CEO of Rio’s Serbian arm.
The mining group wants to develop the mine near Loznica in the western Jadar river valley to extract lithium, used in electric car batteries, and borates, used in solar panels and wind turbines.
n recent weeks protesters have taken to the streets and blocked roads, demanding authorities end the project. The backlash is causing a political headache for the ruling coalition loyal to president Aleksandar Vucic ahead of April elections. The company’s $2.4bn project is part of Serbian government efforts to bring in more investment and create economic growth….”.
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Mark re: the thought police. A pair of quotes I have wheeled out a few times:
Wiki page on media coverage of global warming
Wiki page on climate change denial
Unbelievably, describing the word “alarmist” as having an “Orwellian” flavour while condoning use of “denial.”
I also railed against wiki in their disappearance of an important sceptic graph in “Down the Memory Hole.” (What would Orwell make of the way his language is misused by almost everyone these days?)
https://cliscep.com/2021/08/13/down-the-memory-hole/
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More propaganda:
“Business Review of 2021: Climate change and Covid”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59730492
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“November car production hits lowest level since 1984”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59761286
“UK car production in November hit its lowest level since 1984 as Covid continued to affect supply chains, a motoring industry group has said.
Output fell by 28.7% to 75,756 units, marking the fifth consecutive month of decline, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.
It called the figures “incredibly worrying”, blaming a continuing shortage of semiconductors.
The start of full Brexit customs controls could also hit firms, it said.
The UK has been short of semiconductors – which are commonly used components in cars – for the past year.
Under Covid restrictions, Asian factories have struggled to keep up with demand as economies have reopened.
SMMT boss Mike Hawes said the problem was “likely to affect the sector throughout next year”, and called for more government support.”
Of course those factors may have some relevance, but I suspect that a significant (and, inevitably, unmentioned) factor is that so many manufacturers are turning more and more to electric and hybrid vehicles that people don’t want to buy. We are thinking about replacing our diesel next spring, and the choice is appallingly limited. So we probably won’t bother, and ill keep the old running a while longer. That might be “green”, but is it really what they want?
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Yet another headline, trying to pretend that covid and climate change are somehow related:
“The pandemic is a warning: we must take care of the earth, our only home
Bruno Latour
The climate crisis resembles a huge planetary lockdown, trapping humanity within an ever-deteriorating environment”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/24/pandemic-earth-lockdowns-climate-crisis-environment
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The lack of logic (and ability in basic English) continues at the Grauniad:
“End trade barriers to help tackle climate crisis, says WTO chief
Fiona Harvey
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala calls for changes to ensure developing nations are resilient to affects [sic] of extreme weather”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/24/end-trade-barriers-help-tackle-climate-crisis-wto-ngozi-okonjo-iweala
“Removing trade barriers around the world would help to tackle the climate crisis, enable a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and make developing countries more resilient to the impacts of global heating, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took over as director general of the global watchdog last March, said: “Trade is part of the solution, not part of the problem … We need a global effort to climate-proof the supply chains and infrastructure of the most vulnerable economies or risk undoing hard-won economic progress and development.”
She told the Guardian trade would be essential to helping developing countries cope with the effects of extreme weather, which are already being felt. “We need to put in place trade policies to cushion against the negative impacts of climate change, to ensure food security in the face of climate threats [and] provide access to adaptation technologies,” she said.”
This is (perfectly understandable) special pleading. But it’s difficult to see how the globalist agenda of international trade being expanded could possibly help reduce emissions.
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So what has the Roman god of love got to do with climate change?
This:
“Dating Site OkCupid Adds A New Option That Allows Users To Filter Out Climate Change Deniers, Not Everyone Supports It”
https://www.boredpanda.com/climate-change-filter-fake-news-dating-site-okcupid/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
Merry Christmas everyone.
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BBC PR tweet for that Wiki story
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to many comments to comment on ,so (Mark – slow down it’s Xmas 🙂
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Looks like people are starting to have second thoughts about burning wood to produce electricity.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/15/end-scandal-burning-wood-energy-mps-demand-telegraph-investigation/
But looking at the list of objectors, especially those with know links to China, I can’t help feeling that maybe the Drax power station are a Good Thing™.
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And then there’s this:
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1535798/private-car-ownership-road-driving-changes-updates
Look likes Rentiers of Britain Inc can’t get enough to keep them in the lifestyle they think they deserve and are looking for other ways to extract unearned money from the working population.
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Reuters promoting EVs, so how can they be impartial ?
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What does it take to qualify as an expert in the eyes of the BBC these days?
“Floods getting bigger and more frequent, says river expert”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-59726441
“Floods on the River Severn and other waterways in the West Midlands are likely to continue getting bigger and more frequent, an expert has said.
Dave Throup retires this month after 21 years with the Environment Agency.
He said climate change was going to continue to have a significant impact on people living and working near the Severn, the UK’s longest river.”
His qualifications to be an expert on climate change?
