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

386 Comments

  4. Facebook, some muggle has just posted a 30 second clip with no provenance
    one of those things that plays on your emotions.
    This time it’s one of our side, posting a clip of a buzzard apparently being killed by a wind turbine.

    I dive down the rabbit hole of Google reverse image search and find it comes from a 2009 video which is much longer and shows the bird being rescued alive in Crete.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Replying to Alan from last thread
    Jan 6 (Reuters) – The Dutch government expects to increase the amount of gas it allows to be produced from the Groningen gas field to up to 7.6 billion cubic meters (BCM), from an earlier estimate of 3.9 BCM.

    The Netherlands had been winding down production at Groningen, once Europe’s largest gas field, for years due to damage and safety concerns over earthquakes it triggers.

    But the Economic Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the increase would be needed to guarantee security of supplies and it would make a final decision in April.

    The ministry cited a delay in bringing a plant online needed to convert imported “high calorie” gas from Norway and Russia, as well as more demand than expected from German customers.

    Like

  6. OK so The Netherlands has a firm plan to close the Groningen gas field, due to people complaining about damage to buildings
    but for that to happen the Netherlands has to import LNG
    but #1 Netherlands appliances run on L-gas so that imported LNG has to be diluted with nitrogen; however that plant is late.,
    And #2 German contracts mean more has to be send off to Germany (cos it has many homes dependent on L-gas too)
    So in the short term the Groningen gas field production must double.
    2023 seems not like an end date, but rather the start of winding down to 2030.

    That’s completely contrary to the narrative in yesterday’s R4 item which peddled the November 21 news
    Netherlands : in the 1960s gas was discovered
    Some people living near the gas fields
    now claim that the exploration has damaged their homes with earthquakes.
    reporter Anna Holligan.
    “Residents developed an addiction to gas ..all appliances run on it ”
    ( ..what tosh ..per KWh gas is way cheaper than leccy
    To me the claims resemble the fake documentary Gaslands)
    Anna says the courts said many residents claims had little merit.
    She says that Dutch minister will end gas extraction in 2023.
    (Great they’ll be taking Russian gas then)

    Like

  7. The tremor claim
    OK it’s real the first fund of €220m has run out
    but still the problem is not running into billions.
    Secondly surely extraction can be managed ie extract at the opposite end of the field to where houses are etc.

    Like

  9. Octopus Energy advert : one third page in the Times
    “The Energy Crisis” is really a gas crisis”
    cheeky bastrds
    “power generated from wind was already cheaper than from gas”
    page has other dodgy claims/maths.

    Like

  10. Do you think George Monbiot is sane ?
    Here’s what he tweeted yesterday
    “Amid the celebrations of the BBC’s centenary, I find myself in a tiny minority.
    Is it that other people dare not say what seems blindingly obvious..”
    “While the BBC does excellent work in many areas,
    its news and current affairs have caused immeasurable harm.
    It platforms any far-right blowhard who can generate noise on social media,
    while excluding almost everyone to the left of Keir Starmer.
    It bears much of the responsibility for the rise of both Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.”
    … https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1495315633881460738

    Like

  11. Clone of Isaac Newton’s apple tree toppled by climate change (perhaps) in Cambridge Botanic Garden

    Like

  13. “Living in the shadow of a wind farm: The people surrounded by turbines which promised to lower bills, now terrified they could fall like trees”

    Given how the village used to look, John is content with the wind turbines, however, he rejects the idea of any more.

    “The only concern I have is when they said they were building them ‘you’ll have cheaper electricity’, but my electric bill is going up every year.”

    Locals from the community protested the wind farms initially and managed to overturn the plans twice before the turbines were built.

    https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/living-shadow-wind-farm-people-23147993

    Like

  14. 3.2 magnitude earthquake hits Brummies at bedtime. After being shook by three massive storms this past week, it’s a wonder they even noticed.

    Like

  15. “Concern over Church of England pension board fossil fuel industry links
    Members’ links with energy companies prompt fears over church’s plans to end investments in high-carbon firms”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/21/concern-over-church-of-england-pension-board-fossil-fuel-industry-links

    “Key members of the Church of England’s pensions board have strong links to the fossil fuel industry, research has shown, amid concerns over the organisation’s plans to end its investments in high-carbon companies.

    Analysis by DeSmog, the environmental investigation group, has found three prominent members of the pensions board of the Church Commissioners, the body that looks after Church of England investments, with former or current roles in energy companies, while other major figures have indirect links.

    The Church of England began to cut ties to coal and other heavily polluting industries in 2015, then pledged in 2018 to divest by 2023 from high-carbon companies that were “not aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement”. But as the deadline approaches, the organisation has said it is still “engaging” with key oil and gas interests rather than cancelling all of its holdings.

    Chris Manktelow, of the Young Christians Climate Network, said this was not good enough. …”.

    Like

  16. “Neom: What’s the green truth behind a planned eco-city in the Saudi desert?”

    Glow-in-the dark beaches. Billions of trees planted in a country dominated by the desert. Levitating trains. A fake moon. A car-free, carbon-free city built in a straight line over 100 miles long in the desert. These are some of the plans for Neom – a futuristic eco-city that is part of Saudi Arabia’s pivot to go green. But is it all too good to be true?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-59601335

    Like

  17. Jit, at which final sentence I’m reminded of John Rentoul:

    I have a strange hobby: collecting headlines in the form of questions to which the author or publisher implies that the answer is yes when anyone with any sense knows it is no.

    It’s the opposite problem here.

    Like

  18. “Ukraine crisis: Germany halts pipeline as nations sanction Russia”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60480734

    “Germany has put a stop to a key Russian gas pipeline following Vladimir Putin’s orders to send troops into Ukraine.

    On Monday the Russian president recognised two breakaway Ukrainian regions as independent states and ordered Russian troops to deploy to both.

    Western nations largely see the action as a pretext for a wider invasion.

    In response, Germany halted approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and other Western nations issued sanctions.

    Sanctions can take various forms – the term can refer to many actions used by one country to harm another, usually to deter aggressive actions or breaches of international law.

    The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been supported by Germany despite opposition from countries such as the US, UK, Poland and Ukraine. It cost €10bn (£8.4bn), with the funding split between Russian and Western energy companies.

    But following Mr Putin’s order to send troops to the rebel-held Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Germany announced it was suspending the process of giving the pipeline between it and Russia an operating licence – effectively stopping the project until further notice.”

    Like

  19. “Inner city Bristol children tackle climate change with podcast”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-60478068

    “Tackle” climate change? According to my Concise OED, the definition of “tackle” is “Make determined efforts to deal with (a difficult task)”. I’m not sure that this quite cuts it:

    “Children from inner city Bristol have been making their own climate change podcast, giving an insight into how they think, feel, see and dream.

    The Freedom Kids Podcast is a show made by children aged five to 13 years old, who play at Felix Road Adventure Playground in Easton.

    Produced by Eastside Community Trust, each episode explores a different topic including air quality and food.

    Abdi, aged 10, said the podcast allowed him to express his feelings.

    In one five-minute episode, children spoke of their concerns about burning fossil fuels, the effects of people throwing plastic in the sea and why some of them were vegetarian.

    The podcast, which has just finished recording its second series, focussing on climate change, was created by experience play-worker and artist Araceli Cabrera Caceres.”.

    I wasn’t aware that this \mount of money was being thrown around on this sort of thing:

    “Part of Eastside Community Trust’s Community Climate Action project, it is funded by the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund.

    The lottery fund is a 10-year £100m pot of money to support communities across the UK to take action on climate change.”

    Like

  20. Another irony alert:

    “Black carbon pollution from tourism and research increasing Antarctic snowmelt, study says
    Pollution generated by burning fossil fuels causes snow to darken, absorb more solar energy and melt faster”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/22/black-carbon-pollution-from-tourism-and-research-increasing-antarctic-snowmelt-study-says

    “Black carbon pollution from tourism and research activities in Antarctica is likely increasing snowmelt on the continent by an estimated 83 tonnes for each visitor, according to new research.

    Scientists have estimated that the black carbon produced by vessels, planes and diesel generators results in 23mm of additional snowmelt each summer in the most frequently visited areas of the ice-covered landmass….

    …They calculated that an Antarctic researcher’s black carbon footprint was about 10 times greater than a tourist’s.

    “We estimated that … the snow that is melting faster because of the activities carried out by a researcher would be closer to 1000 tonnes,” Cordero said. “Every researcher is using vessels, planes, helicopters, generators – and everybody’s using diesel for powering these.”…”.

    Like

  21. “Sturgeon handed boost in bid to rejoin EU with plan to DOUBLE Scotland’s wind power”

    The overwhelming majority of Scottish voters support the construction of more renewable energy facilities in Scotland — with 74 percent of survey respondents saying that they would “think favourably” of a political party that put a strategy in place to achieve this. In fact, only six percent of the Scottish public are opposed to further investment in renewable power, the poll last month of more than 1,000 individuals aged 16+ revealed. Following last year’s Holyrood election, 70 percent of voters said that they put their support behind parties that they expected to improve Scotland’s renewable capacity.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1570117/sturgeon-bid-rejoin-eu-plan-double-independent-scotland-wind-power

    When the eagles are all gone, they’ll blame carbon dioxide.

    Like

  22. “…the poll last month of more than 1,000 individuals aged 16+ revealed….”. Great, that’s really representative. I wonder how the questions were framed?

    Like

  23. “Scottish Ballet ends sponsorship deal with BP”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60497294

    “Scottish Ballet has confirmed it will no longer be sponsored by oil giant BP, saying it does not fit with the dance company’s “green action plan”.

    It joins the National Portrait Gallery, which announced the end of its partnership with BP on Tuesday.

    Campaigners have urged the arts and culture sector to cut all ties to oil companies over claims of greenwashing.

    BP said it was proud of the 10-year partnership, which Scottish Ballet said had reached a “natural conclusion”.

    The dance company acknowledged the long-term support of BP, particularly in helping the company tour to Aberdeen.

    A Scottish Ballet spokesperson said it had decided against renewing its sponsorship agreement with BP on 31 January.

    They said the energy firm no longer “aligns with the company’s green action plan – to be carbon neutral by 2030.”…”.

    Like

  24. Surely it’s time to scrap the CCC when it can come out with rubbish like this?

    “Government climate advisers say cut fossil fuels to lower energy bills”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60497058

    “The best way to ease consumers’ pain from high energy prices is to stop using fossil fuels rather than drill for more of them, the government’s climate advisers say.

    Some Tory MPs want the government to expand production of shale and North Sea gas, saying it would lower bills.

    But advisers said UK-produced gas would be sold internationally and barely reduce the consumer price.

    They said wind and solar power, as well as home insulation, is a better route.

    The report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) comes at a time when household energy bills are rising quickly. There is also international uncertainty over gas supplies due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”

    Like

  25. Balanced reporting? Or deranged?

    “Revealed: leading climate research publisher helps fuel oil and gas drilling
    Elsevier’s work with fossil fuel companies ‘drags us towards disaster’, climate researcher says”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/24/elsevier-publishing-climate-science-fossil-fuels

    “Scientists working with one of the world’s largest climate research publishers say they’re increasingly alarmed that the company consults with the fossil fuel industry to help increase oil and gas drilling, the Guardian can reveal.

    Elsevier, a Dutch company behind many renowned peer-reviewed scientific journals, including The Lancet and Global Environmental Change, is also one of the top publishers of books aimed at expanding fossil fuel production.

    For more than a decade, the company has supported the energy industry’s efforts to optimize oil and gas extraction. It commissions authors, editors, and journal advisory board members who are current employees at top oil firms. Elsevier also markets some of its research portals and data services directly to the oil and gas industry to help “increase the odds of exploration success”.

    Several former and current employees say that for the past year, dozens of workers have spoken out internally and at company-wide town halls to urge Elsevier to reconsider its relationship with the fossil fuel industry.”

    Like

  26. Elsevier publishes more than 2000 journals so at least a few are going to raise green ire. More to the point the company charges top dollar so in a very real sense is milking the products of research funds much of which originate from the public purse. In my area of geology we watched our main journal (funded by our Society) suffer competition from a new Elsevier journal deliberately set up to drain research that did not meet the high standards of our journal. The effect was to lower standards and markedly increase the cost to university libraries of covering the subject. There was little that could be done. We could refuse to write for or review other people’s work, but that just reduced the overall standard of publications in our subject. After a few years Elsevier doubled its output and its price.

    Elsevier used to tout for business by sending around to universities representatives to drum up business. I am somewhat surprised that an organisation like Elsevier would countenance interference from its staff in its publication of profitable products.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Thank you Alan. I know nothing of Elsevier, and posted about the green ire against them, just in case it was of interest. I am gratified that we have people here who can add an extra dimension based on personal knowledge and experience.

    Like

  28. “Wimpole Estate: National Trust plants 90,000 trees in carbon zero bid”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-60507851

    “The National Trust is carrying out its largest ever tree planting project, adding 90,000 trees to one estate.

    The planting, at Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire, will help the conservation charity in its ambition to become net carbon zero by 2030….

    …”We have selected the right areas for tree planting – and are planting the right trees in the right places.”…”.

    Well, that would be good. I like this bit less:

    “The project was made possible by a £1.3m investment from the government’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund and HSBC UK.”

    For those who want to learn more about the Government’s latest taxpayers’ money giveaway:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/governments-40-million-green-recovery-challenge-fund-opens-for-applications

    Like

  32. Mark (8am ish):

    “Government climate advisers say cut fossil fuels to lower energy bills”

    I heard someone say this to Nicky Campbell this week on Radio 5 Live and be highly praised for it.

    Oh dear, oh dear.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. “Can Germany function without Vladimir Putin’s gas?
    Nord Stream 2 was meant to deliver 70% of country’s gas and switch to renewable energy has been slow”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/can-germany-function-without-vladimir-putins-gas

    Worth a read, IMO. More thoughtful and balanced than usual, though it still manages to say:

    “Other critics have said Germany only has itself to blame, having dillydallied on its much vaunted plans to switch from fossil fuels to renewables. A positive headline to emerge from the recent heavy storms which hit much of northern Europe, was the record amount of energy fed into the grid by its wind turbines on Sunday. But it also served to underline how slow the development of renewables has been.”

    Like

  34. “We are powerless to stop Vladimir Putin’s aggression
    The West has foolishly deprived itself of the option of unleashing an all-our economic war on Putin’s regime”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/02/24/powerless-stop-putins-aggression/

    Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall, but the Daily Sceptic summary of it gives us the gist:

    “The West has foolishly deprived itself of the option of unleashing an all-out economic war on Putin’s regime because it has pursued a policy of slashing carbon emissions to the exclusion of all other concerns, writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph.”

    Like

  35. “How Europe is funding Putin’s war
    European countries are reluctant to stop buying oil and gas from Russia for fear of economic consequences at home.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-eu-oil-gas-trade-russia-budget-military-spending-ukraine-war-crisis/

    “Who’s paying for Putin’s jet fighters and tanks? The same EU countries that say they want him to stop his assault on Ukraine, a country that is supposedly their ally.

    It’s a crazy paradox that Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki raised at an EU leaders’ summit on sanctions against Moscow that ran into Friday morning. The bloc was unable to agree measures against the SWIFT international payments system because so many countries use it for their all-important gas payments to Moscow.

    “We are buying as European Union lots of Russian gas, lots of Russian oil. And President Putin is taking the money from us, from the Europeans. And he is turning this into aggression, invasion,” he said.

    POLITICO has pulled together a graphical snapshot of how hooked on Russian supplies the EU is, despite years of promising to reduce its dependence on gas.

    Russian gas made up 42 percent of Europe’s gas imports via pipeline alone. Shutting that off would create painful economic fallout for European countries that are already grappling with the specter of high inflation.

    At €60.1 billion in 2020, energy makes up around two-thirds of Europe’s imports from Russia. While the reliance on Russian gas is often highlighted, this is dwarfed in value by imports of petroleum oils.”

    Liked by 1 person

  36. Also:

    “New U.S. sanctions on Russia mainly hit banks, miss energy sector”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/24/russia-sanctions-ukraine-invasion-00011431

    “President Joe Biden announced a second and larger sanctions package on Russia, punishing Vladimir Putin for ordering a full-scale invasion of Ukraine but stopping short of targeting some critical sectors of his nation’s economy….

    …Notably, the president didn’t announce crushing sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, including conglomerates like Rosneft. He did say the sanctions might not have an immediate effect, but over time could prove punishing for Putin. “Let’s have a conversation in another month or so to see if they’re working,” he said….

    …A senior administration official told POLITICO before Biden’s speech that “no option is off the table,” but “starting out with energy could actually benefit Putin and pad his pockets. Given high oil and gas prices, cutting off Russian oil and gas will drive prices up to Putin’s benefit. And as we have said repeatedly on the record, on background [and] off the record, our sanctions are designed to harm Russia’s economy, not ours.”…”.

    Oh what a mess. Than you, useful green idiots.

    Like

  38. And the useful green idiots convinced Biden to cancel the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. Now Biden is considering releasing oil from the US strategic reserve. Does environmentalism trump security?

    Liked by 1 person

  39. “Bitcoin less green since China ban, research suggests”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60521975

    “Bitcoin has become less green since China cracked down on mining the cryptocurrency, new research suggests.

    Mining refers to the process of creating new bitcoins using banks of powerful computers.

    The share of renewable energy powering mining fell from 41.6% in 2020 to 25.1% last August as miners stopped using Chinese hydro and moved to the US, where gas supplies much of their power.

    Researchers estimate Bitcoin now causes carbon emissions comparable to Greece.”

    Like

  40. Today has been one of mixed emotions. Where I live it has felt like the first day of spring, now that the winds have died down, and the sun has emerged (in the sun, and sheltered from the breeze, it actually felt warm – I believe we may briefly have hit the dizzy heights of 9C). So my wife and I drove to the south of the county for a couple of pleasant walks that I had not previously enjoyed, and very pleasant it was too. Throughout, however, was the ever-present thought of Ukraine. How could I have such a pleasant day while the Ukrainian people are suffering such terrible events?

    Driving home, we decided to listed to the BBC World Service to catch up on Ukraine news that I had been missing while I was walking in the sun. Appreciating the need for balance, I was nevertheless surprised (to put it mildly) to hear a Russian Government apparatchik (I forget his name and title) being interviewed and being freely allowed to spread the Russian government’s lies as “justification” for the invasion of Ukraine. And then I remembered that Nigel Lawson is effectively banned from the BBC because “the science is settled” and an alternative viewpoint regarding climate change policy as well as climate change science is apparently verboten. What a stark and appalling contrast.

    Liked by 1 person

  41. I hope those who have consistently opposed the UK (and much of Europe) from using their own fossil fuels, with the result that the west has become heavily dependent on Russia, are proud of themselves. The Guardian apparently sees the problem, but has no understanding of what caused it:

    “How can Europe wean itself off Russian gas?
    Analysis: whether tapping other suppliers or switching energy sources, there is no quick and easy option to loosen Putin’s economic grip”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/25/how-can-europe-wean-itself-off-russian-gas

    Like

  42. On GBnews former Tory MP Angela Knight just said
    “For the last 25 years Germany has had the energy policy of a banana republic
    .. a third world country”

    Liked by 1 person

  43. @potentilla

    thanks for the McKibben link – partial quote –

    “Imagine a Europe that ran on solar and wind power: whose cars ran on locally provided electricity, and whose homes were heated by electric air-source heat pumps. That Europe would not be funding Putin’s Russia, and it would be far less scared of Putin’s Russia – it could impose every kind of sanction, and keep them in place until the country buckled. Imagine an America where the cost of gas was not a political tripwire, because if people had to have a pickup to make them feel sufficiently manly, that pickup would run on electricity that came from the sun and wind. It would take an evil-er genius than Vladimir Putin to figure out how to embargo the sun.”

    yea – just Imagine
    “You may say I’m a dreamer
    But I’m not the only one
    I hope someday you’ll join us
    And the world will be as one”

    Liked by 1 person

  44. “Energy bills: Britons in shock as suppliers confirm price rise
    Households face a jolt of reality as providers move their gas and electricity charges up to the limit”

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/feb/26/energy-bills-suppliers-price-rise-gas-electricity

    “Consumers may have been shocked to have received details of the new gas and electricity prices they will start paying on 1 April, including daily standing charges as high as 51p a day.

    Last month the energy regulator, Ofgem, revealed the new caps on prices and warned that the average household will be paying just under £2,000 a year to heat and light their home – a 54% increase.

    While that figure may have seemed rather abstract, householders have received a jolt of reality as the actual unit prices have been published.

    Although providers can charge less than the cap, those who have been in touch with customers so far are moving prices up to the limit, which means £700-a-year-plus increases are on the cards for millions.

    That could just be the start. Wholesale gas prices rose 28% on Thursday’s news that Russian forces had invaded Ukraine. If those are sustained, Ofgem will have to substantially increase prices again when they it reviews the cap for the autumn. That raises the prospect of gas and electricity bills of more than £2,500 a year.

    British Gas has told customers on its capped tariffs that from 1 April they will pay 28p-30p per kWh for electricity. There will be a 45p-51p daily standing charge for electricity, and 27p-37p for gas.”

    Like

  45. FakeNews : There is a viral John Kerry video promoted by MemriResearch
    who have taken a BBCnews Arabic video and edited the question off the front
    and spliced the middle
    So it makes it look like Kerry cares more about Climate than Ukraine
    ..doh of course he talks about Climate. He is at a Climate conference being asked a climate question.

    Like

  46. near Doncaster : Firefighters tackle blaze at recycling plant
    People living close to the site on Balby Carr Bank in Balby are being told to stay indoors and keep their windows closed
    The size of the fire has been reduced, but @SYFR says firefighters will remain on the scene throughout the day and people should continue to keep their windows and doors closed

    Like

  47. What’s the most important thing in the world to protest about today?

    “Plymouth XR protesters hold Barclays demonstration”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-60537698

    “Environmental campaigners targeted Barclays in a campaign aimed at cutting the finance giant’s investments in fossil fuel firms.

    An Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigner held a banner on top of a ladder outside a branch of the bank in Armada Way, Plymouth.

    Others marched through the city centre, banging drums in a mock-funeral procession.

    Barclays said it was “significantly scaling up green financing”…”.

