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Climate Scepticism 
Open Mic is designed to allow anyone with something to say here at Cliscep, but which is not currently being discussed, to share what concerns or interests them, it should remove the necessity for interrupting existing threads, as was the only method previously available. Sometimes news arrives that people would like to share. Here might well be the place to do that.
Open Mic also gives anyone the opportunity to suggest topics that they might wish to draw a Cliscep Contributor’s attention towards. For example, the Guardian today informs us that it is the 200th anniversary of its predecessor The Manchester Guardian’s first edition. This reminded me that the anniversary of FakeGate is hurtling towards us (actually arriving next February) and I believe we should make plans to un-celebrate it.
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A long time ago I started work on an essay I’ll never finish. I set out on a journey but never found the destination. The idea was spurred when dredging through old periodicals in search of statements about the kind of vegetation to be found on a certain moorland in the late nineteenth century. Anyway I happened upon a mention of the Red Flag Acts, and, with climate change alarm in my mind, I started trawling through Hansard. I soon found a mention of what might have been the first road traffic accident involving a self-powered vehicle:
1861. Darby Griffith asks the Home Secretary, Sir George Lewis, whether he was aware of an incident on the Hampstead Road, where a road steam engine
Maybe there was an accident involving a road mechanical before that, because it was 30 years after Gurney’s newfangled steam contraption plied the Cheltenham to Gloucester route:
I found it noteworthy that farmers were alarmed by the potential crash in demand for oats. Definitely afraid of losing the cheese there but succumbing to what you might also call a slippery slope fallacy.
Anyway, a question occurred: what if I could jump in a time machine, go back to 1861, and make an appointment with Sir George Lewis? He’s about to red-flag road steam for 30 years by the well-known limitations placed on such vehicles, requiring mechanicals to be preceded by a rider-warning herald at a distance of sixty yards (if he were to be allowed to proceed alongside the machine he would undoubtedly be distracted by inane chitchat with the driver). Speeds to be limited to two miles an hour in town and four elsewhere. The driver to be accompanied by a stoker. Naturally others stole a march on us with these onerous regulations (Daimler).
Sir George: Reginald tells me you’ve come from the year 2021 to tell me whether or not to ban steam transport on the roads.
Jit: Yes.
Sir George: Well, should I?
Jit: No.
That’s as far as the imaginary conversation got. Of course the answer is no, you should not ban road mechanicals. But how to justify that? If Sir George had spoken for the world, Yea or Nay, at that moment, what was in the balance? A million a year killed on the road around the world against the freedom and prosperity brought by the motor vehicle. What would the world look like today if we had taken the other path? How do you weigh such matters? I didn’t know, and so my little essay remained as a few scraps of notes.
==
Below is another little snippet that I found in Hansard, this one from the Marquess of Normanby in 1841 and on the subject of malaria.
To which I can only say, poor mutt.
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Oh, another thing.
I’ve been considering compiling some killer graphs. A picture paints a thousand words, etc, and in these days of short attention spans, that could be useful. I wanted perhaps ten graphs illustrating “denialist talking points” which, set in a package, would be to the unwary alarmist like being struck by a wet fish. Necessarily they would have to be based on unimpeachable data.
Obviously there may be some overlap with figures in Denierland (e.g. Phanerozoic history of carbon dioxide levels), but there is plenty of scope for better. The only one I have bookmarked so far is probably not going to make the cut: adjustments to historical measures of sea ice. Another that I mean to track down is the absolute temperature predicted by the climate models rather than the anomaly. And so on.
Anyway this is a small request that if anyone has a particular favourite to nominate, I would be pleased to hear about it.
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JIT, how about the rate of sea-level rise? There’s just been a fairly interesting exchange on this topic over at BH Unthreaded. It would be problematic, though. There must be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of tide guages, yet according to one report, which claims accelerating sea-level rise:
“Earlier studies have demonstrated that tide gauge recordings of at least 75 years in length are required to reduce the effects of multidecadal variations on acceleration. There are 149 tide gauge records that meet the criteria.”
Who to believe? How to sort it all out?
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For those who think it’s a good idea to rely on unreliable renewable energy in the UK, whilst assuming that the interconnectors will save us from any power shortages, it might be time to think again:
“UK hits back at French threat to cut Jersey’s electricity supply
France’s intervention described as ‘unacceptable’ as island prepares for blockade of main port in fishing dispute”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/05/uk-hits-back-at-french-threat-to-cut-jerseys-electricity-supply
“The British government has hit back at French threats to cut Jersey’s energy supply over a fishing dispute as the island prepared for an imminent blockade of its main port, a development last seen in the 1990s when the Royal Navy was forced to intervene.
The crown dependency is preparing to activate emergency plans in response to threats from France including comments by its minister for maritime affairs, Annick Girardin, in which she had warned of retaliation over a lack of access to UK waters for the country’s fishing fleet.
A UK government spokesman described the intervention from Paris as “unacceptable and disproportionate”.”
As a matter of interest, the National Grid is relying on the French interconnector as I type, to the extent of 5.7% of its current requirements.
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Speaking of electricity generation and the Guardian’s reportage in that respect, here’s today’s cherry-picked statistic from the Guardian which conveniently overlooks the significant failure of wind power over much of this year to date:
“Blustery bank holiday helps windfarms set new clean energy record
Wind turbines generated 48.5% of electricity grid in England, Scotland and Wales on Monday”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/04/blustery-bank-holiday-helps-windfarms-set-new-clean-energy-record
“Great Britain’s windfarms set a new clean energy record on Monday after the blowy bank holiday weather helped onshore and offshore wind turbines make up almost half of the electricity system.
The blustery bank holiday produced a new wind power record as turbines generated just over 17.6GW of electricity for the first time in the middle of Monday afternoon, enough to run more than 3.5m kettles.
Windfarms generated 48.5% of the electricity grid in England, Scotland and Wales, which was more than the contribution made by gas plants, nuclear reactors and biomass burners combined. Gas plants powered 21.7% of the electricity grid yesterday afternoon, while nuclear reactors generated 12% and biomass power units contributed 6.1%.”
This conveniently ignores the ongoing reality, as set out at https://grid.iamkate.com/
Over the past month renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro, but – and I agree with this – excluding biomass, whose claim to be renewable is dubious to say the least) contributed 18.9% to the National Grid, while fossil fuels contributed 50.6%, nuclear contributed 15.9% (excluding interconnectors – when they are added in, renewables’ share drops still further).
Over the last 12 months, renewables only contributed 25.3% (less, if you take into account the interconnectors).
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By the way, billbedford, is that Mousa Broch pictured on your profile?
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Suggestion : if the admin made the setting “show latest post at top of page”
it might be more convenient for users.
BTW Reading here via WordPress gives advantages
– only loads the 10 most recent posts
– Like button
– threaded replies, cos each post has a Reply button
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/36930569/posts/3323227723#comments
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Warmist cult members are like scratch-card addicts
And the Guardian is like a promoter for the National lottery
“You could be a winner, 20 drought days in row” etc.
Like all gambling addicts the pattern is
-remember your wins
and forget your losses
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Also WordPress Reader’s notifications tell you when someone Likes or Replies to your comment.
On Thursday election day news progs can’t cover local elections
So at 5pm @BBCRadio4 @bbcpm is doing a #climatechange special edition
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Hmm, how many levels does the feeds page give you?
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We’ll look into reversing the order of comments, Stew.
Here’s a happy observation this evening.
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Probably covered here or on other blogs.
I would like to know – is “Lord Deben, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change” the driving force for the UK gov making it’s grandstanding (leading the world) commitments for net zero or are the IPCC still the driving force ?
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Is this true, I wonder (I don’t doubt that the poles are moving slowly):
“How melting glaciers have accelerated a shift in Earth’s axis
The redistribution of water has caused the planet to lean and wobble, resulting in the poles moving”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/06/how-melting-glaciers-have-accelerated-a-shift-in-earths-axis
“A recent study has blamed this lurch in the Earth’s axis and poles on the melting of the world’s glaciers and especially from the polar regions, with melting glaciers elsewhere adding to the problem. Widespread pumping of groundwater may have also been a contributing factor. It is thought that melting ice as a result of global warming, redistributing water around the globe and that change in the distribution of Earth’s mass looks like it was enough to account for most of the shift in the poles and axis.”
“May”, “it looks like”, “it is thought that” are important caveats, and are how science should work, unlike the certainty of the Guardian’s headline which, like most Guardian headlines these days, seems to blame pretty much everything on climate change without a scintilla of doubt.
The recent study in question, for those interested, can be found here:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL092114
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Mark Hodgson:
Yes, that is Mousa Broch. For a long time, I used to live within sight of Mousa and the Broch, and by a somewhat tortuous route, managed to adopt ‘Mousa’ as part of my trading name.
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Bill,
Thanks for the confirmation. I think I’ve found you and your business on the internet now. I partly envy you living there. It’s a marvellous place, but so cold. I think the boat trip to Mousa was one of the coldest experiences of my life. Buy my word, it was worth it.
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JIT
Did you see the Grace’s Guide pages for Goldsworthy Gurney?
… and his carriages?
I saw something the other day which shows the ‘red flag’ rule is still in force, though without the flag.
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Bill Bedford. Reminds me of my time in Saskatchewan in the 1970s. The prairie landscape is dominated by tall grain silos linked together by a deteriorating network of rail lines. So bad did the rail lines become that trains on it, sent to pick up the grain, could only travel at ever decreasing speeds each year to avoid becoming derailed. Some news reporter worked out the year (long past by now) when freight trains would derail standing still.
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“Cutting methane gas ‘crucial for climate fight'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56933443
I don’t think maths is the BBC’s strong point:
“The main sources of human-related methane are the fossil fuel industry, which accounts for 34% of total emissions. Agriculture contributes another 40% and the waste sector 20%.”
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Apologies that the times shown of these comments (before mine now) aren’t accurate. We couldn’t find a way to get WordPress.com to let us do that. But we think we’ve got all the substantive words from the previous Open Mic post – and ascribed to the right people. Let the freewheeling discussion continue!
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Hydrogen isn’t the answer, then?
“Using hydrogen fuel risks locking in reliance on fossil fuels, researchers warn
Electrification of cars and home boilers best choice to fight the climate crisis, say scientists”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/06/hydrogen-fuel-risks-reliance-on-fossil-fuels
“Using hydrogen-based fuels for cars and home heating risks locking in a dependency on fossil fuels and failing to tackle the climate crisis, according to a new analysis.
Fuels produced from hydrogen can be used as straight replacements for oil and gas and can be low-carbon, if renewable electricity is used to produce these “e-fuels”. However, the research found that using the electricity directly to power cars and warm houses was far more efficient.
The analysis estimated that hydrogen-based fuels would be very expensive and scarce in the coming decade. Therefore, equipment such as “hydrogen-ready” boilers could end up reliant on fossil gas and continue to produce the carbon emissions driving global heating.
However, a few sectors such as aviation, shipping, steel and some chemicals are extremely hard to electrify. The researchers said hydrogen-based fuels would be needed for these by 2050, when the world needs to have reached net zero emissions. But they said enormous investment in technology and fast-rising carbon taxes would be needed to achieve this.”
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But oh dear, now we find that rising costs of rare minerals are also a stumbling-block to the very electrification that is supposed to be the answer to problems with hydrogen:
“High mineral prices could slow down transition to clean energy, IEA warns
Demand for metals used in solar panels, wind turbines and batteries is outstripping supply”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/07/high-mineral-prices-could-slow-down-transition-to-clean-energy-iea-warns
“High mineral prices could delay the global transition to clean energy as the demand for metals in solar panels, wind turbines and batteries outstrips supply, the International Energy Agency has warned.
A lack of investment in new mines risks substantially increasing the cost of producing clean energy technologies and hampering the effort to meet the world’s climate goals, the IEA says in its new report The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions.
The agency has called on governments to assist in developing copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth projects, as reaching the goals of the Paris climate agreement would mean a quadrupling of mineral demand by 2040.
“The data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director.
“The challenges are not insurmountable, but governments must give clear signals about how they plan to turn their climate pledges into action.”…
…Looking at the global supply chain, the IEA says a high geographical concentration of production is a serious systemic risk, adding that Australian, Chinese and African producers have high exposure to climate risks and are at risk of water shortages.
“This high geographical concentration, the long lead times to bring new mineral production on stream, the declining resource quality in some areas, and various environmental and social impacts all raise concerns around reliable and sustainable supplies of minerals to support the energy transition,” the report says….”
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“What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-what-we-got-wrong-the-guardians-worst-errors-of-judgment-over-200-years
“When the facts change, the Guardian changes its mind. In 1982 the paper thought that a windmill to generate electricity on “every British hilltop would be an environmental disaster”. It would not say that today.”
They don’t explain what facts have changed to suggest that this is not an environmental disaster. They could argue (and I would disagree with them) that all these turbines (not windmills) are a necessary price to pay to “combat climate chaos”, but it would still be – and still is – an environmental disaster.
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And finally, it seems, that it’s all bullsh*t, and there’s nothing being done about climate change (it’s a mighty expensive “nothing” though):
“How to spot the difference between a real climate policy and greenwashing guff”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/06/difference-real-climate-policy-greenwashing-emissions
“All are talking tough on climate, but China is building one large coal-fired power station a week, Japan remains one of the biggest financiers of overseas coal plants and Norway is developing giant new oil and gas fields.
Canada’s premier Justin Trudeau says climate change is an “existential threat”, yet the country’s emissions have actually increased since the 2015 Paris deal, thanks to its tar sands exploitation. Oh, and many nations still subsidise fossil fuels, which is like buying more cigarettes when you’re trying to quit smoking.
The world’s forests are suffering because of the same doublespeak. Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Peru and Colombia all pledged in 2014 to end deforestation by 2030. Yet in official carbon-cutting pledges submitted to the UN since then, none have confirmed that commitment.
Companies are, if anything, even better bullshitters than governments, and the fossil fuel giants are masters. Many are still exploring for new reserves, when we already have more than can ever be safely burned.
Chevron touts capturing CO2 emissions and storing them underground as a solution – one that of course enables the continued burning of its products. But its plans for carbon capture and storage cover less than 1% of its 2019 carbon emissions. ExxonMobil wants public money to help with its carbon capture project to store 50m tonnes of CO2 by 2030. That’s just 8% of the 2020 emissions its products resulted in.”
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OK something had happened since yesterday
I got wordpress notification “someone liked your comment”
but the link gave an error “Private post : This post exists, but you don’t have permission to read it”
I can no longer see this Open Mic page thru wordpress
The link https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/36930569/posts/3323227723 doesn’t work now
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We switched pages Stew, because we wanted to have the two sets of comments – main posts and open mic – separate, on the right on every page. It was Alan who first made the suggestion but it was messy to make the transition. Hopefully you can find another feeds page for this new location.
We are unashamedly trying to meet the need of those hardy souls who have been using BH Unthreaded to keep the fires of climate dissent burning. But, as you know, WordPress is a different beast to Andrew’s old system. It may not work out how we planned but the motive we feel is a good one!
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I should add that as we copied comments across last night – a rather manual, error-prone process – all Likes were lost. And the date and time of each comment couldn’t be made exactly right, though we mostly preserved order of posts. (Sorry to Alan, the first of whose comments was the one exception. But you started this hassle mate!)
[Addendum: we eventually moved Alan’s comment to be the first, by making it a day before it really happened. In fact, Alan is now shown as commenting before the original page was created! Smart guy.]
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Ah the old link was https://cliscep.com/2021/05/05/open-mic
now it’s https://cliscep.com/open-mic
The WordPress address should be something like https://cliscep.wordpress.com/open-mic
but that doesn’t work
[Yep, it’s a Page, not a Post. They don’t have dates in the URL. And don’t support your favourite means of access, by the sound of it. Sorry about that. We’re continually working around the limitations of WordPress.com as best we can. But I have to say that the Carbon theme, which we’ve now adopted, provided a lot of positive surprises. — Sceptica]
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Mark Hodgson 8:05 PM : BBC accounted Human biz methane saying 94% is
“The main sources of human-related *methane* are the fossil fuel industry, which accounts for 34% of total emissions. Agriculture contributes another 40% and the waste sector 20%.”
Is that wrong ?
I suppose that ultimately I am responsible for that methane
when I drive* to Tesco, buy some beef, and throw the bones into landfill where they emit methane.
* ( actually I very rarely use a fueled vehicle, all my journeys are human powered)
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Mark, re: The Guardian, there is this analysis of the last two hundred years by James Heartfield:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/05/the-ugly-truth-about-the-guardian/
It makes for surprising reading in parts.
On the sea level rise figure: the long gentle trend at say Newlyn is certainly soothing for an alarmed brow. As is so often the case, the alleged impacts of climate change take the form of sudden swerves in the graph at some future date. To me the default position should be a continuation of what has gone on before, unless you have good reason to believe otherwise.
As for ending deforestation by 2030, cutting down more trees could also be compatible with meeting that goal!
Bill, I had not seen that, thanks. Gurney’s contraption looks incredible.
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Coop email : “there’s a total of £200 of vouchers up for grabs this month”
#3 Get behind our radical climate plan
Our radical £500m climate action plan has been driven by members.
Tell us what you think and shape how we work together to deliver these landmark commitments
Thanks for joining in to share your feedback on Co-op’s new bold climate plan, that members have helped to shape.
You could win £50 in Co-op shopping vouchers for joining in.
Q1 Rate our 10 point Climate plan
(It’s a fake question the options are “1 =Not at all ambitious and 5 = Highly ambitious” delusional is not an option )
Q3 would you be interested in taking action with us to support our climate campaigning ?
I took 5 mins to say their methods are not good.
#5 Co‑op sustainability and ethics quiz
To be in with the chance of winning shopping vouchers,
watch a short video and answer a few quiz questions to see how much you know about ethics, community and sustainability at Co‑op.
Inc Our Net-zero target of 2040, banning the use of peat etc.
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In survey #5 the final question was a multiple choice
“What is the new target year for our Net-Zero programme ?”
…. tough one
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I just checked the replies to the R4 PM special on Climate
..these days a lot of R4 progs generate almost no Twitter discussion
This time there replies from about 25 Climate fans
and the 5 sceptics pointing out She wouldn’t talk about the population issue
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Sheffield Council a swing against Labour
But the swing was
Greens 5 seats
Libs 2
Con 1
Out of the frying pan into the fire
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This story of malfeasance in science and potential malfeasance is a must read, to anyone who has read this far. It gives a properly disinterested review of made up data and potentially made up data in fish behaviour. It covers the Lönnstedt microplastics mini-saga (whistleblowers criticised for being uncollegiate when spotting fraud but eventually vindicated), but majors on the allegations against others who were in the same group and claimed astounding effects on behaviour by elevating CO2 levels.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/does-ocean-acidification-alter-fish-behavior-fraud-allegations-create-sea-doubt
(via user Enoch Root at Jo Nova’s blog.)
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Over on the Tree Ring thread JIT asserts …
[Can we do comments on the Tree Ring thread on the Tree Ring thread. Thanks. — Sceptica]
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next week’s ITVtonight “Britain litter problem”
see a real environmental problem
instead of the usual Guardianland claptrap about stopping coking coal mines. etc.
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When someone throws out accusations
..consider “are they projecting ?”
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thanks for the link JIT – Loved this bit – “When the pH of the water in fish tanks was lowered from 8.15, the current level in ocean water, to 7.8, the level expected by the end of the 21st century, larvae of the orange clownfish were less attracted by the chemical cues from a healthy reef—but more attracted to cues from grass and a pungent swamp tree whose smell normally repels them. That could cause clownfish to lose their ability to find suitable homes on the reef, the authors concluded.”
in a fish tank !!!!
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DFHunter. Clownfish are always getting lost in Scientific Disneyland
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I don’t have a great deal of time for climate-related Court cases, so I don’t have a lot of time for this either, but I suppose what is good for the goose is good for the gander:
“Wyoming stands up for coal with threat to sue states that refuse to buy it”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/07/wyoming-coal-threat-mining-republican-governor
“Wyoming is faced by a transition to renewable energy that’s gathering pace across America, but it has now come up with a novel and controversial plan to protect its mining industry – sue other states that refuse to take its coal.
A new state law has created a $1.2m fund to be used by Wyoming’s governor to take legal action against other states that opt to power themselves with clean energy such as solar and wind, in order to meet targets to tackle the climate crisis, rather than burn Wyoming’s coal.
Wyoming is America’s largest coal-producing state, digging up nearly 40% of the coal produced nationally each year. The state is heavily dependent upon revenues from mining to run basic services and as it produces 14 times more energy than it consumes, selling coal to other states is a vital source of income….”.
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There have been comments attributing the separation of lists of Open Mic posts from those residing the discussion threads of articles. This is undeserved. It is so easy to make suggestions for other people to carry out. In this case praise should rightfully go to Richard Drake who sweated blood wrestling with WordPress to get this separation possible – something believed to be totally new. It is he that fully deserved my, and your thanks. Not to mention our brand new look in all its glory. So thank you RIchard.
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New transcript (cross-posted at BH Unthreaded): “So is it time that we give up our pets in order to save our planet?”
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/2021/20210427_gm
Susanna Reid: We can give up a car, we can give up flights but we can’t give up something that we consider as close to us as a – as a child, a pet?
Donnachadh McCarthy: Well, well I’m sorry… [tl/dr: but you must…]
Anyone who assumes that the greens will halt their demands once people have given up cars and air travel might just be a little naive.
And why stop at pets? Next on the list could be housing, maybe. After all, it’s selfish of us to expect a whole house to ourselves, especially a draughty, energy-inefficent home with a garage. We should really all be made to live in solar-heated apartment blocks with communal kitchens, weak showers and a vegetable garden. Lights out at 11 pm. No pets allowed…
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Former cabinet minister claims that people who break the law should not be put on trial:
“Putting Extinction Rebellion activists on trial isn’t in the public interest, so let’s stop
Peter Hain
After the recent acquittal of climate activists by a crown court jury, it’s clear public sentiment is on their side”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/08/extinction-rebellion-activists-trail-public-interest-crown-court
“In the face of resistance by juries, surely there is a strong case to halt all the pending trials of Extinction Rebellion activists? With nearly a thousand trials still waiting to be heard in the courts, six members of the group were recently acquitted at Southwark crown court in XR’s second trial by a jury.
They had been charged with criminal damage against the oil giant Shell, yet the jury decided that all six were not guilty, despite the judge ruling that only one had any kind of defence in law.
For the police, prosecutors and judge, this was doubtless a “perverse” verdict. But the warning signs had been there. In XR’s first crown court trial in December 2019, in which the defendants also admitted their actions and pleaded not guilty, the jury stated they had only followed the judge’s direction to convict “with regret”.
It seems that the law is out of step with the public, and that there could be many more such “perverse” verdicts by rebellious juries.”
What a dreadful failure of logic. One jury in one trial perversely acquits activists who the Judge said had committed a criminal offence, and so the conclusion is “that the law is out of step with the public, and that there could be many more such “perverse” verdicts by rebellious juries.”” Desperate stuff.
Yet further in the article, he admits:
“In addition, a dozen more crown court cases are still pending. Maybe jury verdicts in these cases won’t go the same way as the Shell case. But perhaps they will. ”
He concludes:
“It’s time for Priti Patel, the director of public prosecutions and the police to halt these XR prosecutions on the grounds that the law readily provides – that they are “not in the public interest”. This would save a pile of money and leave the courts free to prioritise real criminals, not those seeking to save our planet.”
But they’re not saving the planet are they? Is it really the case that members of the public massively inconvenienced by law-breaking self-entitled misguided extremists are expected to sit back and allow them to be immune from prosecution? I suspect that in that case there will be more cases of the public taking the law into their own hands, and that’s never a good think. I suspect that, like most politicians, Lord Hain remains blissfully unaware of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
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This is a direct link to the WordPress version of this thread
That lets you reply beneath a post etc.
https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/94188120/posts/47360
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Thanks Stew, that’s a view I and others here didn’t know existed.
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Mark, were that jury within their rights to ignore the judge’s instruction?
==
I am reluctant to bring up WuFlu again, but this review at the Bulletin is actually very good, better even than the ocean acidification story in Science yesterday. It poses the question: what was the source of the outbreak? Then it marshalls all the evidence in favour of natural or human agency and considers each piece in detail. It’s very long, but leaves no stone unturned. It is well-researched, dispassionate, and compelling. Can’t recommend it highly enough, but you’ll have to set aside half an hour to get to the bottom of the page. That’s two amazing analytical essays in two days. (I also saw this one linked at Jo Nova’s blog.)
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/
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Alex, that’s an interesting discussion. By which I mean it is interesting that such a discussion is now possible. Is this the beginning of another stretching of the Overton window?
“…you know, cars are convenient, flights are convenient, uh cats and pets are conve- are, are nice to have…”
Well caught there. One thing cats are not is convenient, unless McCarthy means they don’t need taking for a walk twice a day. Mind you, they’ve been promoted. Some time back they had a carbon pawprint equivalent to a TV, now it’s a small car. The way things work it’ll be a private jet next.
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Please do read Alex’s transcript. It’s worth it, believe me.
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JIT, I’m not and never was a criminal lawyer, but I believe the jury was within its rights to act as it did. I don’t know if the CPS has the power to appeal the decision, but I strongly suspect not.