“As area manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire, at times of flooding he is often called to manage incidents, working in the control room for weeks….
…When not working as an incident commander he is a media contact and said, during floods in 2014, he had once done 60 interviews in one day….
…Mr Throup previously worked for Rentokil, as a planning officer in south Wales and for Severn Trent Water before moving to the Environment Agency….”.
Odd final comment: “…”My wife is a teacher so we have never been able to travel much,” he said.” How does that work? Don’t teachers have more holidays than most people? How does her being a teacher mean you haven’t been able to travel much?
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“Christmas roast: temperatures soar in Texas and US south-east
Warm weather could make this the hottest December on record for many cities in the region, including Dallas and New Orleans”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/25/christmas-temperature-us-texas-records-south-east
“About 200 temperature records in the US may be broken over the next several days as warm air across Texas and the south-east is predicted to bring spring or even summer-like conditions, making Christmas Day likely to be the warmest in 50 to 100 years in some areas.”
Which means it was warmer 50 or 100 years ago, presumably? Yet:
“And while individual weather events can’t be blamed on a changing climate, extreme temperatures are more increasingly common because of global heating.”
Meanwhile, tagged on to the end of the article, and not mentioned in the headline:
“In contrast, western states in the US are experiencing coastal rain and heavy high elevation snowfall and more than 6m people along the California coast under storm warnings that could bring 4in of rainfall throughout the next five days.
Meteorologists say the conditions are caused by Arctic air pushing into the Pacific north-west that have produced a White Christmas for Seattle and Portland, which could see 4 inches of snow on Christmas Day.
Seattle, reported CNN, has only seen snow on Christmas Day nine times in 127 years, while Oregon is in a state of emergency due to the potential for hazardous winter weather conditions and a sustained freeze.
Parts of the north-east US, meanwhile, are under a winter weather advisories, largely due to freezing rain, though New England could see more widespread snowfall by Saturday night.”
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On a different subject, I nearly caught Covid the other day but, being English, I dropped it over the boundary.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-10321445/NASSER-HUSSAIN-Englands-openers-clearly-not-learned-Australia.html
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“Birmingham City Council recycling trees to create electricity”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-59794420
“A council is offering a free Christmas tree recycling service which will see donated trees turned into biomass electricity.
Birmingham City Council has set up disposal points at four different sites across the city which will be open from Sunday until the end of January.
The local authority said the trees would be chipped and kept in the UK to create biomass electricity.”
Burning trees to create electricity is now “recycling”, apparently. Maybe sceptics are missing a trick. We could describe burning oil, gas and coal as recycling, at which point it might become acceptable again.
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John catching Covid seems almost to be an unusually common phenomenon these days for us pommes, it’s really got us stumped.
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Mark. How old can wood be in order that, when burnt, it can be considered as recycling? Some of the Tertiary brown coals (or lignites) of Eastern Europe have within them tree limbs that look as if they were cut only a few years ago.
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Interesting that the BBC headlines it on the front page of the news website and goes with a different headline to that used by the Guardian – credit to them (you won’t hear me say that very often…):
“US snowstorms: California and other western states battered”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59800032
“Heavy storms have battered western regions of the United States, leaving thousands without power.
Almost 30in (76cm) of snow fell in parts of northern California in 24 hours, causing blackouts and road closures, including a 70-mile (112km) stretch of Interstate 80 into Nevada.
Avalanche warnings are in effect across six states.
Over the weekend, southern California was hit by rainstorms, which saw power lines snap and streets flooded.
More than 1.8in of rain fell over 24 hours in San Marcos pass in Santa Barbara county, while Rocky Butte in San Luis Obispo county recorded 1.61in, officials said.
The National Weather Service (NWS) in Reno, Nevada, said snowstorms would remain heavy well into Monday, and forecasters have warned that travel could prove difficult in the region for several days.
Avalanche warnings were put into effect on Sunday for parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and California, as the storms created widespread areas of unstable snow. The NWS issued a winter storm warning for greater Lake Tahoe into Tuesday.
Power cuts affected residents in Washington, Oregon and other areas, although northern California was the worst hit. Power Outage US reported 56,000 power cuts there in the early hours of Monday local time, mostly in northern coastal counties and those on the Nevada border.
In Montana, the NWS warned that “dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as five minutes”. Wind chill could make the temperatures feel as low as -48C.
One benefit of the storms in California will be to replenish the Sierra snowpack. It accounts for about 30% of California’s fresh water supply and had been at dangerously low levels after weeks of dry weather.
The state’s department of water resources reported on Christmas Eve that the snowpack was between 114% and 137% of normal ranges, with more snow expected…”.
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BBC advert for solar panels:
“Climate change: Why do new homes not have solar panels?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59668836
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“Snow buries north and west Japan”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-59806939
“Snow has pummelled the north and west of Japan, causing travel chaos and warnings to stay indoors.
The snowfall, which started on Christmas Day, is forecast to continue.”