    Like

  49. Possibly not the best time to be seeking to make this claim:

    “Climate emergency a ‘national security’ concern, says Red Cross
    On eve of alarming IPCC report, organisation warns governments to treat crisis on a par with war and peace”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/27/climate-emergency-a-national-security-concern-says-red-cross

    “Governments must start treating the climate crisis as a national security concern, on a par with war and peace, as climate breakdown threatens countries’ stability and safety, the global chief of the Red Cross has warned.

    Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said: “People should be seeing the climate as a national security issue, as it is having an impact on national security. We need to see that the climate crisis is not only having an environmental impact, but a very significant security impact.”

    Chapagain was speaking before the publication of a scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday, which is expected to show that the impacts of the climate crisis are greater than feared, and that governments must act rapidly to prepare for extreme weather and its consequences.”

    Liked by 1 person

  50. Brace yourselves:

    “Climate change: UN report to show true scale of impacts”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60525591

    This is at least the second trailer the BBC has issued for the report. I think we can safely say that despite a real and current crisis in Ukraine, the BBC will inundate us with propaganda around the IPCC report when it’s released.

    Alan and I will disagree about what the BBC does here, but that’s fine, minor disagreements between friends are neither her nor there:

    “A new UN report on the impacts of climate change is set to be the gravest assessment yet of how rising temperatures are affecting every living thing.

    The study, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), summarises several years of research.

    The report will likely say that the world is fast approaching the limits of adapting to climate change.

    But rapid political action can avoid the worst impacts.”

    “The report will likely say…”. Of course it’s already been leaked to the helpful BBC, but I still say it’s not news until it’s happened, so speculating (or pretending to speculate – they know) in advance (for at least the second time) before the report is issued is not reporting news, it’s making news. In short, it’s propaganda.

    By the way, BBC, you shouldn’t be Americanising the UK version of the English language. In this context, the word is “probably”, not “likely”. And, although they didn’t use it here, they do increasingly use it on the airwaves – one waits ON tables, one waits FOR something to happen.

    Liked by 1 person

  51. I suppose the Guardian can at least claim it’s reporting news, given that it’s quoting something Alok Sharma has said, without merely speculating about the IPCC report, without more ado. It’s still propaganda, of course:

    “Impact of climate crisis much worse than predicted, says Alok Sharma
    Minister who led Cop26 climate talks issues stark warning on eve of landmark report from IPCC”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/28/impact-of-climate-crisis-much-worse-than-predicted-says-alok-sharma

    “The impacts of the climate crisis are proving much worse than predicted, and governments must act more urgently to adapt to them or face global disaster, the UK president of the UN climate talks has warned on the eve of a landmark new scientific assessment of the climate.

    Alok Sharma, who led the Cop26 climate summit last year, said: “The changes in the climate we are seeing today are affecting us much sooner and are greater than we originally thought. The impacts on our daily lives will be increasingly severe and stark. We will be doing ourselves and our populations a huge disservice if we fail to prepare now, based on the very clear science before us.”

    In a report to be published on Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to show that droughts, floods and heatwaves will increase in frequency and intensity, with devastating consequences, and all parts of the globe will be affected.

    Sharma also said climate talks must continue this year at international forums such as the G20, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is a member of the G20, after being ejected from the G8 over its annexation of Crimea. Sharma said he spoke to his Russian counterpart some weeks ago before the current escalation, but they have not spoken since….”.

    Given what the IPCC report is likely to say, the irony of Sharma’s position is that he is fiddling while Rome burns. We’ve had coronavirus, now we may be on the verge of nuclear Armageddon, but the climate concerned can’t move beyond saying “but climate change” I suspect they’ll struggle to take people with them on this, especially when energy costs rise to dizzying levels.

    Like

  52. Stories that are dropped in at midnight or 1am are PR not news
    1am : “Climate change: UN report to show true scale of impacts
    By Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent”

    That’s promoting a report, instead of waiting for it to actually be published.
    The Save The Children PR dept has already tweeted it

    Then our local BBC radio news included the item at 8am

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60525591

    main BBC tweet
    .. https://www.twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1498191786442899456

    Like

  53. In a report to be published on Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to show that droughts, floods and heatwaves will increase in frequency and intensity, with devastating consequences, and all parts of the globe will be affected.

    Translation: nothing bad has happened so far.

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Someone answers the BBC by posting covert footage of CNN staffer
    saying that after their Stop Trump Campaign their new campaign will be Climate Change “whatever that is”
    .. https://twitter.com/tommy_astros/status/1429666215467929603

    Yesterday The Sunday Times guy was promoting the coming release
    .. https://twitter.com/Ben_Spencer/status/1497883466104545283

    This was the first BBC trailer last week

    Like

  55. Coming up on R4 Green insulation fail
    It shouldn’t be difficult to your home, particularly when there’s a government scheme designed to help.
    The Green Homes Grant promised to pay for measures like that, and protect consumers from things going wrong. But we hear from one couple who have faced no end of trouble ever since they got their roof done.
    One report called the work on their home ‘the worst job ever seen.’

    The builders took the roof off ..tarpaulined it
    then it rained Saturday night and soaked their house
    The new roof is poor and leaks
    the bureaucracy was incredible.

    Dispute still not settled.

    Like

  56. Not a very auspicious time to bring out a horror story of climate change catastrophes. Having watched man’s inhumanity to man in Eastern Europe on BBC News for hours on end, the prospect of mild climatic changes, even though hyped up unmercifully, seem so much less important. We are aware of “the fog of war”; are we now experiencing “the fog of climate”.

    Liked by 1 person

  57. “Climate change: IPCC report warns of ‘irreversible’ impacts of global warming”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60525591

    Comments are allowed. I am resisting the temptation to reply to some of them. The majority are ill-informed or plain stupid.

    As to the headline – well, there is not the slightest chance that impacts are “irreversible”. Then perhaps my definition of “irreversible” is not the same as the IPCC’s.

    The article does not appear in the top ten most read, which are all about Ukraine. All about a real crisis.

    Liked by 1 person

  58. Well, today seems to be the day when the IPCC put its scientists on ‘special alert’, as another “it’s much worse than we thought” report hits the streets. However, I wonder if we will ever see a headline like this:

    “Doomsday prediction was based on ‘uncertain’ data.”

    Well, actually, this was indeed the headline in the Daily Mail yesterday – it just wasn’t anything to do with the climate. The full headline reads:

    “Doomsday prediction was based on ‘uncertain’ data: Scientists did not have accurate Covid stats when they made prediction that 500,000 could be killed if Britain took no action during first wave”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10557635/Scientists-did-not-accurate-Covid-stats-prediction-500-000-killed.html

    The article is a pretty damning revelation regarding the reliability of the Imperial College London work upon which the government based its Covid-19 strategy. Is there any chance that the journalists will start taking a closer look at the behind-the-scenes work that props up the IPCC predictions?

    Nope.

    Liked by 2 people

  59. Agree (of course) with Jit’s “Translation: nothing bad has happened so far.”

    But what does this even mean?

    The report will likely say that the world is fast approaching the limits of adapting to climate change.

    What are the “limits of adapting to climate change”? I mean, what’s the definition of so nebulous a thing?

    Here’s my detailed translation:

    “We can’t actually mention the plummeting global death rates, per million people, from extreme weather events since 1920. Because that really does blow a hole in the narrative. But all that so-called good news (aka denier talking point) is simply due to adapting to climate change. We’ve been very, very lucky and we are fast approaching – maybe in ten years, maybe in ten thousand years, who knows, we can’t say, and that’s what it makes so frightening – the point that all that adapting that has been so effective WILL NO LONGER WORK. Be afraid, be very afriad. Our very livelihoods depend on it.”

    Liked by 2 people

  60. Gary Lineker is always my go-to guy for climate commentary. He got some useful feedback as well.

    “there is always a more immediate crisis”

    Yes love. And they’re not even imaginary ones, like yours.

    Like

  64. That’s the BBC for you. They can’t be accused of not reporting it. But they can certainly be accused of not reporting it fully and in such a way as to inform the public.

    Like

  65. 9am R4 More or Less
    – How long do you have to drive an electric car to offset the pollution from making the battery?

    – the perplexing claim that the Chagos Islands are 100 metres below sea level.

    – Boris bashing : are the prime minister’s parliamentary claims about growing numbers of NHS staff backed up by data?

    – How reliable are the figures coming out of the conflict in Ukraine?

    – Do we really make 35,000 decisions a day?

    Like

  66. WSJ not as shy as the BBC:

    Salvage crews and the Portuguese navy had said that the intensity of the fire might be explained by a large number of electric vehicles on board. Some batteries are known to be flammable and burn at high temperature when they combust, making such a blaze hard to extinguish.

    The Felicity Ace fire is one of the first on board a major vehicle carrier loaded with a substantial cargo of electric vehicles. The incident has sparked debate among insurers and regulators about how to safely transport such vehicles, a question that will gain urgency as EVs become more widespread.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/cargo-ship-carrying-thousands-of-luxury-cars-sinks-in-the-atlantic-11646150947

    Liked by 1 person

  68. There were 20-30 kickback tweets from EV fanboys
    I suspect since some of them post a lot of pro EV tweets, that they are accounts owned by people paid to promote EV PR.

    Like

  69. On that car carrier, It’s worth pointing out that the problems of lithium battery fires are not confined to pure EVs. Many cars are hybrids nowadays which have smaller versions of the same battery tech that is used in EVs. Some of the batteries – those in large “plug-in” hybrids – can be quite chunky: 15 kWh or more. They will all burn in a similar fashion and hybrids have the additional risk of a petrol fire to get things going.

    Liked by 1 person

  70. #WorldBookDay on Thursday, March 3
    Guess what types of books the hippy bookshops are choosing to push at kids ?
    “it’s not just an opportunity dress up
    It’s an opportunity to CARE about important things in the world
    So April in my book The Last Bear really cares about protecting the polar bears and making a difference and looking after the planet …”
    “11 year old April goes to this Arctic island with her father a scientist
    She meets the final bear to live on the island”

    “Here’s an extract .. ‘the way sometimes watching the news about the destruction of the Amazon made her scream in anger’ ..” https://www.hannahgold.world/extras

    Liked by 1 person

  71. An account tweets radio 4
    “How resilient is our radio and telephone communication in the face of #ClimateChangeEvents ”
    372 followers ?

    Like

  72. Another author is coming “to sign pre orders of her forthcoming book, Green Living Made Easy (published 3rd March).”

    Like

  73. BBC local news Tuesday
    “zero carbon beach huts for Cleethorpes”

    “Drax says it imports its coal from the US not Russia”

    Like

  74. Even the Guardian can bring itself to mention that there were EVs on board, and that they might have caused the fire:

    “Ship carrying luxury cars sinks near Azores Islands after burning for weeks
    Authorities fear that thousands of tons of fuel carried onboard could leak and pollute the ocean”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/02/ship-carrying-luxury-cars-sinks-near-azores-islands

    “An abandoned ship carrying an estimated $401m (£295m) worth of cars, including Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini models, has sunk nearly two weeks after a fire broke out onboard.

    The Felicity Ace sank on Tuesday about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Portugal’s Azores Islands as it was being towed, MOL Ship Management in Singapore said in a statement. A salvage team had put out the fire which had burned for days, fueled by lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles onboard….

    …The ship was transporting electric and non-electric vehicles, according to Portuguese authorities. Suspicion on what started the fire on 16 February has fallen on lithium batteries used in electric vehicles, though authorities say they have no firm evidence about the cause….”.

    Liked by 1 person

  75. I’ve been away, largely on Twitter, following lots of different people, apparently for the past ten years, though I’ve only really been active in the past few months. I’ve been largely following fellow Clisceppers like Barry Woods, Ben Pile, Ian Woolley and Maurizio Maurabito (though not Richard Drake, though I know he’s there somewhere and I intend to catch up on him.) I’ve liked a lot of tweets, though I’ve rarely tweeted myself. Wanting to keep up with current events, I’ve picked up a lot of people I follow in e.g. Lebanon China and Holland; meaning that I get a lot of tweets in languages I don’t understand, but feel I might if I made the effort, like Dutch (which is deceptively similar to English and German) and Portuguese which seems to be understood by a number of leftwing US journalists and is basically Latin with a twiddly thing on some vowels.

    Twitter seems to be a useful medium for communicating with people one wouldn’t normally encounter (I’ve been heartened by being liked by French people called Fatima and Rachida) but I’m buggered if I can understand how it works. I can’t now find the list of people that follow me, but the last time I looked it was about twelve, including Steve McIntyre and Julie Burchill. Any advice on how to use this tool?

    Like

  76. Words fail me:

    “Unite against climate change – Ukraine scientist”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60592587

    “A leading Ukrainian scientist says war is “closing the window of opportunity” for the world to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

    Dr Svitlana Krakovska, who is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), spoke to me on Zoom from her apartment in Kyiv.

    “It’s amazing how the people of Ukraine united against one enemy,” she said.

    “If we all unite against climate change, we can survive as a civilisation.”

    Dr Krakovska was taking part in the final stages of approving the IPPC’s latest major assessment on the impacts of climate change when the invasion made it impossible for her to continue her work.”

    Even an invasion by a ruthless dictatorial leader of a neighbouring country doesn’t bring geopolitical reality home to her.

    Then again:

    “Everything stopped,” she said. “I can’t think about climate change, because I can’t think about anything other than to try to survive.”

    I hope she stays safe and emerges from the tragedy to contemplate in depth what are the biggest challenges facing humanity right now, and also whether the geopolitical situation really allows us to do anything at all about climate change.

    Like

  77. “NSW deputy premier savaged for fighting dam-building ‘culture war’ during floods disaster
    Politicians, academics and campaigners criticise Nationals MP Paul Toole after he says ‘stop using the excuse of a moth’ to oppose dams”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/03/nsw-deputy-premier-savaged-for-fighting-dam-building-culture-war-during-floods-disaster

    But at the same time:

    “Tasmania records driest summer in 40 years as La Niña ‘swings the wind around’
    Weather pattern slashes rainfall in Australia’s southernmost state while temperatures soar”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/03/tasmania-records-driest-summer-in-40-years-as-la-nina-swings-the-wind-around

    “This was consistent with projections of changed rainfall across the state due to rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions. A major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published this week found that global heating was expected to lead to more winter rain in Tasmania but a reduction in summer rain in the state’s west.”

    I think it doesn’t matter whether there ‘s more rain or less, it will always be “consistent” with warnings about “climate change”.

    Like

  78. 4:30pm R4 Inside “Science”
    “we’ll be looking at the role OUR fossil fuel DEPENDENCY is playing” in the war .

    Full intro
    “In this week of POLITICAL and PLANETARY crisis
    we’ll be looking at the role OUR fossil fuel DEPENDENCY is playing in the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine and Western nations

    And with the publication of a MASSIVE Climate report from the IPCC
    finding that EXTREME events are already happening SOONER and with WORSE impact, than scientists expected
    We’ll be finding out if there is still time to transform our energy systems and avoid the MOST terrible futures”
    … (very dodgy science)

    at 16:43pm the Green dramaqueening item with a Deborah Roberts clip “The scientific evidence is UNEQUIVOCAL ..”

    presenter “..FAR WORSE than predicted ..”

    Prof Bettsy says “It is BLEAK but …”

    Like

  80. “The shipping giant banking on a greener fuel”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60433204

    “…These vessels criss-crossing multiple trade routes around the the globe generate a staggering 3% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions – about the same volume as Germany.

    The European Union is working hard to cut those CO2 emissions with several schemes designed to make using fossil fuels more expensive.

    But the problem for shipping firms is that alternative, or ‘greener’ fuels are still only produced in tiny quantities compared with traditional marine fuel.

    Nevertheless, Maersk, has made the decision to order 12 ocean-going ships which run on methanol. Each costs $175m (£130m) and is capable of carrying 16,000 containers.

    Jacob Sterling, Maersk’s head of decarbonisation innovation and business development. hopes those vessels will kick-start the market for shipping powered by methanol, which is potentially a greener source of fuel for the industry….”.

    I have an idea. How about the UK ensuring that we have reliable and cheap energy by using our own fossil fuel resources and dumping the addiction to trashing our environment with unreliable renewables. Then, perhaps, we could re-establish manufacturing here – something we used to be very good at. Then we wouldn’t need to import huge amounts of cheap rubbish from China that breaks in 5 minutes flat, and stuff wouldn’t need to be transported here (with associated greenhouse gas emissions) by the likes of Maersk from a country with much lower environmental standards than own.

    Like

  81. “Ukraine war prompts European reappraisal of its energy supplies
    Analysis: Russian invasion could speed up renewables transition – or lead to disastrous return to coal”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/04/ukraine-war-european-reappraisal-energy-supplies-coal-renewables

    “…Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “Kwasi Kwarteng has clocked it. Our dependence on gas is a problem, and warmer homes powered by renewables are the cheapest and quickest solution. Kwarteng must convince chancellor Rishi Sunak that we need a masterplan, and the money to get the UK off gas. We need to insulate our homes, roll out heat pumps and renewable power to rapidly address Putin’s grip on European gas markets, our sky-high energy bills, and the climate crisis unfolding before our eyes.”…”.

    Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Why not just say “Vlad, you’ve won – we’re going to make ourselves hostage to unreliable and intermittent power, we’re making our houses colder and more expensive to run, we’re ruining our economy. Feel free, go ahead, help yourself to whatever you want.”?

    Like

  82. “Turn down heating by 1C to reduce need for Russian imports, Europeans told
    IEA says reducing temperature could help wean consumers off fuel that Russia is using as a weapon in Ukraine war”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/03/turn-down-heating-reduce-need-russian-imports-europeans-told

    I’ve news for him – poor people in the UK have had little option but to turn down their heating for years, thanks to the unaffordable costs of all the “green” subsidies loaded on to their heating bills.

    Like

  83. Shocker : BBCnews use doctored “concept” image in their anti-plastic campaigning story by @hbriggs Helen Briggs
    And the whole Green cult and BBC departments embrace the #PRtrickery and run with it.
    BBCnews tweet 291 Likes .. https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1499062914468257798
    BBCpolitics tweet https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1499058895221923845
    BBCSienceNews Tweet .. https://twitter.com/BBCScienceNews/status/1499025721339088898
    BBCWildlife tweet https://twitter.com/WildlifeMag/status/1499424068835024897
    @BBC_Future .. https://twitter.com/BBC_Future/status/1499066518226702339
    .. https://twitter.com/RHarrabin/status/1499091588894576646

    BBCworld tweet

    This is the image I find
    Did I use photoshop to remove the plastic bag ?
    No I took the image from the actual photographer’s website

    but when he upoaded a doctored version to Image libraries his label says “Underwater *concept* of global problem with plastic rubbish floating in the oceans”
    Concept is word for created image

    [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNAjOqdWUAUnUZ9?format=jpg&name=small[/img]

    Like

  84. Bishop Hill first raised the issue of whether the BBC image was fake, when he saw activists tweeting the BBC story
    : Surfers Against Sewage, Marine Conservation Society, Blue Planet Society, Green Alliance think tank, @WWF_UK, David de Rothschild, Scripps Institution
    One guy tweeted it very early
    @DrDavidLRoberts Reader #Biodiversity #Conservation @DICE_Kent

    Typical tweet : https://twitter.com/FoEScot/status/1499431600664289281

    BTW the UN used the “concept” image on their website in May 2020
    https://www.unescap.org/news/covid-19-pandemic-may-give-asia-pacific-s-oceans-chance-recover-highlights-new-un-report

    On Photo libraries the photographer’s series has the title
    “Underwater *concept* of global problem with plastic rubbish floating in the oceans”
    Photos have various dates
    For the plastic bag one it says Label says “Date taken:11 August 2017”
    I guess that is when he created it
    One give away it’ fictitious is that nowhere is a location given.

    Like

  86. Plastic pollution is a terrible problem, but there is no justification for fake images. Where are the BBC disinformation correspondents now?

    Like

  87. From today’s Net Zero Watch:

    “London, 4 March — The former Head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has called on Boris Johnson to ‘immediately lift the moratorium on fracking’ and help Britain’s European partners to divest from Russian gas dependency.

    In an interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast Sir Richard also warns that Britain’s rush to Net Zero was “admirable but its completely unrealistic, its totally unrealistic. We have to reassess the situation.”

    “I don’t know what’s come into the government’s heads on [Net Zero] because they’ve just adopted a set of crazy, unattainable objectives.”

    In face of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, Sir Richard argues that Britain should adopt a gas-to-nuclear policy:

    “I applaud the objective, as we all do, to move to Net Zero, but we need a policy that is practical and achievable. And of course gas in particular, the sort of quality gas the Americans produce through fracking, is going to be the transfer fuel of the future. And then in addition we must develop small nuclear reactors. The technology exists.”

    Sir Richard added that UK shale gas would be essential to help our European partners to divest from Russian gas imports:

    “We have to have sufficient gas storage and supplies. What the European powers that are dependent on Russian gas need is a sort of Berlin ‘airlift’ of gas supplies to Europe as quickly and as fast as possible so that we change the energy equation.”

    He added:

    “We now have to reorder our national security priorities and we have got to change our energy security policy which is a fundamental part of our national security policy.”

    Net Zero Watch director Dr Benny Peiser said:

    “Boris Johnson should listen to the warning by of one of Britain’s most eminent national security experts and lift the fracking moratorium with immediate effect. Any further procrastination over developing alternative gas supplies would be deeply irresponsible and in the face of a worsening European war could only embolden Putin’s aggression.””

    Like

  89. Yeah, that’ll do it:

    “Climate crisis: Devon university to be net zero by 2030”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-60618086

    “A Devon university has pledged to become net zero by 2030 in an ambitious new target to tackle the climate crisis.

    The University of Exeter’s original plan aimed for 2050, but has now been brought forward by 20 years….

    …The target will focus on tackling direct and indirect emissions the university produces.

    “We want to lead the higher education sector in the drive to net zero,” said Exeter’s Provost Prof Janice Kay, co-chair of the university’s environment and climate emergency board.

    “There has been significant pressure from students and staff to accelerate our carbon targets, to tackle the climate crisis.

    “We have listened to those voices, and have created a plan to reach this challenging goal.”

    It will follow a number of steps to reach its goal, including reducing unnecessary purchases and air travel and choosing low-emission options for activities.

    The university has more than 1,000 research and education specialists working on the environment and climate.”