There is a long history of juries rejecting judicial directions to convict:
https://www.thejusticegap.com/not-only-a-right-but-a-duty-a-history-of-perverse-verdicts/
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We’re not just going to have to get rid of our cars, foreign holidays and pets, gas boilers etc, we’re also going to have to change the way we eat, apparently….
“If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects”
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/may/08/if-we-want-to-save-the-planet-the-future-of-food-is-insects
“Fried crickets on the school menu, milk made from fly larvae and mealworm bolognese for dinner? These are the environmentally friendly meals we can look forward to. Bon appetit!”
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First they came for the wild places, destroying them with wind turbines, and we did nothing; then they came for our foreign holidays, and we did nothing; then they came for our cars, and we did nothing; then they came for our central heating boilers, and we did nothing; then they came for our food, and we did nothing; then they came for our pets…”.
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“Australian taxpayers could save $7.8bn a year if diesel fuel rebates scheme was wound back
Energy experts believe weaning fossil-fuel industries off the rebate would push heavy industry towards using renewables”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/09/taxpayers-could-save-78bn-a-year-if-diesel-fuel-rebates-scheme-was-wound-back
“Diesel rebates exist to compensate for industries like mining, agriculture and fisheries that do not use public roads and consume high volumes of diesel in remote locations. The tax rebate is 42.7c a litre and costs the federal government $7.8bn a year.”
At least they’re not using the old lie that fossil fuels are subsidised because they don’t pay as much tax as they might. But what this amounts to is saying they should be taxed more heavily. If the country believed in the policy, it would adopt it naturally, without having to be hurt in the wallet in order to be persuaded. I wonder what all the renewable energy schemes are costing the Australian taxpayer?
And as so often with “green” financial jiggery-pokery-, it’s usually the “little people” who get hurt along the way:
“But while the mining industry has received 43% of the total fuel tax rebate since 2006, the sudden end of the subsidy could be very damaging for smaller users.
“What you don’t want to do is penalise remote communities that are using the rebate and still doing it tough, so you’d need to get the incentives right and be clear you were rolling it back over time,” Wood said.”
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“Parched Taiwan prays for rain as Sun Moon Lake is hit by drought”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/09/parched-taiwan-prays-for-rain-as-sun-moon-lake-is-hit-by-drought
“Taps are now shut off two days a week, and worse is to come unless action is taken on climate crisis
Taiwan’s Sun Moon Lake is so low that parts of it have dried and turned to grass. Jetties that normally float are sprawled awkwardly on dry land, and tour boats are crowded at the tail ends of pontoons still in the water.
Usually one of the island’s most famous tourist destinations, the lake has recently become a star of a different kind. Following the worst drought in 56 years, it is now famous for all the wrong reasons. ”
If there was a worse drought 56 years ago, how is this evidence of climate change?
“Taiwan has had drought before but observers are hoping the severity of this one – which has lasted 18 months, and threatens Taiwan’s economic lifeblood of semiconductor production – is enough to prompt real action on climate change.”
Indeed, this is political.
“Taiwan relies heavily on seasonal typhoons to top up reservoirs, but in 2020 not one made landfall. And it could happen again.”
Hmmm, but doesn’t the Guardian assure that climate change is making typhoons worse, not rare?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/23/the-typhoon-that-hit-my-island-didnt-make-the-news-this-is-what-the-climate-crisis-looks-like
“My adopted home country of Palau, in the northern Pacific, was hit by a typhoon last week. Thankfully no one died here, though it did lead to deaths in the Philippines.
The impact on Palau of Typhoon Surigae didn’t make headlines overseas and this might be the first you will have heard of it. Compared to other natural disasters and other cyclones or typhoons in the Pacific, it was a relatively “good” one. But it left me shaken, exhausted and our community rattled.
It wasn’t the first typhoon I’d experienced in Palau or even in my life. Having grown up in the Philippines, which experiences more than its fair share of tropical storms, I was quite used to them….
…We know that more natural disasters are coming our way. Climate change means these events will become more common, they will be worse, bigger, and claim more lives and do more damage. Palau, as a small nation, will be vulnerable to its impact, compounded by the existing economic weakness due to the Covid- 19 pandemic. But even these “good” typhoons – those that don’t claim lives or completely flatten cities – are exhausting and devastating for those who live through them.
Palau is known around the world for standing up to China, and refusing to back away from our diplomatic ties with Taiwan. We can say “not here” to China, but it can’t say the same to a force of nature or super typhoon.
What this typhoon shows is how fragile this small island is. Palau can ignore a bully, but it can’t ignore climate change, because whether we like it or not, it’s here.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/28/how-our-warmer-oceans-are-contributing-to-climate-breakdown
“…when warm waters sit at the ocean surface, they affect weather, particularly typhoons and hurricanes. In fact, warm ocean surface water provides the fuel for these large storms….”
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bio : Operation Noah is a Christian charity working with the Church to inspire action on climate change.
#fossilfreechurches http://brightnow.org.uk
operationnoah.org
May 7 BREAKING: The Church of Scotland has divest*ed* from fossil fuel companies!
https://brightnow.org.uk/news/church-of-scotland-divests-oil-and-gas-companies
Actually article says they have *pledged to divest*. not actually finished.
That org looks like an Alinskyist front
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Oh of course the benefit of other forums is that they have an edit button
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Is this the first use of a new hype term: climate breakdown? Probably it has been around for donkey’s years but is now becoming cool as the old phrases become increasingly hackneyed and ineffective at stimulating fear: climate emergency, global heating, I dunno what.
So climate change -> more typhoons -> more people getting washed away in storm surges
climate change -> fewer typhoons -> drought affecting an entire country* and the world’s semiconductor addiction
Alas for our Palau correspondent, there is not the slightest chance that curbing CO2 emissions will see an end to typhoons, or even a decline in the frequency of typhoons.There is the potential that on the average they might get slightly weaker if we get back to 350 ppm or 280 ppm or whatever the target is these days. But it ought to obvious to anyone after a moment’s thought that the effect of typhoons is most severe on poor countries and in particular poor communities in poor countries. (In Denierland I mentioned in passing the BBC coverage of Cyclone Pam: a lingering shot of a devastated shanty town, slowly panning across until it reached well built structures that were essentially intact.) Let those countries develop, let them become wealthy, and they will live in solid houses, they will stop throwing **** into their rivers, and they’ll stop cutting down forests. Try to prevent them emitting any more CO2 and nothing will improve for them.
*it’s about time that more countries recognised Taiwan as an independent country.
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On the subject of eating bugs, the UN and WEF (and the Guardian, BBC etc.) have been promoting this for some years now, the arguments being that they are rich in protein, produce less greenhouse emissions than cattle, etc., use less water, and so on.
This article from the WEF in 2019 mentions the possibility of changing people’s tastes, with “a little nudging”:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-disgusted-eating-insects-gnarly-fruit-vegetables/
If they want it to happen, I’ve always thought that they’d start by anonymising the bugs, so to speak, by reducing them to a sort of paste that could be used as an ingredient without causing revulsion, similar to quorn, which is basically made from a kind of fungus or mould. Here’s an enthusiastic article on the subject (I didn’t know that “entovegan” was a thing until a few moments ago) :
https://entovegan.com/crickets-gateway-bug-edible-insects/
Although in Japan it seems there are now some vending machines that dispense (rather pricey) novelty snacks that consist openly of canned armor-tail scorpions, zebra tarantulas, crickets, rhino beetles and chocolate-covered grasshoppers. Not seen any there myself yet – the vending machines I’ve noticed in Japan seem to provide mostly the usual varieties of coffee, soda and cigarettes.
My question is – are the people who attend climate and WEF conferences leading by example and eating bugs themselves? I’m not sure they are, in any great numbers… This is more the style: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35373347
“The main course – which looks delicious – is guinea fowl supreme, with white rice, eggplant and peanuts. It’s a posher version of chicken and rice, if you like…. For the vegetarians it’s braised asparagus with herb cream and red pepper sauce with potato rosti with tomato, zucchini and onion. Dessert will be small chocolates and sweets to go with the coffee. There is, of course, an inescapable irony in hosting a gourmet dinner to discuss world hunger. But, a WFP representative tells me, events such as these are vital if the organisation is to achieve its goal of eradicating hunger in 15 years. They will use the time to explain and persuade companies how to help them reach this lofty goal.”
Maybe a photo of Klaus Schwab tucking into a plate of mealworms, scorpions and beetles would help to reassure people that the elite are walking (munching) the talk. Er, or maybe not.
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6pm Countryfile : “Cranborne Chase, South England inland
– Tom Heap investigates plans to launch a new space race in countryside
– but at what cost to the environment?
clip of teenager “The say they want to protect peatland. but here they are building a spaceport on it ”
– the UK’s only ‘supercluster’ of farmers working together to encourage wildlife on their land.
– River Ebble to disccover what makes this chalk stream
how it’s helping to give rural teenagers a sense of purpose.
– Mazes
– Steve Brown goes stargazing in the UK’s first designated dark sky reserve.”
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Suntherland : “Here’s 13 year old Findlay who is a Climate Strike activist”
….”ooh it’s £40m of baaad”
Adjacent landowner’s manager “we are concerned about the rocket noise affecting birds,
Yes my boss invested in a spaceport in Shetland”
Spacement “we think we could potentially improve the environment here”
Cornwall …footage of protesters at Newquay Airport site of the Cornwall Spaceport, where rockets will be launched off planes.
Heap “today we know the hard realities of Climate Change”
… (that’s a PR theatre line)
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Sorry Stew – don’t know why those two comments went to Spam.
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I think Findlay would do well, if he’s worried about peat, to campaign against this:
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/366-the-shetland-islands-renewables-and-corporate-interests
Given its problems:
“Viking Energy sceptics raise concern over peat slides
Wind farm developer says slippage happened in an area already earmarked for excavation”
https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2021/04/19/viking-energy-sceptics-raise-concern-over-peat-slides/
“ORGANISATIONS opposing the construction of the large Viking Energy wind farm in the centre of the Shetland mainland have warned to expect more peat slides after an area at the south of Scalla Field gave way on Sunday.
Diggers were seen all day yesterday (Sunday) trying to stabilise the area next to a new track across the hill.
At 281 metres in height, Scalla Field is earmarked to host eight turbines once construction work is completed by 2024.
Viking Energy’s Aaron Priest said some of the excavated turves being temporarily stored at the roadside for reinstatement work slipped down the slope for a short distance, taking some of the surface material immediately below with them.
“Investigations are being conducted by our geotechnical engineers and an operation to tidy up what appears to be a relatively minor slippage within the boundary of what is a work area is now being planned,” he said.
Frank Hay of Sustainable Shetland said he was not surprised by the incident, which he put down to “poor peat management” by the developer.
“It comes as no surprise that there should be a peat slide on one of the slopes that Viking are driving tracks through,” he said.”
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“Investing in coal power would be an expensive mistake
Trent Zimmerman and Philip Dunne
The UK has enormous capacity to increase its energy supply from offshore wind. Australia too has vast potential for wind and solar power”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/10/investing-in-coal-power-would-be-an-expensive-mistake
The Guardian loves to provide links (admittedly often to other stories in the Guardian) to justify the claims made in its articles, but this story is remarkably light in that regard. I’d like to see some evidence for the optimistic claims made in these two paragraphs:
“Where clean power alternatives do not currently exist – for example in steel production – Australia is well placed to be a world leader on green hydrogen power and could show the UK, which is currently wrestling with how to produce steel in an environmentally friendly way, how this can be achieved. In reality, both countries need to focus on incentivising technological breakthroughs to give them the kickstart to commercial viability, rather than propping up industries that ultimately face terminal decline.
A green recovery would be good for jobs too. The UK is adding jobs in the low-carbon sector at two to three times the rate of the economy as a whole, and these jobs are sustainable jobs in high-growth areas, and much more likely to be in post-industrial parts of the country that have high unemployment rates. By backing renewable energy and setting out a plan for using it to replace coal in the electrification of transport and industry, Australia too can create thousands of jobs – many of them highly skilled – across the whole country.”
Where are the fact-checkers when you need them?
“Rt Hon Philip Dunne is the UK Conservative MP for Ludlow and chair of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee
Trent Zimmerman MP is Australia’s Liberal federal member for North Sydney”
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I noticed the second one did straight away
..but the first one seemed to post OK
dunno if the algorithm is trying to judge against regular spelling rules . etc.
[Your ignorance is almost as great as ours! — S]
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I love the ever-shifting timescales. Who appointed him, by the way?
“Sir David Attenborough: Problems that await greater than the epidemic”
“The broadcaster calls on nations to act in agreement as he is appointed People’s Advocate at COP26.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/57050259
“Sir David says the problems that await the world in the next five to 10 years because of climate change are greater than the coronavirus pandemic.
His comments come six months ahead of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, where he’ll be addressing global leaders and key decision-makers.”
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“NI climate bill progress to be decided by MLAs”
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57051232
“Northern Ireland’s first ever climate bill will reach an important milestone on Monday as MLAs decide if it should progress.
The legislation is backed by the main parties in the assembly, except the Democratic Unionist Party.
The bill would commit Northern Ireland to reaching net zero emissions by 2045.
However, Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots and farming leaders oppose it, claiming the bill goes too far, too fast.
They believe it will have a detrimental impact on the agri-food industry.
Agriculture is the sector which gives off most greenhouse gases in Northern Ireland.
It accounts for 27% of emissions, mostly methane from livestock.
Other big emitting sectors are transport, power, industry and domestic heat.
The climate bill provides a framework for targets but not specific reductions for individual sectors.
They would follow later under departmental plans.
Mr Poots is working up an alternative bill which would include an emissions reduction of at least 82% by 2050.
This is in line with the recommendation of an independent advisory body to government on climate.”
Given Northern Ireland’s many problems, combined with its tiny contributions to global GHG emissions, I think it’s terribly sad that politicians in NI are wasting their time on this.
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“Electric cars ‘will be cheaper to produce than fossil fuel vehicles by 2027’
BloombergNEF forecasts result of falling cost of making batteries as well as dedicated production lines”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/09/electric-cars-will-be-cheaper-to-produce-than-fossil-fuel-vehicles-by-2027
“Electric cars and vans will be cheaper to produce than conventional, fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2027, and tighter emissions regulations could put them in pole position to dominate all new car sales by the middle of the next decade, research has found.
By 2026, larger vehicles such as electric sedans and SUVs will be as cheap to produce as petrol and diesel models, according to forecasts from BloombergNEF, with small cars reaching the threshold the following year.
Electric vehicles reaching price parity with the internal combustion engine is seen as a key milestone in the world’s transition from burning fossil fuels.”
We’ll see.
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Is there anything that climate chaos isn’t going to destroy? Is there nothing it’s going to make better?
“Tea-growing areas to be badly hit if global heating intensifies
In Kenya, the area of optimal tea-growing conditions will be reduced by more than a quarter by 2050”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/10/tea-growing-areas-to-be-badly-hit-if-global-heating-intensifies
“Your morning cup of tea may never taste the same again if global heating increases and the climate crisis intensifies, according to research.
Some of the world’s biggest tea-growing areas will be among the worst hit by extreme weather, and their yields are likely to be vastly reduced in the coming decades if climate breakdown continues at its current pace. Floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms are likely to have a severe impact on tea-growing areas around the world, according to a report from the charity Christian Aid.
In Kenya, which produces close to half of all the tea consumed in the UK, the area of optimal tea-growing conditions will be reduced by more than a quarter by 2050, while about 39% of areas with medium-quality growing conditions are facing destruction, according to the report.
Even before tea plantations are wiped out, however, tea drinkers may notice changes on their palate: the impacts of flooding and the increased rainfall forecast in many tea regions will be to change the subtle flavours of the tea leaf, and potentially reduce its health benefits.”
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“Humans already have the tools to combat climate change but we lack leadership
In this extract, top atmospheric scientist Dave Lowe explains why despite political inaction he believes we can build a sustainable future”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/10/humans-already-have-the-tools-to-combat-climate-change-but-we-lack-leadership
“When it comes to the political will and leadership needed to drive the world towards a sustainable future, I’m a pessimist. Time and time again, I’ve heard rhetoric from politicians focusing on short-term goals at the expense of planning for the future. In 2021, the mainstream media promote responsible journalism and take a hard line with climate deniers. Many journalists hold governments to account over climate change goals. However, hard scientific data is often still manipulated and cherrypicked by politicians. I’ve spoken to many and liken the experience to walking through treacle.
Does their bland decision-making have to do with the structure of democracy itself, with its short electoral terms and lack of incentives for incumbent politicians to make hard and binding decisions for the decades ahead?”
I searched the article in vain for any reference to China or India. What is it about activist scientists and the Gretas of this world, that they seem to think the problems of GHG emissions are limitedt4 o the developed world? Has anyone ever heard Greta utter the word “China”, by the way?
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“‘The next decade will be all about heat’: can Athens head off climate crisis?”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/10/heat-athens-climate-crisis-mayor
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@Scep : You know I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic.
[Always. But our ignorance as admins is deep, that part is true. Lots to learn. –S]
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12:40pm R4 Dynamic Energy Tariffs
Min 31m50s One of the benefits of smart meters is that they make flexible pricing possible.
Energy suppliers want to encourage us to use less energy at peak times by offering tariffs that change with the wholesale market.
We speak to Chief Executive of Octopus Energy
about their new tariff that changes price every half hour.
The company hopes that saving money will prompt customers to change their behaviour and use energy at times when there is less demand.
Presenter “Octopus put us in touch with their customers who have bought an electric car”
Customer “It’s stopped us WASTING leccy like we used to” (PR speak)
Man “Now I set the dishwasher to run at night”
PR man “Yes there are some hours when we pay users”
“The reality is renewables are cheaper than Fossil Fuels
… paving the way to cheaper energy
Really ? These charges look terrible
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Award for most interesting rhetoric at a COP should I think go to Robert Mugabe (Copenhagen, 2009):
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/2009/20091216_rm
“If we still have any more doubting Thomases, let them visit sinking island member states whose communities today face dim prospects of inexorable collective extinctive drowning.”
“When a country spits at Kyoto Protocol, by seeking to retreat from its dictates, or simply by refusing to accede to it, is it not undermining the rule of global law? When countries spew hazardous emissions for selfish consumptionist ends, in the process threatening land masses and atmospheric space of smaller and weaker nations are they not guilty of gross human rights violations?
We raise these questions not out of spite or vindictiveness, but out of concern for our very endangered livelihoods. When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it is we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere who gasp, starve, sink and eventually die.”
It’s almost poetry.
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9pm R4 Mark Miodownik the green activist professor
in his series about repairing home items instead of throwing them away.
“he tries replacing his broken mobile phone screen and dead battery”
ep 2/3
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“Proposed power line would cross Antonine Wall”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-57061971
“The proposed route of a new power line from Bonnybridge to Glenmavis would cross the Antonine Wall, a World Heritage site, it has emerged.
SP Energy Networks (Spen) said plans to upgrade the network in the area would help Scotland meet Net Zero climate change targets.
It said the chosen route would cross the wall at a location that minimises potential effects on the site.
A public consultation is being held from 24 May to 21 June….
…Spen’s project manager, Fiona Muir, said: “Scotland and the UK are in the middle of a transformation, with the electricity we use increasingly coming from clean, green renewables which are replacing older power stations.
“At the same time, demand for electricity is increasing rapidly with the electrification of cars, heating systems, transport and industry.
“This huge change means we need to upgrade the transmission network to ensure it can get this increasing amount of electricity from where it is produced to the homes, businesses, hospitals and public services that need it.”
A second round of consultation will take place next year on a detailed route, after which Spen will seek approval from the Scottish government.”
Translation: we’re going to see ever-increasing industrialisation of our countryside as we continue to hurtle madly towards “net zero”.
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More propaganda from the BBC (at 16.14 today):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment
“A huge new global protest movement is changing public attitudes to climate change. Reporter Ben Zand gains access to the most high-profile activist group, Extinction Rebellion.”
A 44 minute video, as Reporter Ben Zand gains access to the climate activism movement Extinction Rebellion.”
I loved this: “Contains strong language”
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Same place at 15.44 today:
“Unmasked: Make-Up’s Big Secret”
“What makes our lipstick glossy and foundation smooth? 70% of make-up products contain palm oil – so what are our beauty products doing to the planet?”
I’ve noticed that for some time there has been a subtle push (lying by omission) to blame solely make-up products the disgraceful consequences of palm oil plantations being extended at the cost of tropical jungles. Nary a mention of palm oil being used as “renewable” fuel.
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wiretap “Hey won’t people complain
when we industrialise the open countryside
and industrialise the open seas
by piling concrete towers deep into the surface ?”
…”Nah we’ll call it ‘Doing Net-zero’
… and get two saints to do PR for us”
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“We need to show voters what we stand for – and that Labour is on their side
Angela Rayner
My party should learn the lessons of last week’s elections and reconnect with the people it was founded to fight for”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/10/voters-labour-angela-rayner
And then she promptly fluffs it:
“That difference means investing tens of billions of pounds into green industries to meet our climate obligations at the same time as delivering good, well-paid jobs and bringing industry back to the communities that Margaret Thatcher tried to destroy – and that were hammered again by a decade of austerity.”
She fails to realise that although Thatcher did a great deal of damage to manufacturing industry in the UK, expensive “green” energy has been a follow-up onslaught. Would Rayner continue Labour’s opposition to 500 well-paid long-term jobs (with spin-offs in the local economy) in west Cumbrian coal mine, an area of high unemployment?
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“Environment lawyer fined £5k for contempt in Heathrow case
Tim Crosland had claimed he had no choice but to protest against ‘deep immorality’ of backing third runway”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/10/environment-lawyer-guilty-of-contempt-heathrow-tim-crosland
“Environmental lawyer Tim Crosland has been fined £5,000 for criminal contempt of court after deliberately making public a supreme court ruling related to Heathrow airport before the result was officially announced. The judges could have jailed him for two years.
The supreme court had ruled that a planned third runway at Heathrow was legal. The runway is highly controversial, with opponents arguing that the increased carbon dioxide emissions it would cause are incompatible with the UK’s obligations to fight the climate crisis.
In Monday’s contempt hearing, Crosland argued his deliberate breach was a reasonable measure to prevent harm from climate change, but the judges said there was “no such thing as a justifiable contempt of court”. Before the hearing, Crosland had said: “If fighting for my children’s lives makes me a criminal, then so be it.”
Crosland, from campaign group Plan B, was one of the parties that brought the legal case against Heathrow’s owners and was therefore given the supreme court’s ruling early. But he made it public on Twitter the day before it was due to be released.”
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That title “Proposed power line would cross Antonine Wall”
is a bit of a red herring cos loads of things already cross it.
If you wanted to get a new oil pipeline over it, you could still do it in an inconspicuous way
and a electric cable could go in the air if necessary.
Although they mostly go underground these days .
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Bonnybridge is mostly south of the wall anyway, so it will cross somewhere near there
.. maybe even in an urban area.
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“Electric car mechanics to be trained at Wrexham college”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57056960
“A college will begin training a new generation of electric and hybrid car mechanics in what it described as a “revolution”.
Coleg Cambria’s Bersham Road campus in Wrexham will teach students to service and repair the ever-increasing fleet of greener vehicles from September.
According to the RAC, just 5% of the UK’s 202,000 vehicle technicians are qualified to work on electric cars.
Course tutor Alex Woodward said the motor trade “will need to be prepared”.
“Like with a petrol or diesel car, when the warranty runs out, motorists will be looking to take their vehicle to an independent garage,” he added.
“At present they’re not in a position to do the work.””
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“Fresh bid to capture emissions from Peterhead power station”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57064161
“Carbon capture and storage technology will be fitted to the gas-fired power station at Peterhead by 2026, SSE Thermal has said.
The energy company has agreed a deal with Norwegian firm Equinor to capture 1.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually and store it under the North Sea.
Peterhead is the last power station in Scotland to run off fossil fuels.
Some environmentalists have criticised the carbon capture technology.
They fear it gives big companies a licence to continue burning fossil fuels instead of phasing them out.”
Think about that for a moment. In the unlikely event that CCS could be made financially viable and effective, “some environmentalists” still wouldn’t be happy, because it would enable us to continue burning fossil fuels. Given that they claim to be worried about the GHGs given out by fossil fuels, and their impact on “climate chaos”, then what is the objection to us achieving net zero via this route, while enabling us to continue enjoying our lifestyles and (relatively) cheap heating? The answer it seems is because their real aim is to destroy western economies and societies.
I was long suspicious of Delingpole’s “watermelon” claims, but the more I read this sort of thing, the more I think he might have a point.
Problems with CCS remain, however:
“But previous efforts to develop it have repeatedly failed.
An initial £500m venture with BP to create “the world’s first CCS power plant” was scrapped after a year because of government delays over support.
A similar plan was revived in 2011 in a partnership with Shell which would have seen the CO2 sent to its Goldeneye field.
It was down to the final two – along with the White Rose scheme in North Yorkshire – of a UK government competition to stimulate investment in the technology worth £1bn.
But the competition was cancelled in 2015 after £100m had been spent on it.”