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“Britons think politicians’ hypocrisy will hamper tackling climate crisis
Net Zero Diaries focus group finds people sceptical about whether Cop26 commitments will stick”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/28/britons-think-politicians-hypocrisy-will-hamper-tackling-climate-crisis
“Britons are concerned that hypocrisy by politicians will affect the public’s willingness to change their own behaviour to tackle the climate crisis – and doubt that Cop26 commitments can be met unless they are legally binding.
The opinions come from the latest in the Net Zero Diaries, a project run by the consultancy Britain Thinks to examine evolving attitudes to the pursuit of a net zero emissions target, the first collation of public views from the cohort since the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow….
…Participants were also deeply sceptical about some of the agreements, and whether they would stick. “None of the agreements are legally binding and are phrased as quite vague statements,” one diarist wrote. “On the main points, the countries mainly responsible did not sign those agreements.”
Most participants, given an article to read about the conference, picked up on the fact that commitments are self-policing and expressed concern that they would not be upheld, with those who were more engaged pointing to the fallout from the commitments made at the Paris summit…”
Some of us have been pointing this out for years.
“The research was commissioned by the energy company Ovo, Citizens Advice, WWF and Lancaster University, and diarists were recruited to reflect differing views on climate, from engaged activists to low-engagement regular consumers.”
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“The revolt against modernity
In 2021, the regressive misanthropy of green politics became crystal clear.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/28/the-revolt-against-modernity/
“…In a sense we should be grateful for the clarity these kinds of comments bring. They confirm what genuine progressives are up against today – a ruling class that has lost faith in its own project of growth and reason and which is ashamed of its achievements. Environmentalism, far from being a progressive cause, is the embodiment of this existential disarray.”
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“Is this the UK’s first carbon neutral potato?”
When you click on it turns into:
“A potato farmer is working to reduce its carbon emissions”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-59782601
“Farmer Walter Simon is a potato grower from Pembrokeshire and is helping to reduce carbon emissions.
He said farmers want to make a difference and recognise they need to change.
Simon is taking advice from experts about what he can do and are looking at what he is doing.
Carbon offsetting is a way of mitigating carbon emissions at the source and has become a go-to for a lot of companies.
Food accounts for over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
It’s a nothing story, and the misleading first headline is simply clickbait.
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“Insulate Britain protests cost police more than £4m”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59808873
“Policing Insulate Britain’s road-blocking protests over three months cost more than £4m, new figures have revealed.
The Met Police spent £4m on protests between 13 September and 20 November, according to figures released to the PA news agency under a Freedom of Information request.
Four other forces spent more than £300,000 combined.”
Instead of outrage, the Guardian’s take is very sympathetic to these people who have wasted so much taxpayers’ money:
“At least 18 peaceful environmental protesters jailed in UK this year
Ten Insulate Britain activists spent Christmas in jail as campaigners decry ‘power grab’ over right to protest”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/28/at-least-18-peaceful-environmental-protesters-jailed-in-uk-this-year
“At least 18 peaceful environmental protesters have been sent to prison this year, with 10 spending Christmas Day behind bars.
As concern about the climate crisis grows, activists have been jailed after blocking roads, disrupting court proceedings and in one case climbing on top of an aeroplane in an attempt to draw attention to the escalating emergency.
Campaigners fear their “heavy-handed treatment” is part of a concerted effort by the state to crack down on the right to protest, with the government’s controversial police, crime, sentencing and courts bill criticised by human rights activists as “a dangerous power grab”.
Ten members of the environmental protest group Insulate Britain spent Christmas serving prison sentences for contempt of court for breaching injunctions banning their road block protests, which demanded the proper insulation of the UK’s housing stock. Seven more have suspended sentences.
At least eight other environmental activists have served prison sentences in 2021 for contempt of court actions, according to Extinction Rebellion, including livestreaming from court and gluing themselves to the dock.”
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I’m a bit late with this but back in March the UK was judged to be making the 15th best contribution to planetary well-being out of 216 countries worldwide – two rankings ahead of Germany.
https://earthcharter.org/planetarywell-beingindex/
Yes, the top three rankings were Suriname, Central African Republic and Australia, so the judgments of Earth Charter International (which isn’t a cult, honest) are obviously a bit wack in some cases, but Brits should take pride where they can find it.
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Vinny, that link tells us that:
“The proof-of-concept scores countries according to the presence of ethical values articulated in the four pillars of the Earth Charter by considering simple indicators that are sensitive to actions and policies taken by the country, as well as to the Earth Charter pillars. In turn, it would also be expected that using these indicators as a driver to actions and policies would reinforce practice of the ethical values of the Earth Charter. The indicators are standardised for comparison into Index of Contributions of Countries to Planetary Well-being.”