    I wonder if it will stop taking overseas students, with their associated greenhouse gas emissions? I note this from the university’s website:

    “25,000 students, including 5,450 international students from 140 countries.”

    https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/international/

    By the way, we all know that the Guardian took it upon itself to up the ante around climate change by constantly inserting the words “climate crisis” into every article it publishes on the topic. When did the BBC follow suit?

    Like

  91. @Mark – “From Judith Curry, and worth a read (H/T Richard Drake) – Ukraine-climate nexus”

    this bit made me chuckle – “Tom Pyle sums it up with this statement – “The west is seeing the results of years of getting energy policy advice from Swedish teenagers, former bar tenders and washed up socialists. We need grown ups running energy policy.”

    liked this linked quote (not watched the vid) – “America Needs “Grown Ups Running Energy Policy” Tom Pyle on Varney & Co.
    Monday, February 28, AEA president Tom Pyle joined Stuart Varney on Fox Business to discuss Democrats’ energy policies. Watch the video below to see Tom argue that there is no reason for higher energy prices in the U.S. other than ‘bad western leaders promoting bad policies that are driven by the green left.’

    Like

  92. Why is anyone surprised?

    “Corporate tree-planting drive in Scotland ‘risks widening rural inequality’
    Surge of estate sales to big firms has driven up prices and increased elitism of land ownership, says report”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/05/tree-planting-drive-scottish-highlands-risks-widening-inequality

    “A drive by wealthy companies to plant forests in the Scottish Highlands to offset their carbon emissions risks creating even greater inequalities in rural areas, a major report has warned.

    The analysis says a surge of Highland estate sales to major corporations and cash-rich investors, such as Aviva, Standard Life and BrewDog, has driven up land prices sharply and increased the elitism and exclusivity of land ownership, while they aim to limit climate heating.

    John Hollingdale, a community ownership expert, argues that much stricter rules on land ownership, tax breaks and forestry subsidies are needed to ensure the rush to meet government forestry and net zero targets has the widest public benefit.

    The Scottish and UK governments have targets to plant 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) of new woods and forests across Britain a year. Scottish Forestry, a government agency, is midway through a three-year programme worth £217m to plant 46,500 hectares (115,000 acres) of new woodland by April 2025, roughly equivalent to 93m trees.

    In a report for Community Land Scotland, a land reform body, Hollingdale said those investments were further subsidised by exemptions from inheritance tax, business property tax relief, and income and corporation tax on profits for commercial woodland, as well as non-domestic rates exemptions.

    Calum MacLeod, policy director for Community Land Scotland, said: “The paper’s detailed analysis and recommendations shows that green finance mechanisms need to be fit for purpose in terms of a just transition by making land use sustainable in ways that significantly benefit local communities.”…”.

    Like

  94. Ecotricity spiv Dale Vance is on explaining why he sent someone a massive £8,000 bill, and when the customer complained his staff said they had checked and it was correct.
    Now after the BBC contacted him he says “sorry the system had taken the initial meter reading as zero instead of the start value”
    Now asked about the standing charge rises he says that it is a local regulation ..nothing to do with him.
    Now of course he is blaming bi; rises on fossil fuels and calling for a WINDFALL tax

    Call Any Questions is trailing ..their Climate Change discussion

    Like

  95. I found this interesting definition the morning:

    “A weapon is anything that allows limiting other people’s choices (at one extreme killing them and thus removing from them any choice). And vice-versa: anything that allows limiting other people’s choices is a weapon.

    Then there is a distinction between non-lethal and lethal weapons and other details. But this insight I think illuminates many situations.”

    So… Net Carbon Zero a weapon?

    Discuss

    Like

  96. Bill, it all depends on how you define your terms. In accordance with the “definition” you offer us, the net zero is certainly a weapon. However, it’s not a definition I recognise and not one that appears in my Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

    I think I’d rather categorise it as an act of self-harm!

    Like

  98. “‘Everything Boris Johnson says is just slogans’: the 14-year-old school climate striker fighting to save the oceans”

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/mar/05/14-year-old-school-climate-striker-fighting-to-save-the-oceans

    He might well be right, but standing there with a sign saying “There’s no Planet B” (a slogan, surely) and no practical solutions isn’t a great look. I’ll let him off because he’s only 14, but the Guardian reporters should know better.

    “Pringle is scathing about the solutions to climate change advocated by world leaders. “You know only one country in the world is on track to meet the Paris climate agreement?” Pringle says. “You know which one it is? Gambia! If this tiny, poor country can do it, why can’t we?” The UK is a joke, he says with scorn. “Coal mining in Cumbria. Expanding several airports in the UK. Cutting down ancient woodland for HS2. The list goes on and on.””

    Hmm. I wonder how much Finlay Pringle would enjoy a Gambian lifestyle?

    Like

  101. Mark, the Kelly report is a horror story as you might expect. It could have done with a proofread.

    As to the methane crisis, sooner or later we will surely inevitably enter the crisis crisis, where the sheer number of crises is itself a crisis. Or something.

    Like

  102. Another study:

    “Six key lifestyle changes can help avert the climate crisis, study finds
    Research shows that governments and individuals making small changes can have a huge impact in reducing emissions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/07/six-key-lifestyle-changes-can-help-avert-the-climate-crisis-study-finds

    “People in well-off countries can help avert climate breakdown by making six relatively straightforward lifestyle changes, according to research from three leading institutions.

    The study found that sticking to six specific commitments – from flying no more than once every three years to only buying three new items of clothing a year – could rein in the runaway consumption that is partially driving the climate crisis.

    The research carried out by academics at Leeds University and analysed by experts at the global engineering firm Arup and the C40 group of world cities, found that making the six commitments could account for a quarter of the emissions reductions required to keep the global heating down to 1.5C.”

    Given that the vast majority of emissions on an ongoing basis are not from “people in well-off countries”, my conclusion is that the headline at least is utter drivel – clickbait to yet another pointless article about “the climate crisis”.

    Like

  103. So Mark being a climatic zealot I decide use my safe allocation and fly to an overseas holiday destination (and pack my three new items of holiday clothing). Once at my destination it belatedly occurs to me to wonder just how I’ll return without devastating the planet’s wellbeing. Do I have to wait for another three years before flying home?

    Like

  104. Continuing my search for levity about the war as illustrated within the Guardian (print version) today. I bring you two items.

    1. The French Canadian “delicacy “ of French fries, cheese curds and gravy called Poutine is under fire both in Quebec and France where a chain of restaurants (Maisonette de Poutine) are being blamed for having a name too close to the Russian leader. It was described as “One is a dangerous and unwholesome mix of greasy, lumpy and congealed ingredients, the other is a delicious food”

    2. The other is a photograph that grabbed me once I read the caption and I cannot get it out of my head. It shows a group of men, all with military clothing and helmets standing around at night with naked bulb lighting. Two are seated playing a board game on the ground with what at first sight look like tall chess pieces. The caption, however, reveals they are playing checkers, but the counters are Molotov cocktails! On second thoughts it isn’t funny.

    Liked by 2 people

  106. 2019 I see someone calling out Tim Fenton for having a Conspiracy Theory about Tommy Robinson
    “Tommy got hold of my name, he must have his own police stooge”
    ..the guy pointed out that is a ridiculous idea
    since Tim’s name was on the electoral roll, you don’t need a police stooge.

    Ah I see Tim Fenton is a Guardian writer
    He wrote an article that TR said is lies ..so he exercised his right to doorstep Fenton
    addressing him as “Paul” which Fenton has previously said is his real first name.
    Fenton called the police .. who assessed the situation as legal
    Only asking questions on 3 separate occasions is harassment.

    Like

  107. Stewgreen, the BH troll zed wrote and behaved like a silly teenager. The blog you linked to looks a lot more mature than Zed, IMO.

    Like

  108. ITVnews had PRasNews for themselves
    7pm from now on ITV national news will be extended until 7:30pm
    “It will include more dedicated items on weather and *Climate*”
    .. and other woke agenda pushing too I bet.

    Like

  109. Sorry to have been concentrating on other things but Mark’s

    I think I’d rather categorise it as an act of self-harm!

    reminded me of an organisation with whom I’m associated – sorry not to be more specific – which just released its statement of how it’s going to achieve Net Zero and why. It was asking for feedback and I thought of saying “This is very good. It’s so much better to leave a suicide note rather than leave people who care guessing as to why.”

    It’s the whole UK of course which is committing suicide, at the behest of a vocal minority, but at least by now there are copious notes on why.

    Like

  110. stew, you’d have thought that ITV might have learned from the failure of Sky News’ Climate Show. Apparently not. Is there no end to all this?

    Like

  111. Richard, unless you can’t afford to fall out with them, why not do just that? Who knows? Maybe somebody involved will realise that we’re not all on board with it after all.

    Like

  112. Yeah, really useful:

    “Isle of Man goal for 45% emissions reduction by 2035 to be debated”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-60653350

    “Tynwald members are to be asked to approve a goal to reduce the island’s carbon emissions by 45% by 2035.

    It marks an interim target in the government’s pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

    It follows a recent consultation on choosing an interim ambition to be met by 2030.

    Chief Minister Alfred Cannan said the five-year delay would allow the government to “ensure secure and reliable” electricity supplies.

    The island’s main power station in Pulrose is due to reach the end of its design life in 2035, and the government has already committed to producing 75% of electricity from renewable sources by that date.”

    Good luck with that.

    Like

  115. GBnews debate on Fracking started at 21:35pm
    At 21:43pm Donnachadh said wind power is only £50/MWh ..5p/KWh
    So if your bill is more than that
    just pay that 5p/KWh & Donnachadh will pay the rest ..I guess
    This clip only covers the first 5 minutes

    Like

  116. Michael Shellenberger speaks for 8 minutes about ramping up gas production
    I hate the way SkyNewsAust put Musk in the title, he’s not the topic

    Like

  119. 12:20pm R4 Call You & Yours: How are rising fuel prices affecting you?
    The cost of petrol, gas and oil are reaching new highs, how does this affect your finances? Are you able to reduce what you use?

    Like

  120. XR have started doing tyre attacks
    letting out air
    Wait until they do it to a doctor/nurses car.
    https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-03-08/drivers-anger-after-climate-activists-deflate-tyre-of-his-gas-guzzling-car

    Like

  121. stewgreen, they think they’re being clever, and in one way I suppose they are – causing inconvenience and annoyance, but I struggle to see that it’s criminal damage, since the tyres can be re-inflated.

    On the other hand, in another sense it’s monumentally stupid – alienating the chattering classes who (in principle) support their aims (but who of course don’t walk the walk) may well end up proving to be very counter-productive.

    Liked by 1 person

  122. The Guardian has started showing a graph of CO2 ppm – a “carbon tracker”. It can be found here:

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/environment

    It’s a bit boring though, since it’s been stuck on 418.6 since I started looking at it. They tell us it’s “The most important number of the climate crisis”, but it lacks the drama that they perhaps hoped to instil into their reporting.

    Like

  123. “This energy crisis has deeper roots than Ukraine
    We are paying a heavy price for decades of policy failures.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/03/08/this-energy-crisis-has-deeper-roots-than-ukraine/

    “…Oil and gas have become more expensive, but that is not just because wars are always inflationary. It is also because Western elites have stigmatised these two commodities right up to the spasm of COP26, only to realise more recently that, particularly in Russia and China, the world’s much-trumpeted ‘energy transition’ toward a Net Zero world will be a long time coming.

    Even amid the current energy crisis, our leaders still don’t get it. They still want more of our power to come from wind turbines and solar panels, for us to wear thick sweaters to keep warm and for smart meters to tell us to cut our consumption and carbon footprints.

    They need to wake up. This energy crisis is as much a product of their complacency as it is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

    Like

  126. Elon Musk has urged European governments to restart their dormant nuclear power stations to make up for the shortfall in energy amid surging costs stemming from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

    Liked by 1 person

  127. Also via RebelNew on Gettr
    U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg exposed this mentality in his proclamation on Monday when he suggested that Americans suffering from surging costs could opt to ditch their cars and opt to drive electric vehicles to save money.

    Like

  128. The EU should have not been so reliant on Russian gas
    but I think the idea of rushing to ban Russian gas is dumb
    cos it puts too much price pressure on the market.

    Liked by 1 person

  130. So United Against Fascism think its Fascist to oppose the net zero policy? The over-use of Fascism/Fascist as a slur is nothing new, but that seems to be taking it to a whole new level.

    Liked by 1 person

  131. That’s a relief!

    “Climate change legislation moves a step closer in Northern Ireland”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-60670559

    “Northern Ireland takes another step towards having climate legislation on Wednesday.

    Two separate pieces of legislation are currently progressing through Stormont.

    The sessions were delayed after advice that Climate Change Bill (No.2) must be referred to the Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis.

    That meant the final stage for it, and consideration stage for the private member’s bill (No.1), had to be postponed.

    DUP Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots’ bill (No.2) is further along the legislative track, having been prioritised as executive business.

    It is set to move to final stage on Wednesday, while the Green Party leader Clare Bailey’s private member’s bill (No.1) goes to consideration.”

    Like

  133. Mark the crime is “vehicle interference”
    The police sometimes charge people with that when they let down the police car tyres
    but Google doesn’t tell me about anyone sentenced for that.

    Like

  134. Overnight I have a thought , it is vey wise to buy lots of gas from the Russians
    cos that keeps them in hoc ..and therefore they keep peaceful
    Didn’t work

    Anyway if EU buy from Qatar that means the Qatars don’t see to India
    and then India buys from Russia I suppose.

    Like

  135. Every so often ..Guardianland releases articles that say “It’s too late now”
    … that’s OK
    and dumb, cos we never know what tech we will have inn 20 years time

    Like

  136. Is it OUR fault Putin invavded ??
    If we’d been stronger against the greens/politicians
    They wouldn’t have restricted Europe’s oil/gas development , therefore Putin would have had less ability to risk losing EU gas money

    Like

  137. ITV local news Amrit Birdit PRasNews item
    “The Bee Trust are encouraging bees around railway stations
    by planting flowers”

    Climate C was NOT mentioned

    ================

    By coincidence her item next Thursday is with a Sugar Beet farmer explainin
    why neonics are GOOD

    Like

  139. Lefty press rattled about fracking

    Like

  142. So much for sea-level rise. (H/t tomo at Bishop Hill):

    “Port Of Rotterdam Authority Raising Land Level For ‘Green’ Companies”

    https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/port-of-rotterdam-authority-raising-land-level-for-green-companies/

    “At Maasvlakte 2, 55ha of land is being raised for companies that make renewable fuels and chemical products. Marine engineering company Van Oord has recently started with the project. Finnish company UPM is making plans to establish its business here, and the Port Authority wants to make space available to other companies that make products from residual materials. Concentrating these types of companies brings about a cluster of companies that can use the same infrastructure, including pipelines.

    Van Oord is delivering a total of 5 million m3 of sand onto the southern part of Prinses Alexiahaven. In anticipation of specific plans for the area, this part of Maasvlakte 2 had not been raised yet.

    The new land will be raised to six metres above New Amsterdam Water Level (NAP). Van Oord expects the work will be completed in July. Next, the sand will have to settle for half a year before it can be built on. A layer of clay will be placed on top, after which grass will be sown to prevent the sand from being blown away….”.

    Like

  143. It’s a funny old world. 4 months ago, at COP 26, we were all being told that oil (among other fossil fuels) needed to be phased out. Oil states were the devil incarnate. Now this:

    “War in Ukraine: Oil prices plunge as UAE supports supply boost”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60680787

    “Oil prices have plunged after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said it supported increasing production.

    Brent crude, an international benchmark, fell more than 17% at one point after the statement by the UAE, a member of the powerful oil cartel Opec.

    The fall follows weeks of skyrocketing prices due to fears of supply disruptions sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The rising prices have put a financial squeeze on families around the world.

    President Joe Biden and other leaders have pledged to try to ease the price pressures for households. Officials from the US have been in talks with oil producers aimed at boosting supply.

    “We favour production increases and will be encouraging Opec to consider higher production levels,” Ambassador Yousuf Al Otaiba said in a statement tweeted by the UAE Embassy in Washington.

    Energy prices have been soaring for more than a year amid a rapid rebound in demand for oil, which had collapsed during the pandemic.”

    Like

  144. I’m so relieved that they finally got there. Northern Ireland, responsible for well under 0.01% of the world’s ongoing GHG emissions, is saving the world:

    “Climate change: New law in Northern Ireland aims for net zero by 2050”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-60670559

    “Northern Ireland will soon have its first laws to tackle climate change after MLAs at Stormont passed new, specific legislation.

    Agriculture and Environment Minister Edwin Poots had brought the bill.

    It will include a target for net zero emissions by 2050 and the appointment of a climate change commissioner.”

    Oh goody, a Northern Ireland climate change commissioner. Another “green” job!

    Like

  145. “Is super-polluting Pentagon’s climate plan just ‘military-grade greenwash’?”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/10/pentagon-us-military-emissions-climate-crisis

    “US military aims for net zero by 2050 but with a carbon footprint greater than some 140 countries critics say it needs radical change

    The US military, an institution whose carbon footprint exceeds that of nearly 140 countries, says it wants to go green.

    On 8 February, the US army released its climate strategy.”

    Yes, there really is a US Army climate strategy. Here it is in the unlikely even that anyone finds something so ridiculous to be of interest:

    https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/rv7/about/2022_army_climate_strategy.p

    Like

  146. The ITV neonics item
    First activist “farmers have managed for last 3 years without them
    so they shouldn’t need them no

    Lincolnshire a Sugar Beet farmer explained
    #1 last year his crop suffered a failure due to aphids so his net loss was £55K
    #2 Yes you can buy cane sugar, instead of GB sugar
    but that cane has loads of chemicals used on it.

    Like

  147. ITV local news .. oil crisis, school has problem as heating bills greatly increased
    Here the kids are doing a project
    Kid “yes we propose solar panels and measures to stop water wastage”

    Next item about Cleethorpes urban improvement
    the plan includes “a zero carbon marketplace”

    Like

  148. Build Renewables to reduce TODAY’S gas consumption ?
    FFS, No construction of them has a massive CO2 footprint
    for the MWh they output
    So it can only increase this years gas consumption

    Almost the entire fossil fuel and CO2 output of solar/wind/tidal
    is built into the construction phase
    It takes 3/4/5 years to make back that construction energy in making solar panels, and steel and concrete for wind turbines
    Sure gas & coal plants have a CO2 construction footprint but it’s tiny per MWh of output.
    Its something like to buil a gas plant takes 1 million tonnes of concrete
    to build the same sized wind farm takes 40 million

    Alternative phrasing
    If you build anything you increase the world’s oil and gas consumption.
    If you build one gas power station you need concrete and steel.
    If you build a solar/wind farm that makes the same amount of electricity in a year , you’ll use about 100 times MORE concrete and steel.
    .. So you will vastly increase this years oil/gas demand.

    Liked by 1 person

  150. “Climate change: Can the Russian energy crisis help to curb global heating?
    By Roger Harrabin”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60683929

    “Can the government wean Britain off Russian gas while also keeping energy affordable and hitting its climate change targets?”

    Well, that’s Ofgem’s brief (broadly speaking) and they’ve failed. It’s a circle that can’t be squared. Harrabin’s conclusion:

    “But the real test will be whether at last the government is willing to invest the cash and the policies to deliver its climate targets, hold down bills and protect us from Mr Putin’s war.”

    Invest the cash, eh? Yet more taxpayer subsidies, presumably. I thought going “green” was supposed to be a financial no-brainer. Instead it continually adds to the cost of living crisis. Note to editors – the cost of living crisis is a REAL crisis.

    Like

  151. “Millions suffering in deadly pollution ‘sacrifice zones’, warns UN expert
    Businesses blamed for rise of toxic hotspots hitting poor communities hardest”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/10/millions-suffering-in-deadly-pollution-sacrifice-zones-warns-un-expert

    An appalling story:

    “Boyd, the special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, cited physical health issues, including cancer, heart disease, respiratory illness, strokes and reproductive health problems, as well as “incredible mental health problems associated with living in these places because people feel exploited, they feel stigmatised”….

    …Giving the death toll from pollution in that period is a staggering 9 million, the report adds: “One in six deaths in the world involves diseases caused by pollution, three times more than deaths from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined and 15 times more than from all wars, murders and other forms of violence.

    “The toxification of planet Earth is intensifying,” Boyd’s report warns, pointing out that even as some harmful chemicals are banned or abandoned, overall production of chemicals doubled between 2000 and 2017, and will double again by 2030….”

    An incredible conclusion:

    “…“[Oil and gas companies are] not going to voluntarily stop producing oil and gas; big coal companies are not going to voluntarily shift from being big coal companies to being big solar and wind companies: governments have to do that, that’s their job, it’s governments that have the obligations to respect, protect and fulfil our human rights,” Boyd said….”.

    As though the “green” transition doesn’t involve trashing the environment and causing pollution and e.g. forcing child labour to slave away in awful conditions in the Congo.

    Like

  152. Monday’s You and Yours had James Piper, author of “The Rubbish Book” on to talk about recycling. He mentioned an extraordinary stat, if it is true (caveat emptor, the research was by Greenpeace). He said that the amount of plastic used in carrier bags has gone up 440% since the 5p single-use charge, because people accumulate 57 bags for life every year. I find the stat hard to believe – I have maybe bought 2-3 in the past year, whenever out and buying something without having planned to.

    There is a good chance this stat has been publicised before, and I have forgotten about it.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001546x

    At about 35 minutes on.

    Like

  153. “Exeter homes get solar panels to tackle climate change”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-60706439

    “About 300 council houses in Exeter have received solar panels and insulation as part of a council’s net zero aim.

    The additions are being installed as part of a £2.4m project to help tenants save money and tackle climate change.

    It is being jointly funded by the government and Exeter City Council, and aims to change 4,000 local authority homes by 2030.”

    Yeah, that’ll “tackle climate change”.

    Like

  154. Democracy in 2022:

    “20mph speed zones: Wales trials begin in more residential areas”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60704317

    “More than half of people in Wales oppose cutting the speed limit in residential areas to 20mph, according to a public consultation.

    Trials creating 20mph zones are being rolled out across parts of Wales.

    It comes as default speed limits look set to be cut from 30mph to 20mph in built-up areas by 2023 under Welsh government plans.

    However opponents said the changes would increase journey times, add to congestion and anger drivers.

    More than half of the 5,607 people who responded said they were not in favour.