So far it’s been a monumental waste of taxpayer money. That seems to be the way of it with much “green” technology.
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“Scotland’s green future at risk from discriminatory grid charges to power firms”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19292623.scotlands-green-future-risk-discriminatory-grid-charges-power-firms/
“ELECTRICITY transmission charges are acting as a barrier for investment in green energy projects in Scotland and will hit the transition to a low carbon economy, experts have warned.
A new analysis by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission, which is responsible for the network for the north of Scotland calls for reform of the current charging regime which means that renewable generators in Scotland pay “significantly” higher costs to connect their electricity to the National Grid than those in other parts of Great Britain.”
You have to subscribe to read any more. However, comments are visible, and I liked this one:
“It costs more to build and maintain long transmission lines. They also suffer larger electrical losses (in the form of heat) than their shorter counterparts. Why would you not expect transmission costs, and thus charges, to be higher? Scrap the charges completely but bill payers will still be paying the same since the costs will still be there. If the Scottish Government want to meet their green targets they could offset the charges to power companies by giving them a grant but that will not reduce the costs. Someone has to pay and it is either the taxpayer or the bill payer, or both.”
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From the “lack of context” school of journalism. What it misses out is the low base for “renewable” energy around the world.
“Global renewable energy industry grew at fastest rate since 1999 last year
New wind and solar power projects in China, Europe and the US spurred 45% rise in capacity”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/11/global-renewable-energy-industry-grew-at-fastest-rate-since-1999-last-year
“The world’s renewable energy industry grew at its fastest pace since 1999 last year, despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and may have established a standard for growth in the future, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The global energy watchdog revealed that the delivery of renewable energy projects, including windfarms and solar power projects, grew by 45% last year in a step change for the global industry.
Wind power capacity doubled over the last year, while solar power grew by almost 50% more than its growth before the pandemic, due to the growing appetite for clean energy from governments and corporations.”
The kicker comes later in the article:
“China remains at the heart of the renewable energy industry’s growth after accounting for more than 40% of the global growth in the market for the last few years. It is also one of the largest suppliers of the raw materials needed to make wind turbines and solar panels including silicon, glass, steel, copper and other rare earth materials.
However, China is also the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases because of its use of coal-fired power plants to meet the country’s rising energy demand.
The country’s president, Xi Jinping, has pledged that China will become carbon neutral by 2060, but experts have warned that it will need to develop enough renewable energy to shut down nearly 600 of its coal-fired power plants in the next 10 years to meet this target.
The passing of a key industry deadline for state subsidies in China is expected to cause the country’s renewable energy growth to slow in the years ahead. “
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9am R4 Marine biologist, Helen Scales campaigns
“Do we need to choose between green and blue?
Or is there a third way that protects both the planet and all the riches in our oceans?
Metals such as copper, manganese and cobalt are in high demand in the manufacture of mobile phones and renewable energy technologies, such as batteries for electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels.
Deep sea mining companies argue that we will need these metals to create a carbon Net Zero economy.
Meantime, the World Wildlife Fund is pushing for a moratorium on deep sea mining. And several companies agree:
.. she warns of the environmental devastation that could be caused if plans to mine the metals on the bottom of the ocean were to be allowed to go ahead
9:30am prog about how AI is racist/sexist
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10:14am Talk Radio, Dehenna Davidson Tory MP for Bishop Auckland
They continue
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So “No, it’s not like fracking it’s very different and much safer”
Is that true ?
#1 Fracking isn’t that dangerous
Harm has been created, but that has almost always been caused by tailings dams failing.
#2 fracking helps reduce CO2 cos gas is a more efficient fuel than coal or wood.
It also does emit particulates
#3 Geothermal does have a big similarities with fracking
#4 Does fracking create dangerous earthquakes ?
Not that I am aware of
cos there can be deliberate attempts to shatter rock so water can permeate to the deep hot rock and bring back heat.. if there trapped gases like radon, some would get released too
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The idea that you can do green measures that only impact on rich people’s wallets seems a fallacy
… indeed price increases benefit the rich.
If you make Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos use electric vans
he will pass that cost onto the customer, but on a 2% profit margin, his 2% will end up as more $$$
I suppose if you can target rich taxes on money they just have sitting in their bank accounts that might not impact the poor.
But most of the rich’s money is actually invested
and benefitting poor people by giving jobs and paying taxes.
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oops MP’s name is actually Dehenna Davison
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‘You can’t run an electricity grid on make-believe’: Kenny
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Just cos 97% of Guardianlalaland & journos think magic windfarm batteries exist
that doesn’t make it true
The $100m South Australia huge battery farm would power the grid for just 3 minutes
when actually the wind could be down for an entire week.
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15:30pm R4 New Grid for the New Age
How will Britain’s power system need to change for a zero carbon world? Tom Heap investigates.
Blurb has no more detail
prog repeats 9pm Wed
There’s a tweet with windfarm photos
one showing a woman in a battery room , as big as a shed
I guess if you had a thousand sheds it might replace a power station for 2 minutes
Can the grid cut the carbon and keep the lights on? @tomheapmedia
travels from Orkney to Cornwall (via Carnoustie) in search of our future power. 3.30 today
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Radio advert “Is you car doing more damage to the environment, than you think ?
You could be owed thousands in compensation”
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The Eden Project’s geothermal operation documents makes it clear it uses fracking tech
and thus earthquakes are possible
Although by law it can generate much bigger ones than fracking
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Breaking : Reuters
British climate activist Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of the Extinction Rebellion group, was arrested
at home on Tuesday
for conspiracy to cause criminal damage
and fraud
after her group attacked banks such as HSBC (HSBA.L) and Barclays
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-climate-activist-bradbrook-arrested-after-attacks-big-banks-2021-05-11/
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“Activists target Liverpool FC sponsor Standard Chartered over fossil fuel links
Posters demand ‘red card’ for football club’s sponsor as hoax website ‘announces’ end of UK bank’s support for coal”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/11/activists-target-standard-chartered-from-all-sides-over-fossil-fuel-links
“More than 50 billboards and bus stop adverts drawing attention to the Liverpool FC sponsor Standard Chartered’s links to the fossil fuel industry have appeared across the city, as a number of activist groups targeted the bank ahead of its annual general meeting on Wednesday.
One poster design installed outside Anfield, featuring the Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp and player Mohamed Salah, reads: “Give Standard Chartered the red card.”
Meanwhile another campaign group put up a fake Standard Chartered website – described as “extremely convincing” by those who saw it – which “announced” that the bank would “end all support for coal in 2021 and all fossil fuel infrastructure by 2023”. The hoax had been designed by Fridays For Future and the Yes Men. At a morning press conference the real group behind the claim revealed themselves.
The campaign group Market Forces, which focuses on finance for fossil fuels, also said it would be using the shares it owns in the bank to lodge a shareholder resolution for the 2022 AGM if the bank’s policies on climate change did not improve. “We expect to attract significant support,” said their spokesperson, Adam McGibbon.
The Liverpool campaign was coordinated by the activist group Brandalism. Tona Merriman, a campaigner with the group, said: “Subvertising is about using creative arts practices to directly speak back to the brands that use advertising to hide their corporate practices. Whether that’s big polluters like Shell, BP or their financiers like HSBC or Standard Chartered.””
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A good comment by bloke in spain today on Tim Worstall’s website, about action on climate change:
“Debating the particulars gets you precisely nowhere. It’s like debating with a surgeon the procedures to be used to amputate your perfectly healthy leg. The thing to do is to stand up on it & walk out.”
Which would be all well and good – until you realise that you’re strapped to the surgeon’s table. 😦
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“Biden administration approves first major US offshore windfarm
The 84-turbine site off Massachusetts will be capable of generating power for 400,000 homes and businesses”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/11/biden-administration-approves-first-major-us-offshore-windfarm
“The $2.8bn development, a joint venture between energy firms Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, will be located about 12 nautical miles from the shoreline of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The administration said the project will create 3,600 new jobs.”
I wonder how many of those jobs will be full-time and/or permanent, and how much of the profit generated will disappear to Denmark rather than remain in the US? Of course, the USA is a long way from causing the damage to its grid infrastructure that we’ve inflicted on the National Gris in the UK with our headlong rush to unreliables, but they have the potential to do so if they carry on like this over the next four years.
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“power for 400,000 homes and businesses” another BS metric
You can just about quantify a home by coming up with an average home use.
But businesses can be huge , so you can’t use an average.
I guess some writer just added the word businesses on”
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Local BBC news : Tackling Climate Change in the Yorkshire wolds
The local environment reporter seems like an activist nutter
so he’ll hype up any green project.
Here they are using drone to work out where there are spaces in hedges where the can plant trees.
OK over the next 50 or 100 years those trees might take a tonne of CO2, then what ?
if you burn the trees then the CO2 is back in the air
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Is there not a way to make this page automatically paginate to say 30 comments per page ?
Cos I am on WordPress Reader the page opens with only the last 50 comments showing, then if i start scrolling it loads the rest
[We are just starting an email discussion of all possible options on this, to which you’ve been invited! – Sceptica]
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Nice moving graphic from Greta.
It seems she’s upset the Chinese though.
H/t WUWT
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Contributing nothing …
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Yes I got the invite yesterday, had a quick look around last night
at the page options, (without changing anything i hope)
but now it no longer shows up on my admin list
I just emailed Richard.
[Many of us have had teething problems given a new status with WordPress.com. Stick with it. You haven’t changed anything for the worse on the page options. — Sceptica]
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“Electric cars: Cardiff ‘needs 9,900 more charging points by 2025′”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57092012
“Cardiff needs an extra 9,900 charging points for electric cars by 2025 to cope with an increase in demand, a council report has said.
The city currently has fewer than 100 charging points and needs about 10,000 in four years.
The report detailing the council’s push to get the city carbon neutral by 2030 suggested nine out of 10 cars could be electric by 2035.
The council said it was trying to find “the right balance”.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the call for thousands of extra charging points is just one part of a massive shift in how the city’s transport will change over the coming decade.
Other major shifts to how people get around the city include car clubs similar to the Nextbike bike-sharing scheme, potential pilots of electric scooter-sharing schemes, hydrogen-fuelled vehicles and charging drivers from outside of Cardiff £2 a day to use the roads.”
This stuff doesn’t come cheap, but the article doesn’t mention any costs. However, there was a brief welcome dose of reality:
“Council leader Huw Thomas said: “I think this technology has some way to go in maturing.
“The idea of wholly shifting our car usage to a system charged via domestic household electricity actually has significant implications for climate change, in terms of generating that electricity. So there is that degree of impracticality.””
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“Bangor University students try to re-ice the Arctic”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-57088201
“Students and graduates of Bangor University have an ambitious plan to re-ice the Arctic.
The group have formed a company called Real Ice which has invented a prototype machine designed to create ponds of water which then refreeze.
The team is headed up by Dubliner Cian Sherwin, a zoology graduate.
Mr Sherwin said: “When we talk to people about the project their first reaction is, ‘You’re doing what? You’re trying to re-ice the Arctic?’””
Well, yes – quite.
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“Climate emissions shrinking the stratosphere, scientists reveal
Exclusive: Thinning indicates profound impact of humans and could affect satellites and GPS”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/emissions-shrinking-the-stratosphere-scientists-find
“Humanity’s enormous emissions of greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed.
The thickness of the atmospheric layer has contracted by 400 metres since the 1980s, the researchers found, and will thin by about another kilometre by 2080 without major cuts in emissions. The changes have the potential to affect satellite operations, the GPS navigation system and radio communications.
The discovery is the latest to show the profound impact of humans on the planet. In April, scientists showed that the climate crisis had shifted the Earth’s axis as the massive melting of glaciers redistributes weight around the globe.”
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“One in four cities cannot afford climate crisis protection measures – study
Survey of 800 cities around world finds almost 43% do not even have plan to adapt to impacts of global heating”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/one-in-four-cities-cannot-afford-climate-crisis-protection-measures-study
“One in four cities around the world lack the money to protect themselves against the ravages of climate breakdown, even though more than 90% are facing serious risks, according to research.
Cities are facing problems with flooding, overheating, water shortages, and damage to their infrastructure from extreme weather, which is growing more frequent as the climate changes. A survey of 800 cities, carried out by the Carbon Disclosure Project, found that last year about 43% of them, representing a combined population of 400 million people, did not have a plan to adapt to the climate crisis.”
“…ravages of climate breakdown…”. Has the Guardian abandoned all attempts to use serious language?
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“Joe Biden’s 50% emissions goal is ambitious. But it’s still not enough
William J Ripple
Addressing the climate crisis will be the greatest undertaking in the history of humankind. We have to give it all we have”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/12/joe-biden-emissions-goal-climate-crisis
“Joe Biden wants to cut US emissions in half from their 2005 levels. However, since emissions have been slowly declining since then, this amounts to only a 37% drop from 2020 levels.
That, in a nutshell, is the issue. Our leaders are adhering to a template that doesn’t meet the urgency of the moment. The US is not even the world’s largest emitter any more, and China – the biggest polluter – seeks to build more coal-fired power plants, failing to reach carbon neutrality until 2060. Unfortunately, that is a perfect illustration of just how disconnected we are from the gravity of the situation.”
First Greta, now this? Are the climate-concerned finally recognising the role of China in all this?
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“HSBC has stakes in firms that plan more than 70 new coal plants
Asset management arm is not bound by pledge to stop financing coal even though new plants will emit hazardous air pollution”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/12/hsbc-has-stakes-in-firms-that-plan-more-than-70-new-coal-plants
“A loophole in HSBC’s pledge to phase out financing for coal by 2040 will allow the bank to support companies with plans to build more than 70 new coal plants, which could cause an estimated 18,700 deaths from air pollution a year, according to a report.
The bank’s asset management arm, which is not included in the coal phase-out pledge, holds ownership stakes in companies that plan to build 73 coal power plants across 11 countries in Africa and Asia, almost enough to supply fossil fuel electricity to all the UK’s homes three times over.
Once running, these plants would emit more air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter than all the coal-fired power plants in the EU and the UK combined in 2019, according to a report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).
The report found that the air pollution impact of these coal plants could also lead to an estimated 29,000 emergency hospital visits due to asthma, 25,000 preterm births and 14 million days of work absence every year at a total annual cost of $6.2bn.”
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A bit obtuse
but parody presenter Jonathan Pie made a NetZero film in Jan 2020
I don’t really get his humour Face book 20 mins
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“US environmental agency releases climate report delayed by Trump”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57095347
“The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said for the first time that climate change is being driven at least in part by humans.
The agency made the acknowledgement in a new report that had been delayed by the Trump White House since 2017.
The Climate Change Indicators report charts the extent to which glaciers are shrinking, sea levels are rising and flooding is increasing.
The impacts are being felt by Americans “with increasing regularity”, it says.
Under former President Donald Trump, the EPA’s Climate Change Indicators website was not updated, as it had been under his predecessor, Barack Obama.”
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“Eco-friendly cycling shed lands family in trouble with council”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-57077470
“A council has been accused of undermining its green credentials by threatening to pull down a bike shed a family built in their front garden.
The Pujara family installed the wooden structure in Leicester’s Stoneygate area in September to store bikes used by the children to cycle to school.
But the city council ordered them to either take it down or submit a retrospective planning application.
The authority said the application was now being considered.
Kavi Pujara, 49, said the bike shed had been deliberately fitted with a “living” green and pink roof to help it blend in with its leafy surroundings.
But in February the family received a letter from the council warning if they did not apply for planning permission, they would have 20 days to take it down or face formal enforcement action.
The letter, seen by the BBC, added it was “extremely unlikely” permission would be granted.
“One reason was because it is in a conservation area and normal planning rules do not apply,” he said.”
I suppose we are seeing (whether it’s stories like this or XR protestors claiming the “climate emergency” justifies law-breaking) recourse to a new “Get out of jail free” card – literally in the case of some climate protestors) a new push to allow eco-warriors to do what they want, regardless of the law. Just shout “I did it for the planet” and all enforcement action must cease immediately.
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“Elon Musk says Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin due to fossil fuel use
Digital currency, which is made with an energy-intensive process, falls 17% after the tweet”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/12/elon-musk-tesla-bitcoin
“Tesla has suspended customers’ use of bitcoin to purchase its vehicles, Elon Musk said on Wednesday, citing concerns about the use of fossil fuel for bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital currency, fell almost 17% after the tweet to its lowest point since the beginning of March. It recovered slightly in Asian trading but was still off 12% at $50,933 early on Thursday morning.
Musk said Tesla would not sell any bitcoin, and intends to use bitcoin for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.
“We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of bitcoin’s energy/transaction,” Musk said."
The whole Tesla/Musk/Bitcoin story leaves me completely bemused. In fact, Bitcoin leaves me completely bemused. South Sea Bubbles and Tulip Mania spring to mind. And the weirdest thing of all is that its undoing might not be the complete lack of logic in investing in something that isn't real, but instead will be its effect on "climate chaos".
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“How Merkel’s climate caution helped the rise of Germany’s Greens
The chancellor raised expectations for climate action but her follow-through left many disappointed.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-climate-caution-rise-germany-greens-party/
“Angela Merkel used to be called the “climate chancellor,” but that title is years out of date.
In her final months in office, Germany’s chancellor finds herself scrambling to shore up her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party’s climate credentials and hold off a surge in support for the Greens — expected to make big gains in September’s federal election.
The government’s climate challenge is highlighted this week; it put forward an updated climate law on Wednesday after the country’s constitutional court overruled parts of the old one.
Merkel’s been much more successful in pushing the climate change agenda internationally than at home — where she’s had to balance her own science background with competing political demands from powerful interests like the car and coal industries. As a result, she’s helped fuel expectations for action on global warming but has been disappointing in her follow-through — creating space for the Greens….
…Domestically, Germany has failed to effectively green its transport and buildings sectors, and struggled to hit its 2020 climate goal to cut emissions by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels. Berlin was only saved the political embarrassment of missing that target thanks to pandemic lockdowns, which ground the economy — and emissions — to a halt for much of last year.
Speaking to a small group of civil society representatives last year, Merkel admitted that climate was placed on the back burner after the Paris Agreement was clinched in 2015 because the migration crisis took up so much time and effort, said Christoph Bals, head of NGO Germanwatch….
…After difficult negotiations, the government last year adopted a coal phaseout by 2038, including billions in compensation for affected power plant operators. But rather than provide for a smooth exit from the dirty fuel, the coal deal was attacked as being too generous to coal-burning utilities and too slow to tackle the climate emergency.
Campaigners and opposition politicians POLITICO spoke to also hammered her recent track record in EU-level negotiations. The chancellor was instrumental in the 2014 push for the EU to adopt binding 2020 emissions cuts as well as renewable energy and energy efficiency targets. But Berlin — and Merkel herself — actively intervened to water down CO2 standards for cars and efforts to raise emissions reduction targets that could hike up costs for Germany’s strategic industries. Germany was also slow to join an effort in 2019 to adopt an EU climate neutrality goal by 2050….”
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The usual caveat applies to this report, namely it’s from RT:
“Extinction Rebellion co-founder arrested by British police for conspiracy to cause criminal damage and fraud after bank attacks”
https://www.rt.com/uk/523459-extinction-rebellion-founder-arrest/
“Gail Bradbrook, a British climate activist who co-founded the Extinction Rebellion group, has been arrested for conspiracy to cause criminal damage and fraud after her organization attacked banks and encouraged debt disobedience.
“Extinction Rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police at her home in Stroud at around 5:30am this morning for conspiracy to cause criminal damage and fraud in relation to Money Rebellion’s debt disobedience,” a spokeswoman for the group said on Tuesday.
Extinction Rebellion UK tweeted that Bradbrook faces a potential sentence of 10 years in prison, adding that she is currently being held at Compass House police station in Gloucester. ”
I wonder if a defence of “I did it for the planet” will work?
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My wife (a retired school teacher) has received a missive from her union inviting her to apply as a representative on its ‘National Organising Forum’. The forum has a number of sub-fora, each of which has 3 representatives. The invite makes it clear that, in every case but one, 2 of the 3 representatives must be women. This seems sexist at first sight, but then one should allow for the fact that this probably reflects the broader union membership. What does puzzle me, however, is that despite their strict gender-based quota, the union still feels the need to have a sub-forum dedicated to representing women (naturally with an all-female occupancy). Furthermore, there is an odd detail. For all the other fora, 2 out of 3 representatives have to be women, but for the women’s sub-forum one only has to self-identify as such. And before you ask – yes they do also have a transgender sub-forum.
I’m obviously far too old and male to fathom these things out nowadays.
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An IPCC apparatchik in 2014:
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I have my doubts as to whether Gail Bradbrook will be prosecuted – if she goes to trial there’s a strong possibility that the jury will simply acquit, as has happened recently in a similar case. This is I think because there’s a perception among much of the public that XR and Co are the good guys in all this and that the righteousness of their cause overrides the rule of law.
Suffragettes were put on trial just over a century ago for carrying out similar acts of vandalism – imagine that a group of modern jurors were transported back in time to 1912 or 1914 and took part in the court proceedings. Would they acquit? Yes, I think they mostly would. Why? Because a hundred years or so later, the suffragettes are seen as heroes and their cause seen as just. They are considered to have been on the “right side of history” – and there are many who would put today’s climate protesters into the same category. The suffragettes broke the law – smashed windows, slashed paintings, started fires – but from a 21st century perspective their cause (women’s emancipation) is generally seen as a noble and worthwhile one, even if their methods were illegal and sometimes violent.
We don’t know what people will think of these times a hundred years from now, but because catastrophic climate change has been presented for so long to the public as a horrible certainty, many potential jurors of today will think along similar lines – yes the accused technically broke the law, but her cause is just and worthwhile. What price a few broken windows when the planet is about to burn?
What would it take to change this perception? Three things, perhaps: 1) if climate activists overstepped the mark in some disastrous way and became the bad guys, in the public’s view, 2) they got exactly what they are demanding, Net Zero by 2030 or sooner (which would bring about some huge unintended consequences but that’s another matter) or 3) it became generally evident that the planet is not about to burn up, maybe a long and severe cooling period or mini Ice Age.
In the meantime, society might just have to put up with the broken windows. 😦
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“Can New Zealand’s tourism industry make a sustainable return?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56967636
“New Zealand has sold itself to visitors on its natural wonders – glaciers, lakes and mountains.
But before the shutdown, experts were warning that so many people congregating in remote areas – often thousands at a time – had been actually risking this pristine environment.
There are now calls to use the tourism “hiatus” – forced on the industry by the pandemic – as a chance to curb its impact.
Proposals presented to the government include limiting visitor numbers at tourism sites and a departure tax to help counterbalance climate impact.
“I think with climate change, people are realising that they have to change what they do. We do need to do things differently and that it will be costly,” said Simon Upton, New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who made the recommendations.
“Asking travellers to contribute a small amount as they leave our shores is the most constructive thing we could do,” he said.
But it’s a difficult proposition for an industry that has already suffered so much.
“
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In fairness, they have a point:
“Boris Johnson took ‘unnecessary’ helicopter trip to promote bike scheme
Exclusive: prime minister’s short flights cast doubt on the sincerity of his pledges to fight the climate crisis, say critics”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/13/boris-johnson-took-unnecessary-helicopter-trip-promote-bike-scheme-cast-doubt-pledge-fight-climate-crisis
“Boris Johnson has been criticised for taking a short helicopter flight from London to the West Midlands to promote a local bike hire scheme, despite the train from London taking just more than two hours.
Critics said the flight was “completely unnecessary” and cast doubt on the sincerity of the prime minister’s pledges to fight the climate crisis. Air travel produces far more global-heating emissions than other modes of transport.
Johnson took the 50-minute helicopter ride in a Sikorsky S-76C on 5 May, departing from north-west London and landing at Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green airport.”
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“Are Biden’s carbon markets as good as they look? No, say smaller farms
Carbon credits to cut US emissions may benefit big animal operations but lock out small, climate-friendly food producers”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/13/are-bidens-carbon-markets-as-good-as-they-look-no-say-smaller-farms
“Nicole and Aaron Bradley’s diversified livestock farm is a far cry from the industrial pig operations that dominate the landscape in North Carolina, the second biggest pork-producing state in the US.
Instead of confining thousands of animals and managing their millions of litres of waste in lagoons that release methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG), the Bradleys raise 200 pigs at a time on pasture and in wooded areas, where the animals’ manure is integrated into the ground naturally as fertiliser. Similarly, they move their 40 grass-fed cattle using a “mob” grazing system that maximises soil health, with laying hens following behind.
“One of the biggest things we focus on is biodiversity of plants and wildlife. We’re trying to create and steward ecosystems,” says Aaron. Research shows that systems that integrate managed grazing, permanent soil cover and added biodiversity can take carbon out of the atmosphere and increase a farm’s ability to confront weather extremes.
You might imagine that Colfax Creek Farm, North Carolina, would be first on the list to benefit from agricultural carbon markets, touted by politicians and the Biden administration as a way to help the US reduce emissions while boosting farmers’ incomes. However, some farmers and climate activists say smaller diversified farms using regenerative practices will not benefit financially. Carbon markets could also lock in monoculture crop systems and industrial-scale animal operations that degrade the environment and make it harder for smaller farms to compete.”