It’s a bit bizarre that Australia does so well in the rankings, given the way it is relentlessly pilloried by the Guardian for its climate failures. As for the Central African Republic, according to Wikipedia:
“Despite its significant mineral deposits and other resources, such as uranium reserves, crude oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, lumber, and hydropower, as well as significant quantities of arable land, the Central African Republic is among the ten poorest countries in the world, with the lowest GDP per capita at purchasing power parity in the world as of 2017. As of 2019, according to the Human Development Index (HDI), the country had the second-lowest level of human development (only ahead of Niger), ranking 188 out of 189 countries. The country had the lowest inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), ranking 150th out of 150 countries. The Central African Republic is also estimated to be the unhealthiest country as well as the worst country in which to be young”
Perhaps contributing to planetary well-being doesn’t do much for the well-being of your own people.
Again according to Wikipedia, it looks as though Suriname is in hock to China:
“In the late 2000s, Suriname intensified development cooperation with other developing countries. China’s South-South cooperation with Suriname has included a number of large-scale infrastructure projects, including port rehabilitation and road construction.”
There are other problems:
“President Dési Bouterse was convicted and sentenced in the Netherlands to 11 years of imprisonment for drug trafficking. He is the main suspect in the court case concerning the December murders, the 1982 assassination of opponents of military rule in Fort Zeelandia, Paramaribo. These two cases still strain relations between the Netherlands and Suriname.” Doesn’t sound all that ethical to me.
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Matt McGrath is busy:
“Climate change: Hurricanes to expand into more populated regions”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59775105
“Climate change will expand the range of tropical cyclones, making millions more people vulnerable to these devastating storms, a new study says.
At present, these cyclones – or hurricanes as they are also known – are mainly confined to the tropical regions north and south of the equator.
But researchers say that rising temperatures will allow these weather events to form in the mid-latitudes.
This area includes cities such as New York, Beijing, Boston and Tokyo.”
The study can be found here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00859-1
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“Alaska ‘Icemageddon’ warning follows heat record”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59820999
“The coldest US state of Alaska has recorded its hottest-ever December day, amid an unusual winter warm spell.
Temperatures soared to a record 19.4C (67F) on the island of Kodiak on Sunday – almost seven degrees warmer than the state’s previous high.”
I’m not sure the alarmist heading is justified (with its emphasis on a heat record), given what follows:
“But elsewhere in Alaska temperatures have been plunging to record lows.
In the south-eastern town of Ketchikan, temperatures dropped to -18C (-0.4F) on 25 December – one of the town’s coldest Christmas Days in the past century.
Experts say warm air pouring in from Hawaii has made Alaska’s air – usually cold and dry during December – more moist. This has meant heavy rain and snow storms are more likely in interior regions, away from the balmy coastal areas.
Heavy snowfall was followed by torrential rain that left the region coated with ice as the rain quickly froze, resulting in widespread power failures, road closures and offices being shut.
Thick ice formed on roads and made them treacherous for drivers, warned the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
“Ice is extremely difficult to remove once it has binded to the road surface. Even though air temps were warm… roads were at sub-zero temps, which caused ice to bind to the surface,” the department said on Twitter.
The ice would likely cling to the roads until at least March or April, Climate Scientist Rick Thoman, of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, told the BBC.”
The “Icemageddon” bit is fair enough, I suppose. Banging on about heat (on an offshore island) seems inappropriate.
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“I’m a climate scientist. Don’t Look Up captures the madness I see every day
Peter Kalmus
A film about a comet hurtling towards Earth and no one is doing anything about it? Sounds exactly like the climate crisis”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/climate-scientist-dont-look-up-madness
“The scientists are essentially alone with this knowledge, ignored and gaslighted by society. The panic and desperation they feel mirror the panic and desperation that many climate scientists feel. In one scene, Mindy hyperventilates in a bathroom; in another, Diabasky, on national TV, screams “Are we not being clear? We’re all 100% for sure gonna fucking die!” I can relate. This is what it feels like to be a climate scientist today.”
No hyperbole there, then…..And they wonder why people don’t take them seriously.
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“How New England bungled its plan to transition to renewable energy
Decarbonization should be a slam dunk, especially in progressive states. But a recent fight over hydropower shows states must listen carefully to voters first”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/29/maine-renewable-energy-hydropower-new-england
“Earlier this year, Massachusetts passed a landmark law as part of a push towards decarbonization that requires the state to cut emissions in half by 2030.
But the state’s plan to meet this ambitious goal hit a snag this fall, when residents in Maine voted down a regional clean energy project, arguing it would irreversibly damage their own natural resources in order to deliver hydropower somewhere else.”
WOuld that we had the chance to vote like that in this country!
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“Time to cut through the energy subsidies, taxes and controls to keep the lights on”
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/12/28/time-to-cut-through-the-energy-subsidies-taxes-and-controls-to-keep-the-lights-on/
“Yesterday the Business Secretary met the wrong people to solve the energy crisis. He met the companies caught up in a nightmare of controls which threaten their solvency but lead inexorably to large consumer price rises after a delay.