    But the conclusion said the self-selecting consultation was “not a representative sample of the population” and was not a reflection of the general public view due to an “organised campaign”….”.

    Given this:

    “In 2020, 1,007 people were injured in car crashes and 369 pedestrians injured in 30mph zones in Wales. Those figures compare to 50 and 27, respectively, in 20mph zones.”

    The reduction might be a good idea. But isn’t it better to explain and get people on board, rather than contemptuously to dismiss the views of the majority?

    Like

  155. Better late than never, I suppose:

    “Kent police charge 74 people over Insulate Britain road protests
    Charges relate to series of protests that blocked M25 and roads near Dover in September and October”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/11/kent-police-charge-74-people-insulate-britain-road-protests-block-m25-dover

    “Seventy four people have been charged over Insulate Britain road blockade protests in Kent, the county’s police force has said, in what is believed to be the first criminal proceedings against the activist group.

    The force said a total of 104 charges had been laid against Insulate Britain members in relation to protests that took place on the M25 and on roads near the port of Dover in September and October last year.

    All 74 defendants have been summonsed to appear at Crawley magistrates court from April. There were 73 charges of public nuisance, 29 charges of obstruction and two charges of criminal damage to a police car, Kent police said in a statement on Friday.

    Insulate Britain activists had previously only faced civil action over their protests, with at least 15 jailed after a high court hearings for breaching injunctions obtained by National Highways banning them from blocking parts of the road network….”.

    Like

  156. “Climate change fundamentally affecting European birds, study shows
    Changes to birds’ size, habits and morphology have been linked to rising temperatures”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/10/climate-change-fundamentally-affecting-european-birds-study-shows

    What about the concluding paragraph?

    “Overall, this means warming is likely the largest factor driving trait change, but it’s not the only element at play. Other adjacent factors may play a more prominent role than previously thought – the question is what these other non-temperature factors are, and how they are linked to temperature increase.”

    Perhaps not so conclusive as the headline suggests, then?

    Like

  157. Hi Jit

    all I can say is about my household use of plastic carrier bags.

    we shop at Tesco & use “bags for life” which are much thicker than the old bags (so more plastic used to produce).
    when one rips or has a hole you can swap it for a new one for free at our Tesco, rmaybe about 10 new per yr.

    the down side for my household is we used the “single-use” bags in our kitchen bin for years (so it was “double-use if not more”)

    now we have to buy dedicated “plastic bin bags” to replace this.

    bottom line if above makes sense – I think it’s another Green/Save the planet Idea that makes no sense in the real world.

    Liked by 1 person

  158. I’ve been banging on about this for a while. Here’s extracts from the Globe and Mail (paywalled). It ends with some new info for me…..that German environmentalists opposed LNG from the US because of fracking!

    “United States President Joe Biden has been scouring the planet in his quest to unearth additional global oil supplies after his move this week to ban Russian crude imports. Several European countries also promised to sever their dependence on Russian energy.

    Indeed, about the only major oil-producing country outside Russia that Mr. Biden has not appealed to in recent days to boost supply is the one with which the United States shares the world’s longest undefended border.

    In one of the most glaring examples of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, Mr. Biden would rather court dictators in Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia than incur the wrath of the Democratic base by revisiting his decision to withdraw a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Had he allowed construction of the pipeline to go ahead, instead of cancelling it on his first day in office, it would be ready soon to provide the U.S. with a secure alternative to Russian crude.

    Instead, Mr. Biden sent a White House delegation to Caracas last week to begin talks with Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro – whose treatment of political opponents has been as brutal as that of Russian President Vladimir Putin – aimed at lifting U.S. sanctions on the country’s state-owned oil company. No matter that an aide to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido told the Miami Herald that “to buy oil from Maduro is the same as buying oil from Putin.” Mr. Maduro, after all, has only remained in power mostly thanks to Russia’s largesse.

    The Biden administration has also been scrambling to conclude a deal with Iran, one of four countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, that would see Washington lift sanctions on Iranian oil in exchange for a renewed undertaking to limit its nuclear program.

    Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for pandering to progressives by cancelling a pipeline from Canada – a friendly, democratic neighbour – just to look environmentally conscious. But there is nothing virtuous about increasing the planet’s dependence on non-free-world oil. The myopia behind such decisions is clear now amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    The same goes for previous German refusals to import liquefied natural gas from North America because of environmentalist opposition to hydraulic fracturing. Successive German governments chose instead to increase their country’s reliance on Russian gas. Those short-sighted decisions mean that Germany is unable to end its dependence on Russian energy now, undermining the impact of sanctions aimed at bringing Mr. Putin to his knees.

    We are now witnessing the result of environmental policies conceived to curry favour with domestic political constituencies – policies that have had negligible or zero impact on overall greenhouse emissions – that also discounted their geopolitical consequences. It might be a good idea to avoid doing that again.”

    Liked by 1 person

  159. On what grounds do German environmentalists oppose imports of U.S. gas because of hydraulic fracking? AFAIK hydro fracking for gas does not stimulate micro-tremors in U.S. shale basins. Perhaps German environmentalism involves keeping the deep subsurface pristine, or perhaps because of profound geological ignorance.

    Like

  160. With regard to supermarket plastic bags, we don’t use any. We mostly shop at our local W******s and for years now we have used their jute bags. Expensive when we first bought them, but they never seem to wear out, even when used for other tasks (like carting building sand around our garden, or for storage in our garage). The store episodically changes it’s bag designs, but we users of the bags displaying original designs, parade them with much pride. Organically environmental and so much more. Our other local supermarket M*******s, only offers thick plastic bags, poor show. We flash our jute bags there as well.

    Like

  161. GBnews just before 2pm Lord Karan Bilimoria, CBI president, founder of Cobra beer
    was making out the intermittent EXPENSIVE wind power is a good thing

    One doesn’t expect logic from the London political establishment & CBI
    cos they live in #GreenBlob lalaland
    so #UKIsNotSafePlaceToInvest

    Like

  162. 2:45pm Radio4 repeat
    39 Ways to Save the Planet
    More Power from the Sun
    *Solar energy is cheap and clean*,
    but it could be better. Tom Heap discovers how.
    #FakeNews #Greenblob #Propaganda

    Like

  163. I’ve just found this interesting clip of Mark Blyth explaining the background to the Ukraine war. It was obviously recorded before the invasion.

    Like

  164. The hatey lefty bully group UAF
    are already campaigning against the new Farage venue

    “when he tries again to spread his *bigotry* in Bolton”
    That’s UAF projecting themselves as usual

    Like

  165. Parallel universe:

    “While the Tories dawdle over Russian gas, we have a £28bn plan to make energy cheap – and green
    Ed Miliband”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/12/tories-russian-energy-cheap-green-insulating-homes-wind-solar-boris-johnson

    Quite apart from the rest of the nonsense, this bit really takes some reading and believing:

    “…For starters, what is the quickest way to get us off Russian gas and allow us control over our own energy supply? By pressing ahead with building the 649 onshore wind and solar projects that already have planning permission in the UK. They could come on stream within two years and would fully replace Russian gas imports, but are being held back by the de-facto moratorium imposed by the government in 2015, when it introduced draconian planning restrictions for new windfarms and cut onshore windfarms off from investment in renewables….”.

    If they already have planning permission, how can they be held back by planning restrictions?

    Like

  167. “Tens of thousands take part in climate protests across France
    Demonstrations call for greater focus on environmental crisis in runup to presidential election next month”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/12/tens-of-thousands-take-part-in-climate-protests-across-france

    “Tens of thousands of people protested across France on Saturday to call for more attention to the climate crisis in the runup to the presidential election next month.

    “Look up,” read one message in giant orange letters demonstrators held up in Paris, urging politicians to make protecting the planet a priority.

    The sign was a nod to Netflix hit Don’t Look Up, in which astronomers who discover a comet will wipe out the Earth try in vain to get politicians to take the threat seriously. “When are we going to talk about it?” read another sign.”

    When are we going to stop talking about it, more like? Media coverage is at saturation point. And it’s not like there’s a real ongoing crisis in Ukraine, or anything…

    Liked by 2 people

  168. “Putin’s war seduces Europe’s farmers away from Green Deal
    EU farm ministers say it’s now urgent to plant as much animal feed as possible, but greens are aghast.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-war-eu-food-farmer-green-deal-corn-fertilizer/

    “The conflict in Ukraine has reinvigorated a French push to make the EU a truly independent agriculture superpower — but doing so might mean sacrificing the EU’s green aspirations for farming.

    Russia’s invasion of the country known as the “breadbasket of Europe” has exposed just how much the EU relies on Russian fertilizer and Ukrainian corn to feed its farm animals, and keep its exports of meat and dairy products ticking over.

    While the war in Ukraine is bad news for Europe’s farmers, who even before Russia’s invasion faced spiralling production costs linked to energy prices, the crisis has breathed fresh life into France’s long-standing push for “food sovereignty.” But that renewed push could come at the cost of the EU’s lofty green ambitions for the farm sector. That’s if policymakers acquiesce to growing calls from farm lobby groups not to burden farmers with fresh green tape just as they’re being asked to produce more food to make up for Ukraine’s shortfalls.”

    Like

  169. OK click the Transcript button, search on Ukraine to find talk starts at 20:40s
    Turn off timestamps, grab transcript
    Sling it through https://www.textfixer.com/tools/remove-line-breaks.php
    Stick some full stops in and use https://www.caseconverter.com/ Sentence-case button
    Do some Search-and-Replace on proper nouns.

    Mark Blyth, political economist at Brown University’s Watson Institute, and Carrie Nordlund, political scientist and Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs at Brown University, share their take on the news.
    20:35 “We talked about this last podcast about Russia and Ukraine.
    And it’s still I mean it’s really heated up over um over the last few days.
    What is your take on what Russia’s positioning is ?
    And what is the real issue ?

    Well as as we said last time their schtick on it is essentially :
    ..“Back in the day when we gave up the old empire, you made a promise to Gorbachev verbally Jim Baker
    that you wouldn’t expand NATO.
    Since then 12 maybe more countries have joined.
    All of the ones that were in the old Warsaw-Pact.
    And not content with that you also brought in the Baltics
    You’ve actively promoted democracy
    i.e made unstable all of the border states around us
    .. Georgia, Azerbaijan etc.
    Uh you brought the Baltics in you made them NATO members.
    You give them F-16s to annoy us etc.
    And now you’re doing the same thing with Ukraine
    which literally puts NATO on our doorstep.
    Now, you have this thing where you keep saying that it’s not an anti-Russian alliance.
    What else could it be ?j
    I mean you only expand one way and it stops with us”

    So their playbook since Georgia in 2008 has been
    ..”You can’t join NATO if you have contested borders.
    OK, Right watch me, contest your borders ”

    So that’s it so they’re not going to allow Ukraine in NATO now
    Of course we’re taking the high road on this
    Because talk is cheap.
    Because on the one hand we’re saying.
    “well you know we can’t tell a sovereign nation it can’t join”.
    Of course it’s allowed to..
    And you know all the foreign ministers of NATO have affirmed that there’s the right of every sovereign to make this decision.
    Yeah meanwhile you’ve got the Germans vetoing the Brits flying planes over Germany with uh weapons for Ukraine.
    Um they’re completely hamstrung because their entire heating bill for the winter depends upon Russian gas exports.
    Right the Poles are caught in the middle of this,
    going “told you so” right uh the whole thing’s a total mess.
    And one thing we know is that The United States is not going to go to war over Ukraine.
    It’s simply not going to happen.
    Yeah so and they will not give them the guarantees they want.
    And they’ve upped their ante on the guarantees.
    They would like Bulgaria to withdraw from the alliance.
    Never going to happen right.
    So they will do it.
    It’s just I think it’s just a question of time.
    I think that they will invade.
    It’s not clear where they’ll stop.
    Actually going to Kiev, occupying, putting in a public government, massive civil repression, hundreds of thousands of deaths ?
    I’m not sure they’re really up for that,
    Because in the long term I’m not sure they can hold it.
    But if the game is simply keep disputing the borders, because that way you can’t join NATO.
    They can do that from now to a thousand Christmases.

    (Woman) Well but don’t I mean right now
    they certainly have a lot of leverage on Europe because it’s cold.
    Do you do they have the same leverage in the summer ?
    I mean do they have a small window of time to actually act on their threats ?
    I mean I think that the the seasonality of this is what is interesting to me

    (Man) Well it’s the other one
    it’s not as if the Germans are actually going to turn around the other way in the Summer
    and go “oh now we really are going to back it up”.
    And you know that’s not it.
    I read something recently this week where someone said a sort of phrase at the German foreign ministry is
    “Our nearest neighbor is Poland and the nearest city is Moscow”
    oh geez so They’re not looking west they’re looking east.
    Yeah right yeah and the other thing it’s not just heating.
    I mean you know. What is what does Germany make ?
    They make lots of things with steel, how do you make steel ? you burn gas.
    (NOT TRUE .. iron is made with coal, steel is made with coal or electricity)
    You do that in the summer as well well

    (Woman) And the Kazakhstann thing as well which I kind of understand is also is also playing out so you get the sense I mean that getting the band back together again.
    In that you know that Russia, I mean Kazakhstann is in is in disarray over fuel prices and so who do they call in but they call on the Russians.
    I mean all of these different pieces sort of you know floating around.
    And like what is it necessarily what does it add up to ?

    (man) It seems to just be playing their way.
    I mean you have this big strategic realignment between China and Russia both who have an interest in basically no longer relying on the dollar for clearance of their transactions
    and essentially getting freedom away from control The United States etc.
    Um and then you also have these peripheral regimes that were very high on sort of you know redistributing down until the cronies that run them discovered it’s much more fun to redistribute up.
    And eventually that becomes fragile they fall over and then they call in the Russians for support.
    At which point the Russians are like “we’re back”
    .So you know bail or us went that way”
    Kazakhstann’s gone that way.
    It’s you know it’s less getting the band back together than sort of like drunk band members stagger through the door of the van
    and de facto the band is back together again.

    (W) You know you forget that in the 90s under Yeltsin there was a moment like the Scorpions wouldn’t have changed right like democracy was spreading and like Russia could have been brought in.
    And that didn’t happen yeah no they absolutely didn’t.

    And you know from the Russian point of view instead of that, they followed American economic advice and 40 percent of gdp disappeared in five years.
    They created a class of oligarchs that stole the state that were only tamed by Putin.
    And they’ve had a modicum of stability and growth since that point in time under his regime.
    Which is why they keep voting for him
    yeah so you know the local on the ground view is very very different from the chattering classes in the West talking about it.

    (w) Rich chattering class who owns their penthouse in Manhattan.
    Yeah exactly

    Speaking of a chattering class .. so Boris who I read in the paper he goes by his friends call him Al
    but in any case um seems to be on the ropes.”

    End of section

    Like

  170. stewgreen:

    (NOT TRUE .. iron is made with coal, steel is made with coal or electricity)

    Half right. Iron is made with coal, modern steel plants convert iron with pure oxygen. Natural gas is still used in rolling mills to heat the metal ready for rolling. It is also used for making fertiliser and for process heat in many other industries.

    As I said this piece was recorded before the West imposed sanctions on Russia and gave something that Putin has been planning for many years. That is the complete de-dollarisation of the Russian economy, this is expected to allow the economy to grow at a better rate than it has managed over the last 10-20 years.

    Like

  171. There’s a new petition* pushing for a referendum about the UK’s Net Zero legislation. It was started two days ago by Dr Adam Lent, the CEO of New Local, a network of local councils that lobbies for a new localism (more powers for local councils, essentially).

    URL:petition.parliament.uk/petitions/610860

    ‘Hold a referendum on the UK meeting net zero much earlier than 2050.’

    Only 9 sigs so far.

    Camberwell: 1

    Chipping Barnet: 1 (prolly Lent himself)

    Hendon: 1

    Camden: 1

    Sevenoaks: 1

    Stroud: 1

    Tooting: 1

    Inverness: 1

    The 9th signer was someone in the USA. (Nigel Farage?)

    I’m glad that Stroud is on the list but where are the signers from Totnes, Machynlleth, Frome, Hoxton and Hebden Bridge? Get signing, sheeples! This is important! Pose locally, pose globally, but prod nationally!

    Perhaps so few people have signed so far because of several minor thinkos in the petition’s blurb. Yes, they are there, but they are surely not serious enough to stop serious people signing.

    The complete blurb:

    Hold a referendum on the UK meeting net zero much earlier than 2050.

    The rising price of fossil fuels is placing an unaffordable burden on the British people. Our reliance on imports of foreign fossil fuels also weakens our national security. We need to ditch our expensive and dangerous reliance on oil, coal and gas far quicker than is currently planned.

    The huge rise in energy bills is caused by increasingly expensive fossil fuels. These are responsible for 85% of the rise in bills in the UK according to energy think tank Ember. Green energy saves people money, ends our reliance on gas and oil imported from Britain’s enemies and helps limit the flooding and extreme weather caused by climate change and which damages so many communities in Britain. We need to move much faster to achieve these benefits than 2050.

    a) Ember said that 85% of the huge increase in *electricity* (not energy) *wholesale prices* (not domestic bills) was down to the huge increase in gas prices.

    b) Green energy might save some (usually wealthier) people some money but what’s all this about importing gas and oil from enemies? Most of our imported gas comes from Qatar, Norway and the USA. Most of our oil? Norway and the USA. It’s true that we get quite a lot of oil and oil products and a tiny bit of gas from Russia, but is Russia our enemy? Not yet, Dr New Localism.

    c) ‘We need to move much faster to achieve these benefits than 2050.’ Acceptable leadership bafflegab or something posted while drunk?

    ===
    *The old petition…

    URL:petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599602

    …is currently at 23,756.

    Like

  172. What with Northern Ireland edging closer to climate change legislation and now this, victory must be almost certainly assured in the fight against climate change:

    “Jersey Net Zero: Carbon Neutral Roadmap lodged with States”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-60729166

    “The Carbon Neutral Roadmap, for Jersey, has been published and lodged with the States of Jersey for approval, following a public consultation.

    It sets the policies to put Jersey on a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050.

    Targets are set for 2030 and 2035 before becoming net-zero by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

    The policies in the roadmap include providing financial support for islanders to buy electric vehicles.

    It also includes providing financial support for islanders to upgrade to low-carbon heating systems, the States said.

    It sets out to end the importation, registration and sale of petrol and diesel cars and small vans in 2030, in line with the UK, but allowing for existing petrol and diesel cars and small vans to be retained and repaired.

    It will also look at making Energy Performance Certificates mandatory so islanders can better understand what they are renting or buying.”

    Like

  173. “Ban Ki-moon warns UK against fracking as world stands at ‘dangerous’ point
    Former UN secretary general says countries face stark choices brought on by the war in Ukraine”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/13/fracking-is-dangerous-ban-ki-moon-warns-uk-government-over-climate-commitments

    “The former UN secretary general has warned the UK against fracking, as the world stands at a “dangerous” point in the climate crisis, brought on by the invasion of Ukraine.

    Ban Ki-moon, now deputy chair of the Elders group of former world statespeople and public figures, said countries faced stark choices as a result of the Ukraine war and energy crisis, and must embrace renewable energy instead of returning to fossil fuels.

    “I think it’s dangerous – just look at the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report,” he said, referring to the latest warning from scientists last month. “There is no time for us to lose. Even under normal conditions [before the Ukraine war] we were far behind the pace.”

    He called on the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to end the war. “President Putin, if he is a man of global vision, or humanity, or compassion, he must stop. Whatever grievances he may have and concerns he may have, he can negotiate later rather than killing people.”

    He warned that the Ukraine war, as well as being “outrageous in the 21st century”, would have an impact on the climate crisis. Governments should not try to secure greater supplies of fossil fuels, he urged, as they sought alternatives to imports of Russian oil and gas, on which the EU, the US and the UK have now placed restrictions.”

    It’s terrifying that such a naive and impractical dreamer was once UN Secretary General. Is his successor any better?

    Like

  174. “Environmental activists disrupt Bafta red carpet in London
    Group of 30 protesters prevented from storming the Royal Albert Hall”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/13/environmental-activists-disrupt-bafta-red-carpet-in-london

    “Young environmental activists have disrupted the red carpet at the Baftas to call for more attention to the climate crisis and for celebrities to speak out about it.

    Just before 4pm on Sunday, a group of about two dozen activists prepared to storm the entrance to the red carpet VIP area of the Royal Albert Hall in London, but were prevented from getting inside by police and security.”

    Like

  177. The steel plant is down the road I have worked in most parts of it.
    The steel plant has been making steel since well before North Sea gas existed, I guess rolling mill reheating was coal/coke fueled.
    The infrastructure for the other raw materials, coal, iron, limestone, scrap, oxygen is obvious. I don’t remember seeing much gas infrastructure or many gas engineers.

    Yes I had forgotten that they don’t put any coke into the BOS plant vessels. cos the hot iron already has carbon in and the oxygen causes it to heat up.
    But the gases are collected and used in other parts of the plant like the rolling mills
    Likewise the coke oven plants have gas holders
    so gas must be produced as part of that process.
    I am not sure how much extra gas needs to bought in these days.
    The BOS plant outputs hydrogen, but they must need more cos they are building a new hydrogen pipeline into the plant.
    The on plant power station used to be coal powered.

    Like

  179. 10am @BBCRadio4 item is #GreenBlob #PRasNews
    20% of women are to be SHAMED by @bbcWomansHour management for not conforming to their “shop yourself green” rules

    #BiasedBBC is completely in the pocket of #GreenBlob PR people
    10am Woman’s Hour : Electric Car #PRasNews

    “We know that women are more environmentally conscious when shopping for the household
    – but there’s one area where that doesn’t seem to be the case – cars.
    There are now over 600,000 plug-in electric vehicles in the UK, but a new study has found that 20% of women haven’t even considered buying an electric car.
    We speak to Erin Baker, Editorial Director at AutoTrader about why women are less likely to opt for electric vehicles.    ”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00159pw

    … Maybe those 20% could be made to wear GREEN stars on their elbows.

    Like

  180. That’s very Marie Antoinette
    “let them drive electric cars”

    ..”a new study says” That new study hasn’t hit google or Twitter yet.