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“COP26: Alok Sharma urges nations to banish coal
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57108066
“The head of a vital UN climate summit due to be held in Glasgow in November says his personal priority is to banish coal.
Speaking ahead of the COP26 conference, Alok Sharma will urge nations to abandon coal power generation, with rich countries leading the way.
He will add that wealthy nations must help poorer ones make the same change.
And he will tell banks and institutions to stop lending money to countries to build coal power stations.
In his speech, the former business Secretary will say: “The days of coal providing the cheapest form of power are in the past. And in the past they must remain.
“The coal business is, as the UN secretary general [António Guterres] has said, going up in smoke. It’s old technology.
“So let’s make COP26 the moment we leave it in the past where it belongs, while supporting workers and communities to make the transition and creating good ‘green’ jobs to fill the gap.””
That’s the Cumbrian coal mine stuffed, then. No sign of the good ‘green’ jobs, though. In an area of high unemployment too, where the Tories recently took 2 Parliamentary seats from Labour. Do they have a political death wish?
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Meanwhile….
“Ignore hype over hydrogen heating, government told
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57103298
“Environmentalists are warning the government to ignore what they call “hype” over the use of hydrogen to provide heat.
New natural gas boilers will be phased out next decade because their emissions add to climate change.
Oil and gas firms are pushing for so-called “blue” hydrogen to be used to provide heat instead.
But environmentalists say electric heat pumps are a much better option for most homes.
In a letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, groups including climate think tank E3G, WWF, and Greenpeace urged the government to drop funding for “blue” hydrogen.
They said that it appears to be environmentally-benign, but really it’s not.”
That final claim links to a report elsewhere:
https://www.e3g.org/publications/between-hope-and-hype-a-hydrogen-vision-for-the-uk/
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“Building’s hard problem – making concrete green”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56716859
“A time-travelling Victorian stumbling upon a modern building site could largely get right to work, says Chris Thompson, managing director of Citu, which specialises in building low-carbon homes.
That’s because many of the materials and tools would be familiar to him.
The Victorian builder would certainly recognise concrete, which has been around for a long time.
The world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome remains the one at Rome’s Pantheon, which is almost 2,000 years old. The Colosseum is largely concrete too.
Today we use more concrete than any substance, other than water.
That means it accounts for about 8% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) we emit into the atmosphere. That is substantially more than the aviation industry, which makes up about 2.5% of emissions.
But some companies are developing concrete that has a much lower CO2 impact.
Citu is building its headquarters in Leeds from a new low-carbon concrete that it says cuts CO2 emissions by 50% compared to traditional concrete.
It has used 70 cubic metres of it for the building’s foundations.”
Tucked away in the article:
“But it’s not as cheap as conventional concrete, admits Dr Zampini.
You have to find a customer who is really keen on significantly reducing the CO2 footprint of their buildings, he says, like Citu in Leeds.”
And at the end:
“But China made more concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the US did in the whole 20th Century.”
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When it comes to climate change, the Guardian seems to be obsessed with Australian politics. I can only think it’s because Australia exports a lot of coal. Here’s the latest:
“Australia stands alone in not having a significant climate plan, says UK expert
Nigel Topping says the Morrison government will face ‘a certain amount of pressure’ at the G7 meeting in Cornwall in June”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/14/australia-stands-alone-in-not-having-a-significant-climate-plan-says-uk-expert
“A leading UK climate official says Australia is alone among major countries in that neither its national government nor opposition have a significant climate plan, and frustrating local business leaders.
Nigel Topping, the UN’s “high-level champion” whose role involves global outreach to drive global ambition ahead of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in November, said he had not seen another country in which no major political party had a plan to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Morrison government would face “a certain amount of pressure” to lift its ambition on climate at the G7 meeting in England next month, where Australia is one of four invited guest nations. All G7 members have targets to cut emissions by at least 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net zero emissions no later than 2050.
Topping said on Thursday night that in discussions with Australians there had been a strong sense that state governments and the private sector were committed to the race to net zero campaign, but that business leaders had bemoaned there was “neither a plan nor a counter plan” at a federal level.”
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BBC local news “Rishi Sunak visits Hull Siemens wind blade factory
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Rishi talking BS
“the green jobs revolution that we are experiencing in the UK”
He kept saying Humberside
which is a thing local people don’t like
we got rid of that name years ago.
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National Grid right now in the UK:
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Coal: 3%
Gas: 58.9%
Solar: 0.2%
Wind: 1.8%
Hydro: 2.2%
Pumped storage: 2.7%
Nuclear: 10.6%
Biomass: 8.9%
Interconnectors: 10.5%.
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“Third of global food production at risk from climate crisis
Food-growing areas will see drastic changes to rainfall and temperatures if global heating continues at current rate”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/14/third-of-global-food-production-at-risk-from-climate-crisis
“A third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate, new research suggests.
Many of the world’s most important food-growing areas will see temperatures increase and rainfall patterns alter drastically if temperatures rise by about 3.7C, the forecast increase if emissions stay high.
Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have calculated that about 95% of current crop production takes place in areas they define as “safe climatic space”, or conditions where temperature, rainfall and aridity fall within certain bounds.
If temperatures were to rise by 3.7C or thereabouts by the century’s end, that safe area would shrink drastically, mostly affecting south and south-eastern Asia and Africa’s Sudano-Sahelian zone, according to a paper published in the journal One Earth on Friday.
However, if greenhouse gases are reduced and the world meets the goals of the Paris agreement, in limiting temperature rises to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels, then only about 5%–8% of global food production would be at risk.”
Phew! Still, unfortunate timing, given that in the real world, rather than in the world of models, this is the news:
“Global cereal markets tighten as demand remains strong in 2020/21; record wheat production in 2021 could lead to higher stocks in 2021/22”
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/?mc_cid=237e2f4244&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
“FAO’s forecast for global cereal production in 2020 has been raised by 1.7 million tonnes this month to 2 767 million tonnes, 2.1 percent above the 2019 output. The month-on-month increase almost entirely reflects upward revisions to coarse grain output forecasts in several countries in Africa. As for rice, officials in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Guinea indicated lower production turnouts than previously foreseen by FAO, outweighing an upgrade for Madagascar and resulting in a slight downward revision to the 2020 global rice production forecast, which nonetheless remains set at an all-time record high.”
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“‘Let them drive Teslas’: Jennifer Granholm turns into a green Marie Antoinette as she lectures Americans on gas shortages”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/523858-jennifer-granholm-gas-shortages/
“Biden’s energy secretary used the Colonial Pipeline hack to tell everyone to ditch their gas-guzzlers for electric cars. The average price of an electric vehicle is $55,600. She has no idea what life is like for working Americans.
“Let them eat cake,” A phrase infamously attributed to the doomed queen of France, Marie Antoinette, when she was told the peasants had no bread, has become synonymous with out of touch elites. It illustrates the detachment of someone of great status and wealth when they speak ignorantly about the lives of the average man, for they have no comprehension of their struggle.
But in 2021, we aren’t talking about bread, we are talking about gasoline. Following a fuel shortage brought on by the Colonial Pipeline being hacked, Biden’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, made (to keep the French theme going) a bit of a faux pas.
Asked about what Americans should do as lines grew ever longer at gas stations, Madame Granholm said: “Yeah, I mean, we obviously are ‘all in’ on making sure that we meet the president’s goals of getting to 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. And, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly.”…
…Telling people to go and buy electric because of a temporary gas shortage is preposterous. It makes no more sense than it would to have told Tesla-driving Texans to rush out and buy F150s in February when a cold snap knocked out large chunks of the state’s electricity supply.
Jennifer Granholm clearly doesn’t really care whether or not her statements were ignorant. The Biden administration’s approach to energy has been one ‘let them eat cake’ moment after another. The entire administration comes across like a bunch of oligarchs constantly talking down to the little people on how their lives should be led, completely unaware of how difficult those lives are.
I say, have Secretary Granholm work a customer service job on a customer service representative’s pay for a month, and then she can tell us whether or not we should all be driving electric.”
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A story that won’t go away, but it never seems to make any difference to anything:
“China uses Uyghur forced labour to make solar panels, says report”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57124636
“The global production of solar panels is using forced labour from China’s Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, an investigation has found.
Xinjiang produces about 45% of the world’s supply of the key component, polysilicon, the research by the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University says.
It says the material is obtained under a massive system of coercion, a claim denied by the Chinese authorities.
The report urges top panel makers to source the component elsewhere.
Solar panels are in huge demand because of climate change.”
Well, that last statement at least is debatable. It seems to be they’re in high demand due to the massive subsidies and profits to be made by global capitalists who have seen an opportunity. And that opportunity is also being exploited by the CCP.
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Meanwhile, bald men argue over a comb:
“NI Climate Bill: Farming dominates debate over Stormont bill”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57074162
“After a long and detailed debate, Northern Ireland’s first ever Climate Bill jumped an important assembly hurdle this week.
Assembly members voted 58 to 29 to send it for detailed scrutiny – the next step in the legislative process.
The bill would commit Northern Ireland to a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.
It would have implications right across society, for transport, business, and how we power and heat our homes.
But it was the impact on one sector – farming and agri-food – which dominated much of the debate.
That’s not surprising. The industry is a big driver of the Northern Ireland economy.
It’s also our biggest emitting sector, responsible for 27% of greenhouse gases.
A report for the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association this week recorded more than £5bn in annual sales, with around 80% of produce exported.”
Or, to put it another way, the Stormont Assembly rushes to destroy one of the mainstays of their economy in their attempts to reduce their annual CO2 emissions by the amount emitted by China in a few hours.
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“Experts warn extreme weather could cause ‘climate trauma’ pandemic”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-57105070
“Experts are warning that more people could experience mental health problems due to climate change.
Research shows that extreme weather events like floods and typhoons, made more likely by climate change, can cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression.
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, who lives in the Philippines, has experienced numerous typhoons. She told BBC Minute’s Olivia Le Poidevin how, what she describes as “climate trauma” has impacted her.”
Oh dear, she could feel better if she read Wikipedia (which isn’t known for shrinking from blaming climate change for lots of things):
“Most tropical cyclones form on the side of the subtropical ridge closer to the equator, then move poleward past the ridge axis before recurving north and northeast into the main belt of the Westerlies. Most typhoons form in a region in the northwest Pacific known as typhoon alley, where the planet’s most powerful tropical cyclones most frequently develop. When the subtropical ridge shifts due to El Niño, so will the preferred tropical cyclone tracks. Areas west of Japan and Korea tend to experience many fewer September–November tropical cyclone impacts during El Niño and neutral years. During El Niño years, the break in the subtropical ridge tends to lie near 130°E, which would favor the Japanese archipelago. During La Niña years, the formation of tropical cyclones, and the subtropical ridge position, shift westward across the western Pacific Ocean, which increases the landfall threat to China and greater intensity to Philippines.”
“The most active Western Pacific typhoon season was in 1964, when 39 storms of tropical storm strength formed. Only 15 seasons had 30 or more storms developing since reliable records began. The least activity seen in the northwest Pacific Ocean was during the 2010 Pacific typhoon season, when only 14 tropical storms and seven typhoons formed. In the Philippines, the most active season, since 1945, for tropical cyclone strikes was 1993 when nineteen tropical cyclones moved through the country. There was only one tropical cyclone that moved through the Philippines in 1958. The 2004 Pacific typhoon season was the busiest for Okinawa since 1957. Within Guangdong in southern China, during the past thousand years, the most active decades for typhoon strikes were the 1660s and 1670s.”
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“Record metals boom may threaten transition to green energy
Demand and prices are soaring for minerals essential to the construction of low-carbon infrastructure”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/15/record-metals-boom-may-threaten-transition-to-green-energy
“The commodities boom ignited by China’s post-Covid recovery, and stoked by the global move to green energy, broke price records last week even as fears about inflation stalked the markets. But it also risks triggering a rush on metals and minerals that could derail climate action.
Iron ore reached the apex of a super-rally that drove prices to $237.57 a tonne in New York on Wednesday. The record followed a surge in demand from China’s steel-making regions, now recovering after the pandemic, which has pushed prices up from less than $94 this time last year.
Copper, which is used in products from smartphones to electric cars, has doubled in price over the past year. The metal hit a fresh record of more than $10,700 a tonne last week as Chinese demand continued to rise.
Market experts believe prices have further to run, as the rebound continues. But if China has sparked the bullish run on commodities, it is the global drive for green innovation that has fanned the flames….
…In a recent report, the energy watchdog found that the global demand for critical and rare minerals would rise to six times higher than today by 2040 if the world were to achieve net zero emissions in 2050. An electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional vehicle, and an onshore windfarm requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant. Electric cars and batteries, which are expected to increase dramatically in number over the years ahead, require large amount of cobalt, nickel and lithium, as well as rare earth elements. Wind power investment will also need high levels of rare earths, as well as zinc.
If the world hopes to keep pace with the trajectory set out in the Paris climate agreement – to keep the global rise in temperature lower than 2C – this could mean demand for lithium alone would climb 40 times higher in the next 20 years because of its use in batteries, according to the IEA….”
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“Weatherwatch: does nuclear power really keep the lights on?
With nuclear fading away, Britain must learn how to carefully manage renewable energy”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/may/15/weatherwatch-does-nuclear-power-really-keep-the-lights-on
“The nuclear industry is fond of telling us the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, as if people living in Britain did not already know that. But the point atomic enthusiasts are making is that wind and solar electricity generation is not reliable, while nuclear will keep the lights on.
But things are a bit more complicated than that. This is partly because large-scale batteries, pump storage in reservoirs and other ways of topping up electricity supplies mean that baseload power provided by nuclear reactors is no longer needed. Another reason is that nuclear output is falling while renewables get ever stronger.
Output of electricity over a year is measured in terawatt hours (TWh). In 2020, generation from nuclear was 50.3TWh, down 11% from 2019, partly because of cracks and rust in ageing reactors. Renewable output reached a record high of 120.3TWh.
Significantly, 2020 nuclear generation was 13TWh less than in 1989, when nuclear provided 20% of the nation’s electricity, and wind and solar contributions were hardly measurable.
Even with the massive station Hinkley Point C being built in Somerset, nuclear power is fading away. To keep the lights on we will have to increasingly learn to carefully manage the power produced by our unreliable weather.”
Translation: rationing coming soon.
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By the way, how is that panning out in practice? Here’s the UK National Grid right now:
Coal: 3.4%
Gas: 57.2%
Solar: 0.1%
Wind: 5%
Hydro: 1.5%
Pumped storage: 1.1%
Nuclear: 12.9%
Biomass: 5.9%
Interconnectors: 11.9%
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“Eco investors turn up the heat on Shell over climate target
Voting at the oil giant’s annual meeting this week could see Follow This activists making trouble over emissions”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/16/eco-investors-turn-up-heat-on-shell-over-climate-target
“Shell is braced for its largest climate rebellion this week as shareholders face the choice between backing the oil giant’s carbon-cutting plans or siding with an activist investor who is calling for tougher emissions targets.
With its annual meeting planned for Tuesday, the Anglo-Dutch company has called on its investors to vote against a shareholder resolution from campaign group Follow This in favour of its own plans to reduce its emissions to “net zero” by 2050.
The milestone battle will take place after BP saw support among its shareholders for the Follow This campaign double in a similar vote last week. The activists were ultimately defeated, but won 21.1% of shareholder support, up from just over 8% when Follow This put forward a resolution in 2019.
Although climate resolutions are often non-binding, the rising shareholder support for campaigners calling for greater climate action underscores the growing investor pressure on major oil companies to reduce their carbon emissions.
At least two major investors, Dutch pension fund Aegon and UK investment firm RWC Partners, are preparing to back Follow This in calling for tougher targets at Shell. British hedge fund billionaire Chris Hohn and the shareholder advisory group Pirc have also urged investors to side with the activist group.”
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@Mark, if the shareholders vote for the destruction of their own company, that is their choice. It is though a strange world we live in. In the old days if you didn’t like the direction of travel of a company you sold your shares in it. If enough people sold their shares, the share price dropped, and the company may well have considered its strategy for the future. Now it seems that folk have a sort of wedge strategy going on: get enough shares to be able to post a motion and then hound larger shareholders to agree… to the destruction of their own assets. A strange world indeed.
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Countryfile : 70th anniversary of the UK’s first national park.
– Joe Crowley investigates new pollution laws
– Some of Adam’s crops fail, so he takes a glimpse at what the farming of tomorrow might look like (Global Warming, Global Warming ?)
– a pioneering scheme to restore ruined farm buildings
– artist to help create a giant anniversary art mural
– the special sounds of the park’s waterways.
– a ‘tyre runner’ using the Peak District’s hills to help his mental health.
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“Phosphates” they cry
Tony Juniper is on, co he created the new awkward laws
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Stew, I have rarely seen such a collection of wastrels and parasites brought to our attention as were paraded for our edification or scorn (take your choice) on this week’s Countryfile. All sucking at the environmental and faux historian nipples.
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“John Kerry: US climate envoy criticised for optimism on clean tech
By Roger Harrabin
BBC energy and environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57135506
“America’s climate envoy John Kerry has been ridiculed for saying technologies that don’t yet exist will play a huge role in stabilising the climate.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, he said the US was leading the world on climate change – and rapidly phasing out coal-fired power stations.
But he rejected a suggestion that Americans need to change their consumption patterns by, say, eating less meat.
He said: “You don’t have to give up quality of life to achieve some of the things we want to achieve.
“I’m told by scientists that 50% of the reductions we have to make (to get to near zero emissions) by 2050 or 2045 are going to come from technologies we don’t yet have.”
But his faith in unknown technologies has left some leading engineers aghast.
Julian Allwood, professor of engineering and the environment at the University of Cambridge, told BBC News: “It’s virtually impossible for new energy infrastructure technologies to have a significant effect on global emissions in the time we have left to act.”
He warned that with every new energy-infrastructure technology so far, it’s taken 30-100 years from invention to 5% penetration of existing markets.”
I wonder what’s prompted this attack on BBC favourite John Kerry? Perhaps it was suggesting that we “don’t have to give up quality of life” that did it?
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The Guardian’s take on the story is rather less hostile:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/16/half-of-emissions-cuts-will-come-from-future-tech-says-john-kerry
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7pm Radio news
John Kerry: US climate envoy criticised for optimism on clean tech
John Kerry: “50% carbon emission cuts to come from technology ‘we don’t yet have'”
He was on Marr Show
Article quotes Professor Julian Allwood of @UKFIRES (a collaboration of UK uni alarmists)
FFS are alarmists thick ?
If we have the tech we’d already have Net Zero
To have the “Have Your Cake & Eat it”* solution they want
we’d have to wait for new tech
They don’t actually want to downsize to zero children/immigration
* Ah Kerry even promised that
“You don’t have to give up a quality of life to achieve some of the things that we know we have to achieve”
Second article
US will not stop eating meat! John Kerry slaps down Andrew Marr’s go vegetarian demand
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BBC video tweets
U.S. Embassy London tweeted
@ClimateEnvoy John Kerry on #Marr
: We’re going to find our way to zero emissions as fast as possible.
@POTUS Biden has set a goal already
of getting the entire power sector of the United States totally carbon-free by 2035.
#NetZero
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So why are the Conservatives & Cameron in bed with Gupta and Liberty Steel ?
Ah I see he promised them GreenDream
He has a Twitter account
@GFGAlliance
GFG Alliance is a collection of global businesses & investments
owned by Sanjeev Gupta & his family,
creating a sustainable future for industry & society.
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The latest climate propaganda idea from the BBC:
“Sport 2050: How climate change could leave golf with a less than green future
By Sport 2050
Future News from a Warmer World”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/56972370
“In 30 years time, climate change may be making such an impact on sustainable water supplies, that lush wide-open fairways are a thing of the past.
We’ve imagined a 2050 golf tournament that feels a little more industrial…..
…Russell Seymour is founder and chief executive of the British Association for Sustainable Sport
This story shows how sport, specifically golf, might adapt to changing environmental and climatic conditions. Unpredictable weather will make it harder to manage and maintain courses.
In some areas of the world this may be due to drought and water scarcity, while in others it may be rain and storms. Already some links courses are facing physical incursions on to the course due to coastal erosion….”
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“Sport 2050: Why are we doing this – and why does it matter today?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/56972366
“Sport 2050 was conceived and created with the ambition of making the abstract future impacts of climate change more real for people by looking at how it might impact on their everyday lives. Sport is not only one of the most universally relatable areas of life across the globe, it is also one that raises passions quite like no other – so presents an ideal opportunity to do this.
The second thought behind the project was the ability of sport to help inform readers who may not otherwise have engaged with the science of, or news around, climate change. The science presented is only designed therefore to be an introductory level and we have endeavoured to link to and include some more in-depth reporting and articles for those who are interested.
The imagined scenarios are not predictions, they are creatively imagined and for illustrative purposes only – but based in both the science and collective thoughts of how sport might adapt.”
Well, quite a lot of candour there. I think they’ve learned some lessons about the folly of making predictions, which turn out to be inaccurate.
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“Veterans for Britain Board questions the MoD’s recent preoccupation with ‘green’ issues.”
https://briefingsforbritain.co.uk/veterans-for-britain-board-questions-the-mods-recent-preoccupation-with-green-issues/
“On 5th May 2021 an article was published in the Daily Telegraph which has caused great concern to VfB Board Members. It reports that ACM Mike Wigston, the Chief of the Air Staff, intends to divert time and resources into developing so-called ‘carbon neutral’ fuels for the RAF. Likewise Army interest in battery electrification of armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) is reported. This announcement comes on the heels of an equally but differently extraordinary MoD report from the ‘climate change champion’ Lt Gen Richard Nugee.
Until this point, VfB has refrained from comment, expecting and hoping that enthusiasm for such views would subside without active harm to the readiness, safety and lethality of UK Forces. However, if this is not to be so, then true to our credo which is to advise and warn on threats to the realm, we are obliged to engage on this new front. We warn that these so-called ‘green’ initiatives are pregnant with danger and should be quietly abandoned before they have a chance to mature further. Nor are they, in themselves, environmentally beneficial in any useful way. In short, they are self-harming of national security….
…This virtue-signalling distraction risks service peoples’ lives and risks the mission facing an enemy not so constrained. …
…do the Chiefs not know three essential facts about Xi Jinping’s Communist China?
1) that it has no intention of self-harming its economy by foregoing energy dense fuels or internal combustion or jet engines or oil for industrial petro-chemicals any time soon (see graph below). It is not following the west’s coerced high entropy path increasing electricity grid fragility with associated reduction in electricity use because of rising prices, a perversity which poses both a national security and a social security risk to the poorest people in society.
2) that the PLA has in any case declared an exemption for all its armed forces from declaratory statements about let alone moves towards substitute fuels
3) that the PRC’s on-going offensive intelligence influence operations encourage us in the Free World to self-harm in pursuit of incoherent concepts like ‘Net Zero’. It is high time to investigate the role of PRC influence operations conducted by its Ministry of State Security United Front Work Dept in the West’s various high profile climate catastrophist agitator groups.
Therefore why, pray, would the Chief of the Air Staff want to do what Xi Jinping wants him to do?…”
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“Greenland ice sheet on brink of major tipping point, says study
Scientists say ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise is probably already doomed to melt”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/17/greenland-ice-sheet-on-brink-of-major-tipping-point-says-study
“A significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink of a tipping point, after which accelerated melting would become inevitable even if global heating was halted, according to new research.
Rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis have already seen trillions of tonnes of Greenland’s ice pour into the ocean. Melting its ice sheet completely would eventually raise global sea level by 7 metres.
The new analysis detected the warning signals of a tipping point in a 140-year record of ice-sheet height and melting rates in the Jakobshavn basin, one of the five biggest basins in Greenland and the fastest-melting. The prime suspect for a surge in melting is a vicious circle in which melting reduces the height of the ice sheet, exposing it to the warmer air found at lower altitudes, which causes further melting.
The study shows destabilisation of this ice sheet is under way. Uncertainties in the research meant it might already be at the point of no return, or be about to cross it in the coming decades, the scientists said. However, even if the tipping point was crossed, it did not mean that the entire ice sheet was doomed, they said, because there might be a stable state for a smaller ice sheet.
“We’re at the brink, and every year with CO2 emissions continuing as usual exponentially increases the probability of crossing the tipping point,” said Niklas Boers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, who conducted the research with Martin Rypdal from the Arctic University of Norway. “It might have passed [the tipping point], but it’s not clear. However, our results suggest there will be substantially enhanced melting in the near future, which is worrying.””
On brink of major tipping point, screams the headline – yet the report refers to uncertainties in the research and says “However, even if the tipping point was crossed, it did not mean that the entire ice sheet was doomed, they said, because there might be a stable state for a smaller ice sheet.”
When science meets Guardian headline writers…..
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China again….
“‘Catastrophic’: Sierra Leone sells rainforest for Chinese harbour
Controversial deal with China would be ‘disastrous’ for fishing and protected rainforest, say opponents”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/17/sierra-leone-sells-rainforest-for-chinese-fishmeal-plant
“A $55m (£39m) deal struck by the government of Sierra Leone with China to build an industrial fishing harbour on 100 hectares (250 acres) of beach and protected rainforest has been criticised as “a catastrophic human and ecological disaster” by conservationists, landowners and rights groups.