He needs to meet the primary energy producers, the companies that produce gas and generate electricity in the U.K. The basic problem we face is we produce too little energy for our needs. This makes us dependent on very expensive imports, on the goodwill of Mr Putin and the ability of an energy short Western Europe to help us.
Many of the taxes, subsidies and controls on energy production have been imposed in pursuit of net zero. The policy is an abject failure in its own terms, because it forces us to import plenty of gas from abroad adding transport CO2 to the total, and to import electricity that makes the continent burn more coal for power to meet their overall needs.
The government needs to cut its interventions and to licence more U.K. base energy delivery. More electricity needs to be generated here with cost and availability having more of a role in allowing its use.Proper costing of wind needs to allow for the costs of back up or in due course the costs of storage in batteries or through green hydrogen.
In the short term the government’s only options are to transfer some of the extra energy cost from consumers to taxpayers by yet more subsidy to companies, or to beef up benefits to people on lower incomes so they can afford the surge in bills. Every day’s delay in producing and investing more in domestic energy is another increase in bills and in total costs to consumers/ taxpayers. A general subsidy to companies would be yet another undesirable increase in public spending to dodge sorting out the underlying problem.”
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Mark: I have looked at some of the writing of the terrified Peter Kalmus. In terms of what we should be doing about our climate fears he says:
” Policy steps that seem radical today – for example, proposals to nationalize the fossil fuel industry and ration oil and gas supplies – will seem less radical with each new climate disaster.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/10/net-zero-2050-deadly-procrastination-fossil-fuels
He doesn’t seem to realize that we are well on the way to his goal. Some of the world’s largest oil producers are effectively nationalized ( e.g. Saudi Arabia, Russia) and OPEC members have been known to ration oil and gas!
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The new technique, it seems, is to ignore increasing wealth, population growth, and inflation, to try to make the number and severity of “climate emergencies” seem greater than they are:
“‘Extraordinary is no longer extraordinary’: US scientists on a year of climate disasters”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/30/climate-crisis-emergency-climate-disaster
“The atmospheric scientist: ‘It’s like being knocked over by a wave’
Katharine Hayhoe, Texas
Climate scientist and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy
These supersized disasters just keep coming and coming. According to a recent analysis, there was about an average of three months in between each billion-dollar weather or climate event back in the early 1980s. And nowadays, the average is about 18 days between them. So it’s not only that individual events themselves are getting more dangerous and more damaging. It’s that there’s no respite.”
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That’s lamentable from Hayhoe Mark.
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In an interesting take on the priorities of Guardian readers, the 10 most viewed stories there just now include nothing about climate change, but 5 stories referring to covid either directly or indirectly (including “Dominic Raab photographed at Chelsea game without a mask”).
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This is the Guardian’s second piece on this topic in quick order:
“‘It parodies our inaction’: Don’t Look Up, an allegory of the climate crisis, lauded by activists
Adam McKay’s end-of-the-world film is a ‘powerful’ depiction of society’s response to scientific warnings, campaigners say”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/30/it-parodies-our-inaction-dont-look-up-an-allegory-of-the-climate-crisis-lauded-by-activists
Having bigged the film up (twice), the article then ends, rather oddly, with this:
“The Guardian’s critics have described the film as a “laboured, self-conscious and unrelaxed satire”, and a “toothless comedy” that comes from a “position of lofty superiority that would drive away any partisans who still need to be won over”.
Don’t Look Up currently has a rating of 55% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 77%.”
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BBC Monitoring reckons that saying that renewables are unreliable is on a par with saying that covid vaccines contain invisible microchips:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-59736375
Yes, it’s Kayleen Devlin again. (She’s the new Louise Gray.) She finishes with this:
Wot? Are you talking about your own sprawling theories or somebody else’s?
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“Poland digs in over mine spat with EU
The standoff is souring Poland’s relationship with the Czech Republic and deepening a rule-of-law rift with Brussels.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-digs-in-over-mine-spat-with-eu/
“…Poland is in a bind over Turów. The CJEU-imposed fine has already climbed over €50 million, but there’s no real chance Poland will turn the lights off at the mine, which feeds lignite to the nearby power plant, an important element of the country’s power supply system.
Even without the Turów problem, Poland’s energy sector is coming under severe pressure after putting off for decades reforms that would reduce the country’s reliance on coal and lignite.
The recent spike in the cost of carbon dioxide emissions permits has led the state-controlled utilities to file for major increases in electricity tariffs that will kick in on January 1. The average electricity bill will go up by 24 percent next year, Poland’s energy market regulator URE said earlier this month….”.
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If there are any climate scientists out there wondering why people become sceptics, you only have to read Hayhoe’s dissembling there to find out the answer. If you pretend that you’re smart and treat your audience as stupid, a fair chunk of them will instinctively stick up two fingers. Tell the whole truth or you ain’t no scientist. That means if your theory has a wart, don’t only take pictures from its good side.
Pah!