    Like

  182. Has Harrabin been Thribbed ? Is the Daily Sceptic the new Private Eye?

    Like

  183. All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are informal cross-party groups that have *no official status within Parliament*
    ..I saw this tweet thinking it’s from an official body
    but really it’s an account run by the PR outfit Green Alliance

    Like

  184. Item “Scientists say Spring is coming earlier”
    ITV Reporter Nick Smith laid on the spin very heavily.
    FFS It’s the 14th of March
    Yet his report basically said it’s a critical planetary disaster that we how flowers now.
    His experts were encouraging us to plant completely different species.

    Other sources say we have over 100 years bred species to flower earlier etc.
    eg when you see a wild Bluebell
    it’s not the same as a 100 years ago
    rather Spanish bluebells have often taken over.

    Weather comes on “many areas can expect a *frost* tomorrow, but then some areas could reach 14C”
    Then I bet we have some more cold days before Summer.”

    Liked by 1 person

  185. Hannah Fry appears on BBC as a science expert, pushing green dreams
    and just now on BBC-Yesterday channel she appeared in a Green investment corp advert doing the voice over
    #ConflictOfInterest

    The rest of her thread is unrolled here https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501603863815761930.html

    Like

  186. Second #ConflictOfInterest

    Clim8 is a digital investment platform focused on companies having a +ve impact on #climatechange.
    Their #equitycrowdfunding is overfunding.
    Already backed by £5m of VC and 3,000 retail investors
    , they’ve traded equity for £2m of ad airtime with #Channel4

    So public service broadcaster Channel4 have an investment in the Green Investment corp
    So are they going to report problems with Gren investments properly ?

    Like

  187. “West Burton A: ‘No formal request’ to keep coal power station open”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-60742052

    “The government says it still plans to stop using coal by 2024, despite claims one of the last UK plants could be kept open to help tackle the energy crisis.

    Nottinghamshire’s West Burton A plant is set to be closed this year as part of the UK’s net zero plans.

    According to a report in The Times, EDF – the French energy giant that runs the site – has been approached to see if it could keep the site running.

    A government spokesman said it had “made no formal request to EDF”…”.

    Like

  188. “Yorkshire’s lost ‘Atlantis’ nearly found, says Hull professor
    Is it hoped discovery of medieval trading town Ravenser Odd can teach people about perils of climate crisis”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/14/yorkshires-lost-atlantis-nearly-found-says-hull-professor

    “Hopes are high that a fabled medieval town known as “Yorkshire’s Atlantis” is about to be located and will begin giving up secrets held for more than 650 years.

    Ravenser Odd was a prosperous port town built on sandbanks at the mouth of the Humber estuary before it was abandoned and later destroyed and submerged by a calamitous storm in 1362.”

    Nothing new under the sun!

    Like

  191. “Adaptations for climate change stalled in Scotland, report shows”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60739027

    “Progress on tackling the impact of climate change has stalled in Scotland, according to an independent report.

    The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) said the Scottish government was not prepared for changes such as wetter winters and rising sea levels.

    A new report by the independent body, which advises the government, said these pose risks to people, infrastructure and business.

    But the Scottish government insisted it was “making real progress”. The chairwoman of the CCC adaptation committee, Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, said work on adapting to changes in the climate was the “poor relation” of the net zero targets feted by governments.

    “Even if we are on a path to net zero, the climate continues to change,” she told BBC Scotland.”

    Which, at last, is an expression of common sense. Scotland can cease to emit any emissions, and it won’t make any difference to the climate, given the failure of the rest of the world to follow. In any event, there is also such a thing as natural climate change. Adaptation is the way forward, not futilely trying to go net zero and ruining people’s lives and the environment in the process. Yet the CCC says Scotland is failing badly in this. They’ve taken their eye off the ball and are looking at the wrong one.

    Like

  192. Here’s a recent post from the blog at Paul Ehrlich’s Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, formerly known as Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior and generally known as MAHB (which Ehrlich says should sound like ‘mob’): Idiocracy: is the decline in human intelligence undermining democracy?

    It’s by Julian Cribb AN FRSA FTSE, who doesn’t seem to be very keen on democracy and who, despite his proudly displayed honorifics, does seem to be a bit thick.

    But that doesn’t necessarily mean that his question is a Betteridge.

    (I reckon it is, though. Evidence for declines in IQ is thin and the study Cribb relies on was all about Norway. Did Norway elect Trump or vote to leave the EU? Because that’s what Dr Cribb SE FART FANS is really talking about.)

    Like

  193. “Protesters say Isle of Man public ignored over climate targets”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-60753452

    For a brief moment I thought that people were complaining that Isle of Man legislators were bringing in pointless restrictions given that nothing the Isle of Man does can possibly make the slightest difference to climate change. I should haveknown better…

    “The Isle of Man government is “kicking the can down the road” by proposing an interim target to cut carbon emissions by 2035, protesters have said.

    Extinction Rebellion want to see a 45% reduction by 2030, a date backed in a recent public consultation.

    Chief Minister Alfred Cannan previously said it had been pushed back to allow time to “ensure secure and reliable” electricity supplies.

    Protesters demonstrated against the delay outside the Tynwald buildings.”

    Yes, who on earth wants secure and reliable electricity supplies? It looks as though there a massive….4….protestors. Does that really warrant a story on the Science & Environment section of the BBC website?

    Like

  194. “Jeremy Clarkson opposition fails to stop council go vegan-only”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-60749093

    “A vegan-only food policy branded “utter madness” by TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has been adopted by a council.

    It means only plant-based meals will be served at Oxfordshire County Council events and vegan options will be on school menus.

    Farmers, including Clarkson who runs a farm in the county, had protested but the move was agreed earlier.

    Green councillor Ian Middleton said it puts the council “in the history books” and “on the right side of history”.

    He told the cabinet: “This has never been about veganism, which is a personal choice, but dealing with climate change is something we should all be choosing to do. This is what climate change action looks like.”…”.

    Yeah, that’ll save the planet.

    Like

  195. Today I was speaking to a retired woman who recently married a farmer
    She was genuinely angry when I criticized UK solar for taking up crop land.
    I said that cos she was talking about things pushing up food prices
    So I cited loss of food land to biofuels and solar.

    She said “I’ve been researching solar it’s all good , we’ll be looking to put it on our land”

    Then I realised a few other things she’d said were also Guardianlalaland
    ..Strange cos most people I meet are red-pilled against that, and BBC etc.

    Like

  196. stewgreen,

    My guess would simply be that the “farming” subsidies will remain in place when they add solar farming to their mix, but they’ll make lots of money from a solar farm because of the subsidies.

    Friends who opposed a local wind farm (successfully) many years ago were at a public meeting about it, and the farmers were desperate for it to go ahead, because they were going to make so much money out of it. Somebody complained about the damage caused by those developments to green field sites. The farmer’s wife responded (and it was a serious comment, not sarcasm) that they could plough the field first (then it wouldn’t be green) if that would persuade the locals to drop their opposition. All she could see was the money, and the fact that almost the whole village was united in its opposition didn’t matter one jot to her. True story.

    Like

  197. As so often with a Monbiot article, I found this one to be a curate’s egg:

    “There are solutions to the food crisis. But ploughing up Britain isn’t one of them”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/16/food-crisis-britain-prices-russia-ukraine-rewilding

    I disagreed with much, but found it refreshing that he wrote this:

    “So is there something meaningful we could do? Yes: ensure that our scarce arable land is used to feed people rather than to fuel cars or power stations. Despite the global food crisis that has been developing now for seven years, the UK and other European countries have cheerfully been diverting some of their best arable land from food to fuel production. Between 2019 and 2021, farmers in England raised the area of land used to make biogas by an astonishing 19%. Now 120,000 hectares (300,000 acres) is ploughed to grow maize and hybrid rye for biogas, which is marketed, misleadingly, as a green alternative to fossil gas. The reopening of a bioethanol plant in Hull that will turn wheat into fuel for cars is likely to take another 130,000 hectares out of food production.

    Between them, these energy crops demand 9% of the land used to grow cereals in England. This is an astonishingly destructive and inefficient business. About 450 hectares of land is needed to feed a biogas plant with a capacity of one megawatt. By contrast, a megawatt of wind turbine capacity requires only one-third of a hectare. When you include the impacts of soil erosion, for which maize in particular is notorious, the climate costs are likely to be worse than those of fossil gas.”

    Like

  199. Mark

    “The new Puritans Rent Seekers still want us to have colder, more miserable lives.”

    There you are — corrected.

    Liked by 2 people

  200. “Insulate Britain: Over 50 people charged after M25 protests”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60766896

    “Fifty-six people have been charged by police following Insulate Britain protests on the M25 in September.

    The Insulate Britain group held protests at junctions 14 and 25 of the London orbital motorway on three separate dates, causing disruption.

    Those charged include the Reverend Sue Parfitt, 80, from Bristol, and others from as far afield as Warrington, Weymouth and Wimbledon.

    They are due to appear at Stratford Magistrates’ Court in April.

    Twelve people are each accused of two counts of causing a public nuisance at junction 14 of the M25 on 13 September, and at junction 25 of the M25 on 15 September, the Metropolitan Police said.

    They range from a 24-year-old woman from Derby to a 74-year-old man from Telford. The 12 are due to appear at Stratford Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 22 April.

    Meanwhile, 50 people are charged with causing a public nuisance at junction 14 of the M25 on 27 September, including Anglican priest Ms Parfitt, and are set to appear at the same court on 29 April.

    Some people have been charged as part of both investigations.”

    Like

  201. “Ukraine war puts Wylfa nuclear back on agenda, says UK minister”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-60765926

    “The Conservative Welsh Secretary says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put a new nuclear power station at Wylfa on Anglesey “firmly back on the agenda”.

    Simon Hart said that energy self-sufficiency remained the UK’s absolute ambition.

    He said the UK government was determined not to let the push for net zero emissions be knocked off course.

    Some in his party, including Wrexham’s Sarah Atherton, have questioned the climate strategy.

    The MP called for the net zero strategy to be “parked” to concentrate on energy resilience instead.

    Mr Hart told a media briefing that the shock to energy markets following the invasion had started to concentrate minds.”

    Like

  202. “How much nuclear power does the UK use and is it safe?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59212992

    I loved this bit:

    “Building new nuclear plants of any size also creates emissions – for example, through manufacturing the large amounts of steel and other materials needed….

    …Critics say government investments should focus on renewable power, such as wind turbines and solar panels, instead of new nuclear capacity.”

    Because wind turbines and solar power don’t create emissions “through manufacturing the large amounts of steel and other materials needed”?

    Liked by 1 person

  203. Do my eyes deceive me, or has the Guardian’s CO2 tracker just shown it going down to 418.5ppm today from 418.6ppm yesterday?

    Like

  206. BBC local “news”
    “There are no enough electric charging points in Lincolnshire”
    big items , but they’ve done the same a few months back

    Like

  208. ITV local news
    2 anti fracking items after the Ukraine refugee opener
    video expires after 24 hours
    https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-03-03/catch-up-itv-news-calendar-south

    #1 “refugees are not the only way the war is affecting our region
    FEARS of fracking restarting is unsettling residents of Misson near Doncaster”
    The protesters were allowed to make all kinds of barmy claims without challenge

    …Item featured Starmer’s barmy video statement today ..as mentioned above.

    Item #2 ..Parliament
    Lee Anderson pro fracking question
    Ed Milliband anti-fracking speech

    Reporter ends “There are FEARS that could open the UK up to fracking again”

    Like

  210. ITVnews on air pollution

    In the past 24 hours cars and windows in the southeast and other parts of the UK have been covered in a dust that’s flown all the way from the Sahara Desert.

    Not here in the morning ..then all afternoon we’ve had rain

    Like

  211. Stew, the rain yesterday in (now sunny) Norwich was pink (its colour only visible on a white background). This morning there is a nice orange tide mark on all the formerly clean window sills.

    Like

  212. I confirm JIT’s observations in the area immediately west of Norwich. What I don’t understand is that the rain that carried the fine dust was associated with a weather front moving in from the west, not the south which was the the transit direction for the dust. Perhaps the rain fell through air that had moved in from the south. We have been experiencing warmer than average temperatures for several days. My expectation when I watched the weather forecast last night was that the weather front would push away the dust-laden air, but apparently not so.

    I have experienced several dusty rains over the quarter century I have lived in Norfolk, but last night’s deposited by far the greatest amount.

    Like

  214. I went for a walk up a Cumbrian hill today, based on a good weather forecast. Needless to say, it was cold, windy and wet….

    Like

  215. “Energy crisis: ‘We need a system upgrade to get more renewables'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-60753522

    These statistics are mildly interesting, and should give even the greatest renewables enthusiast pause for thought:

    “The amount of energy produced by solar and wind turbines fluctuates depending on the weather, the time of year, and the time of day.

    According to the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) last Easter was the “greenest ever”.

    On Easter Monday 2021 wind power made up 39% of the energy mix, with solar at 21%.

    National Grid data shows in February 39.7% of electricity generated came from wind, helped in part by several storms, while solar accounted for 2.2%

    In comparison, nuclear provided 14.4% of electricity, and fossil fuels almost 25%, which mostly came from gas.

    But in August last year wind produced 18% of electricity, solar 6%, and gas 36%.”

    In short, renewables are unpredictable and unreliable.

    Liked by 1 person

  216. “Tidal lagoon: Wildlife fears over Dee estuary plans”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60765985

    “Plans to build Wales’ first tidal lagoon in a conservation area could harm wildlife, environmentalists fear.

    Mostyn SeaPower Ltd hopes turbines on the Dee Estuary in Flintshire will provide electricity for 82,000 homes.

    But environmental campaigners fear the development could damage birds due to the disruption of their habitat.

    The company said ecological surveys had been carried out and there would be “no significant impacts” on wildlife.”

    Good to see “environmental campaigners” finally showing an interest in the environment.

    Like

  217. How dare he!

    “Labour MP Graham Stringer to join Nigel Farage at anti-net zero rally
    Pro-leave MP is due to speak at event to launch Farage’s campaign for a referendum on net zero”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/16/labour-mp-graham-stringer-join-nigel-farage-anti-net-zero-rally

    “…The MP for Blackley and Broughton has said he is not a climate change denier, but told the Independent in 2017: “I am sceptical about everything – that is what scientists are. But there has been an enormous amount of shoddy work masquerading as science with regards to climate change.”

    In recent weeks, Stringer has called for an end to the moratorium on fracking, called on Michael Gove to approve the Cumbria coalmine, and written in an op-ed for the Daily Mail: “Our current energy policy has weakened the UK … The two great threats to world peace, Russia and China – who have no qualms about increasing their use of fossil fuels – have been getting stronger.”

    Stringer’s decision to share a platform with Farage is likely to come under new scrutiny amid a crackdown by Labour leader Keir Starmer on MPs taking part in events with the potential to embarrass the party….

    …Gaya Sriskanthan, co-chair of grassroots organisation Momentum, said: “Graham Stringer’s embrace of climate denial is a stain on the Labour party. By backing fracking and joining the concerted rightwing attacks on climate action, alongside odious figures like Farage, Stringer is out of step not just with Labour policy, but with the country as a whole.

    “Keir Starmer should publicly demand Stringer withdraw from this rally, end his support for fracking and commit to stop denying climate science. Or is it one rule for leftwing MPs in Labour and another for rightwingers like Stringer?””

    A free-thinking and decent man, representing a rare voice of sanity in today’s Labour party doesn’t deserve this treatment. Sadly, just one more reason why I will really struggle to bring myself to vote Labour ever again.

    Like

  218. “Climate change: Why weather changes worry Wales’ ‘wettest town’
    By Steffan Messenger
    BBC Wales Environment Correspondent”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60764061

    A load of rubbish and propaganda about yet more “climate assemblies”.

    “In the largest project of its kind so far in Wales, five climate assemblies are being set up across Gwynedd in north-west Wales to involve local communities in the push towards a greener future.”

    And:

    “One of the first to sign up during a door-knocking recruitment drive was Amy Karamian, holding her young daughter Anri.

    She runs a vegetable box delivery scheme and said climate change was a pressing concern for someone working with farmers.

    “It’s just constant seasonal updates from growers who are being affected by storms, drought, rain – a kind of constant cascade affecting the crops,” Amy said on her doorstep.

    She feels it is important for the community to look at providing more growing space and teach people the skills to cultivate their own fruit and vegetables in case access to food becomes “more and more limited” long term.”

    And much, much more in similar vein.

    Like

  219. “Could super-sized heat pumps make gas boilers extinct?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60772187

    “The huge heat pumps in London and Gateshead will soon be switched on, and the warmth generated will start to flow into local homes and businesses.

    But it’s clear that these schemes are just the start. Many more will be needed if the UK is going to meet its climate change targets.”

    I wonder what it’s going to cost to replace a system that already works?

    Like

  220. “‘Not the future we should be going for’: the reopening of Wales’s Aberpergwm coalmine
    Jacob Rees-Mogg’s call to once more dig for coal at the colliery has been granted and many fear it will hamper tourism as well as damage the environment”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/18/not-the-future-we-should-be-going-for-the-reopening-of-waless-aberpergwm-coalmine

    Hampering tourism and damaging the environment? Isn’t that we say about building new farms, but nobody listens. And there’s a big difference – this coal mine is already there, so there is no additional blight on the landscape by keeping it open.

    But in among it all there are some realists:

    “…But there is some strong support for the extension of the mine from those living around it. Local councillors – all of whom are on the mine’s liaison committee with the community – are swayed more by what they say is the need to save jobs. The colliery employs 160 people, including 16 apprentices, and the company promises it is diversifying the uses of the anthracite.

    Del Morgan, Plaid Cymru councillor for the town council, said he had to protect jobs in his community. “What I am being told by the company is there are opportunities for the mine to evolve fairly rapidly from the old way to use the anthracite in clean industries. They are doing so already. There are 160 jobs there, and if you take the licence away and close the mine they will go. This is needed.”…”.

    Like

  222. My comment got through initial moderation
    “Building heatpumps is a great way of INCREASING the UK’s fossil fuel & CO2 output for next couple of years
    PutinsLittleHelpers again.
    Cos like a lot of greentech the CO2 footprint is largely built into the construction phase
    Then it takes a few years to win back that CO2 invested in construction
    Whereas keeping an existing gas boiler going for a few years produces less CO2.”

    Like

  224. Renewables are NOT a fuel as such
    rather they act as an unpredictable top up to fuel consumption
    eg the way when you are driving and you get to a downhill stretch
    that saves you fuel for a fuel miles, but might then come to a phase of increased fuel use as you come to the flat land and then uphill.

    edited cos I forgot the word NOT

    Like

  225. There is no “COULD” if you build a big dam on something that used to be saltmarsh
    of course it’s taking away bird habitat.

    Like

  226. Comments were opened on that BBC heat pump article at 10:15am
    My comment was not banned but the greenPR mob moved in to heavily downvote it.

    Like

  228. Some say that the NYT elites are out of touch

    How the War in Ukraine Could Slow the Sales of Electric Cars
    The price of nickel, an essential ingredient in most batteries, has soared because of fear that Russian supplies could be cut off.

    How to Make Your Second Home Smarter, Safer and More Sustainable
    From security systems to thermostats to window treatments, modern technology can take the anxiety out of maintaining a home from afar.

    Liked by 2 people

  229. Do some people need seriously to reassess how they see the world and their priorities?

    “Could Ukraine war help end west’s reliance on hydrocarbons?
    Russian invasion diverts attention but may ironically help push world towards cleaner future, say experts”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/18/could-ukraine-war-help-end-wests-reliance-on-hydrocarbons

    “…“By definition, [the war] demands intensive focus and so diminishes the amount that relevant leaders focus on climate,” said Stern. “When you’re trying to get big things done, that diminishing of focus can matter.””

    Like

  230. BBC2 now
    Shahidha Bari teams up with artists, poets, comics & musicians to investigate how arts can explore & process the threat to our planet from #ClimateChange

    #GreenBlob #PRtrickery

    Like

  231. Their PR tweets
    zero likes https://twitter.com/UAL/status/1504866470844530689
    52 Likes https://twitter.com/ShahidhaBari/status/1504177125376634884
    zero Likes https://twitter.com/bwthornton/status/1504781855274512396
    12 Likes https://twitter.com/bbcarts/status/1504729318588440576
    4 Likes https://twitter.com/LCFLondon/status/1504019753224085505

    3 Likes

    Like

  232. 8am news : Clip of St Gordon Brown said their should be Putin Nuremberg trials

    – Prince William and Kate are taking team on their Caribbean tour that includes winner of their Climate prize.

    But But their visit to a Cacao farm in Belize tomorrow has been cancelled, cos the villagers are protesting against his CONSERVATION charity.

    The Mayan indigenous village called Indian Creek is in dispute with Flora and Fauna International (FFI), a conservation group which lists Prince William as a patron. FFI has property near the village’s communal land, which has caused tensions over ownership rights, according to local residents who spoke with Reuters.

    thе МLА ѕаіd. “Тhеѕе еffоrtѕ аrе аіmеd аt ѕеvеrіng Q’еqсhі lіvеlіhооd rеlаtіоnѕ wіth thеіr trаdіtіоnаl lаndѕ – а раrt оf а glоbаl рrоblеm tо rіd іndіgеnоuѕ реорlеѕ frоm thеіr аnсеѕtrаl lаndѕ, оftеn рrоmоtеd undеr thе guіѕе оf соnѕеrvаtіоn аnd рrіѕtіnе fоrеѕtѕ!”

    Тhе МLА rеgаrdѕ thе dесіѕіоn аѕ јuѕt оnе раrt іn а lаrgеr саmраіgn tо іntіmіdаtе аnd hаrаѕѕ Іndіаn Сrееk vіllаgеrѕ, whо hаvе аlrеаdу hаd thеіr rіghtѕ tо thе lаnd іtѕ rеѕоurсеѕ аffіrmеd bу thе Саrіbbеаn Соurt оf Јuѕtісе’ѕ Соnѕеnt Оrdеr аnd јudgmеnt.
    https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2021/02/09/amid-concerns-ministry-of-health-says-belize-has-options-with-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine/

    ============
    There is a separate black protest
    “Меаnwhіlе, thе Unіtеd Вlасk Аѕѕосіаtіоn fоr Dеvеlорmеnt Еduсаtіоnаl Fоundаtіоn (UЕF) hаѕ ѕеnt а rеlеаѕе соndеmnіng thе “Вrіtіѕh Соlоnіzеrѕ Vіѕіt” аѕ “аn аtrосіtу tо оur [Аfrісаn] Аnсеѕtоrѕ, аnd [Аfrісаn] реорlе lіvіng іn Веlіzе”
    From the comments this seems to be a fringe group that is using the event as PR for their “reparations” campaign.
    https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2022/03/18/on-eve-of-royals-visit-objection-arises-from-maya-and-african-quarters/

    Like

  233. This indifference continues today
    A lot of BBC money went into that show
    but on the #insideCulture hashtag & @ShahidhaBari there have been very few tweets and very few likes
    Seriously there were none positive, just one tweet from a guy saying #DefundTheBBC

    As if level of interest was absolutely tiny.