The gold and black sands of Black Johnson beach fringe the African nation’s Western Area Peninsula national park, home to endangered species including the duiker antelope and pangolins. The waters are rich in sardines, barracuda and grouper, caught by local fishermen who produce 70% of the fish for the domestic market.
After reports of a Chinese-backed fishmeal plant began circulating on social media, A statement that appeared to be from the Sierra Leonean fisheries ministry confirmed the deal, but denied the planned construction was a “fish mill”. The facility would be a harbour for tuna and “other bigger fishing” vessels exporting to international markets, it said. It would include a “waste-management component” to “recycle marine and other wastes into useful products”.”
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Worth a read, IMO, to see how the absolute certainties that Guardian contributors have :
“How we talk about the climate crisis is increasingly crucial to tackling it”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/17/talk-about-climate-crisis-tackling
“These tensions are nothing new. For several decades, a disinformation campaign led by fossil fuel companies and their allies meant that the overwhelming scientific consensus about the risks of global heating was obscured. The BBC, among other organisations, mistakenly attempted to “balance” the warnings about humanity’s worsening predicament with lies. Greens of all shades were rightly enraged.”
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The author of that article is a member of Islington Green Party – as is her right, of course, but shouldn’t that fact be made clear, for the sake of transparency, when she writes articles like that one?
https://islington.greenparty.org.uk/elections/your-local-council-candidates-for-islington-north/
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Local ITV news “Climate Change it’s water saving week
.. by 2050 our summers *could* be 3C hotter
…. here’s a plumber whose signed up to the scheme
.. Nick Smith ITVnews”
Looks like a syndicated national item
It is … it’s al part of PR for #watersavingweek
they did another item at a school as well
Meanwhile in my area forecast
the first day without rain will be Tuesday 25th
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“Climate change: Ban all gas boilers from 2025 to reach net-zero
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57149059
“The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that no new fossil fuel boilers should be sold from 2025 if the world is to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of this century.
It’s one of 400 steps on the road to net-zero proposed by the agency in a special report.
The sale of new petrol and diesel cars around the world would end by 2035.
The IEA says that from now, there is no place for new coal, oil or gas exploration or supplies.
The report has been welcomed as an important contribution on the road to COP26 in Glasgow, when countries will attempt to agree the measures needed to put the Paris climate agreement into practice.
In that context, tackling the issue of how the world produces and consumes energy is the most critical endeavour.
The energy sector, according to the IEA, is the source of around 75% of the emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving up global temperatures.”
The press release is something to behold:
https://www.iea.org/news/pathway-to-critical-and-formidable-goal-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-is-narrow-but-brings-huge-benefits-according-to-iea-special-report
The link to the report is here:
https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
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The BBC relies on experts again:
“Joe Root: England captain on impact of climate change on cricket”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/57126777
“England captain Joe Root says it is “scary” to think that cricket may not be played outdoors in certain parts of the world in 30 years’ time because of the impact of climate change.
Cricket already takes place in some of the hottest parts of the globe, but that could soon become impossible.
Root says everyone needs to play a part in protecting the environment in order to preserve the sport as we know it.
“It’s quite stark and something needs to be done,” he told BBC Sport.
“It is scary to think the game as it is right now may not be the case in 30 years’ time.
“I’m sure we will have to evolve and develop as a sport and as players as well.”
Root, 30, knows all too well the impact that playing in extreme temperatures can have on the human body. The batsman was taken to hospital to be treated for severe dehydration after batting in sweltering heat during the fifth Ashes Test against Australia in Sydney in 2018.
Temperatures reached 47.3C in Sydney that day, the hottest day in the city for 79 years, with temperatures out in the middle at the Sydney Cricket Ground estimated to have been even higher.”
Which, of course, means that it was even hotter 79 years ago. And does it not occur to Joe that international cricket (players, fans, media all jetting all over the world) has a massive “carbon” footprint?
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The relentless propaganda drive ahead of COP 26 is in full swing:
“Northern Ireland’s marine carbon stores help fight climate change”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57152059
“help play an important role in the fight against climate change.
That is according to a new report by Ulster Wildlife.
It found that salt marshes, sea grass and seabed sediments can store more than 30,000 tonnes of carbon a year.
Many habitats performing this function are not in protected marine areas, like Rathlin Island or Strangford, Belfast and Carlingford loughs.
With careful management they could have the potential to do much more – perhaps even tripling their carbon storing capacity.
The main threats to these so-called “blue carbon” stores are physical disturbance, climate change and changes in land use and management.
And in order for them to reach their full potential, they need to be protected and restored, and new ones developed.
The report was produced by Ulster Wildlife working alongside marine experts from the National Oceanography Centre and the University of Hull.”
I wonder how much that cost?
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“Sales of peat compost to gardeners to be banned from 2024
Funding for restoration of peatlands and tripling of tree planting in England also announced”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/sales-of-peat-compost-to-gardeners-to-be-banned-from-2024
“Sales of peat compost to gardeners will be banned from 2024, the government has said. Ministers will also give £50m to support the restoration of 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025, about 1% of the UK’s total.
The UK’s peatlands store three times as much carbon as its forests. But the vast majority are in a degraded state, and are emitting CO2, which drives the climate crisis.”
Rather than the taxpayer providing that £50M fund for peatland restoration, perhaps it should be funded by a levy on wind turbine companies (mostly foreign-owned) given the huge and devastating impact that they have had on our landscape, wildlife and peatlands?
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The Guardian also has the story of the IEA report (of course, no doubt they also received the press release) but its headline spins it slightly differently:
“No new oil, gas or coal development if world is to reach net zero by 2050, says world energy body
Governments must close gap between net zero rhetoric and reality, says International Energy Agency head”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/no-new-investment-in-fossil-fuels-demands-top-energy-economist
“Exploitation and development of new oil and gas fields must stop this year and no new coal-fired power stations can be built if the world is to stay within safe limits of global heating and meet the goal of net zero emissions by 2050, the world’s leading energy organisation has said.
In its strongest warning yet on the need to drastically scale back fossil fuels, the International Energy Agency (IEA) also called for no new fossil-fuel cars to be sold beyond 2035, and for global investment in energy to more than double from $2tn (£1.42tn) a year to $5tn (£3.54tn) The result would not be an economic burden, as some have claimed, but a net benefit to the economy.
Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director and one of the world’s foremost energy economists, told the Guardian: “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year.”
He said strong new policies were needed from governments around the world: “More and more countries are coming up with net zero commitments, which is very good, but I see a huge and growing gap between the rhetoric [from governments] and the reality.”
The IEA has released its most comprehensive report yet into what is needed to achieve the world’s climate goals, the implications of which will be felt around the world. Few governments intend to halt fossil-fuel exploration. The UK is licensing new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, China is building coal-fired power plants, and oil companies are still investing in new output.
Birol said they must reconsider. “
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“Timmermans lets Thunberg down again on green farming
Activists poured scorn on political difficulties in reforming the Common Agricultural Policy as ‘bullshit.’”
https://www.politico.eu/article/frans-timmermans-lets-greta-thunberg-down-again-on-cap-green-farming/
“EU Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans wants Greta Thunberg and other activists to fight for a climate-friendly farming policy, despite refusing to scrap the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform they’ve lambasted for not being green enough.
In a Monday call that ran overtime, Timmermans told Thunberg and other youth campaigners that he didn’t have enough public backing to deliver on their demands to withdraw the Commission’s proposal to revamp the CAP — despite acknowledging the likely outcome was “far from perfect,” according to Maximilian Herzog, one of the activists on the call. It’s the third time Timmermans has delivered a similar message.
“We don’t expect him to withdraw the CAP, as he said he would not have enough support for that,” Thunberg said, accusing the man in charge of EU climate policy of “not treating the crisis like a crisis.”
But she conceded climate activists needed to convince the public. “We know that the changes will not come from inside, from negotiations, from politicians discussing these things with lobbyists. The changes will come when there is enough public opinion, that enough people are aware and are pushing for change” she said.
That’s a big demand for a program that gobbles up a third of the bloc’s budget and is an economic mainstay for millions of politically powerful farmers.
An EU official said Timmermans had “pointed to the importance of public mobilization in support of ambitious climate action to convince politicians and decision-makers to act.”
Others on the call were less forgiving. “He said, ‘It’s the people, the people aren’t ready for it,’ and I think that’s utter bullshit,” said Sommer Ackerman, a Finland-based British climate activist.
“The people are ready,” said Ackerman. Rather, she said it was Europe’s powerful farming lobby standing against sound climate policy.”
My word, it’s difficult. Vested interests fighting for climate change action. Vested interests opposing it. Some say the public are ready, some say they still need to be convinced. I reckon that if the public aren’t pushing for change now, after years, decades of increasing and relentless propaganda, than they never will. On the contrary, there’ll be push-back once they realise how it will change their lives and what it will cost them. Just look at the number of people who have flown abroad on holiday the moment the restrictions were eased. How happy will they be when they’re told they can’t fly again, or that flights will be strictly rationed?
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Local BBCnews push Greendream almost every other day
and block those who dare to blaspheme by questioning
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BBC Eco-Taliban prog about to start on R4
“Government action on climate change is sluggish*.
Could rich individuals cut through red tape and fund measures to cool the planet from their own pockets? And should they be allowed?
Presenter/producer: Jolyon Jenkins
That is a political opinion, not impartial
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The shortlink title is “Global ban on gas boilers from 2025 proposed”
As usual the BBC gets a kicking in the comments
with 1,100 skeptics vs 200 alarmists
“Mass energy poverty incoming…
Do these people know how much it costs to heat a house and water using electricity?”
1093 upvotes ….102 down
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“Meanwhile Germany is protecting its gas supply with a massive pipeline from Russia
and China is burning more and more coal!!
Unless the whole world joins in
this will just be a very expensive exercise with no benefits!! “
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https://order-order.com/2021/05/18/working-classes-most-worried-about-day-to-day-issues-not-climate-crisis/
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Greta Thunderberg, the puppet controlled by strings
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“Cornwall Wave Hub to be sold for offshore wind farm”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-57156482
“A £42m wave energy facility launched 11 years ago is to be sold to an offshore wind farm company.
Wave Hub, an undersea “socket” located off Hayle in Cornwall, is meant to transfer electricity from wave energy producers to the National Grid.
So far no firms have used the facility for that purpose.
Owner Cornwall Council said it would be sold for an undisclosed sum to Swedish firm Hexicon in a deal expected to be completed at the end of May.
Wave Hub, forecast to be a “world class facility”, was financed by the South West of England Regional Development Agency (£12.5m), the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme (£20m) and the UK government (£9.5m).
The site, 10 miles (16km) north of St Ives and Carbis Bay, is linked to the mainland via an undersea cable, but no power has been transferred through it.
Ownership was transferred to Cornwall Council in 2017 and the authority said it “received around £14m to cover ongoing operations, support for the marine renewables sector and decommissioning costs”.”
Good grief! Is this typical?
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“Gas Boilers: What are heat pumps and how much do they cost?
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57159056
“Climate advisers anticipate that most homes in future will be warmed by heat pumps.
These devices extract warmth from the air or the ground, or from water – a bit like a fridge operating in reverse.
They are on the market already but they are costly – between £6,000 and £18,000, depending on the sort you install and the size of your home.
Heat pumps are subsidised under a scheme called the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive. People receive payments for seven years based on the amount of renewable heat made by their heating systems.
However, MPs say people need much better incentives to have heat pumps fitted.”
Yes, and where is the money to come from?
BTW, my wife and I stayed in an eco-house on holiday in Scotland one July a few years ago. I believe it relied on a heat pump. It was absolutely freezing (and that was in July).
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“Lamborghini plans to electrify entire range by 2024
Supercar maker to invest £1.3bn on building first hybrids and then all-electric model”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/18/lamborghini-electrify-hybrids-electric
“Lamborghini has announced plans to produce only hybrid electric supercars by 2024, becoming the latest sports car producer to shift away from polluting internal combustion engines.
The Italian supercar company announced on Tuesday it was investing €1.5bn (£1.3bn) in hybrid and all-electric vehicles.
The brand, which is owned by Volkswagen, said its current models – Huracan and Aventador sports cars and Urus sport utility vehicles will be hybrids by 2024, and it would launch a new all-electric model by the end of the decade.
Stephan Winkelmann, the Lamborghini president and chief executive, said the electrification plan would take the company “towards a more sustainable future while always remaining faithful to our DNA”.
He admitted it could be a challenge to evoke the feel of a V12 engine in an electric car. “We have to define what sportiness is in the new era, in the battery electric era,” he said. “Range is the top priority. This is still something we have to work on.””
I imagine you can say that again.
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“Shell faces shareholder rebellion over fossil fuel production
Shareholder resolution calling for carbon emissions reduction targets receives 30% of votes”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/18/shell-faces-shareholder-rebellion-over-fossil-fuel-production
“Shell has faced a significant shareholder rebellion on a vote calling for the oil company to set firm targets to wind down fossil fuel production.
A shareholder resolution calling for the Anglo-Dutch company to set binding carbon emissions reduction targets received 30% of votes at the oil company’s annual meeting on Tuesday.
The Shell rebellion came on the day that the International Energy Agency said that exploration for new oil and gas fields must stop this year if the world is to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Net zero emissions would contribute to limiting catastrophic global heating.
The result represents an escalation of the pressure on Shell to commit to meaningful decarbonisation, after a similar resolution last year received 14% of votes. A similar resolution at BP, another FTSE 100 oil company, gained 21% of votes last week.
The Shell rebellion sailed past the 20% threshold that means the oil company will be forced to consult shareholders and report on their views within six months, under the UK corporate governance code.
The resolution was put forward by Follow This, a campaign group that uses activist investment to put pressure on oil companies into decarbonising in line with the limits set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.”
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“UK climate champion ‘stubbornly optimistic’ about net zero deal at UN talks
Nigel Topping acknowledges world is running out of time as he lobbies businesses and lawmakers in lead-up to Cop26 summit”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/uk-climate-champion-stubbornly-optimistic-about-net-zero-deal-at-un-talks
“The UK’s climate champion, Nigel Topping, says he is stubbornly optimistic that the world will converge on an agreement to forge a transition to a net zero future at the UN climate talks later this year.
Topping’s role in the run-up to the UN Cop26 climate summit, to be held in Glasgow in November, is to drive and encourage action from businesses, civil society, and local and regional government on climate change.
Topping acknowledges the need to be sanguine about the fact that the world has not done enough and is running out of time. “But I am a stubborn optimist,” he said.
Topping, who was appointed the UK’s climate champion by Boris Johnson last year, said: “We do know what needs to be done, we do have solutions and we are rapidly seeing the whole world converge on an agreement.
“Most commentators haven’t studied history enough to see that these complicated industrial transformations have always seemed to take forever to start, but then have gone very quickly.”
Topping and his fellow climate champion, Chile’s Gonzalo Muñoz, are leading the so-called Race to Zero, a global campaign to rally support and commitments for a net zero future and emissions limits for the next decade.
Topping says he is “soapboxing” to drum up as much support as possible from city leaders, regional governments, business and civil society to support the transition to net zero.”
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Mark
Harrabin on heat pumps?
I feel we should hear from Mr. Harrabin about his own heating and travel arrangements …. ?
That whole Domestic Renewable Heat incentive is bullshit – the equipment is overpriced and delivered via a network of “accredited” installers who simply have a licence to rinse the punters – there is no competitive market for the installers or the kit.
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Having spent ages campaigning for a ban on peat extraction, the BBC now implicitly attacks the Government for saying it will introduce a ban:
“How would a peat-based compost ban affect Scotland?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57159649
“Peat extractors in Scotland could be hit by a proposed ban announced in England on the sale of peat-based compost.
Very little extraction is undertaken south of the border but there are still several sites in Scotland where it is removed commercially.
The practice is considered damaging to the environment because it is such an important store of carbon….
…Scottish peat extraction sites include one at Moy near Inverness, where the soil goes to a company in the Lothians for growing mushrooms.
It is unclear at this stage whether the proposed ban would affect this sector, but if it does the site’s operator Brian MacGregor said it would cost jobs.
He said: “We have six staff employed here and it will have an impact on them. We are just satisfying demand from the UK mushroom industry.
“We are the only folk in the whole of the UK mainland extracting peat for the mushroom industry. Our product grows 500 tonnes of mushroom per week.”
Mr MacGregor has signed a £50,000 bond to restore the peatland site to the satisfaction of environment agencies.
He said there was no alternative to peat available to the mushroom industry.”
I don’t remember the BBC looking at the other side of the argument when it was in campaigning mode.
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“Indonesia: Climate change destroying world’s oldest animal painting”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57166995
“In a study published in Scientific Reports last week, a team of Australian and Indonesian researchers found that increased temperatures and other extreme weather patterns – such as consecutive dry days and heavy monsoons – have accelerated the build-up of salts within the cave systems housing the rock art.
The salts swell and shrink as the environment heats and cools. On hot days, geological salts can grow to more than three times their initial size, the team wrote.
These salt crystals, growing on top of and behind the rock art, can then cause parts of the pictures to flake off the cave walls.
Dr Huntley added that she believed the “degradation of this incredible rock art is set to worsen the higher global temperatures climb.””
The study can be found here, if anyone is interested:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87923-3
I thought this was interesting:
“The rising frequency and severity of El Niño-induced droughts from anthropogenic climate change (that is, higher ambient temperatures and more consecutive dry days), combined with seasonal moisture injected via monsoonal rains retained as standing water in the rice fields and aquaculture ponds of the region, increasingly provide ideal conditions for evaporation and haloclasty, accelerating rock art deterioration.”
I confess to ignorance. I thought El Nino was an entirely natural phenomenon. Am I wrong? Are the doomsayers now contending that humankind’s activities are causing more frequent and more extreme El Ninos?
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“Climate crisis to put millions of British homes at risk of subsiding
Drier summers mean the ground in vulnerable areas will be more prone to shrink and crack, scientists say”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/19/climate-crisis-to-put-millions-of-british-homes-at-risk-of-subsiding
“The climate crisis is very likely to put millions of homes at increased risk of subsidence, according to new data from the British Geological Survey (BGS). The hotter and drier summers being driven by global heating mean the ground under houses will shrink and crack, scientists said.
The key areas affected are London, Essex, Kent, and a swathe of land from Oxford up to the Wash. This is because the clay formations underlying these areas are most vulnerable to losing moisture.
In a medium scenario for future emissions, the area of Great Britain that is highly or extremely likely to see increased risk of clay-related subsidence increases by a third from 2020 to 2030 and triples by 2050.
The projections are similar in a separate high emissions scenario, but this dataset allows the number of homes at risk of subsidence to be calculated. About a million homes were at risk in 1990 and this rises to 2.4m in 2030 and 4m in 2070. London is the most affected, with nearly half of the capital’s homes at increased risk in 2030 and 57% in 2070, according to BGS.
“It is a very clear message that repeats in both projections,” said Anna Harrison, at BGS. “The south-east gets a double whammy, in that they’ve got susceptible geology and much drier, warmer summers are projected there.””
AK, any comments?
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“Nasa leads push for electric planes in next frontier of cutting emissions”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/18/electric-planes-nasa-carbon-emissions
“Flying on batteries presents major technological challenges but companies will be demonstrating their best efforts over the next year in California
Over the next year, at a research site on the fringes of the Mojave desert in California, Nasa will hunt for a breakthrough against one of the climate crisis’s most stubborn challenges – how to eliminate carbon pollution from aviation via a new generation of electric airplanes.
Prodded by Joe Biden’s quest to slash the US’s planet-heating emissions to net zero, Nasa is corralling companies to demonstrate improved ways to power aircraft via batteries rather than jet fuel, with the aim of phasing in electric flights for Americans within the next 15 years.”
I bet they’re not rushing to make electric space craft!
“Nasa has been working on electric planes for the past decade, grappling with laws of physics that haven’t dogged the mainstream adoption of electric cars. Currently, to power a 737-size jet with electricity would require a battery the size of the plane itself. “That’s just not feasible, it would be too heavy to take off, let alone fly,” Heidmann said. “Weight is quite a bit more important for planes than cars.”…
…significant barriers remain. Jet fuel is still far more energy-dense than batteries, meaning the technology isn’t yet ready for universal adoption. There are other issues, too – aviation regulations aren’t geared towards electric planes, airlines produce thousands rather than millions of units unlike the car industry and there is a certain level of public nervousness about being propelled into the skies by avant-garde technology.
But airlines are coming under increasing pressure to cut emissions in order to address the climate crisis, particularly given the shift to clean energy already under way in the power sector and other modes of transportation. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, which has badly hit the industry, airlines around the world carried a record 4.3 billion passengers, with carbon dioxide emissions leaping 33% in the six years to 2019.
The airline industry accounts for about 2% of global emissions but this share is set to increase as flights rebound and other sectors start embracing renewable energy. Researchers have warned that air travel could eat up as much as a quarter of the “carbon budget” the world has left to avoid global heating of more than 1.5C, a point at which civilization will face punishing climate disasters….”
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“Why is Australia building a $600m gas power plant as world experts warn against fossil fuels?
Morrison government says it will provide cheap energy but experts say renewables are already providing cheaper, cleaner alternatives. So who’s right?”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/19/coalitions-600m-gas-fired-recovery-boost-what-you-need-to-know
“Why is the government investing in gas power?
Taylor and Scott Morrison say another 1,000 of new “dispatchable” electricity – that, unlike solar and wind, can be called on when needed – is needed when the Liddell coal-fired plant shuts in 2023.
It says this must be from burning gas, which it says is essential to the future grid. Morrison warned nine months ago that the government would build this amount of gas capacity if the private sector didn’t.
The government has wavered on the actual figure a bit – Morrison told the ABC last year the gap might be 250MW – but has returned to the 1,000MW goal set in September last year.
Taylor says the two plants announced this month are part of the government’s much-vaunted “gas-fired recovery” from recession.
Does this stand up to scrutiny?
Not according to many energy analysts, the climate science community, or the head of the government’s Energy Security Board, Kerry Schott.
There are a long list of arguments against the government investing in new gas, from a variety of angles. They include:
Schott telling Guardian Australia, and the government, that the case for a gas plant in the Hunter Valley “doesn’t stack up” commercially given there is an abundance of cheaper and cleaner alternatives flooding the market.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) finding there is no need to replace the exiting Liddell coal plant in 2023 because the gap to ensure grid reliability was only 154MW, and that has already been covered by other commitments.
A taskforce advising governments about the impact of the Liddell closure backing this up by finding NSW did not find an additional 1,000MW to keep the lights on, and listing a range of committed and probable projects that it found would be “more than sufficient”.
Aemo finding that while between 6 and 19GW of new dispatchable power would be needed over the next 20 years under an optimal future grid – ie, a grid that runs nearly entirely on solar and wind as coal is pushed off the field. It could come from a range of sources including batteries, pumped hydro and demand management. It said new gas was an option but – in apparent contradiction of Morrison’s claims that gas generation would bring prices down – that it was likely to be more expensive than other options.
That by directly interfering in the electricity market the federal government is likely to further discourage the private investment needed to deliver the huge amount of dispatchable generation needed over the years ahead. This argument suggests an overarching policy that sets an emissions trajectory – such as a carbon price – would be a cheaper and more effective approach that could guide private investment.
Last, but by no means least, gas is a fossil fuel that releases about half the emissions of coal when burned, and contributes even more to global heating once methane that leaks during extraction and piping is counted. The argument is backing the option to support the electricity grid that adds greenhouse gas emissions when there are cleaner and cheaper alternatives.
Sounds comprehensive. How does the government respond?
It says the new capacity is needed to keep prices down, and quotes the former chief scientist Alan Finkel as saying gas is the “perfect complement” to solar and wind.”
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“CLIMATE CAFÉ ONLINE: SAT 12TH JUNE 2021”
https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/events/500-climate-cafe-jan
“A climate café is a simple, hospitable, empathetic space where fears and uncertainties about our climate crisis can be safely expressed.
We need the kind of exploration that climate cafés provide as it becomes more evident that climate change is not a far-away problem but a clear and present danger to our own safety and wellbeing. People increasingly need to talk about what our changing climate means for them in terms of impacts at personal, family and societal level. We need to imagine it in some detail so as to be able to think about it constructively and clear-sightedly, and to explore some complex feelings and thoughts which may often be taboo and hard to talk about.
The focus of discussion is participants’ thoughts and feelings about the climate crisis. There are no guest speakers and no talks, and it is an advice-free zone. The aproach [sic] is adapted from Death Cafés. Whilst climate change is usually the main focus of the café we realise too, in these exceptional times, that COVID19 is another life-threatening preoccupation and needs a space to be explored – and this can happen here too.
The next café will take place on Saturday 12th June 2021 from 15.30 – 17.00 BST and will be led by trained facilitators, Gillian Broad & Lauren Uba. It is open to anyone worried about the climate crisis, whether or not they are members of CPA, at a flat fee of £5.”
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@ Mark 6.22
So, to provide 6-19 GW of dispatchable power, they list batteries, pumped storage, and demand management. None of these actually produce power. The first two store it in small amounts at vast expense, while the third implies enhancements to modern life down under like the electricity provider having the power, and at times duty, to cut leccy to air conditioners.