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Green PR as programming ..on Radio4 now You and Yours
Will 2022 be the year of the electric car for you?
Sales of EVs are at an all-time high. Are you ready to change?
Email youandyours@bbc.co.uk. Add a phone number so we can call you back
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Headline:
“Sands of time are slipping away for England’s crumbling coasts amid climate crisis”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/01/sands-slip-england-crumbling-coasts-erosion-rising-sea-levels
The detailed narrative within the story:
“…That climate change and rising sea levels take their toll on the landscape is an old story, but one with an urgent new twist. “The sea level’s been rising since the last ice age, 20,000 years ago or so,” says Jim Hall, professor of climate and environmental risk at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute. “And it’s going faster. We’re probably not seeing its effect very much yet on the coast, though we will in the future.”…”.
And this rather contentious bit:
“Two years ago, the US-based climate change research group Climate Central went further. It produced a map showing areas of the UK at risk of being underwater by 2050. They included sections of north Norfolk, all of the Lincolnshire coast and much of Cambridgeshire, along with parts of East Yorkshire, Merseyside and the Bristol area. According to the group, this would happen even if “moderate” attempts were made to combat climate change.
Such predictions are based on highly complex, and disputed, modelling, yet there are significant warning signs that such an outcome is growing rapidly more plausible. Last month, scientists monitoring the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, an ice shelf the size of Great Britain, warned it is in danger of collapse.
“It’s being melted from below by warm ocean waters, causing it to lose its grip on the underwater mountain,” said Peter Davis from British Antarctic Survey and the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.
He said research suggested that the ice shelf will begin to break apart within two decades. Should there be a complete collapse, it would lead to a highly consequential rise in sea levels of 60cm. That may be a worst-case scenario, but it will almost certainly have a notable impact on the British coastline.”
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“‘Real reasons to hope’ on climate action, says archbishop of Canterbury
Justin Welby uses his new year message to urge people not to despair over the climate crisis”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/01/real-reasons-to-hope-on-climate-action-says-archbishop-of-canterbury
“Justin Welby used his new year message on BBC One to address the issue, following a year in which the UK hosted the UN’s climate summit in Glasgow.”
BBC and the Archbishop of Canterbury on climate change. A match made in heaven!
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“Germany hits out at Brussels plan to label nuclear and gas ‘green’
Controversial push highlights divergence between Germany and France on energy targets.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-nuclear-energy-gas-green-climate-technology/
With Germany’s “rainbow coalition” in place, things could get interesting in the EU regarding energy.
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The BBC has just caught up with Politico:
“EU plans to label gas and nuclear energy ‘green’ prompt row”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59850093
“The European Commission has proposed plans to label some gas and nuclear power as green, prompting criticism from Germany.
The proposal argues that gas and nuclear are key to helping transition to cleaner power.
But Germany’s environment minister called the plan “absolutely wrong”.
It comes months after countries pledged to keep temperature rises within 1.5C at the COP26 climate summit.
“It is necessary to recognise that the fossil gas and nuclear energy sectors can contribute to the decarbonisation of the Union’s economy,” the Commission’s proposal says.
Under the proposal, only gas and nuclear plants with the highest standards would be considered green. Nuclear plants would also have to have strict waste disposal plans, Deutsche Welle reports. While gas plants would have a limit of how much carbon dioxide is released per kilowatt-hour of energy produced.”
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“Denmark to make domestic flights fossil fuel free by 2030”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59849898
“Denmark’s government has announced a goal to make domestic flights fossil fuel free by 2030.
In her New Year’s address, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she wants to “make flying green”.
However she acknowledged that the solutions to reach her target were not yet in place.”
I think in response to that last sentence, young people would say LOL.
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As if it will make any positive difference to anything:
“Climate change: Will 2022 be the year NI gets legislation?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-59742532
“…A plan to close the controversial Renewable Heat Incentive scheme and compensate owners was unveiled.
It proposed buying out participants at a total cost of around £68m – a prospect not welcomed by boiler owners. The consultation on closure and compensation closed in April and has yet to report back….”.
What a mess these people make.
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“The Observer view on Britain’s climate crisis targets
Observer editorial
The UK’s green energy initiatives are failing just at the moment when we hold the leadership of Cop26”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/02/observer-view-britains-climate-crisis-targets
“Britain’s electricity generation went through an unfortunate phase last year. According to the UK-based website Carbon Brief, it got dirtier for the first time in years as renewable sources failed to provide sufficient power to help the nation’s economy recover from lockdown restrictions. More coal and gas had to be burned to generate electricity.
This jump occurred – in part – because 2021 was notable for its low winds. Wind farm output dropped by almost 15% from 2020, despite the fact that more turbines had been installed across the nation. At the same time, nuclear power generation fell by almost 10% because of problems with ageing reactors.
It is a sobering reminder that the road to limit climate change is going to be a long one, though, in this case, the news is particularly unfortunate, given that Britain is still in charge of the negotiations that followed the Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year.”