    Liked by 1 person

  235. Toxic belief: Where does climate crisis denial come from?
    By Samuel Webb, Independent.

    I didn’t read the article
    but I carefully searched for tweets about that article, by title and by URL
    One tweet got 39 Likes
    the other 25 got 14 Likes between them.

    Climate Emergency people are a fringe cult.

    Like

  236. .backwards flows time where universe a be may there read Just

    And climate would therefore be improving.

    Like

  237. Depends on the point of view of the observer
    In forwards time world, if you live in a greening desert, it’s improving
    If you live in a place where the average weather is diminishing your crops it’s not improving.

    Like

  238. “Heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles alarm climate scientists
    Antarctic areas reach 40C above normal at same time as north pole regions hit 30C above usual levels”

    “Startling heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles are causing alarm among climate scientists, who have warned the “unprecedented” events could signal faster and abrupt climate breakdown.

    Temperatures in Antarctica reached record levels at the weekend, an astonishing 40C above normal in places.

    At the same time, weather stations near the north pole also showed signs of melting, with some temperatures 30C above normal, hitting levels normally attained far later in the year.

    At this time of year, the Antarctic should be rapidly cooling after its summer, and the Arctic only slowly emerging from its winter, as days lengthen. For both poles to show such heating at once is unprecedented….

    …Scientists warned that the events unfolding were “historic”, “unprecedented” and “dramatic”.

    Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State University, said the extreme weather being recorded was exceeding predictions to a worrying extent….

    …Mark Maslin, professor of earth system science at University College London, said: “I and colleagues were shocked by the number and severity of the extreme weather events in 2021 – which were unexpected at a warming of 1.2C. Now we have record temperatures in the Arctic which, for me, show we have entered a new extreme phase of climate change much earlier than we had expected.”…”

    Should we be worried?

    The big problem, if we should be worried, what can anyone – realistically – do about it? We’re back to that old conundrum that the west emits a modest fraction of ongoing human-made GHGs, and most of the rest of the world isn’t interested in doing more than paying lip-service to the idea of making reductions.

    Like

  239. “The Real Cost of Heat Pumps”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/20/__trashed-16/

    “We’re publishing a guest post by Guy de la Bédoyère, historian and long-standing contributor to the Daily Sceptic about the exorbitant cost of installing a heat pump. He reckons that if you factor in set-up costs and running costs, it would cost him around £40,000 over the next 10 years…

    …If we rush into this, it’s almost inevitable we’ll make things worse and then we, like most past generations, will be cursed by our descendants.

    I sent some of this to Roger Harrabin, the soon-to-retire BBC’s Energy and Environment Analyst, whom I used to know when I worked there. He told me he’d “filed it”. Hmmm. I bet he did.”

    Like

  240. The maths of media people is crap
    R4 woman was trying to take on gridserve but bummbled
    “Your chargers are expensive cost 39p KWh or 45p for fast charge,
    that gets you 160 miles, but at home that could cost less than £3”

    1KWh moves a car 4 miles
    so 160 miles needs 40Wh ..that’s£15.60 to £18

    I guess she meant to say “so £15.60 to £18 gets you 160 miles but at home that could cost less than £3”

    Like

  242. “Just Stop Oil: Why protesters are tying themselves to goalposts”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-60795041

    “If you’ve been watching the football recently, you may have noticed there have been some pretty weird stoppages.

    It’s had nothing to do with VAR – or the actions of players.

    Protesters have been running onto the pitch and attempting to tie, handcuff or glue themselves to the goalposts.

    It’s so far happened during four matches, with varying levels of success.

    In the game between Everton and Newcastle on 17 March, the match had to be stopped while security attempted to remove 21-year-old Louis McKechnie – who was eventually cut free using a pair of bolt cutters and was led from the ground, to boos from the crowd, by police.

    Merseyside Police have confirmed he was arrested and charged with pitch encroachment and aggravated trespass.

    The group that has claimed responsibility is called Just Stop Oil.

    They describe themselves as a “coalition of groups working together” to demand the government stop the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal in the UK.

    “We must urgently end our reliance on fossil fuels to avoid irreversible changes in the earth’s climate system,” their website says.

    The group says it wants action both in the short and long-term to reduce demand for fossil fuel energy – such as home insulation and renewable energy….

    …After the protest during the Everton game, presenter Gary Lineker said in a tweet whether “you approve of this young man’s methods or not, he’s right, his future is perilous”….”.

    Good old Gary. Good to see them leaving the pitch to boos from the crowd. As so often, they’re doing their cause more harm than good.

    Like

  243. “Climate change: ‘Madness’ to turn to fossil fuels because of Ukraine war
    By Matt McGrath
    Environment correspondent”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60815547

    “The UN Secretary General says the rush to use fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine is “madness” and threatens global climate targets.

    The invasion of Ukraine has seen rapid rises in the prices of coal, oil and gas as countries scramble to replace Russian sources.

    But Antonio Guterres warns that these short-term measures might “close the window” on the Paris climate goals.

    He also calls on countries, including China, to fully phase out coal by 2040.

    In his first major speech on climate and energy since COP26, Mr Guterres makes no bones about the fact that the limited progress achieved in Glasgow is insufficient to ward off dangerous climate change.”

    When are we going to give up, then? They’ve opened it up to a Have Your Say, and the top comment, by a country mile, is:

    “‘rush to fossil fuels’? Aren’t countries just replacing the fossil fuels from Russia with fossil fuels from elsewhere? No net increase.”

    Lots of hostile comments generally receiving support. This one resonated with me:

    “Mr Putin’s threatened use of nuclear weapons could cause very rapid climate change.”

    In other words, when are the UN going to get their priorities sorted out? Fiddling while Rome burns (to turn their “world is on fire” narrative on its head).

    Like

  244. “Climate change: IPCC scientists to examine carbon removal in key report
    By Matt McGrath
    Environment correspondent”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60798220

    “UN scientists are likely to weigh up technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, as they gather to finalise a key report.

    This idea will be one of many solutions considered over the next two weeks by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

    Also in attendance will be government officials from all over the world, who will need to approve every line in the summary report.

    It is due to be published on 4 April.

    This new study will be the third of three important reports from the IPCC issued over the past eight months. The previous two have looked at the causes and impacts of climate change, but this one will focus on mitigation – or what we can do to stop it.

    This essentially means that researchers will look at how we can reduce the amount of warming gases that are emitted from human activities.”

    Like

  245. “Johnson announces aim for UK to get 25% of electricity from nuclear power
    PM meets industry bosses to discuss new power stations, with several reactors slated for closure as energy demand rises”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/21/johnson-announces-aim-for-uk-to-get-25-of-energy-from-nuclear-power

    “Boris Johnson has told nuclear industry bosses that the government wants to the UK to get 25% of its electricity from nuclear power, in a move that would signal a significant shift in the country’s energy mix.

    Johnson on Monday met executives from major nuclear utilities and technology companies including the UK’s Rolls-Royce, France’s EDF, and the US’s Westinghouse and Bechtel to discuss ways of helping to speed up the development of new nuclear power stations.

    The UK generates about 16% of its power from nuclear power stations, but several reactors are slated for closure, while electricity demand is expected to rise steadily in the next decade. That would mean large investments in new power stations would be required just to keep the share of nuclear constant, let alone increase it to a record level of just over a quarter of electricity use.

    Also present at the meeting were a series of big pension companies and insurers, including Aviva, Legal & General and Rothesay Life, alongside major foreign investors including Australia’s Macquarie and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Ministers have wrestled for years with how to attract private capital to invest in nuclear – but companies have balked at putting pension and insurance cash at risk.

    The government is considering changes to insurance rules set by the EU and copied by the UK to make it easier for insurers and pensions to invest. The UK is switching to a “regulated asset base” model, which it hopes will give long-term investors more certainty on returns, a change it hopes will address limitations to the current rules, known as Solvency II.

    The government wanted to show the nuclear and investment industries that it had a “clear ambition for more nuclear” in part to balance out intermittent renewable power sources, according to a government source briefed on the discussion.”

    Like

  246. Larry Elliott’s comments in the Guardian may seem blindingly obvious to us, but by Guardian standards, he’s well out on a limb:

    “Finding fossil fuel alternative to Russian oil and gas makes short-term sense
    Larry Elliott”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2022/mar/21/finding-fossil-fuel-alternative-to-russian-oil-and-gas-makes-short-term-sense

    “…In the short term, though, governments keen to keep the lights on and transport systems running will seek to replace Russian fossil fuels with fossil fuels from other parts of the world.

    That makes sense, because energy shortages would cause a serious recession in the west – and in the past, economic downturns have led to a waning of interest in green issues. That hasn’t happened so far but there is a real risk that it will.

    Clearly, this is a messy compromise. More progress should have been made sooner on the green energy transition but it wasn’t. It would have been helpful had politicians yoked together recovery from the pandemic and net zero plans in a more meaningful way, but they didn’t. Given how things stand it may be a case of two steps forward, one step back.”

    Like

  247. Meanwhile, back at Guardian central:

    “The Guardian view on fuel duty cuts: expediency over the environment
    Editorial
    If he goes ahead, Rishi Sunak would be handing money to people in proportion to how much they drive and how fuel-inefficient their car was”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/21/the-guardian-view-on-fuel-duty-cuts-expediency-over-the-environment

    Good luck if you think there are votes in the Guardian’s preferred policy:

    “Increasing costs for motorists is politically difficult because it involves political risk. But not increasing costs for them risks ruining the planet.”

    If you think “ruining the planet” means “climate change”, then you can’t seriously lay that at the door of UK motorists, given what’s going on in China and elsewhere.

    Like

  251. R4 9am Jim Alkhalili has an evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod on
    How will he spin in his Climate Doom religion ?
    He brings up “how resilient chimps can be to anthropogenic change”

    It is central to his life ..as a student he met Jane Goodall and went to work for her in Uganda.
    So rather than spinning Jim has chosen a guest with a Climate connection.

    Theres a BBC-Future article
    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200924-the-super-adaptable-chimps-that-can-withstand-climate-change

    It has this obviously false line
    “Ironically, humans are now driving *more extreme climate changes than the planet has ever seen*.
    Many animals may not be able to adapt, but the species which do succeed will rely on being able to change their behaviour to accommodate seasonal shifts in weather and food availability.

    Like

  252. Clarkson article in The Sun, 5 week ago
    He said he was diving in Indian Ocean
    He asked about Climate damage
    and the bloke said “10-15 years ago it was bad
    But these things are cyclical”
    ..Funny how you don’t hear that on the BBC.

    Like

  255. Stew: The UK-born father of the protester who fixed himself to a goalpost with an easily snippable plastic cable-tie (why did it take so long to get rid of him?) and who later ranted at Julia Hartley Brewer about how she’s being paid to betray her children’s future, promote genocide and protect upper-class interests – at Companies House that bloke’s UK-born dad gives his nationality as ‘British Virgin Islander’.

    Just providing info. I am not for one moment suggesting that Just Stop Oil has anything to do with tax-dodging.

    Or indeed the upper classes.

    (Except perhaps in the bedroom. What’s the whole story about 22 Putney Bridge Road, one sometimes wonders?)

    Liked by 2 people

  256. Richard,

    I note also that Harry’s Razors has launched a campaign to help tackle the non-existent mental health crisis amongst men.

    Like

  257. ITV local news PRasNews for the Aquarium in Hull
    Their PR woman “..20 years ago we were not doing stories about Ocean Acidification, and Ocean Plastics”

    …. “stories” is the operative word there.

    Like

  259. 11am R4 FooC ticked the climate box.
    Ecuador’s Galapagos Marine Reserve : talk about Chinese boat being jailed for taking lots of sharks.
    Mark Stratton claimed the 4 year El Nino warm year cycles were getting even warmer, cos of Climate Change.
    I’m sceptical cos activists have often mislead about el Nino.

    Like

  260. 12:30pm R4 promoting Heat Pumps again
    “We look at what’s involved in switching to a heat pump.
    Rishi Sunak also reduced VAT on air source heat pumps to 0%, down from five per cent.

    It comes as the Government’s new plan to persuade us to give up our gas boilers launches next week.
    It’s a grant scheme that offers £5,000 off the upfront cost of an air source heat pump.

    #1 Magic unicorns will pay for that £5,000 grant
    #2 Heat Pump suppliers will not take advantage by putting up prices
    … sarc

    Like

  261. YouTube is pushing this at me as news
    That is strange cos the tweet thread only has 24 Likes
    @myldn This morning
    Life on the “most polluted high street in the UK”
    The high street in Harlesden, Brent, has been claimed to be one of the most polluted areas in the UK.
    Residents in the North West London town have said the poor air quality is impacting their daily lives.
    Data collected by Imperial College London in March 2021 claimed the town’s high street had the highest levels of the pollutant nitrogen dioxide in the whole country
    Why is one year old data counted as news

    #2 I bet life expectancy in that area is higher than UK average.

    Like

  263. On the front page of today’s Telegraph, regarding digitisation of old rainfall archives:

    New records include England’s driest May, originally thought to be May 2020 but now believed to be May 1844, when the country saw just 8.3mm of rain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/24/weather-history-books-rewritten-victorian-archives-push-back/

    I wonder if the dry weather in May 2020 was ascribed to the climate catastrophe, or whatever we’re calling it now?

    Like

  266. Look North 6:35pm
    “Now as energy bills rise there is a suggestion that WIND POWER will be part of the answer in getting them down”
    Loaded language there

    . Basically the government is floating an idea to BRIBE village people
    “Lower electricity for not objecting to ONSHORES windfarms”

    Lincs councillor Colin Davie to speak against that
    but BBC put on Saint Doug Parr from GREENPEACE against him
    .. who then bullied by shouting “Wind is cheaper” all over him
    5 minute item in total

    Then a lot of “give us your views”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015s08/look-north-east-yorkshire-and-lincolnshire-evening-news-25032022

    Like

  267. Greenpeace footage was used in anther item
    screengrabs … https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1507529363201343494

    “Bird conservationists welcome new restrictions on commercial sandeel catches in the North Sea. “
    First they said it was fishing vesels then the RSPB’s Kirsten Carter spun it the other way
    “We know that sandeels are critical food source
    We know that sandeels are in PARTICULAR sensitive to ocean warming, thru CC, and that’s driving decline
    and we know that overfishing further contributes to that decline”

    Note : Offshore windfarms were not mentioned
    but fishing was

    I’d expect that like coral sand eels exist at places which have temperatures a few degrees warmer than the UK
    Reporter “despite the decline Bempton’s puffin numbers appear to be steady for this year at least”
    .. “we counted just over 3,000 puffins this year

    Conservationists say firm measures are needed to protect large areas of the sea from industrialisation

    Like

  268. Last minute of the show “and now your comments”
    There were a good few points properly sceptical of windpower
    and maybe a couple pro wind
    .. That was a surprise from BiasedBBC

    Like

  269. RSPB tweet
    Puffins and other seabirds face serious threats from climate change 👇
    The lesser sandeel is a key part of the food web, supporting seabirds and other species.
    Warming seas impact the types of plankton living in UK waters,
    and this affects how many sandeels there are.

    I find there is a species called
    Mediterranean sand eel (Gymnammodytes cicerelus)

    Like

  271. Dougie, re the old rainfall archives, I saw that piece by Justin Rowlatt… climate change editor or whatever he is now… and waited in vain to find that May 1844 was drier than May 2020.

    I have had a brief look but have not found too much excitable coverage of May 2020. Maybe I didn’t look far enough.

    Like

  272. “Young people on first climate strikes since COP26”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60875454

    “Young people in Scotland are taking part in climate strikes from schools, colleges and universities for the first time since COP26.

    They are calling for faster action on climate change as they believe little has been done since the global summit.

    The demonstrations are part of more than 700 similar protests taking place around the world.

    Hundreds gathered outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh before marching to the city chambers.

    Buses and trams were stopped to allow protesters to pass as they made their way along Princes Street.”

    Like

  273. “Extinction Rebellion vicar protester has conviction quashed”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-60868573

    I’m all in favour of people being allowed to protest, but it must be peaceful, and I believe it should be no-disruptive, otherwise IMO the balance struck is wrong. This is therefore rather worrying:

    “Lawyers for the retired family therapist, from Westbury-on-Trym, argued she had a lawful excuse to protest following a Supreme Court ruling that said blocking a road leading to an arms fair was legal.

    Allowing the appeal and quashing Ms Parfitt’s fine, Recorder Robin Sellers said the protest was “reasonable” and it was important for the court “to show a certain degree of tolerance towards peaceful gatherings”.

    “In this case, limited to its own facts, we find that Rev Parfitt was exercising her Article 10 right of freedom of expression and this must be balanced against the level of disruption that is established on the evidence,” he added.”

    And the fact that many people actually believe this stuff is also worrying:

    “Giving evidence, she accepted the protest caused disruption to the public.

    “I apologise to them of course. They are my fellow citizens, and I don’t want to disrupt their day,” she said.

    “However, somehow, we need to try and get across to everybody, all of us, the gravity of the situation we are facing.

    “If you remember back to the beginning of Covid-19 there were scenes in supermarkets of people fighting over toilet rolls.

    “That is going to be nothing when you are fighting over food, water and fuel and all the basic qualities of life.””

    Like

  274. How shocking!

    “UK supermarkets accused of ‘bombarding’ shoppers with cheap meat
    Exclusive: Charity says big four chains offer scores of deals every week, despite pledging to promote meat-free eating”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/26/uk-supermarkets-accused-of-bombarding-shoppers-with-cheap-meat

    “Britain’s biggest supermarkets stand accused of “bombarding” shoppers with offers of cheap meat, despite pledging to promote more meat-free diets to improve health and tackle global heating.

    They are using money-saving promotions, such as two for the price of one, as a way of “pushing” meat, at odds with moves in the UK and globally for consumers to eat less of it, research found.

    Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons are each offering scores of deals every week on meat products such as burgers and sausages to drive sales and boost their profits, according to a report from the charity Eating Better. It is an umbrella group representing more than 60 organisations including WWF UK, Greenpeace, public health bodies, dietitians, the RSPCA and food charities.”

    Really! Who on earth do these supermarkets think they are, enabling poor people to eat cheap food? Scandalous, and in the middle of a cost of living crisis, too. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

    Liked by 1 person

  275. At last, ClientEarth does something useful:

    “ClientEarth launches legal action against EU over unsustainable fishing quotas
    Exclusive: Over-exploitation of fish stocks was supposed to end in 2020 under common fisheries policy”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/25/clientearth-legal-action-eu-unsustainable-fishing-quotas

    “Legal action is to be brought against all 27 EU countries over the setting of unsustainable fishing quotas for 2022, two years after a deadline to end overfishing.

    Under the EU’s common fisheries policy, over-exploitation of fish stocks was supposed to end in 2020 but more than 40% of all commercial stocks in EU waters were unsustainably fished last year according to official monitoring data.

    The green law group ClientEarth filed a request on Friday asking the Council of the European Union to review the catch limits set by EU fisheries ministers for the north-east Atlantic in December 2021.

    If it is refused, the green watchdog has said it will file a case at the court of justice of the EU later this year….”.

    Like

  276. My new analogy

    Employing wind, is like employing DRUNK Bob
    He only turns up when he feels like it,
    and often lets you down

    Even if he works for a little less
    the job costs you more

    You HAVE TO pay RELIABLE GUY to stand around on standby
    ready to take over at any moment.

    So last night when Greenpeace Doug kept shouting “Wind Is Cheaper”
    He was failing to account for all the extra costs of employing Drunk Bob.

    Liked by 1 person

  281. dfhunter (and others), if you’re on Facebook, you might be able to access it via this:

    Like

  283. Countryfile was yet again was about “Green farming”
    Their buzzword was “regenerative farming”
    Pre show PR tweet
    (FarmED is a new centre for farming & food education)
    Look out for our Head of Sustainable Farming @JontyFarmED on this week’s @BBCCountryfile
    . He visited @AdamHenson
    at his farm to advise on regenerative agriculture and soil health.
    Tune into BBC One tomorrow at 17:30 to catch it!
    #soilhealth #regenerativeagriculture

    Like

  284. Interesting Stew that the linear cloud in the Wash corresponds almost exactly with the route ships take through the estuary. More critically, if the clouds mark shipping routes, why don’t winds disperse or move them about?

    Liked by 1 person

  285. We can clearly see the vast amount of ship bourne traffic that goes through the mega port of Skegness…

    Like

  286. Seems “ships tracks” are a genuine thing
    I guess they don’t reflect the ships actual position but rather direction of travel

    ie a ship coming out of Immingham is half way to Norway . the track clouds form a straight line crossing OVER Spurn point, a place which the ship cannot have been co it’ land
    Likewise another ship coming out of Immingham is half way to Denmark
    it’s track clouds are travel behind it towards Skegness.

    The track of large ships is sometimes visualised by a trail of shallow stratus clouds.
    These clouds, known as ‘ship tracks‘, form in the wake of ships
    They typically are between 0.5-5 km wide, i.e. wide enough to be seen in visible satellite imagery. Sometimes a ship track appears as a band of enhanced cloud thickness embedded in stratus. Ship tracks are due to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the ship’s exhaust (4). They are most likely in a near-saturated environment that is otherwise depleted of CCN. Such environment is very common in the marine boundary layer over the subtropical highs. Over these large, quasi-stationary highs, the boundary-layer air is divergent, making it unlikely to draw in CCN-rich continental air.