It has always rankled with me that “clean” power is so blithely asserted. The idea that producing CO2 defines “dirty” is a curious one.
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Talking of writing papers etc…
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/science-2
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XR protest blocking the road at the Science Museum now
All people are equal
but YOU are not allowed to use a museum
unless Extinction Rebellion have approved of the donors
The way these guys try to dictate our lives is SNOBBERY.
… https://twitter.com/XRLondon/status/1394969048237096963
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Isn’t this a bit like fracking?
“Eden Project: Drilling starts for geothermal power”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-57171058
“A 55m (180ft) high drilling rig has started working at the Eden Project as part of a geothermal power scheme.
The 450-tonne research rig is working to drill down 4.5km (2.8 miles) into granite to test potential power at the Cornwall site as part of a £17m scheme.
If successful, the scheme would use steam created from hot water found deep underground to power turbines and produce electricity.
The first phase of drilling will take about five months.
Once it reaches its target depth, and if tests are successful, another rig nearby would drill a hole of the same depth for producing electricity, bosses said.
Project leader Eden Geothermal Ltd secured £17m funding for the first phase from the European Regional Development Fund, Cornwall Council and investment trust GCP Infrastructure Investments.”
No negativity in the reporting at all.
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Scary headline that doesn’t reflect the reality of the story:
“Climate change: The Antarctic ice shelf in the line of fire”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57169003
“Will it be next, and if so, when?
These are questions often asked about Larsen C, a huge ice shelf, twice the size of Wales, attached to the eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula.
A dozen or so smaller floating ice platforms, mostly to the north, have either disintegrated or substantially retreated in recent decades, as the region’s climate has warmed.
So it’s with interest that we learn from new research that Larsen C may be more resilient than we dared hope.
Scientists have been drilling through the ice shelf, and just in front, to get at sediments that record past ice behaviour.
And what these investigations tell us is that Larsen C has maintained integrity throughout the last 10,000 years. It’s had a couple of phases of retreat in previous warm spells – roughly 9,000 and 4,000 years ago – but it’s never collapsed like its northern cousins.”
Then another scary bit that emphasises the need to “do something” about climate change:
“”It’s clearly a robust ice shelf; it’s hung in there for a long time,” says study leader Dr James Smith from the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK.
“So with that resilience we could potentially prevent a collapse if we curb carbon emissions and get a good grip on atmospheric warming. But what I would say is that Larsen C is probably as vulnerable as it’s ever been in terms of the last 10,000 years because it’s likely at the thinnest it’s ever been over that period,” he told BBC News.”
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Mark. I wonder what powers the engines that will turn the drill string for five months at the EdenProject geothermal experiment? No doubt if successful it will be touted loud and strong as supplying renewable energy to an n-th degree of verditure. Yet it won’t be. Heat will be withdrawn at a rate significantly faster than it can be replenished (after all heat flow through rocks is slow, they are thermal insulators), so the hot granite will cool, eventually loosing so much heat that the temperature difference becomes low enough to become unusable. If the infrastructure depends upon steam, so much sooner will it become defunct – although when the subsurface water fails to flash to steam, it can be made to do so for a time by reducing pressure.
Eden Project blurb seems to suggest geothermal energy should be widely available and we should be using it, whereas its availability is very limited.
BTW. Geothermal at Southampton is different. There warm subsurface water is replenished by deep groundwater flow so bringing new heat to the site.
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Woman’s Hour gets quite a few tweets today
showing it caters to the lefty student union types.
Twitter thread
Topics : Tory environment minister was on
“Burn her she’s an evil Tory” shout their listeners.
: Those guys in the car shouting rape the Jews
They brought on feminist Julie Bindel to say basically all men support rape . WTF !
The sane people on Twitter complained
Why is Emma doing another Newsnight style gotcha interview.
Just turned on @BBCWomansHour & yet again it’s been replaced by @Emmabarnett
doing a bog-standard Radio 5 Live “hard-hitting” political interview,
this time with a Govt Environmental Minister.
The reason it’s on Woman’s Hour? – because the Minister is a woman?
The gotcha question was
“ do you believe as environment minister that UK needs a new coal mine ?
Is this compatible with gaining net zero ?“
The Green Tory is unable to give the honest answer
that now steel is made with imported coal
so using local coal is a CO2 reduction.
..and that NetZero is a PR BS word
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@ITVTonight tweeted
To tackle the #climateemergency the government has committed to reducing our carbon footprint.
#escooters may seems like a green solution but how safe are they for riders and pedestrians?
‘E-scooters: Britain’s New Road Rage?’ Tonight, 7:30pm, ITV
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Radio4 sciency show
continues its tradition of big lies and small truths.
#1 The Science Museum reopened this week with a new exhibition looking at the science of Carbon Capture.
we took former Formula One technical champ Paddy Lowe to have a look round.
He is interested in Carbon Capture because he has started a new company – Zero Petroleum – that aims to do nothing less than kick start a synthetic (hydrocarbon) fuel revolution.
Using carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere, he and colleague Prof Nilay Shah believe they can use renewable electricity and other feedstocks to tranform captured carbon into fuels and create a whole new petrochemical supply that could close the loop on the industrial revolution – especially for those energy uses where batteries could not currently work (jet engines and heavy remote machinery.
.. FFS that’s almost a perpetual motion machine
given the amount of energy you’d need to rebind hydrogen and carbon.
#2 up in the north east of England, Charlotte Adams of the UKs Coal Authority describes progress on measures to convert disued Coal mines to geothermal heatpumps, providing reliable steady heating for new-build homes across many parts of the UK, and taking strain off the electrical grid.
… there is some small truth you could extract a bit of heat, but why use it for homes, maybe industrial use might be more efficient.
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There is a trick
Reader has a Conversations button
It loads much less comments so loads quicker
https://wordpress.com/read/conversations
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The rental scooters cost an additional 20p per minute , that’s not cheap to me.
Also people often dump them on the pavement, so that is a trip hazard.
And there was a significant amount of injuries
Cautious riders keep breaking the rules, by riding on the pavement where people are.
Ah, I just found an edit button
What’s the ultimate reason for an e-scooter ? To reduce CO2
“Here we are at a police e-scooter check exercise,
already in 20 minutes the police have seized 8 scooters
if the fines are not paid the scooter will be CRUSHED”
… doh bang goes a load on CO2
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Stew, this is an interesting feature that I hadn’t seen before. Thanks.
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Interestingly I could not use this feature to reply on the “I dream of EV” thread. Also I just accidentally “liked” my post above, and by clicking again, was able to set the universe back to rights again.
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Have you noticed that it auto compresses long comments
adding a Read More button ?
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There is a Das Bild video going around of electric buses actually it was in China
“On the morning of May 15th, five electric buses parked side by side on the Chengbi campus of Baise College suddenly caught fire, burning violently and smoke billowing at the scene,”
” it was learned that at 0:46 that night, the charging bus suddenly spontaneously ignited, and the fire spread and affected the buses parked on both sides. According to the situation, After the firefighters cut off the power to the charging pile, water was released to suppress the open flame.”
This a video from further away
So shows you the fire emissions
It’s not a game changer
cos sometimes a car park of normal buses get on fire too I guess
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Xinhua : There are 2000 electric mobility vehicle fires every year, how to stop this “time bomb”
Actually looking at the poor translation, I can see they are talking about electric mobility scooters
and the way people are not allowed to charge then in the apartment
So leave them dangerously charging outside etc.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2021-05/14/c_1127447340.htm
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7:30pm @Channel4 malicious Global Warming spin
Dodgy CC attribution science
“Unreported World: Uprooted by the Climate Crisis”
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@Tomo and I have noticed quite a lot of Twitter bias
One thing is the search page opens with a For You tab
telling you what trending things they have selected “for you”
Today at the top is this
.. strange they are hyping an Australia for me ..and not other countries
Thousands of students walk out of classrooms across Australia to march for action on climate change
Students have abandoned their lessons on Friday afternoon to participate in organised protests addressing the climate crisis in more than 40 locations across the country.
They are calling on Australia’s politicians to take action against the climate crisis in the first school climate strike since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://twitter.com/i/events/1395559811744362496
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11:30am R4 FooC
One item by @rebeccahenschke
seemed like a cutNpaste from Greenpeace re air pollution in Jakarta
“a group of residents decided to launch a law suit”
really I bet it’s big NGO LAWFARE really
The R4 prog page left the blurb blank
but the World Service page has something
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1mtt
One line easily stuck out
“Borneo Island has clean air unlike Jakarta”
.. that’s a PR line
cos #1 lots of times lots of places in Borneo do have periodic air pollution from forest fires
#2 There are urban pockets with traffic or industrial pollution
Borneo is bigger than the average country so one should make generalisations
likewise Java Island is also big enough to have lots of areas where air pollution isn’t a problem
Oh another PR line “Borneo is known of the Green Lungs of the planet”
WTF when for 10 years it was known for creating huge smog clouds from forest fires
clouds that spread all over South east Asia,
Some activist already put up an audio tweet
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More The verdict was supposed to be handed down on Thursday (May 20) but the hearing was postponed to Jun 10.
so seems the reporter had booked the report for after the end of the court case
but it’s been delayed.
#2 it might not be Greenpeace
They make a point of calling a Citizen lawsuit ..that Soviet word
earlier news reports like Vice in 2019 mention NGOs ” a group of fathers, *NGOs,* and online motorcycle taxi drivers are taking matters into their own hands”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/neaypd/jakartans-sue-the-government-over-poor-air-quality
they quote “lawyer Ayu Eza Tiara of YLBHI … representing 57 citizens and NGOs filing the lawsuit.”
Also quote ” Indonesian Forum for the Environment, Tubagus Soleh Ahmadi” (director of Walhi)
Newer reports name Khalisah Khalid the new director
Stick his name +Jakarta into a Twitter search and all you get is this weeks MSM reports about the court case
One activist includes a list of NGOs in her tweet
@SRtoxics @GreenpeaceID @earth_justice @YLBHI @walhinasional @ICEL_indo @arnikaorg @ToxicsFree @Reuters
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Twitter’s bias is farcical, Google on the other hand has been slowly turning up the heat.
I’m noticing “info panels” becoming more prominent in search results – many of which are seemingly sourced from Wikipedia where a simple dive into the edit history shows that activists (paid ones … ) are busying themselves and rankings have been messed with too – with quote mark / “regular expression” qualified searches now being regularly over-ridden by some other overarching criteria.
YouTube admins are simply scum – I’ve had one YouTube account simply stuffed with random exasperatingly stupid irrelevant BS , subscriptions skipped and searches with very specific strings simply ignored to dump more kerrapp in my in-tray.
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I expect to find a well funded lawfare NGO behind all this like Client Earth.
What about “Earth Justice” ?
Their website popup says
Their History page
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“Climate change: G7 ministers agree new steps against fossil fuels
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57203400
“The world’s major nations have taken further significant steps to help limit climate change.
G7 environment ministers have agreed that they will deliver climate targets in line with limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C.
That’s far more ambitious than the previous 2C maximum.
Ministers also agreed to stop direct funding of coal-fired power stations in poorer nations by the end of 2021.
There’s wriggle room in the statement, but the decision will send a clear message to development banks that still fund coal power in poor countries….
…The ministers are said to have been heavily influenced by a recent report from the rich nations’ energy think tank, the IEA.
The study said that if the world wanted to reach net-zero emissions by the middle of the century, then there could be no new coal, oil or gas development from now on….”
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“U.K. to Tell Homeowners to Ditch Gas Boilers in Green Plan”
When owner-occupiers sell their homes, or carry out significant renovations, they would need to make sure their heating systems comply with tougher new environmental standards, people familiar with the proposals said. That’s likely to involve replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump, which can typically cost more than 10,000 pounds ($14,154).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-21/u-k-homeowners-could-be-forced-to-ditch-gas-boilers-in-new-plan
Presumably it also means no instant hot water too. All part of the rout of civilisation.
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Bloomberg?
– little more than a limp appendage of the CCP last time I looked
elsewhere
a speculative raid on your wallets launched:
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/icelandic-offshore-wind-to-pump-green-power-to-uk-under-21bn-anglo-us-mega-plan/2-1-1014282
only about £350 each – a snip eh?
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Saturday BBC local news … long item with various shots about litter picks
interview with Plastic Free Lincolnshire implied they were responsible for it.
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Countryfile : Plant Britain campaign episode
second sentence of the prog
Charlotte “Here on Countryfile Plant Britain we can all do our bit to help COMBAT Climate change”
1m10s “not only to COMBAT Climate change”
Pebworth Vale of Evesham : community gardening
John Craven “last year supplies of seeds for salads ran out”
4m02s “help our planet to breathe and also help limit the effects of climate change”
(hyperbolic salesman mode.. British garden makes bugger all difference0
– a suburb in Scotland community gardening
organiser mentioned raising cc awareness.
presenter “and the good news is that peat products will be banned in 2024”
“we have lost nearly half million ponds in last 50 years”
bet that doesn’t count new ponds made.
Promo tweet
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Detail
6:50pm Countryfile campaign special
Plant Britain Spring Special.
– just had the vegan celebrity cooks
Plant Britain is all about encouraging community gardens and planting wildflowers in a two-year initiative to help *combat climate change,*
help wildlife and pollinators and transform our own wellbeing.
– presenters help Bristol locals to create a community garden
– Charlotte Smith visits a project in Glasgow that is blooming.
– Sean Fletcher is in Northern Ireland with primary school children to find out about their field-to-fork project.
– Helen Skelton is with a young botanist who is on a mission to save our native wildflowers, while
– Joe Crowley discovers the secret life hidden in a special meadow in north Wales.
– The Natural History Museum do some cutting-edge soil and pond DNA forensics,
– John Craven finds out how to do your bit no matter how small a space you have
– from a pot on a windowsill to a balcony planter.
Also, look out for special messages from some well-known faces
If you do not clap for the NHS/planting it will be noted on your Stasi file
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This weekend Animal Rebellion, an XR offshoot, blocked the entrances of four McDonalds distribution centres in England. This was to tell the world that we must all stop eating meat.
Fair enough, I suppose, if you approve of such methods and messages.
But…
This year Animal Rebellion has also taken part in several blockades of the English operations of an Israeli manufacturer of high-tech equipment that is often used militarily. It did so using the Animal Rebellion brand.
How does animal welfare connect with Israeli military-flavoured high-tech? Or even with actual arms manufacturing, Israeli or not?
Animal Rebellion didn’t say.
Other XR-ers were at those anti-Elbit protests but they used the slightly more understandable Palestine Action brand. (Palestine Action is another XR offshoot. Founded by a Catholic anarchist who was prominent in many press photos of the early XR protests, mostly because he kept trying to look like Jesus.)
There’s nothing inherently wrong with people belonging to many different protest groups (I’m trying to be fair) but protesters and the groups they belong to would be more credible if they remembered to wave the relevant flag at their various protests, no?
Otherwise we, the public, will be left with the idea that their stated causes are all irrelevant and really they are all just a bunch of antisemitic, anticapitalist woo-woo merchants from Stroud.
*
PS: There were four protests at McDonalds distribution centres but people were arrested at only two sites, both in the Home Counties. The police in Coventry and Manchester just let them get on with it. How come?
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expert Botanist “habitat loss is the main problem”
Non expert presenter “But with Climate Change rising temperatures are causing species to move north”
.. they then intercut in words from the expert as if he was their supporting her
… His priority of Habitat Loss was not discussed.
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#PutinsLittleHelpers
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Every 8 mins a celeb appears with a 30 second lecture
Jodie Kidd “Everything is organic and so good”
Joe Whiley ..no climate msg
now
Scottish grey female celeb
“Every thing you plant is good for Climate Change
.. helping our children’s future ..”
Amanda Holden
“We can all to our bit to combat CC”
They just used the fake line
“children in schools spend less time outdoors than prisoners”
Tweeters also moaned about the line
“multicultural field.”
And a description of farming as
“Ecological/Environmental Armageddon”
next bit “How to become a Blue Peter Climate hero”
Prog ends
Announcer comes on
“And if you’d like to do your bit to combat Climate Change
then 39 Ways To Save the Planet
is available on BBC Sounds”
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“May gales help Britain set record for wind power generation
In early hours of Friday, windfarm turbines provided nearly two-thirds of Britain’s electricity”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/21/may-gales-help-britain-set-record-for-wind-power-generation
“Powerful gusts of wind sweeping across Britain have helped the country reach a new all-time high for electricity generated from wind turbines.
A new record was set in the early hours of Friday for the share of wind power in the generation mix, with wind providing nearly two-thirds of Britain’s electricity, according to provisional data from National Grid.
Between 2am and 3am, wind was contributing 62.5% to Britain’s electricity mix, beating the previous record of 59.9% from August last year, when gale-force winds brought by storms Ellen and Francis hit the country.
As the blustery weather buffeted the UK, there were several periods between 10pm on Thursday night and early Friday morning when wind was contributing more than 60% for the first time….
…An independent climate thinktank, Ember, said the UK’s renewable electricity outpaced its fossil fuel generation for the first time last year and could remain the largest source of electricity in the future. It revealed that renewable energy generated by wind, sunlight, water and wood made up 42% of the UK’s electricity last year compared with 41% generated from gas and coal plants together….”.
A couple of quick comments:
1. Not a word (indeed the Guardian was silent on this topic throughout that time) about the failure that wind has represented during much of the last 6 months in terms of contributing to the grid.
2. Ember describe themselves as “independent” on their website, but what does “independent” mean in this context? It certainly doesn’t mean impartial, objective and agenda-free. Here’s what they say about themselves, here:
https://ember-climate.org/about/
“Ember is an independent climate and energy think tank focused on accelerating the global electricity transition from coal to clean”
“We use our data and analysis to:
Support high impact policies
Empower campaign organisations
Shape the global narrative”
“We were founded in 2008 as Sandbag to reform the EU carbon market. In 2020 we re-branded as Ember, marking our new global reach and our laser focus on accelerating the electricity transition from coal to clean.”
Funders include:
The European Climate Foundation
ClimateKIC
The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
WWF UK
Pool-fund on International Energy (PIE)
The Crowd
ThirtyPercy Foundation
The Environmental Defense Fund Europe
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“School strike for climate: thousands take to streets around Australia
Students marched at 47 sites around the nation to call for action to halt global heating”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/21/school-strike-for-climate-thousands-take-to-streets-around-australia
“Thousands of students across Australia walked out of classrooms to take part in the School Strike 4 Climate on Friday, calling for greater action on global heating.
Defying pouring rain in Sydney, strikers chanted for climate justice, condemning the gas, coal and fossil fuel industries, and the Morrison government’s recent decision to fund a $600m gas-fired power plant.”
Surely that “pouring rain” shouldn’t be happening, according to them?
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“G7 moves to isolate China on coal
The anti-coal message was undermined by the reluctance of some member countries to dump the polluting fuel.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-g7-coal-power-emissions-xi-jinping/
“The G7 is throwing down a challenge to China and other middle and emerging economies: Follow our lead and stamp down hard and fast on coal power.
Environment and climate ministers from the club of the richest democracies on Friday wrapped up a two-day virtual meeting with a pledge to halt new international financing for coal mines and power plants this year. The goal, they said, is to achieve “an overwhelmingly decarbonized power system in the 2030s.”
But that determination was undermined by a mixed message from the group itself, with uncertainty over whether Japan has agreed to end foreign coal financing, and Japan and Germany balking at agreeing to end domestic coal-fired power by 2030.
That muddies the goal of the statement, which is supposed to send a signal to other countries on emissions cuts. “We, as industrialized countries, could not in good faith expect others to join us along this path,” without taking the same steps, said German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze….
…The G7 statement’s heavy focus on coal commitments was clearly intended to send a message to China, which is responsible for more than half the world’s coal burning each year.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised to peak China’s CO2 emissions by 2030. But new figures published by Carbon Brief on Thursday showed China’s emissions rose 15 percent year-on-year in the last quarter. That’s a steeper increase than at any time in the previous decade, the result of a post-pandemic economic recovery driven by emissions-heavy construction, steel and cement.
China’s commitments are welcome, said Alok Sharma, the British minister in charge of the COP26 talks. “But frankly, what we also want to see are the near-term policies that will then help to deliver the longer-term targets.”
The deal on international finance for coal was intended to leave China isolated, but a Japanese official wasn’t willing to confirm that Tokyo interpreted the statement as a complete ban. Throughout the meeting, Japan stood alone against the G7 effort to curtail its exports of coal money and technology — it’s the world’s third-largest coal financier.
If Japan demurs, it would dilute the message to Beijing — by far the world’s largest backer of coal power stations and mines, including on the EU’s doorstep in Serbia. It spent an average of $3.7 billion a year on foreign coal projects over last decade, although that dropped to $474 million in 2020….”
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“Greta Thunberg accuses Chinese state media of ‘fat-shaming’ her in critical article”
https://www.rt.com/news/524557-greta-thunberg-chinese-fatshaming/
“Swedish climate change awareness activist Greta Thunberg has accused China Daily of ‘fat-shaming’ her in an article which criticized her condemnation of China’s carbon emissions.
Last week, China Daily republished an article from a WeChat social media user which shot back at Thunberg’s criticism of Chinese emissions.
On Friday, Vice News picked up on the article and translated a section to read, “Although she claims to be vegetarian, judging from the results of her growth, her carbon emissions are actually not low.”
Interpreting the section as a jab at Thunberg’s weight, Vice News said the activist was “mocked for her weight” and used the headline, “Chinese State Media Just Tried to Fat-Shame Greta Thunberg.”
Spotting the Vice News article, Thunberg herself also took to Twitter to accuse the Chinese news outlet of fat-shaming her, tweeting, “Being fat-shamed by Chinese state owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s definitely going on my resume.”
The article, however, also made multiple points on the substance of the issue of China’s emissions, arguing that the numbers Thunberg was citing should be put into context. Though the numbers cited put China above the United States and India, it explained that China still has fewer emissions per capita than the US.
The report also protested that since China is still a developing country, it is going to be producing more emissions as it grows, just as Scandinavian countries – one of which Thunberg is from – did during their periods of development.
China Daily’s EU Bureau Chief Chen Weihua also hit back, accusing Thunberg of spreading “disinformation.”
“Hi, Greta, if you read Chinese and click the link, you’ll find it’s not a China Daily article,” he pointed out, noting that it “was a story by an author on a social media website that was later reposted on China Daily Chinese language website” with “attribution to the original source” clearly labelled.
“It literally means Greta is tweeting a story which is disinformation,” concluded Chen.”
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I used to be a normal regular person
but then I started to work at Shell/Amazon
and now I keep making earnest TV-adverts about the the little projects I am doing
that I think will help with Climate Change.
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from our sister site
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2021/05/23/uk-minister-in-charge-of-climate-summit-criticised-for-taking-25-flights-in-three-months/
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another promo tweet
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“UK businesses can unlock growth with green exports, says CBI
Lobby group publishes ‘vision’ for decarbonising economy and creating 240,000 jobs”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/24/businesses-unlock-uk-growth-green-exports-cbi
Well it makes more sense than all the “green” imports, I suppose. Not much sign of “green” jobs in the UK so far.
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“Influential investor joins shareholder rebellion over Shell’s climate plan
Legal & General Investment Management, Britain’s biggest fund manager, piles pressure on oil firm”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/24/influential-investor-joins-shareholder-rebellion-over-shells-climate-plan
“Britain’s biggest fund manager has piled pressure on Shell after joining a shareholder rebellion over the oil company’s carbon-cutting plans, saying that they lack credibility and the ambition required to combat global heating.
It has emerged that Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), one of the oldest fund managers in the City of London, was among investors behind a significant shareholder vote against Shell’s climate transition targets at the company’s annual meeting on Tuesday.”
Why? Surely an investment manager’s job is to maximise profits for its investors, not to virtue-signal by political campaigning?
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I hope the CBI weren’t referring to this sort of thing:
“Trials to suck carbon dioxide from the air to start across the UK
A major £30m project will test trees, peat, rock chips, and charcoal as ways of removing climate-heating emissions”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/24/trials-to-suck-carbon-dioxide-from-the-air-to-start-across-the-uk
“Climate-heating carbon dioxide will be sucked from the air using trees, peat, rock chips, and charcoal in major new trials across the UK.
Scientists said the past failure to rapidly cut emissions means some CO2 will need to be removed from the atmosphere to reach net zero by 2050 and halt the climate crisis. The £30m government-funded project will test ways to do this effectively and affordably on over 100 hectares (247 acres) of land, making it one of the biggest trials in the world.
Degraded peatlands will be re-wetted and replanted in the Pennines and west Wales, while rock chips that absorb CO2 as they break down in soil will be tested on farms in Devon, Hertfordshire and mid-Wales. Special charcoal called biochar will be buried at a sewage disposal site, on former mine sites and railway embankments.
The best large-scale ways to use trees to capture carbon will also be examined across the UK, including on Ministry of Defence and National Trust land. The last trial will measure the carbon removal potential of energy crops such as willow and miscanthus grass for the first time at commercial scale. These crops would be burned for energy, with the CO2 emissions trapped and stored underground.”
Still, what’s another £30M of taxpayers’ money, after the £100Bns blown in the last 18 months?