Yet nothing – least of all realty – affects their view of the world.
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Another good example here of weather risk turned into climate risk turned into climate change risk:
“Climate change: Living by coal tip leaves family fearing rain”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59653955
The Aberfan disaster of 1966 ably demonstrated that the level of risk posed by legacy coal tips to local communities was already well over the threshold required to justify risk management, and this was well before anyone thought to label it a climate change risk. I cannot think of anything that the authorities would wish to do now in the face of climate change that they shouldn’t already be doing, so to label it a climate change risk is entirely inappropriate. Take away climate change and the same family should still live in fear, but only if they suspect that lessons had not been learned.
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Brendan O’Neill’s take on “Don’t Look Up” differs rather markedly from the Guardian’s view….:
“The unbearable smugness of the Netflix elites
Don’t Look Up is a preposterous movie that is wrong about everything.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/01/the-unbearable-smugness-of-the-netflix-elites/
Worth a read, IMO.
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I think we all need a gong bath.
XR’s Cathy Eastburn has had to stop offering face-to-face gong therapy because she is still recovering from surgery to one of her hands.
Was this surgery necessitated by her glueing her hands to various things? Dunno, but it does seems likely. I mean, what is more likely to cause damage that needs surgery? Rubbing a gong or using superglue to fix your hand to the roof of a train?
I suppose her husband’s resignation from Transport For London might…
Nah!
Anyway, despite her injuries, Cathy was kind enough to offer free solstice gong bongs to everyone:
(It starts there because Cathy bangs on about her free gong bongs for 8 mins before finally getting gonging. She bangs on a bit at the end, too. I mean, thanks, Cathy, for the free going bongs and flutes and whatnot, but I think you need an editor.)
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Mark – from your “The Observer/Guardian – Fuel poverty” link above.
I notice this “FT” link – https://www.ft.com/content/49105668-58d8-43e5-ab0e-872bc5463244
“Octopus defies energy crisis to draw global investors”
what caught my eye from this was this part – “Octopus Energy has raised $900m from former US vice-president Al Gore’s sustainable investment group”
the Octopus founder Greg Jackson sure has the “Golden Touch” so far.
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“Revealed: The hidden cost of going green
Exclusive: Homeowners face huge bills to upgrade electricity supplies for heat pumps and car chargers”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2022/01/02/revealed-hidden-cost-going-green/
It’s behind a paywall, but here are some snippets:
“…Gino Pooley, 59, a retired engineer from mid-Wales, enquired about improving his electricity supply to three-phase to enable him to install chargers for his family’s two vehicles and a heat pump.
He was sent a letter from his distribution network operator, SP Power Networks, stating that the work would cost £14,678 and has abandoned plans to install a heat pump.
He said: “Having your first charger, with a gas boiler, it won’t affect you. But it will start affecting people nearer the time when they are going to be really pushed to go electric and [get] heat pumps. Then they are going to start realising – hang on a minute, my home can’t deal with this.”
Laurent Schmitt, the chief executive of smart home startup dcbel, who previously worked on electricity grids in Europe, said most UK households could not handle the electricity demand of car charging and heat-pump heating at the same time…
…Faster car chargers that provide 11kw charging can be installed in 100-amp homes, but there is a risk of putting too much demand on the system if other electrical appliances are used at the same time, leading to blown fuses and blackouts, experts said. Extra chargers add to this risk….
…A national upgrade programme, slated to begin in 2023, is expected to improve substations and cables to allow them to cope with the demands of thousands of domestic heat pumps and car chargers, which the existing grid was not designed to handle….”.
How much will this cost the taxpayer?
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This is a fabulous example of a headline which barely matches the story:
“La Niña weather pattern keeps temperatures in Australia down but 2021 still hotter than average
One of the warmest La Niña years on record continues long-term heating being driven by climate change, climatologist says”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jan/03/la-nina-weather-pattern-keeps-temperatures-in-australia-down-but-2021-still-hotter-than-average
“Across the bureau’s temperature records going back to 1910, 2021 was the 17th hottest, with the national temperature 0.56C warmer than the average between 1961 and 1990.”
“The data shows 2021 was the 28th wettest year nationwide since 1900”
“New South Wales and the ACT had the coolest year since 1996, with the overall temperature only 0.15C above average.
NSW recorded its wettest November since at least 1900, and 2021 was its sixth wettest year on record.”
“In Victoria, the average temperature was the lowest since 2004, but still 0.26C above average. Rainfall was 36mm above the state’s annual average of 663mm.
Queensland’s statewide temperature was 1C above average, making it the coolest year since 2012. Rainfall was also slightly above average.”
DOesn’t exactly fit the prevailing narrative, hence (no doubt) the headline (which does).
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New video from Simon Webb
.. I still think he is mistaken to say Drax gets fuel from Lithuania
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Stew, I thought it did obtain pellets from Lithuania and remember seeing a video piece about it. I can’t find that now, but according to https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/axedrax-campaign/ they do (when you burn as many tonnes of pellets as Drax does, you have a very hungry mouth indeed). Drax is something I keep meaning to write about.