    The nature and climatic effect of ship tracks was investigated in a field campaign labeled MAST (Monterey Area ShipTrack), which was conducted during June 1994 off the central California coast. Ship tracks increase the albedo, yet have very little effect on the long-wave radiation balance, because they are so shallow.
    Therefore ship-tracks tend to cool the global climate, although the magnitude of this effect is likely to be small.
    http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap08/contrail.html

    Conspiracy theorists claim ships fumes are deliberate geo-engineering
    And their posts get banned
    https://climateviewer.com/2018/04/01/accidental-geoengineering-with-ship-tracks-contrails/

    Like

  288. Mark & Stew – thanks for links to “Bright Green Lies”
    don’t have account with Facebook, so can only comment on the headline.

    a single wind turbine requires :
    – 45 tons of plastic
    – 900 tons of steel
    – 2500 tons of concrete

    wow – is that for real !!!
    the pic shows onshore wind farm, wonder what a offshore wind turbine requires ?

    ps – found this – http://www.tridentenergy.co.uk/press-releases/trident-energy-releases-white-paper-on-auxiliary-power-for-offshore-wind-farms/?msclkid=01b04f46ae2911ec8759c671c204562e

    “One of the basic needs of a wind turbine is the provision of auxiliary power, especially before it is connected to the onshore electricity grid. Power is required for cranes mounted on foundations. Once the wind turbine is installed, further power is needed to provide lighting, heating, clean air systems and to turn over sensitive equipment. Typically, this power is provided by small diesel generators; the London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, had a diesel generator located on each of its 175 turbines. If the connection to the onshore electricity grid is delayed then the diesels may need to provide continuous power for many months.”

    Like

  290. “Energy strategy delayed amid Treasury concerns over costs”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60903879

    Of course, if they simply allowed fossil fuel companies to crack on, there need be no worries over costs – quite the contrary, the Exchequer could see a nice little earner in play.

    The article also mentions (rather low down) this:

    “…Meanwhile, the UK is facing a legal challenge from the EU for what it claimed to be “discriminatory” practices in the offshore wind sector.

    In what is thought to be the first post-Brexit case between the two sides at the World Trade Organisation, the bloc said the criteria used by the UK government in awarding subsidies for offshore wind energy projects “favour UK over imported content”.

    A statement added: “The EU has raised its concerns with the UK on several occasions, but to no avail.

    “The EU is, therefore, bringing the matter to the WTO and hopes that it can be resolved swiftly.”

    But a Whitehall source criticised the move, saying the supply chain policy in operation was similar to many schemes in the EU.

    They added: “At a time when the West should be united in defeating Putin, this act of envy by Brussels is ill-judged and ill-timed.

    “We should be working together to strengthen European clean energy security, not fighting this out in court.”

    The source added that Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng had asked officials to “rigorously contest the EU’s challenge”.”

    Although I disagree with the UK government’s energy policy (if “policy” isn’t too strong a word for such a shambles) I am again reminded why I voted for Brexit. This is the same EU which is continuing its financial punishment of Poland and Hungary at the very time when they are inundated with Ukrainian refugees, and might reasonably expect some assistance from the EU.

    Like

  292. Dougie, I found two of your comments in spam so have resurrected the one with the link. I don’t know why you ended up down there along with the encyclopaedias of filth – which seem to be historical documents of a sort, if their authors base them on what people are actually typing into search boxes on the interwebs!

    Like

  293. I can’t see much, if any, scientific justification for this – it seems to me more about putting out a press release and ensuring the MSM push a little more climate change propaganda:

    “Climate change: Heatwave temperature threshold raised in England by Met Office”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60908169

    “Forecasters have raised the temperature at which a heatwave is declared in several areas of England.

    The Met Office defines a heatwave as when an area experiences daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding a certain level for three days in a row.

    Eight counties have had these limits raised by the forecaster by 1C.

    Announcing the change, experts said climate data showed “undeniable warming” in the UK accompanying increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

    The new limits are:

    28C (82F) in Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire
    27C (81F) in Lincolnshire
    and 26C (79F) in the East Riding of Yorkshire
    What defines a heatwave is linked to historical climate data. The UK has been experiencing rising average temperatures in recent years as a result of global warming.

    Previous thresholds used data from 1981 to 2010, but the new limits are based on the period between 1991 and 2020, the Met Office said.”

    Like

  295. “UK rules out windfall tax on North Sea oil firms to help fund energy bills
    Kwasi Kwarteng pledges to turbo-charge investment in solar and wind power amid new energy security plan”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/29/uk-offshore-wind-power-renewable-energy-kwasi-kwarteng

    “The business secretary has effectively ruled out a windfall tax on North Sea oil firms to fund discounted energy bills but promised much greater investment in solar panels, wind and nuclear to reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas.

    Speaking amid reports of a cabinet split over landmark energy security plans due to be published within days, Kwasi Kwarteng offered up a tax on oil companies, backed by Labour, as the one policy that definitely will not find favour with ministers.

    “We believe a windfall tax would be a tax on jobs, would destroy investment and would add to the uncertainty in oil markets,” he said. “It would be completely the wrong message to send investors.”…”.

    Like

  296. Worrying:

    “Half of Tory backbench MPs have joined party’s green group
    Conservative Environment Network has 133 MPs in its ranks, while Net Zero Scrutiny Group has 19 publicly named members”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/29/tory-mps-conservative-environment-network-green-net-zero

    Beneath the headline, though:

    “…the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative politicians, which has 19 publicly named members. Craig Mackinlay MP, who leads the group, told Politico that 58 MPs had signed up…”.

    Like

  298. Paul Homewood has a piece up today about how little wind energy has been produced during the recent pleasant settled spell of weather, so I thought I’d take a look at what the National Grid is doing just now (perhaps a little unfair, since the sun has set, and solar will be contributing nothing).

    Coal: 5.6%
    Gas: 59.4%
    Nuclear: 14.9%
    Biomass: 5.8%
    Solar: 0%
    Wind: 7.2%
    Hydro: 1.2%
    Interconnectors: 5.2% (presumably because renewables are under-performing on the continent too at the moment).

    And the answer to our current energy crisis, apparently, is to build more renewables. Oh dear, oh dear.

    Like

  299. Dipped into local radio on the way home
    The presenter first did his own fakenews ..false facts about P&O

    Then he brought on The BBC Local Democracy reporter
    thi guy .. https://twitter.com/DaveLaister/status/1508780267531603968

    FFS He just parroted every green PRasNews as he detailed his articles
    eg1 Orsted agrees £3b sale of Hornsea Two offshore wind farm stake – https://business-live.co.uk/economic-development/orsted-agrees-sale-half-hornsea-23517605
    “Oh isn’t this fantastic he says”

    AFAIK the wind biz trick is open up a wind project and then quickly sell it on to some other mug
    before the government realises what the true cost are

    eg2 Green jet fuel takes off for British Airways as first supplies received from Humber refinery: https://business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/green-jet-fuel-takes-british-23519291

    FFS it’s not mega mega it’s about 10% recycled fuel by 2030

    Like

  300. Alex Epstein is responding to a Washington Post smear piece coming out tomorrow and is getting a lot of Twitter support:

    Like

  301. “Wind and solar now supply 10% of world’s electricity”, morphs, when you click on it, into:

    “Climate change: Wind and solar reach milestone as demand surges”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60917445

    There are two problems with the headline. First, it ignores the fact that in most countries electricity represents maybe 1/5 or 1/6 of a country’s needs, and therefore, after 30 years of hype and billions, perhaps even trillions of subsidies and spending and massive parts of the world trashed by solar panels and wind farms, these two energy sources still probably provide less than 2% of the world’s energy needs.

    Secondly, demand for energy continues to grow. Hence, read on and you find this:

    “…The research shows the growth in the need for electricity last year was the equivalent of adding a new India to the world’s grid….

    …A large majority of the increased demand for electricity in 2021 was met by fossil fuels with coal fired electricity rising by 9%, the fastest rate since 1985.

    Much of the rise in coal use was in Asian countries including China and India – but the increase in coal was not matched by gas use which increased globally by only 1%, indicating that rising prices for gas have made coal a more viable source of electricity….”

    The whole story is based on a report by Ember:

    https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/global-electricity-review-2022/

    “Ember is an independent, not-for-profit think tank. We gratefully acknowledge the philanthropic organisations that have funded us, including the European Climate Foundation, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and ClimateWorks—and thanks to everyone who has donated at the Crowd.”

    Like

  302. “Climate change: How historic London sites must adapt”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60913710

    “The climate is getting warmer. And as that happens, some historic sites in London must adapt.

    Due to their age, historic buildings and gardens can suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change, such as flooding, storms and extreme heat.

    In its report Climate Change and the Historic Environment, English Heritage puts it more bluntly: “The wide-ranging actions required to limit further damaging emissions, combined with the need to adapt historic assets to make them more resilient to a changing climate, will also have significant implications for the historic environment.”

    It continues: “Without action to adapt to a changing climate and limit further changes, it is likely that these will be irreparably damaged and the cultural, social and economic benefits they provide will also be lost.”…”.

    If anyone wants to read the report, they can find it here:

    Click to access 73%20Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Historic%20Environment%202008.pdf

    It seems to be a regurgitation of the more extreme bits of the latest IPCC report.

    Like

  304. I’ve just been reading some of the comments posted against the above BBC article on disinformation and Facebook. The best one so far:

    “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet just because it claims to be written by a famous person” – President Abraham Lincoln, 1964

    Liked by 1 person

  305. John, there is definitely an article in that – so much to go at. Please do!

    Like

  307. Bill
    Are you bad-mouthing the Russians yet again?

    I suppose if I had written this in Russia it would have gotten me a gaol sentence.

    Like

  308. BBCFour In 1780 the village of Robin Hood’s Bay suffered misfortune when part of King Street, then the main road into Robin Hood’s Bay, fell into the sea along with 22 cottages due to a storm”
    I thought only Global Warming cause such coastal erosion /sarc

    Like

  310. John – funny you should mention BBC – new prog

    “John Simpson launches new BBC Two current affairs programme Unspun World”

    will we get an “Unspun” view – nope
    “the programme is presented by BBC News World Affairs Editor, John Simpson. The veteran broadcaster will have conversations with BBC correspondents from across the globe, providing expert analysis of the international stories shaping our world.”

    Like

  311. “Man on Westminster hunger strike fighting for MPs to get climate briefing
    Angus Rose, 52, has gone 18 days without food demanding meeting with minister Greg Hands”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/31/man-on-westminster-hunger-strike-fighting-for-mps-to-get-climate-briefing

    “A man has said he is willing to starve himself to death if the energy minister, Greg Hands, does not offer all MPs the same climate crisis briefing that Boris Johnson has described as his “road to Damascus moment”.

    For 18 days, Angus Rose, 52, has gone without food. Each morning he goes to Westminster to sit at the gates of parliament on a wooden folding chair, by a blown-up copy of a letter to Hands, in the hope the minister will meet him to talk. So far he has lost 9.5kg (1st 5lb) in weight but Hands has not shown up.

    “I have said to him that I will continue not eating until he arranges a briefing where Sir Patrick Vallance will brief parliament and the cabinet and make the recording available to be televised,” said Rose.

    “So all of the pressure is on his shoulders. So he can’t escape it. He can’t just kind of continue. He can’t escape that pressure. He can’t deflect it. It’s ever-present.”

    Rose has eaten nothing containing calories since 14 March. He allows himself zero-calorie drinks, such as water, coffee and green tea, and is taking vitamin supplements to stave off the worst effects of malnutrition, which can lead to cognitive impairments and heart arrhythmias. He speaks passionately but occasionally falters or becomes confused because lack of food has affected his ability to concentrate.”

    This is really very sad. And it’s the consequence of relentless propaganda in much of the MSM persuading people that things are so much worse than they really are.

    “Rose said he had taken the most inspiration from Guillermo Fernandez, a Swiss father who claimed a victory after 39 days of hunger strike when scientists announced they would meet Swiss MPs to discuss climate science.

    “His demand was pretty much a demand that I have. So that’s where I got it from. And so it’s really disproportionate: the reasonableness of the demand is totally out of proportion to the level of sacrifice.”

    Fernandez had said he was doing it for his children; Rose says he is doing it for his five nephews and niece. The impacts of climate change would become “the worst case of intergenerational injustice inflicted by one human generation upon another”, he said.

    “This isn’t a joke. My nephews, my niece, their lives depend on the government to act, to protect, the most important duty to the citizens is to protect them from harm, and even more importantly for children and further generations,” Rose said.”

    Fortunately, he’s wrong about the threat to his nephews and niece.

    Like

  312. Sky News Climate show’s poor ratings
    The SkyNews director of content attempting to ban Andrew Neil from talking about them.

    Neil has replied
    It’s not a slag. It’s a fact.
    And this show is not journalism. It’s the broadcast arm of Greenpeace.

    Liked by 1 person

  313. She got 168 Likes for that
    Neil got 1,153 Likes

    Richard Betts wades in ..Why is he a PR man ?

    Someone replies to her
    “If you’re “Director of Content at Sky News”, I’m not sure you know what journalism is.”

    Like

  314. The BBC is running this story again:

    “Peak District mountain hares: Study claims 3,500 left in England”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-60931126

    “Only 3,500 mountain hares are left in England, research suggests.

    The research, published today, said the country’s last surviving population of the hares – in the Peak District uplands – was at risk of extinction.

    The independent study, conducted by Manchester Metropolitan University and Queen’s University Belfast, is the first such assessment for 20 years.

    Dr Carlos Bedson, lead author of the study, said the findings were “deeply concerning”….”.

    Further:

    “He put the decline down to food resource, changing weather conditions and sometimes diseases and parasites.

    “We sometimes hear reports of shooting events or hare coursing and so we may want to think about that as a society,” he said.”

    Yet, of course:

    “The trust said it believed climate change was an increasing risk to the creatures’ survival, making summers too warm and reducing food sources, such as heather.”

    “Dr Bedson said: “Mountain hares love the cold and climate change is a major threat to them.””

    So how come “Mountain hares – a sister species to the Arctic hare – died out in England during the last ice age.”?

    OK, I’m being flippant, but sometimes flippancy is the only answer when despite lots of reasons being put forward for a decline in numbers, it’s always climate change that’s top trumps.

    Like

  315. Thanks, Mutti!

    “Germany to pay for gas in euros despite Russia’s rouble decree, says Scholz
    Government activates emergency plan to manage supplies and pleads with households and industry to be sparing with usage”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/31/germany-braces-for-an-end-to-reliance-on-russian-gas

    “…Robert Habeck, the economics minister, has pleaded with private households and industry to use gas sparingly, telling them: “We are now in a situation where every kilowatt hour of energy that can be saved, is helpful.”

    The first part of a three-point emergency plan that decides how and where supplies would be directed in case of a threat to the flow of gas and oil was activated on Wednesday. Hospitals and emergency services would be prioritised, followed by private households. Industries, which use a quarter of the gas delivered to Germany, would be the first expected to shut down….”.

    Like

  316. I’m pleasantly surprised that this one got through:

    “We need to revive the UK’s nuclear industry
    To tackle the climate crisis and support our energy needs, we need both nuclear and renewables, writes Dr Charles Clement”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/31/we-need-to-revive-the-uks-nuclear-industry

    “A reply is needed to the letters (23 March) objecting to political parties supporting nuclear power. How can the chairman of the British Energy Efficiency Federation dispute the statement that “electricity demand is expected to rise steadily in the next decade”? Has he not realised that, to meet the climate crisis, the necessary replacement of fossil fuels in road transport and home heating requires electric-powered engines and heat pumps, respectively?

    Safe underground storage of nuclear waste has been developed. This has never been an insoluble problem. By contrast, little money has been spent on other waste products such as heavy metals, industrial chemicals and plastics. In comparison with nuclear waste, the poisonous effects of heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium never decay with time.

    We need both nuclear power and power from renewables, the long-term storage of which is a real problem. It is sad that the UK government’s abandonment of support for nuclear industry development in the 1990s has led to the import of expensive foreign reactors. Our country needs a revived nuclear industry based on smaller, much cheaper reactors that are faster to build.

    Opposition to nuclear power has led to much higher emissions of CO2; for the past 40 years, the emissions from France, whose electricity has been mainly nuclear-powered, have been about 30% less per head than those from Germany. The current abandonment of nuclear power in Germany has not made sense because it has led to more burning of coal and a reliance on imported Russian fuels.”

    Like

  317. “Oil protest: Arrests made as Exxon Mobil suspends operations”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-60951403

    “Six people have been arrested after a campaign group targeted fuel terminals in a protest against oil.

    The arrests were made at three sites in Thurrock, Essex Police said.

    Oil company Exxon Mobil has temporarily suspended operations at three other terminals due to a series of co-ordinated “small protests”.

    Campaign group Just Stop Oil said it had blocked 10 “critical” sites including in Birmingham, Hemel Hempstead and Hythe in Kent.

    Operations from these locations had been halted, Exxon Mobil said.”

    Like

  318. “Gloucestershire: Ecotricity boss Dale Vince steps down”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-60941251

    “The founder of green energy firm Ecotricity has announced plans to step down as its CEO to pursue politics.

    Dale Vince said he would “pass the baton” to a new owner with the financial means to develop the company.

    He said he intended to keep Forest Green Rovers and would continue plans for the EcoPark development.

    Mr Vince said it was the right time to step away from “his life’s work” to instead focus on driving policies that would get England to net zero.”

    Oh great.

    Like

  319. BBCsoutheast tweeted about XR at Heathrow , but the tweet disappeared before my eyes
    and the story now points to the general story
    (checking I see there is an action at a depot NEAR Heathrow, rather than at it)

    Seems the XR PR is coordinated with The Independent and the BBC

    Like

  321. Rd Davey on BBC local radio
    treated softly ..they failed to take up my suggestion of asking him about his high paid conflict of intereest consultancies that he forgot to declare
    – “WE were the first to say Windfall Tax”
    “cut VAT by 2.5%.. that’s a £600 tax cut per household”
    “more warm home discounts”
    “The defected councillor .. we don’t need an election, cos the next one is only in May”
    “Hull Labour council waste money”
    “we might review cycle lanes”
    ” GPs shortage … thanks to the Tories”
    “The Tories, The Tories …”
    “MPs wage rise ..oh look over there Hull Labour councillors get big money”
    “when he asked if his party would refuse the rise, he sidestepped”

    I don’t understand why the item was preceded by 40 seconds of clips from Starmer
    Sounded like a Labour advert.

    Like

  322. The same BBC local prog had started with Laura Piddock from The People’s Assembly a coalition against AUSTERITY
    … she happens to be an ex-Labour MP

    Like

  324. Dale Vince gave £10k to some friends in Stroud to help them set up Just Stop Oil.

    URL:twitter.com/DaleVince/status/1506627875138584577

    (‘Please don’t confuse being chilled for smugness.’ Ha! Isn’t describing yourself as chilled a bit smug?)

    One of those Stroudy chums was probably Sarah Lunnon, who is the sole director of a company that receives crowdfunding for Just Stop Oil. If Vince ever wins an election I hope he takes his duties more seriously than Lunnon did. In 2020 she was sacked as a member of Stroud Town Council because she hadn’t attended any meetings for six months. Too busy campaigning for the establishment of citizens’ assemblies, apparently.

    If that awful idea ever becomes reality and Lunnon wins the raffle, one wonders whether she would actually turn up. She might be too busy campaigning for everyone to get a free pony.

    Liked by 1 person

  326. Oh dear, oh dear. The man has to go (there have plenty of other good reasons to say that before now, but this is the final straw):

    “Boris Johnson horrified at onshore wind farm delays, sources say”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60952056

    “Boris Johnson has a “working assumption” that onshore wind will feature in the government’s energy strategy, despite opposition within the cabinet, sources have told the BBC.

    The PM is said to be “horrified” at how long it takes for land wind farms to get approval in England.

    Some ministers want the government to look at whether planning laws can be changed to speed up the process.

    The energy strategy, delayed amid cost concerns, is expected next week.

    But no final decisions have been made.

    A senior government source said Mr Johnson wanted to make “two big bets” on nuclear and offshore wind, but that wind farms on land, which sometimes face local opposition, were also featuring in his thinking.”

    Like

  327. Meanwhile, almost as if on cue, to demonstrate the stupidity of relying on wind power as part of a coherent energy strategy:

    “Low winds blamed for fall in Scotland’s renewable energy production”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60948639

    “Milder, less windy weather has been blamed for a fall in renewable energy production in Scotland last year.

    Ministers had hoped that the country would be generating the equivalent of 100% of its “gross electricity consumption” from renewables by 2020.

    It reached 98.6% that year, but in 2021 the figure fell back to 83.7%

    The Scottish government said that milder weather was a factor but added that many new projects were in the pipeline.

    Last year about 27.2 TWh of renewable electricity came from wind, solar and hydro sources, 15% lower than the record figure achieved in 2020.

    Wind turbines are the biggest source of that green energy, and last year was notably less windy on average than in previous years. There was also less rainfall, affecting hydro generation.”

    Like

  328. I’m no fan of the Tories, and certainly not of Priti Patel, but for OTT headlines from the Guardian, this comes close to taking the biscuit:

    “Priti Patel accepts £100,000 donation from firm run by oil trader”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/01/priti-patel-accepts-100000-donation-from-firm-run-by-oil-trader-pierre-andurand

    “Priti Patel has accepted a £100,000 donation from a company run by one of the world’s most prominent oil traders.

    A new entry in the home secretary’s members’ interests register shows that she received the funds from Andurand Ventures Ltd. This company is run by Pierre Andurand, a leading oil trader.

    The hedge fund manager made headlines during 2020 when he successfully predicted that oil prices would hit negative numbers, making significant profits by doing so. He then predicted that oil prices would rocket at the beginning of this year, again profiting.”

    Clearly this is shocking if you’re a Guardian journalist. Yet read on:

    “While he trades in oil, he also has a clean energy fund, and the company he runs supports net zero.”

    Funny the headline doesn’t mention that, nor does 99% of the Guardian article, which concentrates on oil, oil, oil!

    “…Tessa Khan, director of the campaign group Uplift, said: “That the Conservative party is accepting donations from people profiting from the energy crisis is sadly unsurprising.

    “It has consistently aligned itself with oil and gas interests. It is refusing to put a windfall tax on profits and is contemplating allowing new oil and gas developments, which will do nothing to lower our energy bills, but will allow fossil fuel interests to carry on profiting from the North Sea.

    “The risk is that decisions are being skewed by a flow of money to Conservative politicians from oil and gas interests.”…”.

    Like

  330. Last night someone crashed a car into our local BT junction box. I am advised that we are likely to be without landline or internet connection for a week or more.