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9am R4 melting ice porn
first part of blurb
Once-indomitable glaciers – from high up in the Himalayas to the polar regions – are today in grave peril, as our climate warms at an accelerating rate.
The glaciologist Jemma Wadham says that melting ice sheets not only leads to meltwater overwhelming sensitive marine ecosystems but could also release vast quantities of methane.
Presenter ..”so how would these methane emissions compared to annual human methane emissions ?”
Jemma “em ..I don’t know .. everything is uncertain”
Then pushed said “There are billions of tonnes under the ice compared to the millions of tonnes humans emit”
… FFS you wrote a book about it, but you can’t give numbers ?
At least her surname is different to mad melting predictor Peter Wadhams.
Other guest “It’s only a 25 day sail via the northern Russian sea route”
Presenter “which is what they are now doing”
… he didn’t correct her, that no it is not a routine thing.
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9:10am Radio Humberside presenter is wetting her knickers as she talks to Patrick Irving of Northern Powergrid about a £3m “green plan” to power ships with electricity
Actually sounds like routine thing of providing a bigger power cable at the dockside so the ships can power their own freezer systems etc. off the grid, and turn their engines down whilst in port.
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Teachers often brainwash
The Sing2G7 project is about getting “children’s voices to the G7”
The song doesn’t mention CC directly
but the @BBCR4Sunday item was full of references to CC
Note the aggressive end lyric
Gee Seven – let nation speak to nation
Gee Seven – don’t let the others down
Gee Seven – don’t forget the not so fortunate
Gee Seven – or *we’ll run you out of town*
‘Imagine if we could put children’s voices at the heart of G7 2021
and make the Summit relevant to their young lives…’
Gee Seven is a toe-tapping new song by Sir Tim Rice and Peter Hobbs, written specially for us to share with children all over the world.
Watch the video, play the backing tracks, download the sheet music and lyrics, and join us and thousands of others, to sing to G7 and make your voices heard on issues you care about!
As Greta Thunberg says, ‘No one is too small to make a difference’
https://www.sing2g7.org/song
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That Cornwall wave hub thing is deserving of an FoI
If I was a local I’d be down the council office demanding to see the accounts.
I’ve recently been to Hale and talked to some local businesses – the Wave Hub smells worse than any rotting fish on the quay.
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H/T It Doesn’t Add up at Bishop Hill Unthreaded:
“Changeable British weather could risk grid security argues new report”
https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/changeable-british-weather-could-risk-grid-security-argues-new-report
“Increasingly changeable weather in Britain could put net zero and the security of the electricity grid at risk according to a new report.
Produced by academics from Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights, the report shows the country experienced its longest spell of low wind in more than ten years in the first quarter of 2021.
For example, on 3 March the UK’s 24.4GW wind turbine fleet fell to a low of 0.6GW in comparison with hitting 18.1 GW earlier in the month – high winds drove power prices down to a low of -£61/MWh towards the beginning of the month before these winds dropped away.
Dramatic weather was a key feature of the beginning of the year, with Britain going through periods when it was buffeted by storms and cold snaps that led to tight margins. This in turn led to grid operators overwhelmingly calling on gas-fired units to generate power to plug the gaps during periods of low winds.
In January, EDF was paid more in three days than in Q3 2020as low winds and cold temperatures pushed the grid’s security, for example. This included its West Burton B gas plant being called into the Balancing Market at the record breaking £4,000/MWh on Friday 8 January.
Strain caused by reduced generation due to the impact of weather on intermittent renewables is recognised in Germany as a Dunkelflaute – a dark wind lull phenomena, Imperial’s report explains. March’s Dunkelflaute lasted for 11 straight days, making it the longest in more than a decade.
“It’s time for Britain to get serious about the threat of extreme weather events to our electricity system,” Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, and lead author of the quarterly Electric Insights report, said.
“Renewable power sources have made our country cleaner and greener, but as they rely on the ever-changing British weather, completing our transition away from fossil fuels comes with serious challenges.””
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It seems that everything, absolutely everything, is worse than we thought:
“Fish ‘not as carbon friendly’ as previously thought”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57202758
“Eating fish could be worse for the climate than previously thought, according to a recent scientific study.
Previous research indicated that seafood has a smaller carbon footprint than other animal proteins, because fishing doesn’t require farmland or the care of livestock.
But a new study claims that catching fish using heavy nets that drag across the seabed – known as bottom trawling – emits about the same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) globally as the aviation industry.
Seabed sediments that act as huge carbon sinks are churned up during this kind of trawling – and this results in CO2 being released.”
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Giveaway on local facebook page
Become an eco-hero with Banjo Robinson!
Sign up for our FREE printable pack which will encourage your little one to become an eco-hero this half term. 9 action-packed pages of fun facts, creative activities and challenges.
the @Banjo_Robinson Twitter account is no full of eco propaganda
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Mark. Encourage Dunkelflaute, forego Bohnen backen (bake beans)!
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“UK finance sector in top 10 for carbon emissions”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57232646
“If the UK’s biggest banks and investors were a country, they’d rank 9th in the world for the carbon emissions they’re responsible for.
That’s the striking conclusion of a new analysis by Greenpeace and WWF.
The study assessed the emissions associated with the global investments of 15 British banks and 10 asset managers.
A spokesman for UK financial institutions said they were committed to being net zero by 2050.
Net zero refers to the reduction of carbon emissions as much as possible, so that any remaining emissions are balanced out by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere – through planting trees, for example.
The research, led by South Pole, a specialist environmental analysis company, is an attempt at a rough estimate of the carbon footprint of the choices made by the giants of the British financial world.
Using data from 2019, it finds that they were responsible for a total of 805 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.
That’s 1.8 times more than the UK as a whole emitted that year and slightly more than Germany.
According to Greenpeace, this shows that the financial sector should be considered “high carbon” along with the oil and gas industry, coal mining, aviation and transport.
The estimates do not include emissions associated with insurance underwriting or property so the real figure may be far higher.
The executive director of Greenpeace UK, John Sauven, described finance as the “UK’s dirty little secret”.”
What do they want us to do? Finance is one of the few success stories the UK has left, following the destruction of our manufacturing base by Thatcher followed by the imposition of expensive unreliable energy, and the mass export of our manufacturing CO2 emissions to China. What next? Destroy our last success story and guarantee that the economy collapses completely?
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That piece seems to be part of another push by the BBC this morning. At the “science & environment” section of the BBC website, it’s followed in quick succession by:
“Majority of offshore workforce ‘in low carbon energy roles by 2030′”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-57231444
and
“Wind power: Go Forth and multiply”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57235239
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The Guardian receives the same press releases as the BBC:
“British banks finance 805m tonnes of CO2 production a year
Emissions from projects and companies backed by the City are nearly double those of the UK”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/25/british-banks-finance-805m-tonnes-of-co2-production-a-year
And
“North Sea green energy could overtake oil and gas by 2030, says study
More than half of offshore energy jobs could be in low carbon sectors, including wind and renewables”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/25/north-sea-green-energy-could-overtake-oil-and-gas-by-2030-says-study
There’s that weasel word “could” again (twice in one headline).
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More eco-lawfare:
https://www.ciel.org/news/guyana-consitutional-court-case-oil-and-gas/
Wonder who’s picking up the tab?
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“Global heating: Study shows impact of ‘climate racism’ in US”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57235904
“A new study says that black people living in most US cities are subject to double the level of heat stress as their white counterparts.
The researchers say the differences were not explained by poverty but by historic racism and segregation.
As a result, people of colour more generally, live in areas with fewer green spaces and more buildings and roads.
These exacerbate the impacts of rising temperatures and a changing climate.
Cities are well known magnifiers of a warmer climate.
The surface urban heat island effect is the technical term for the impact that the buildings, roads and infrastructure of cities have on temperatures.
All that concrete and asphalt attracts and stores more heat, ensuring that both days and nights in big urban areas are much warmer than the surrounding locations.
But, within cities, there are often large differences in this heat island impact, with areas rich in trees and green spaces noticeably cooler than those that are dense with housing and industry.”
So, when are studies going to look into the question of whether or not the urban heat island effect is properly being taken into account when we’re constantly being told about rapid warming? The BBC article provides a link to this website:
https://www.epa.gov/heatislands
It says:
“Heat islands are urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than outlying areas. Structures such as buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes such as forests and water bodies. Urban areas, where these structures are highly concentrated and greenery is limited, become “islands” of higher temperatures relative to outlying areas. Daytime temperatures in urban areas are about 1–7°F higher than temperatures in outlying areas and nighttime temperatures are about 2-5°F higher.”
I wonder if those numbers are reflected in the adjustments made for UHI? I suspect not.
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“Poland defies EU court by refusing to close major brown coalmine
Shutting Turów lignite mine would cause thousands of job losses, says development minister”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/25/poland-defies-eu-court-order-to-close-major-brown-coalmine
“Poland’s government has defied an injunction by the top European Union court that ordered the immediate closure of a major brown coalmine, with officials saying it would shake the nation’s energy system and lead to the loss of thousands of jobs.
The country’s development minister, Jarosław Gowin, said Poland would not shut the lignite mine in Turów, on the border with Germany and the Czech Republic, but instead was engaged in “very intensive diplomatic and law-related efforts” to secure undisturbed operation of the mine and connected power plant that generates 7% of Poland‘s energy.
The EU’s court of justice on Friday ordered Poland to immediately stop operation of the mine, heeding Prague’s complaints that it drained groundwater from Czech territory and that Poland recently extended its licence without proper prior environmental assessment. It is a temporary measure, pending the court’s full ruling.
Gowin said he considered the court’s decision “scandalously incommensurate” to the situation and that it would lead to the “loss of tens of thousands of jobs and very serious disturbances in Poland’s energy system”, cutting power to millions of households.”
As reality bites, I suspect we’re going to see more of this sort of thing.
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“Turkey struck by ‘sea snot’ because of global heating
Increasing blanket of mucus-like substance in water threatens coral and fishing industry”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/25/turkey-struck-by-sea-snot-because-of-global-heating
“Scientists are calling for urgent action to reduce wastewater pressures on the Sea of Marmara in order to diminish nutrients.
“The main trigger is warming related to climate change, as phytoplankton grow during higher temperatures,” said Özdelice, noting that the seawater had warmed by 2-3C since preindustrial times. But since countering climate change requires a global and concerted effort, she urged Turkey to focus on factors it could control: overfishing and waste water discharges.
“This is also an outcome of overfishing because as filter feeders which consume phytoplankton are excessively hunted, it allows room for [phytoplankton and sea snot] to breed,” she said.
Even before the added pressure of climate change, the semi-enclosed Sea of Marmara could barely shoulder the burden of the densely populated and industrialised Marmara basin, Sarı said. “But as temperatures rise, the sea reacts in a completely different manner.
“We are experiencing the visible effects of climate change, and adaptation requires an overhaul of our habitual practices. We must initiate a full-scale effort to adapt.””
Overfishing and waste water discharges, eh? But it’s climate change wot dun it.
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More from Poland:
“Poland’s resistance leads to EU leaders’ climate battle retreat
Poland tells leaders that meeting EU climate rules makes the ‘poor, poorer.’”
https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-resistance-climate-battle-european-council-summit/
“The new era of EU climate politics looks a lot like the old one, with Poland standing almost alone at Tuesday’s European Council, insisting that current emissions rules are geared toward the rich.
Other EU leaders were reluctant to tangle with the Poles and their allies, agreeing on a bland policy-free final statement rather than engaging with Warsaw’s demands for a greater flow of money and for rich countries to be responsible for a bigger share of the bloc’s 2030 emissions cuts.
The EU has agreed to cut emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and to become climate neutral by mid-century, and now there’s a fierce scrap over how those often painful reductions should be apportioned.
“You cannot make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. It is a question of fairness,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told fellow leaders, according to an official briefed on the conversation, while brandishing a chart he said showed that the bloc’s carbon pricing system unfairly disadvantages Eastern and Southern Europe.
The European Commission is currently drafting a major policy package, called Fit for 55, that’s due for release in mid-July. It will redraft a dozen major legislative areas that govern European pollution.
The leaders’ statement provided little guidance for the Commission, but Council President Charles Michel interpreted that as a vote of confidence and a sign there was a “widely shared commitment to move towards solutions” for lowering emissions.
“We have affirmed our common goals, which are ambitious,” he said.
But behind closed doors, the divisions over specific policies were stark. “
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From a UKIP connected news site
https://independencedaily.co.uk/veterans-for-britain-board-questions-the-mods-recent-preoccupation-with-green-issues/
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So much for all those UK “green” jobs. How “green” is it to have stuff made in China (where the manufacturing process is largely powered by coal) and then sent half-way round the world to the end user?
“Isles’ new subsea power cable on its way from China”
http://www.hebrides-news.com/new-subsea-power-cable-enroute-22521.html
“The replacement subsea power cable to reconnect Lewis and Harris to the National Grid is on its way from China.
Manufacturing was completed earlier this month and the cable is currently on a bulk carrier / general cargo ship which departed Shanghai on Monday, heading for the Suez Canal and then onward to Weymouth, where she is expected to arrive in early June….
…The news has been warmly welcomed by community wind farms including Point and Sandwick Trust, the biggest community-owned wind farm in the UK, whose power generation and money making came to an abrupt stop in October last year when the cable broke, leaving them unable to export any of their electricity to market. The situation also left Lewis and Harris dependant on electricity for the diesel-powered generators at Battery Point in Stornoway.
But Calum Macdonald, development manager for Point and Sandwick Trust, has confirmed the cable, which links Harris to the mainland via Skye, is currently en route to the UK and “on track” to be positioned and energised “by August”.
He added: “It’s expected to arrive in Weymouth in early June and up in the Minch by mid to late June.”
Once the cable has arrived, “a spell of about four to five calm days” is required to lay it, which will hopefully happen sometime in July, and then the cable needs to be brought into operation.
“If they get a spell of good weather they will seize the moment and it should be all ready and energised in August. If they miss that opportunity, if the weather window doesn’t open up, then it gets more difficult as you move into the autumn and winter months.”
The cable break meant Point and Sandwick Trust, along with other island community wind farms, had to immediately suspend all charitable donations and maintained only core functions.
It is estimated that charitable donations will resume in early 2023, after the community wind farm has built up prudent financial reserves, to carry it through any future crises….
…The timescale of donations resuming might be “more towards the end of next year” but Calum stressed: “That is all dependant on having a good output and good prices for our output”. Electricity purchase prices are “fine” just now but they can vary.
“If we have bad prices, then it takes a lot longer to build up that reserve.”
The cable is the same size as the one that broke despite community groups including Point and Sandwick Trust having called on SSE to installed one with much greater capacity to allow the expansion of renewables development on the island.
The groups continue to call collectively for a second cable and pressing to meet with representatives from Scottish Government about the matter….”
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OK, I am launching a campaign to expunge the word “green” from all discussion of environment, energy policy, & manufacturing. From now on the word “green” will refer exclusively to the colour green, as in green vegetables and green paint. “Green” is not a legitimate science word.
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“Millions cannot afford water bills, says watchdog”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57247187
“More than a million households are struggling to pay their water bills, a consumer group has said.
Some people have even had to skip meals to pay for water, the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) said.
It is calling for a single “social tariff”, based on a percentage of people’s incomes to lower the costs.
The government said it would work with industry to “build a stronger, better and fairer water service for those who need it most”.
According to the CCW, there are about 1.7 million people in “water poverty”, which it defines as having to spend more than 5% of their income after housing costs on water bills.
However, about three million households are in danger of slipping into this category.”
Where is the concern about fuel poverty?
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“Building projects hit by lack of supplies and price rises”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57247757
It’s all the fault of climate change, of course:
“There are also issues hitting specific products, such as the warmer winter affecting timber production in Scandinavia while the cold winter weather in Texas affected the production of chemicals, plastics and polymer.”
Warmer winter in Scandinavia? Who are they kidding?
“The Construction Leadership Council has warned that cement, some electrical components, timber, steel and paints are all in short supply.”
I suppose that’s why we’re killing the UK steel industry with expensive energy and refusing to allow a local coal mine to produce coking coal, and prefer to see it transported half-way round the world instead?
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One of Northern Ireland’s top priorities, apparently. Personally, I think they have bigger issues to worry about:
“Climate change: Edwin Poots aims to bring second bill to assembly”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57248732
We are told this:
“An independent advisory body on climate to government has recommended a cut of at least 82% by 2050 as a fair contribution to the UK’s wider net zero target”
I wonder how independent that body is? Nowhere does the article seek to establish for the readers’ edification the vanishingly small contribution made to global GHG emissions by Northern Ireland, and the futility of this pointless piece of virtue-signalling.
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Front page news at the Guardian. Good grief:
“Climate crisis inflicting huge ‘hidden costs’ on mental health
Vicious circle of climate impacts, trauma and depression must be broken, say scientists”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/26/climate-crisis-inflicting-huge-hidden-costs-mental-health
“The climate crisis is damaging the mental health of hundreds of millions of people around the world but the huge costs are hidden, scientists have warned.
Heatwaves are increasing rates of suicide, extreme weather such as floods and wildfires are leaving victims traumatised, and loss of food security, homes and livelihoods is resulting in stress and depression. Anxiety about the future is also harming people’s mental health, especially the young, the scientists said in a report.
Mental health conditions already affect a billion people and cost trillions of dollars a year. The researchers said global heating would worsen the issue unless action was taken. They described a vicious circle where climate impacts increase mental health difficulties, leaving people even more vulnerable to further consequences.
However, they said tackling climate change could turn this into a virtuous circle. Action by individuals, communities and governments not only cuts the impacts of heating but also boosts people’s mental wellbeing by giving them healthier lives and a sense of hope and agency.”
I think this vindicates my comment on “Dictionary Corner” that I have doubts about the effectiveness of climate science peer review. I struggle to see how even a fraction of the claims made can be true. But of course, if they’re “hidden” how can we know? It takes these people to sniff it all out and lay it bare for us all to see. No surprises for seeing the name “Grantham” in the link to the report, which is here, should anyone be interested in reading it:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/publications/all-publications/the-impact-of-climate-change-on-mental-health-and-emotional-wellbeing-current-evidence-and-implications-for-policy-and-practice.php
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More evidence that far from advancing, we’re going backwards:
“Airships for city hops could cut flying’s CO2 emissions by 90%
Bedford-based blimp maker unveils short-haul routes such as Liverpool-Belfast that it hopes to serve by 2025”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/airships-for-city-hops-could-cut-flyings-co2-emissions-by-90
“For those fancying a trip from Liverpool to Belfast or Barcelona to the Balearic Islands but concerned about the carbon footprint of aeroplane travel, a small Bedford-based company is promising a surprising solution: commercial airships.
Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), which has developed a new environmentally friendly airship 84 years after the Hindenburg disaster, on Wednesday named a string of routes it hoped to serve from 2025.
The routes for the 100-passenger Airlander 10 airship include Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca in four and a half hours. The company said the journey by airship would take roughly the same time as aeroplane travel once getting to and from the airport was taken into account, but would generate a much smaller carbon footprint. HAV said the CO2 footprint per passenger on its airship would be about 4.5kg, compared with about 53kg via jet plane.
Other routes planned include Liverpool to Belfast, which would take five hours and 20 minutes; Oslo to Stockholm, in six and a half hours; and Seattle to Vancouver in just over four hours.”
These flight times are huge compared to conventional air travel, but it’s all right “once getting to and from the airport was taken into account”!
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“Taxes on electric vehicles will slow Australia’s progress. It’s not complicated
Richard Denniss
While most of the world offers incentives to people buying EVs, our government hands out subsidies for utes”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/26/taxes-on-electric-vehicles-will-slow-australias-progress-its-not-complicated
“As a rule of thumb, it’s good economics and good politics to tax the things you want less of and subsidise the things you want more of. That is why the Australian government raises so much tax from alcohol and tobacco, and why the Victorian government’s electric vehicle tax is the dumbest idea since Tony Abbott made the Queen’s husband a knight.
But it’s not just the Victorian government that’s waging an unwinnable war against new technology. While most of the world is offering financial subsidies and incentives such as free parking to people who buy electric cars, the Morrison government is spending billions of dollars on subsidies for the enormous twin cab utes that now dominate Australian car sales while our local councils offer free and convenient parking for the same behemoths.”
At least the article recognises that the only way to push people into using electrical vehicles en masse is by subsidising them, and by taxing what people fo want. Is this the point we’ve reached? We all have to be forced to do what they want, not what we want?
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A new report looking at #climatechange’s effects on sport and @Tokyo2020jp is out today.
@ProfMikeTipton on @BBCRadio4 Today at 7:28am this morning explained.
Local news “Today was supposed to be the first day of Beverley Racecourse being open to the public,
but it’s been cancelled due to the excessive rain this May”
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Global warming hits Aviemore:
https://www.inthesnow.com/most-snow-for-over-a-decade-at-closed-scottish-ski-centres/
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R4 3:02pm “the financing of electric vehicles with experts and listeners experiences.”
very helpful for the PR guys
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc5j
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Mendacity on stilts from Carbon Pants
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Who are these people and given their clear reticence about their funding
– who pays them?
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I think this is astonishing, and deeply worrying – it will send a signal to the climate alarmed and their puppet-master funders to litigate non-stop, clogging up the Courts, and bringing business to a standstill:
“Shell: Netherlands court orders oil giant to cut emissions”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57257982
“A court in the Netherlands has ruled in a landmark case that the oil giant Shell must reduce its emissions.
By 2030, Shell must cut its CO2 emissions by 45% compared to 2019 levels, the civil court ruled.
The Shell group is responsible for its own CO2 emissions and those of its suppliers, the verdict said.
It is the first time a company has been legally obliged to align its policies with the Paris climate accords, says Friends of the Earth (FoE).
The environmental group brought the case to court in 2019, alongside six other bodies and more than 17,000 Dutch citizens.
Though the decision only applies in the Netherlands, it could have wider effects elsewhere. BBC Netherlands correspondent Anna Holligan tweeted that it was a “precedent-setting judgement”.
A Shell spokesperson said they “fully expect to appeal today’s disappointing court decision” and added that they are stepping up efforts to cut emissions.”
I don’t think Shell have helped themselves, when they say things like this:
“”Urgent action is needed on climate change, which is why we have accelerated our efforts to become a net-zero emissions energy company by 2050,” the spokesperson said, adding that Shell was investing “billions of dollars in low-carbon energy, including electric vehicle charging, hydrogen, renewables and biofuels”.”
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What next?
“Climate crisis could trigger sewage surge in English rivers, MPs told
Environmental body calls for investment in nature-based solutions to stem rise in discharge”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/26/climate-crisis-sewage-discharge-english-rivers-environment-investment
“There will be a rise in the scale of sewage discharge into rivers and waterways due to extreme weather events as a result of the climate crisis, MPs have been told.
Nature-based solutions must be a top priority for the government and the water regulator, Ofwat, when it comes to water companies’ investment over the coming decades, MPs heard. By 2050, the English sewerage system would face a 55% increase in water flowing through the network as a result of increased urbanisation and the removal of natural surfaces, which help water drain away.
“Everything we are doing as a society is driving us to putting more water down surface water drainage,” Alastair Chisholm, the director of policy at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, told MPs on the environmental audit committee. “We need to focus on slowing the flow of this.”
Increased urbanisation and the rise in hard surfaces in towns and cities, from people paving their gardens to out of town shopping centres and carparks, create impermeable surfaces that water cannot drain through, which instead it pours into the sewerage system.”
Quite what that has to do with the “climate crisis” the article doesn’t say, so far as I can see, other than to offer up this almost throwaway comment:
““As climate change also increases the temperature of receiving waters, particularly during times of low flow, the impact of short but intense storms causing [combined sewer overflow] spills is likely to be greater due to higher biological demand,” Chisholm said.”
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Things are going well, then….
“Prepare for disorderly shift to low-carbon era, firms and investors told
No G20 country is on track to meet climate goals and disruption to business is inevitable, says risk assessor”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/26/prepare-for-disorderly-shift-to-low-carbon-era-firms-and-investors-told
“Major businesses and investors in the world’s largest economies should brace themselves for a turbulent transition to a low-carbon future because none of the G20 countries are on track to meet their climate ambitions, according to a new report.
There is “no longer any realistic chance” for an orderly transition for global financial markets because political leaders will be forced to rely on “handbrake” policy interventions to cut emissions, according to research from risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
At the same time, the report added, investors will face the “increasingly disruptive” impact of severe weather events – made worse by the global climate crisis – which are expected to take a heavier toll on the global economy in the years ahead.
The consultancy, which is part of the $28bn global risk group Verisk Analytics, used the report to warn its multinational clients to prepare for a future which at best might be “disorderly” or at worst to brace themselves for a whiplash of sudden political changes for the global economy. Verisk is one of the world’s largest providers of data used by the global insurance industry to assess the risks faced by major businesses.”
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“SSE to spend £2bn on low-carbon energy projects in ‘pivotal year’
Firm announces plan to expand renewables business overseas in run-up to Glasgow hosting Cop26”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/26/sse-to-spend-2bn-on-low-carbon-energy-projects-in-pivotal-year
“SSE has promised to spend about £2bn on low-carbon energy projects over the next year and expand its renewable energy business overseas.