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“Why has UK’s weather been so mild and is it linked to climate crisis?
Temperature records were broken across all four nations over the new year weekend”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/03/why-has-uk-weather-been-so-mild-and-is-it-linked-to-climate-crisis
“Why did it happen, and is it linked to climate change?
The Azores plume has drifted up to the UK before, most notably in 2019, as mentioned above. There are always areas of low and high pressure in the Atlantic, and when the conditions are right, subtropical air will be drawn up to the north.
It is hard to link a single weather event to climate change, although the science in this field is improving rapidly. However, said Dukes, as the planet slowly warms it means “we are just a touch warmer than we used to be in similar weather set-ups. So if this weather pattern had occurred in the 1980s, say, temperatures would still have been way above normal, but probably half a degree lower than they were on this occasion.””
But is that really true? It’s not difficult to see records being broken if you choose a single day as your parameter – sooner or later the weather on that day will be unusually hot, dry, wet, cold, or windy, and a record will be broken. With just those 5 different weather conditions (plus the extras, such as mentioned in the Guardian article, namely highest night-time temperature, highest minimum temperature) and 4 UK nations to go at, that gives thousands of opportunities every year for a daily record to be broken. But that’s weather, not climate.
As the Met Office website makes clear, look at monthly records and a different picture emerges. In the UK, January’s record high temperature is shared between 1958, 1971 and 2003. February’s and December’s are indeed 2019, though for England December’s is split between 1985 and 1994 (the 2019 UK record being set in Scotland). March’s record was set in 1968 and April’s in 1949. May’s record is shared by 1922 and 1944, while June’s is shared between 1957 and 1976. July, August October and November were all set in this century, I concede, but September’s record UK high temperature was set in 1906.
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@Mark – when they quote “warmest since records began” I always wonder what year they mean/start baseline (can’t find a date online) ?
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I think I need a better source than a claim by a Friends of the Earth front group
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Challenge accepted! Actually to be fair it is a small proportion of the total, but I hope you will accept the horse’s dentition:
https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sustainable-bioenergy/sourcing-sustainable-biomass/
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sources : US 4,680K Canada 1, 230K Latvia : 670K others 806K
So North America 6 million T , Latvia 0.7 others 0.8
So 80% North America 9% Latvia others 11% ..roughly
So Webb’s characterisation is wrong
Drax burns North American wood .. with about 12% coming from the 3 Baltic states (0.84MT)
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“Snowdonia hydro schemes reach production milestone”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59857442
“A renewable energy project in Snowdonia has produced 20 million kWh of energy over eight years.
That’s enough energy to power 5,300 homes for a year.
The National Trust-run project hopes the turbines will help it reach a carbon zero target by 2030.”
“The hydros also provide an insight into climate change as energy production fluctuates according to the weather.”
A project that has been running for 8 years cannot provide an insight into climate change – it’s too short a period to provide meaningful data.
“”The wettest month we’ve been able to record in terms of generation was when Storm Desmond came through in December 2015 and the driest period was when we had the start of the Covid lockdown in April and May 2020 – a really long, dry period.
“What we then see is a period of quite heavy rain coming in and sometimes at times of the year you wouldn’t expect,” said Mr Edwards.”
Forgive me for my scepticism, but would we not expect it to be dry in April/May and wet in December?
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“London mulls carbon border tax with an eye on Brussels
While some British ministers have sounded enthusiastic, officials say there is reluctance to go ahead without international cooperation.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/carbon-border-tax-carbon-pricing-steve-barclay-carbon-leakage-cbam/
“Britain might have voted to break free from Brussels’ rules but, when it comes to taxing carbon, London has one eye on the European Union.
U.K. Treasury officials are “pondering” how the U.K. might bring in a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) — a device that would add a carbon price to the cost of importing a targeted selection of products in order to avoid U.K. companies being undercut by regimes with less stringent green policies. The department is modeling what the impact would be if different countries worked together, an official familiar with discussions said.
Steve Barclay, the chief secretary to the Treasury until September and now head of the Cabinet Office, sounded positive, telling POLITICO in an interview earlier this month there has been “considerable work going on” in government on carbon pricing with a “range of approaches” set out in the strategy to get Britain’s carbon emissions to “net zero.” “I know Treasury and BEIS [Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] colleagues will say more on that in the new year,” he said.
But elsewhere in government, expectations are downplayed. One official directly involved in discussions warned they didn’t see “the same impetus inside the government to even push for something like this because you’re effectively putting additional tariffs on imports.”
“There is a reluctance to do it unilaterally, which is why this has to be looked at as an international solution,” the official added.
A Department for International Trade official said the U.K. recognized the importance of addressing so-called carbon leakage — where businesses might transfer production to a regime with laxer climate rules — and a range of approaches, including CBAMs, could potentially help.”
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