    As I find typing on a smartphone to be difficult, I am likely to be making few comments and writing no articles until normal service is resumed.

    Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is an open question. 😉

    Like

  332. Mark Hodgson: The BT junction box was probably hit by an Openreach van rushing to get away from a massively cocked-up attempt to fix a simple wiring error that other teenaged Openreach ‘engineers’ had made several weeks earlier. That would tally with my experiences with Openreach.

    So good luck!

    (Q: Why do Openreach vans always have their hazard lights on, even when they’re poodling along quiet roads? A: They are trying to attract a chaperone… OK, I’ll get me coat.)

    Like

  334. Countryfile from Pembrokeshire Coastal National Park
    2 Green items
    #1 PR for activist NGOs claiming paraquat is super toxic
    #2 PR for “The Cherish project : Climate Change impact on heritage sites ”
    Actually expert Patrick actually mentioned things that happened 500 years ago
    so pre manmade CO2.

    #1 – Claire Marshall meets the farmers with Parkinson’s Disease who fear their condition could be linked to years of using a toxic herbicide “paraquat ”
    (that is BBC’s opinion, it is still manufactured in the UK, the gov basically say it’s OK if you use
    PR for NGO’s like CountryManUK involved in legal cases against the manufacturer
    We got stuff like ‘ the first research found a link, but later research didn’t’
    #TrialByTelevision
    “Jon Heylings is giving evidence in legal action” He put forward conspiracy theory, (that doesn’t mean he is not right)
    .. https://twitter.com/BBCMarshall/status/1509772117096734732

    Like

  335. R4 :Clive Anderson show was on, in Saturday and repeated just now
    co-host ‘Climate change is so important and here is Deborah Meaden to talk about her fantastic new BBC Sounds, Green Business podcast’

    .. I didn’t hear the hosts ask Deborah if pushing Climate alarmism doesn’t ACCIDENTALLY push up the value of Meaden’s green investments.

    ie such conflict of interest wasn’t mentioned

    https://www.twitter.com/NatWestBusiness/status/1502615391046090757live Anderson show was on Saturday and repeated just now
    co-host ‘Climate change is so important and here is Deborah Meaden to talk about her fantastic new BBC Sounds, Green Business podcast’

    .. I didn’t hear the hosts ask Deborah if pushing Climate alarmism doesn’t ACCIDENTALLY push up the value of Meaden’s green investment.

    ie such conflict of interest wasn’t mentioned

    Like

  336. Oh 1 week after promoting the show the Nat West CEO was the main guest

    Dragon’s Den favourite Deborah Meaden has teamed up with Wake Up To Money’s Felicity Hannah to find out how our money matters in the fight against climate change.

    As always, they answer listeners’ questions and this week’s is a biggie: Can capitalism be trusted with the job of tackling climate change?

    The big guest this week is Alison Rose, boss of the NatWest Group. Deborah and Fliss talk to her about whether finance is doing enough to force big polluters to change.

    Also: making better use of pre-loved kids clothes and can a dragon wear the same jacket twice?

    Like

  337. I have reason to believe that a new swarm of open reach vans has arrived in my vicinity, clustering around open sores in the road, after removing metallic scabs. As to why the vans display hazard lights, it’s because the are.

    Like

  339. On Twitter Professor Lewandowsky @STWorg is retweeting excitable Euro-MP Guy Verhofstadt calling for decisive measures against Putin’s criminal régime following Bucha massacre, while Stephen McIntyre @ClimateAudit is calling for independent enquiry.

    This is where I came in.

    Liked by 1 person

  340. 12pm BBC local news, as ever Green PR is rubber stamped
    “We’re encouraging members of the local community in the Humber to attend our public consultation to learn more about the H2H Saltend project.
    @ZC_Humber #hydrogen #NetZero”
    .. https://twitter.com/Equinor_UK/status/1508427972235378693

    Actually Phase1 is busy INCREASING UK CO2
    Previously gas goes to Keadby power stations in existing pipelines and is burnt
    The new project involves constructing new hydrogen pipes from Saltend then 2 miles under the Humber to Keadby
    The methane is processed at Saltend and converted to hydrogen by steam treatment and piped to Keadby

    Sometime in the future they hope to come up with an economical way of getting CCS to work so the CO2 released in Saltend can be captured.

    Sometime in the future they hope to come up with an economical way of getting Hydrogen using windfarm electricity.

    Liked by 1 person

  342. Tuesday 12pm R4 “it’s our phone in tomorrow and we want to know
    what have you done to try to be a greener consumer ?
    it’s Call #youandyours

    There is a report out later today about how WE can all mitigate climate change.
    You might already be doing a little bit
    solar panels maybe,
    .. turn down the heating thermostat.
    … using the car a bit less.

    Please let us know what you were doing to try to be greener
    email with your contact number YouAndYours@bbc.co.uk
    Call 03700 100 444 and share your experience”

    Like

  343. I have files and files of material I haven’t yet posted
    eg Ofcom have a report about “misinformation”
    It’s done by LSE
    as I scan the paper I spot this in their references

    Kozyreva, A., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2020). Citizens versus the internet: Confronting digital
    challenges with cognitive tools. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 21(3), 103-156.

    The Ofcom report is deflection, they should have picked up that MSM is inherently corrupt for a number of factors
    eg they want exciting closed stories to portray the world as they DESIRE it to be
    ..that contradicts with the reality of the world being Complex, and with many unknowns.
    instead they shout “look over there Social Media”

    Like

  345. Do you see what they have done ?
    they have taken GREEN and HIJACKED it
    to make it all about “reducing CO2 and often about shop yourself green
    BUYING more stuff to make yourself green”
    This is a particular North London trope
    To me being green is about helping nature
    Getting away from the scourge of “green consumerism”

    #1 Keep the environment clean by stopping litter
    What’s the point in building huge great climate industry symbols
    ..when the roads and rivers are full of litter ?

    #2 It can mean low impact lifestyl,e cos in buying stuff there is always an element of chopping down trees to make the stuff, clearing land for the mining, the buildings , the solar/wind industry etc.

    #3 If a country wants a lower impact it shouldn’t keep expanding its population by having open borders.

    #4 Industrialisation is not simply bad for the environment
    eg if you use 100 fields for gas wells and steel industry etc.
    that generates the wealth, that provides money to build sewers, to build clean water pipes, to fund animal research et.
    To provide the diesel that POWERS Greenpeace ships etc.

    #5 I don’t buy green cos so often it is counterproductive
    eg I avoid organics
    That food has no personal health benefits, yet the farming style takes up much more land.
    I think it is great that we can have fields of wheat that are fertilised and pesticised that are super productive
    and generally leave woods alone.

    #5b I do not support public transport like Cross Rail
    cos I think it is better not to travel than mine and concrete underground London.. all that public transport infrastructure has a nature impart as well as a CO2 impact
    that is generally built into the construction phase.

    A green person lives near their job/ school etc.
    I think those people who go and live on a holiday park in Spain are pretty green, cos they are living in the comfortable climate they want to be.

    #6 Being green involves recognised that tech will advance in the future, sot there shouldn’t now be a RUSH to concrete the UK with solar and wind farms etc.

    Liked by 2 people

  346. On Geoff’s comment of 11:31am on Steve Mc taking a different line from Dr Lew – and that’s never happened before – here are some tweets from Steve since:

    Trying to turn it into a world war. That might just be important. Matt Ridley takes a more ‘conventional’ line. I’m with Steve and Ben Pile. A lot of this scepticism goes back to what became obvious (to us) as false flag operations in Syria:

    No immediate climate connection in what I’ve pointed to so far, sorry. But there’s always Hunter Biden, famed energy expert on the board of Ukraine’s Burisma from 2014:

    This is classic Steve, by my reckoning. Making sure sceptics don’t overstate the case or concentrate on inessentials.

    I realise some sceptics here, like Ridley, may struggle with this interpretation.

    You’re welcome 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  347. libmob often shout “look over there those people over there have got into Conspiracy Theories cos of X”
    Totally unaware that what they are shouting is itself is a Conspiracy Theory itself.
    #Projection

    Just saw this

    Like

  348. “IPCC publishes more than 3,000-page report on how to mitigate climate change”
    IPCC AR6 WG3 report release livestream: How to mitigate #CLIMATE change
    Video of press conference

    The item is also advance PR for Earth Hour
    “There’s just one week to go until Earth Hour”
    tweet WWF

    Like

  351. Opinion polls are so often propaganda
    84% of people in global poll say it is important for their country to shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources
    – only 13% blamed climate policies for rising prices
    This tweeted by only 3 people inc Damian Carrington ( Environment Editor at the Guardian)
    https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/views-about-sustainable-energy

    The IspsosUK Twitter feed is full of BS
    .. https://twitter.com/IpsosUK

    Another of their surveys
    New survey shows public back action to encourage cycling and public transport but remain attached to their cars
    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/new-survey-shows-public-back-action-encourage-cycling-and-public-transport-remain-attached-their

    Like

  353. There is a video debate to go with that
    Neil from StopOil : Ask yourself if this guy is an anti-capitalist SWP guy trying to infiltrate the enviro movement for his own ends
    That’s only a might be, not a definite

    Lois in a naive young skeptic,
    It’s daft to shout Medieval WArm period at a guy who condones blocking todays tankers to get his own political way UNDEMOCRATICALLY
    … My tweet gets you to the video
    .. https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1511094534884802567

    Like

  355. Thanks for the heads-up Jit. (I wouldn’t have found it.) As one commenter said early on yesterday:

    Oh God. Opening this to the general public for their opinions couldn’t possibly go wrong, could it.

    Well actually there’s quite a lot of sense about eg the role of China, say, in between the true believers.

    Like

  356. Some important news from a post-apocalyptic spiv:

    URL:ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2022/03/adam-mckay-told-me-how-many-people-have.html

    Timothy Morton’s post in full:

    Adam McKay Told Me How Many People Have Seen Don’t Look Up

    Two hundred and thirty million so far. Nominated for Best Picture!

    I was staying at his house for a few days a couple of weeks ago.

    A couple of weeks ago? I stayed at McKay’s house all last weekend and he told me that nine hundred million people have seen it now.

    Get your boasting sorted out, Timmo.

    Like

  357. BBC indoctrinating Foreign English learners into Reef Alarmism
    by using a BBCnews Great Barrier Reef in Danger news story
    for an English teaching video they give away on YouTube on the official BBC Learning English account.
    “Every day we have a new video to help you learn the English language.”
    They din’t lay on the dogma too thickly.

    Like

  358. 12:30pm Thursday on Radio4 : the promises and claims of changing to an electric vehicle.
    Part of the Best thing since Sliced Bread series
    Spoiler lots of corps gave him free electric cars to test, and he is enthusiastic.
    Spoiler alert 2 He already made essentially the same prog for Which Magazine 10 months ago

    : “Are electric cars really greener?
    When he produced material for “Which Magazine Investigates sustainability” series

    It’s difficult to believe tomorrow’s show is not going to be largely the same
    A whole episode on June , plus a bonus segment on Electric Car Battery life.
    https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/09/which-investigates-podcast-sustainability

    =============
    BBC blurb
    Greg and the team look behind the promises and claims of changing to an electric vehicle.
    We ask – how many miles do you have to do in an electric car to offset the extra cost of buying one?
    What are those extra costs…how much is it to put an electric vehicle on the road….and is it better than running your old fossil-fuelled banger into the ground?
    We’ll try to establish the break-even point of sticking with what you’ve got or making the change.
    We test one of the most popular electric cars in the UK – and hear from experts such as Mike Berners-Lee on the pros and cons of trying to go green.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00162yr

    His promo Tweet last June for the Which prog
    .. https://twitter.com/gregfoot/status/1405844891712827399
    His promo Tweet for the new Radio episode
    .. https://twitter.com/gregfoot/status/1511673725485297664

    Like

  359. The government’s energy strategy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61010605

    We may characterize it as “nuclear and dead birds”.

    The Greens didn’t like it: Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said the new strategy “did not serve the needs of people or the climate”.
    The subsidy hunters like it: The plan was welcomed by offshore wind firm Orsted, trade association Hydrogen UK, Shell and EDF, among others.
    Labour didn’t like it: But Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow climate change and net-zero secretary, said: “The government’s energy relaunch is in disarray.

    “Boris Johnson has completely caved to his own backbenchers and now, ludicrously, his own energy strategy has failed on the sprint we needed on onshore wind and solar, the cheapest, cleanest forms of homegrown power.
    The Liberal Democrats and SNP didn’t like it: Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey also described the plans as “utterly hopeless”, while the SNP’s Stephen Flynn called it a “missed opportunity”.
    The ECIU didn’t like it: Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, told the BBC that he also felt “underwhelmed” following the announcement.

    What sceptics thought about it, I dunno.

    Liked by 1 person

  360. 9am news on @RadioHumberside
    “The route of a pipeline that will take *harmful* CO2 to from Drax power station to Easington has been revealed”

    Jeez “harmful” is a SPIN word there
    Water kills lots of people every year we don’t say “harmful water”

    Like

  361. 11:21am R4 “The wild boar population is soaring for many different reasons , including Climate Change”
    … There was no elaboration on this throwaway line
    the prog is about hunting in France.

    Like

  362. 11th April R4 Drama “Climate scientist Dr Ben Santer *proved* global warming was due to CO2 back in 1995.”

    FFS What an outrageous lie
    if it was all proved no one arguing about anything.

    UEA prof has a thread

    Like

  364. Note big PR bucks are being used
    ..Why do a special artwork to promote a radio drama in Radio Times

    Like

  365. BBC local news last night as ever the report is largely PRasNews from the NGO that supplied the material to cutNpaste
    item “Should we frack ?”
    No balance, the two voices were both anti-frackers
    #1 Richard, who was showing around his super insulated, heat pumped terrace house
    (as promoted in this tweet https://www.twitter.com/PureRenewables/status/1437302567868981250 )
    He was called out as a rich middle class green, in viewer comments.

    They forgot to mention he was the Green Party MP candidate

    #2 student Miss Hockey
    Who shouted that
    “Most of our oil and gas is EXPORTED
    *NONE* of it is earmarked for domestic use
    it won’t bring UK fuel prices down”
    Her Twitter bio : Political Ranter, Musically Opinionated, Environmental Activist, Festival Junky, Mad Old Cat/dog Lady. That’s me in a nutshell. (ouch)”

    Like

  366. Details item began at 2 mins 0 seconds
    Item “Should we frack”
    Presenter “enviros say we must leave nature’s resources where they are or risk KILLING THE PLANET”
    2m40s Over to enviro-reporter P-M at the home of Richard
    “Richard says he has found the answer to the energy crisis: .super-insulated home , heat pump”
    Label says “Richard H of Frack Free East Yorkshire .. it *fails to say he was the last Green Party MP candidate*
    3:00 RH “Fracking is a really EXTREME and dangerous technique .. for lot of reasons .. EARTHQUAKES … CLIMATE BREAKDOWN”
    .. (Note the hyperbolic rhetorical words he uses .. tiny tremors yet he uses the word “earthquakes” )

    3m30s P-M uses the word “tremors” instead
    4m00s P-M “..there have been no applications to frack in our area, but plenty of interests in conventional drilling ..”
    Map shows three sites
    “But there has also been COMMUNITY resistance with every application” ..(misleading word, most against are not local, but travelling rentAmob
    4:30 P-M piece to camera about tomorrow’s govt announcement
    4:40 prerecord from Charles McAllister of UK Onshore Oil and Gas
    CM “Sjhale gas is really important .. Energy Security .. Price : the more we can produce here, the less we have to reply on the LNG international spot markets ” (That is a good point .. that spot market buying really pushes up costs)

    5m0s back to RH’s house. P-M closing words “Not everyone has the benefit of a super insulated home
    that’s why the prospect of domestic oil/gas is so tempting”

    5m20s Vox pop : mixed replies
    6m40s “Anti-fracking campaigner Miss Hockey”
    PH “It’s abs ridiculous Most of our oil and gas is already EXPORTED
    *NONE* of it is earmarked for domestic use, so it is not gonna help bring our bills down or help our energy supply”
    BBC “but it is ? the gas is there, in the States they did and the bills came down, air quality up (when you replace coal with gas) we need that now ”
    PH “No most of it is exported into the international markets so doesn’t bring our bills down at all”
    she keeps repeating this
    “All the tremors they had in Blackpool, it WILL NOT bring our gas prices down !”
    That emphatic statement is deception
    She then said no matter how safe or how cheap, she wouldn’t accept it
    “thousands of IPCC scientists ..people who want the fracking ban lifted don’t know the facts”
    BBC “poll says 44% of voters want the fracking ban lifted ..text us your views”
    Item ended at 8m10s.. Later The replies he got were more dominated by PRO
    though obviously climate activists piled in a bit.

    Miss Hockey tweeted a DeSmog PR item claiming the 44% poll was funded by denialists, big pic of Nigel Lawson.
    Sure polls can be fishy , but there has never been a proper public debate.

    Like

  368. BBC local news “Cheaper bills for living near wind turbines”
    “We are in Sancton”
    PRasNews for that operations lots of voices in favour
    2 mins in we got Tory Sir John Hayes on zoom, opposing them
    “industrial structures spoiling agricultural land”
    Political reporter “Will rising energy bills now make consumers see onshore turbines in a different light ?”
    Presenter “give us your views”

    Now yesterdays fracking : 1 Strong viewer comment was read
    and 2 mild ones against

    Then weather forecast : Global warming is giving us a frost tonight !

    Like

  369. State of this tweet from @RHarrabin
    Which would you prefer next to your house
    – a frack site, a wind farm, or a mini-nuke station?
    Ask an estate agent. @RICSnews

    Yeh cos ONE frack site, ONE wind farm, ONE mini-nuke station
    ..are all *equivalent *in terms of annual energy output N O T

    Roger’s tweet is PRtrickery using the Fallacy of False Equivalence

    Like

  370. stewgreen (07 APR 22 AT 11:20 AM) This BBC drama sounds an unmissable thrill

    Climate scientist Dr Ben Santer proved global warming was due to CO2 back in 1995. The true story of how he was vilified to prevent the world reducing emissions.. Ben Santer is American, but was educated in a British Army school on the Rhine and his ground breaking work “fingerprinting” global warming began at University of East Anglia in the mid 80s, (with US funding)… A mountaineer and Anglophile, he became a pawn in a bigger game of climate change denial.

    Based on original documentation and testimony, and featuring Dr Santer as himself. Ben had to fight to try to salvage his reputation as the misinformation spread even among his peers. A quiet and measured scientist, an expert in the computer code of climate models… Ben says now, “You spend years defending the ‘discernible human influence’ conclusion. You encounter valid scientific criticism. You also encounter non-scientific criticism from powerful forces of unreason.”
    Ben Santer was the Convening Lead Author of Chapter 8 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1996. In its conclusion he wrote, “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” That one sentence changed his life. He became the hate figure of the energy industry and they came after him through their attack dogs of lobbyists, politicians and the media.

    When the report was published, powerful forces led by Cold War hawks Fred Singer and Fred Seitz, set out to discredit Santer. His attackers were backed by the oil and gas industry and had contacts right at the top of government. The impact of their campaign changed the debate not just in America but across the world.

    

    I wonder if they’ll include Ben’s fantasising about beating up Steve McIntyre in a dark alley?

    Liked by 2 people

  372. Channel 5, Kate Humble is at Camber Castle, Sussex
    “This was built in 1500 on the coast, but abandoned just 100 years later, cos the sea had retreated 1 mile.
    Now it’s two miles away”

    Like

  374. Geoff & Stew – you have to love how the BBC hype up the “Drama” –

    “When the report was published, powerful forces led by Cold War hawks Fred Singer and Fred Seitz, set out to discredit Santer. His attackers were backed by the oil and gas industry and had contacts right at the top of government. The impact of their campaign changed the debate not just in America but across the world.”

    “Cold War hawks” ? new one to me !!!

    Like

  375. I just had a dream where I was befriended by people who turned out to be junkies and they gave me a tour of their world.

    The BBC is full of Green junkies
    they are off their heads, like smackheads
    The world they’ve created in their heads
    is so different from the real world.

    Like

  376. Parallels
    The Russian people support the disastrous “Special Operation” in Ukraine, cos of media control.

    The western people support the disastrous “Special Green Operation” , cos of relentless media control.

    Liked by 1 person

  380. David Morley’s Santer play on Radio 4 will definitely be worth a listen. He’s a good writer.

    Also a politically biased writer? Probably. Most Beeb radio dramatists are.* But Morley is engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking.

    Here’s a Morley I liked:

    https://archive.org/details/afternoon-drama-a-cold-supper-behind-harrods-by-david-morley

    *

    Totally OT:

    I’ve been trying to identify a similar Beeb radio play about the (well-established) incompetence of SOE’s leadership. In that one, as in Morley’s, ex-SOE people meet after many years and try to work out who had blabbed to the Nazis. Differences: An entire network was betrayed, not just the usual sexy young female agent; a captured agent’s fingers were cut off while her husband watched; the husband turned out to be the blabber, not some bloke who spent a few months off the radar.

    Does that ring any bells?

    ===
    *But not all. One of the Beeb’s best radio dramatists is a totally unhinged leftie conspiracy theorist on Twitter but he keeps all of that out of his plays. Well done, him. Full marks.

    Like

  381. just watched “how the earth works” – think that was the title.

    good prog about snowball earth & how the planet is due for another ice age in next 1500 yrs (some experts say)

    but then the bad news – glaciers are melting when they should be expanding (experts say humans are to blame)

    nothing said about what “snowball earth” will to do to our planets biosphere when it happens again.
    apart for we are changing how the earth works !!!!

    Like

  382. Russel Brand has found a BMJ report saying that universities are very biased
    cos their funding depends on business
    they themselves have become money hunting businesses.

    Like

  383. 8m55s Brand talks about unis specifically
    Staff have become “Product Champions”

    Some good points but Brand is naive
    #1 He assigns authority falsely
    “This is the BMJ saying this”
    ..No this is an essay writer giving his own OPINION

    #2 The writer is a bit dreamy
    says that corps should give away their data for free

    Brand’s assertion that most TV advertising come from Big Pharma must be false.

    Like

  385. Santer play had few listeners
    Just 3 tweets
    One person said it was really good
    one person saying they listened
    Another sarcastically saying anything outside acceptance is “heresy”

    Like

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