As the UK prepares to host the UN climate change conference in Glasgow, Cop26, in November, the energy company set out its plan for the next “pivotal year” for climate action alongside better-than-expected annual results, after limiting the financial toll of the coronavirus pandemic to £170m for the year.
SSE claimed no government financial help during the pandemic and managed to create 1,000 new jobs as it pushed ahead with plans to triple its renewable energy capacity by spending about £7.5bn on UK clean energy projects in the UK over the coming decade.
The company said it had already begun investing in the onshore construction of Dogger Bank, the world’s largest offshore windfarm, which is off England’s north-east coast, Seagreen, Scotland’s largest offshore windfarm, in the Firth of Forth, and Viking, a high-yielding windfarm in Shetland.”
Oh, that high-yielding Viking wind-farm in Shetland:
https://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2020/09/28/reversing-peat-erosion-a-priority-viking-says-after-staney-hill-concerns
https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2021/04/19/viking-energy-sceptics-raise-concern-over-peat-slides/
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“ExxonMobil and Chevron suffer shareholder rebellions over climate
Exxon loses two board seats to activist hedge fund”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/26/exxonmobil-and-chevron-braced-for-showdown-over-climate
“US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron have suffered shareholder rebellions from climate activists and disgruntled institutional investors over their failure to set a strategy for a low-carbon future.
Exxon failed to defend its board against a coup launched by dissident hedge fund activists at Engine No. 1 which successfully replaced two Exxon board members with its own candidates to help drive the oil company towards a greener strategy.
Meanwhile, a majority of Chevron shareholders rebelled against the company’s board by voting 61% in favour of an activist proposal from – Dutch campaign group Follow This – to force the group to cut its carbon emissions.”
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“Climate: World at risk of hitting temperature limit soon”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57261670
“It’s becoming more likely that a key global temperature limit will be reached in one of the next five years.
A major study says by 2025 there’s a 40% chance of at least one year being 1.5C hotter than the pre-industrial level.
That’s the lower of two temperature limits set by the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The conclusion comes in a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The analysis is based on modelling by the UK Met Office and climate researchers in 10 countries including the US and China.
In the last decade, it was estimated that the chance of any one year reaching the 1.5C threshold was only 20%.
This new assessment puts that risk at 40%.”
Of course it’s complicated, by such things (surprisingly acknowledged – like naural variations including some cooling) but we MUST do MORE!
“Natural variability will mean the following few years may be slightly cooler and it could be another decade or two or more before the 1.5C limit is crossed permanently.
The Paris Agreement established the goal of keeping the increase in the global average temperature to no more than 2C and to try not to surpass 1.5C – and that’s understood to mean over a long period rather than a single year.
According to Dr Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, “the 1.5C in the Met Office announcement should not be confused with the 1.5C limit in the Paris Agreement”.
“The Paris targets refer to global warming – that is, the temperature increase of our planet once we smooth out year-to-year variations,” he explained.
“A single year hitting 1.5C therefore doesn’t mean the Paris limits are breached, but is nevertheless very bad news.
“It tells us once again that climate action to date is wholly insufficient and emissions need to be reduced urgently to zero to halt global warming.””
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Bristol seems to have taken over from Brighton as the UK capital of climate alarmism:
“Royal Mail’s first ‘all-electric’ delivery office in Bristol”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-57256872
“Royal Mail has announced its first delivery office to have an all-electric fleet of collection and delivery vehicles.
Bristol East Central Delivery Office’s 23 diesel vehicles have been replaced by fully-electric ones.
Royal Mail said Bristol was selected because of its plans to introduce a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) later this year.
Chief executive Simon Thompson described the move as a “really positive step”.
Six electric charging posts have also been installed on the site, with electricity for powering the office and charging the vehicles coming from renewable sources….
…Bristol mayor Marvin Rees said it was “fantastic news”.
“Their 23 electric vehicles will join Bristol’s 99 bio-gas buses already on our streets in reducing emissions and improving air quality.
“We want to support people and businesses in transitioning our fleet to cleaner and more efficient vehicles,” he added.
Rob Wotherspoon of the Communication Workers Union said: “This is not just about the fight against climate change but about the air that our communities breathe.””
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“Tax soaring private jet use to fund green flying, says report
Taxes of €325m a year should be used to fund zero-carbon aviation technology, report suggests”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/26/climate-ticket-tax-private-jet-users
“Climate-heating emissions from private jet flights have soared in Europe since 2005, according to a report. It calls for wealthy fliers to pay ticket taxes of €325m a year to fund the acceleration of zero-carbon aviation technology.
Carbon emissions from private flights rose by 31% from 2005-19, the report says, and private aviation had rebounded to pre-pandemic levels by August 2020, when 60% of public flights were grounded.
Travelling by private jet is the most polluting activity an individual can undertake, the report says, with four hours of flying equivalent to the total annual emissions of the average European citizen.”
Just in Europe? I bet that goes down well! The report is here if anyone is interested:
https://www.transportenvironment.org/publications/private-jets-can-super-rich-supercharge-zero-emission-aviation
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And so world-wide climate litigation gathers pace:
“Australian court finds government has duty to protect young people from climate crisis
Eight teenagers, along with 86-year-old nun, launched case to prevent the approval of a massive coalmine”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/27/australian-court-finds-government-has-duty-to-protect-young-people-from-climate-crisis
“The federal court of Australia has found the environment minister, Sussan Ley, has a duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis in a judgment hailed by lawyers and teenagers who brought the case as a world first.
Eight teenagers and an octogenarian nun had sought an injunction to prevent Ley approving a proposal by Whitehaven Coal to expand the Vickery coalmine in northern New South Wales, arguing the minister had a common law duty of care to protect younger people against future harm from climate change.
Justice Mordecai Bromberg found the minister had a duty of care to not act in a way that would cause future harm to younger people. But he did not grant the injunction as he was not satisfied the minister would breach her duty of care.”
As tomo asks, I wonder who is paying the legal fees? The article doesn’t say….
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Mark
the levels of incuriousness from the MSM and the reticence about funding of the assorted legal functionaries have to be addressed – I know I’m not alone in thinking ” who the f*** are these people? ”
There’s a lawfare epidemic – I expect US activists are spinning up a whole raft of the old “sue + settle” gigs …
It strikes me that there’s some activist judges and legal bureaucrats with their fingers on the scales too.
A suspicious cynic might think that there is rigging going on?
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I wonder , really… what the perpetrators hope to achieve?
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Here we go…
“‘Cataclysmic day’ for oil companies sparks climate hope
Court and investor defeats over carbon emissions a historic turning point, say campaigners and lawyers”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/cataclysmic-day-for-oil-companies-sparks-climate-hope
“A “cataclysmic day” for three major oil companies in which investors rebelled over climate fears and a court ordered fossil fuel emissions to be slashed has sparked hope among campaigners, investors, lawyers and academics who said the historic decisions marked a turning point in efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered Shell to cut carbon emissions from its oil and gas by 45% by 2030. A tiny activist investor group simultaneously won two places on ExxonMobil’s board and Chevron’s management was defeated when investors voted in favour of forcing the group to cut its carbon emissions.
Chevron is second on the list of fossil fuel firms with the biggest cumulative carbon emissions, ExxonMobil is third and Shell sixth.
“It may be the most cataclysmic day so far for the fossil fuel industry,” said the climate campaigner and author Bill McKibben. “If you want to keep the temperature low enough that civilisation will survive, you have to keep coal and oil and gas in the ground. That sounded radical a decade ago. Now it sounds like the law.””
That’s just the first of many quotes in the article from the usual suspects.
It ends with:
“James Murray, the editor of the BusinessGreen website, said: “The events [on Wednesday] are still only baby steps towards these companies credibly transforming their businesses in line with the goals of the Paris agreement. Has the day of reckoning finally arrived for big oil? If it has, they can’t say they weren’t warned.””
I wonder when the day of reckoning will arrive for “Big Green”?
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“Four-day working week would slash UK carbon footprint, report says
Study finds change would shrink emissions by 127m tonnes, helping country meet climate targets”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/four-day-working-week-would-slash-uk-carbon-footprint-report
It would also cause a fair amount of damage to the economy and tax revenues, I imagine. Still, it might be necessary to reduce the working week by 20% if what’s left of industry is forced to be dependent on unreliable and expensive “renewable electricity”, I suppose.
If anyone’s interested, the study on which this nonsense is based can be found here:
Click to access 6a142f_5061c06b240e4776bf31dfac2543746b.pdf
“This report was commissioned by the 4 Day Week campaign from
Platform London.
Platform is a UK-based environmental and social justice collective with
campaigns focused on the global oil industry, fossil fuel finance, and
building capacity toward climate justice and energy democracy.
http://www.platformlondon.org
The 4 Day Week Campaign is a national campaign group demanding a
four-day week and shorter working time. http://www.4dayweek.co.uk
It was written by Laurie Mompelat, with calculations by Mika MinioPaluello.
The report was funded by the Alex Ferry Foundation.”
The Alex Ferry Foundation appears to be an organisation strongly linked to trade unionism which campaigns, inter alia, for a shorter working week. Basically, this is far from a disinterested report.
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Speaking of nonsense, how about this article, which is very long, well-informed, makes a lot of good points, then arrives at the wrong conclusion:
“‘Dig coal to save the climate’: the folly of Cumbria’s plans for a new coalmine
Supporters of a new coalmine have argued that it will reduce global warming and create green jobs. How could such absurd claims have gained any credibility?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/dig-coal-to-save-the-climate-the-folly-of-cumbrias-plans-for-a-new-coalmine
The logic failure in these few paragraphs strikes me as being of epic proportions:
“But as questions began to be asked, the company’s tactics changed. In 2020 they commissioned a report from a multinational consultancy, AECOM, whose clients previously included the controversial Adani coalmine in Australia. This report, a greenhouse gas “assessment”, only considers the impact of the mine site itself, during the construction, operation and decommissioning phases, and not the emissions from burning the coal. As the report states, “the use of coal produced by the development is not an effect (whether direct, or indirect/secondary) caused by any phase of the development”. In other words, it’s not the mine’s problem that the coal gets burned.
The same report notes that UK steel companies currently ship coal in from the US – but with a new mine in the UK that would no longer be necessary. The report provided figures for greenhouse gas emissions saved as a result. The mine’s chief executive, Mark Kirkbride, used this assessment to inform the planning committee that “Every tonne of coal from West Cumbria Mining is a tonne that will not be transported across the ocean, thereby saving on greenhouse gas emissions. The claims of a climate emergency continue to ignore the climate benefits of this project, as a result of reduced distances.”
Talking to local politicians, I have heard these claims about emissions repeated many times. “If we wish to have a steel industry,” said one councillor, “we need coking coal, and that coking coal would be better to be mined in this country … If you dig it out of a hole in the ground in Russia, Australia or Kentucky, then it has to be taken into boats and shipped all the way over here.” An MP told me: “I think you can make an argument that this coalmine is creating green jobs. This is coking coal, it’s as clean as a coalmine can be, it’s producing coking coal for use in steel, for use in renewables.”
It is staggering that the mine and its supporters are able to make these claims, given that the coal mined at Woodhouse Colliery would, when burned, result in 9m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, more than the combined emissions from the entire cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. These are emissions we desperately need to avoid. The scientific evidence is straightforward. Just last week, the International Energy Agency, established more than four decades ago to ensure reliable supplies of fossil fuels, declared that if climate goals are to be reached, no new coalmines could be built. It also said that there was enough coal in existing mines to cover the steel sector’s transition from coal to new methods of production. We need to be closing down mines. Opening new mines causes climate change. It’s not complicated.”
And it’s not difficult to understand that coal mined locally instead of on the other side of the planet and shipped half way round the world will result in fewer CO2 emissions associated with making steel in Britain. Or should we just close British steel-making capacity down altogether?
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Jit @ 05 MAY 21 AT 6:39 PM asks for some killer graphs. I have plenty.
For starters, one on corals. The hypothesis is that warming oceans are meant to be killing the coral reefs. This is demonstrated by the increased frequency of coral bleaching. From the supplemental charts in the following paper with lead author Terry P Hughes – one of the most published.
Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene DOI: 10.1126/science.aan8048 . (Hughes et al 2018)
For Australasia R^2 is 0.0001. Two random variables would normally give a higher value.
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“Fish farmers concerns over prospect of coalition with Scottish Greens”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-57276122
“Scottish salmon farmers have raised concerns about Green MSP influence on their industry if a co-operation deal is struck with the SNP government.
The prospect of any deal is alarming others in the food industry, who see the Scottish Greens as hostile to business growth and livestock farming….
..The National Farmers Union Scotland issued a statement after news broke of the SNP-Green co-operation talks which hinted strongly at tensions between farmers’ priorities and those of Green politics….”
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“We are passionate climate warriors. Our legal battle is not over but my heart is a bit lighter
Ava Princi
As a student striker I’m used to being dismissed by adults, so this judgment to protect us from the climate crisis is exciting”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/we-are-passionate-climate-warriors-our-legal-battle-is-not-over-but-my-heart-is-a-bit-lighter
“This case was about young people stepping up and being heard in court, as we demand more from the adults whose actions risk our future wellbeing.
The eight of us are just the tip of the proverbial melting iceberg. This class action was filed on behalf of all young people around the world and we received almost 2,000 messages of support from young people in 39 countries on almost every continent. I’m proud to have represented these young people, especially those at the intersection of the frontlines of climate impacts and the vulnerabilities of being a person of colour, living rurally and regionally, or being disabled.”
Still no mention of who funded it.
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Twitter is pushing this at me
News Last night
Earth inches closer to a dangerous climate tipping point in the next five years, scientists say
Only Revkin used that line
Twitter created a based on mostly other stories
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“Homes set to be heated by sewage plants in future
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57261151
“Waste heat from data centres and sewage works may keep many people warm in a future low-carbon Britain.
Heat from industries and incineration could also be captured and piped to homes, hospitals, schools, and offices.
Warmth may also be sucked out rivers and the sea – and from old coalmines – using heat pumps which work like fridges in reverse.
A fifth of heat needed for buildings could come from so-called district heat networks, government advisers said.
These are grids of pipes laid under city streets to convey warm water generated at a centralised location by low-carbon technology.”
How many times can you use “may” and “could” in the opening to an article?
“Mr Stark said each town and city should start planning and zoning its own heat decarbonisation. “The sooner we get on with it the better,” he said. He expects £20bn to be invested into district heating by 2030.”
“In the CCC’s modelling, about 18% of homes will be warmed by district heat by 2050”
Click to access Sector-summary-Buildings.pdf
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“Extreme E: What is the new motorsport series and how will it work?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/motorsport/53545698
“Motorsport fans will have a new series to get stuck into with Extreme E – and it’s guilt-free.
The series will see all-electric SUVs racing across five remote territories to raise awareness of climate issues.
Each X-Prix will feature an equal mix of male and female competitors, with Britons Jenson Button and Jamie Chadwick billed as some of the contenders who will take part.
Extreme E will be broadcast live across the BBC.
Deserts, glaciers, rainforests… The places Extreme E will go are wildly different but have a common theme – highlighting the issue of climate change and its impact on various regions around the world.
The series has consulted with ecological experts to ensure the impact of its presence in these areas will be kept to a minimum, while scientists will also travel with the teams to investigate the effects of climate change.
Transportation of people and equipment to each region will be via an ex-Royal Mail cargo ship – the RMS St Helena – which has been modified to act as a ‘floating paddock’.
There are also plans to ensure the series leaves a lasting legacy in each of the areas it heads to, including tree-planting, clean-up operations and solar-power initiatives.”
This isn’t in any sense news – rather the BBC is re-hashing a story it pushed at us not so long ago as part of its ongoing propaganda exercise.
They could have offered some balance by mentioning this:
“Here’s Why Formula 1 Can’t Go Electric Yet, Explained with Simple Science
The short answer is the batteries aren’t there yet—and even the best ones we can imagine still won’t do the trick.”
https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/37321/heres-why-formula-1-cant-go-electric-yet-explained-with-simple-science
“A year ago, Formula 1 pledged all its race weekends would be sustainable by 2025, and that the world’s premiere open-wheel series as a whole will become carbon-neutral by 2030. No net carbon dioxide resulting from this globe-spanning, multibillion-dollar entertainment product, no siree Bob. What getting there will take isn’t certain, but for two big reasons, one thing it definitely won’t involve is electric race cars.
Not just because the FIA has agreed not to sanction any electric open-wheel series competing with Formula E until at least 2039, but because electric vehicle technology isn’t up to the job of providing a similar spectacle on track. The racing just isn’t the same without exploding dino juice. And won’t be any time soon.”
Or again, they could have mentioned this:
“Formula E: This is how the Fia explains the power failure at the race in Valencia”
https://www.tellerreport.com/sports/2021-04-28-formula-e–this-is-how-the-fia-explains-the-power-failure-at-the-race-in-valencia.HJWKaPoIDd.html
“After the power failure at the Formula E race in Valencia, the world association Fia rejects the criticism. The race management acted correctly. The embarrassing incident almost repeated itself at the second Grand Prix of the weekend.
The curious scenes at the Formula E race in Valencia, in which numerous cars ran out of energy on the final lap, were not a fault of the race management, according to the world association Fia.”
And yet they chose not to. Why we can trust the BBC?
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“French oil giant Total rebrands in shift to renewables”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57282008
“Oil and gas giant Total will be rebranded as TotalEnergies as it shifts some of its focus towards renewable energy sources.
Shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move and approved the firm’s environmental goals.
“We want to become a sort of green energy major,” said chief executive Patrick Pouyanné.
Big energy firms are coming under increasing pressure to adjust to a lower-carbon world.
On Wednesday, a small hedge fund investor succeeded in ousting two board members at Exxon in the US, in a bid to alter the firm’s direction on climate change.
And a court in the Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its emissions more quickly than the Anglo-Dutch oil firm had planned.”
Coming to you soon – a world without reliable power.
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“Tech Tent: Green Bitcoin and innovative engines”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57281678
“The key idea behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that they are decentralised and nobody is in charge.
But this week a group of North American Bitcoin miners, with the encouragement of crypto-enthusiast Elon Musk, decided to take charge.
Well, to be clear, the members of the self-appointed Bitcoin Mining Council decided they would act to deal with a major image problem for the cryptocurrency: its energy use.
As Tech Tent has reported, the process of creating new coins and recording transactions uses as much electricity each year as a country the size of Argentina.
That issue has seen China and Iran move to ban cryptocurrency mining, and that has contributed to the wild swings in the Bitcoin price seen recently.
Jaime Leverton, chief executive of Hut 8 Mining, one of the members of the Bitcoin Mining Council, tells the programme the aim is to “counter the noise and some of the misinformation that’s coming at the Bitcoin mining industry”.
She says they want to “shape the narrative around the cryptocurrency industry’s energy usage” to address concerns that the industry is not environmentally friendly.
She insists that Bitcoin mining equipment – essentially computers packed with specialised chips – is getting much more efficient and quotes a study showing 39% of the energy used in mining comes from renewable sources.
But North America only accounts for a small proportion of mining, with much of it taking place in China using electricity from coal-fired power stations.
Even if there is a ban in China, Reuters is reporting that many miners are planning to move to oil-rich Kazhakstan, with its abundant cheap, non-renewable energy.
The finance writer Frances Coppola, a long-term critic of cryptocurrencies, concedes that the North American miners are now taking the environmental impact of their activities seriously. But she points out that even a greener Bitcoin presents many problems.
“Bitcoin, because it is an add-on to existing financial systems, actually increases emissions – it’s going to increase emissions just because it exists.”
By the way, when it comes to Bitcoin, am I alone in thinking South Sea Bubble and Tulip Mania?
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“The Guardian view on climate change lawsuits: Big Oil is in the dock
Editorial
Fossil fuel firms are being held responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a good thing”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/may/28/the-guardian-view-on-climate-change-lawsuits-big-oil-is-in-the-dock
“It is not unreasonable, given that the planet’s future is at stake, for civil society to use every tool at its disposal. On the day Shell lost in court, ExxonMobil, the US oil giant, was defeated by activist shareholders on the election of two new members to its 12-strong board, and a large majority of Chevron shareholders voted for a “substantial” reduction in the firm’s emissions from the use of its products. These were stunning defeats.
But the hydrocarbon sector is striking back. Two German companies – RWE and Uniper – are suing the Dutch government for compensation over the country’s planned coal phase-out under a 1990s international investor treaty. Martin Dietrich Brauch of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment points out the absurdity of the EU permitting such actions, given that these decades are crucial for a global energy transition to cleaner fuels and the bloc’s net zero targets. The answer is to shut down the outdated energy charter treaty. What must be faced is that carbon dioxide is building up in the air as more oil, gas and coal is burned. Unless this economic model is replaced, the fight will go on – inside and outside the courtroom.”
It is not unreasonable to expect a claim like “the future of the planet is at stake” (which is plainly a massive exaggeration at best, and a lie at worst) to be justifed at some length, rather than thrown casually into such an article.
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I meant to give JIT another killer graph related to a comparison of Hansen et al 1988 and the definition of Transient Climate Response in IPCC TAR 2001 WG1. It got somewhat more complicated.
In Hansen et al 1988, scenario C assumes global emissions are reduced net zero between 1990 and 2000. The chart shows warming stops around 2007.
TAR Fig 9.1 says transient climate response, TCR, is the temperature change at the time of CO2 doubling. In the chart this is for a rise in CO2 of 1% per year, so a doubling takes 70 years, with the temperature rise is about 2C. If CO2 then stops rising, temperatures will still keep on rising for many decades. Yet in reality Mauna Loa CO2 levels have risen from 316 ppm in 1959 to 414 ppm in 2020, or less than 0.5% per annum.
As far as I know Hansen’s 1988 quick response has not been proven false, neither has the transient climate response been proved true beyond reasonable doubt. That means that both assumptions are still in play. With the possibility of some warming natural, then neither the scenario that 2C of warming will be exceeded if net zero is achieved net week nor the scenario that 1.5C of warming will not be exceeded by 2100 if emissions are not constrained can be proven false.
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SATURDAY 5TH JUNE
– World Environment Day
Parish Litter Pick in Lincoln
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Local paper in 2019
Bid goodbye to Scunthorpe and say hello to Sunthorpe, a popular tourist attraction with sweltering summers but one which is becoming increasingly deadly due to climate change.
Thankfully, this is only a museum exhibit so far, but it shows what could happen as global warming worsens.
The touring video exhibit, now on show at North Lincolnshire Museum, imagines a future town being ravaged by higher temperatures, pollution and rising sea levels.
https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/sunthorpe-climate-change-museum-exhibit-2435084
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Oh edit button not working
Here’s the title
: Sweltering summers and rising sea levels – new ‘Sunthorpe’ exhibit shows deadly vision of the future
… (ha they mis-spelled the town name)
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ah the name is a joke Sun-Thorpe
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C’mon now, it’s always been Sunny-Scunny.
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The propaganda continues unabated:
“Heatwave deaths set to soar as UK summers become hotter
Met Office warning over impact of global heating prompts calls for action to protect elderly and vulnerable”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/30/heatwave-deaths-set-to-soar-as-uk-summers-become-hotter
“Britain is failing to protect its vulnerable citizens from the threat of intensifying heatwaves, health experts warned last week. Thousands of preventable deaths could be triggered every year because simple measures to keep houses and care homes cool have not been implemented.
As global heating worsens and heatwaves become more frequent, the problem is likely to worsen significantly – unless urgent action is taken, they say. Those most likely to suffer include the very young, the elderly and people suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma.”
The only problem with this analysis is that in the UK far more people die of cold in winter than die of heat in summer, and in terms of the harsh calculation of which (cold winters or hot summers) will cause more deaths, it certainly isn’t that simple. Especially given how cold last winter and spring have just been. As things stand, in terms of net deaths in the UK from extreme weather, my money is on warming reducing, not increasing, deaths.
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6pm Countryfile : any Islington PR buzzwords ?
Llŷn Peninsula, North Wales
– plans for a major *blue energy* project that involves harnessing the power of the tide
(tidal power is difficult cos the sea generally smashes up the machinery ..startups do i for the subsidy grants)
This may tackle energy issues, but what do residents make of it ?
…. and what will be the impact on wildlife and fishing?
– helping to check the health of a critical crop of *carbon-capturing* sea grass
– launching new research into mountain goats
– hoping for a close encounter with angel sharks to find out why they are appearing more frequently in Welsh waters.
(Probably aren’t, we just have better detection rather than Global Warming)
– Adam on the success of the rare breeds revival
– Tom Heap investigates planning loopholes that could see park holiday homes become permanent residences and *threaten* some of the most beautiful parts of our countryside.
(Surely homes that are used 365 are better, than dead winter business ?)
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BBC Countryfile already did a PR article for that “Blue Energy” corp in November
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One to file away and look at it 10 years’ time. Is it a prediction or a projection?
“Johan Rockström: ‘We need bankers as well as activists… we have 10 years to cut emissions by half’
Jonathan Watts”
“The eminent Earth scientist argues that we cannot just wait for the world order to change when it comes to tackling the climate crisis – we all have a duty to act now”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/29/johan-rockstrom-interview-breaking-boundaries-attenborough-biden
“Johan Rockström is one of the world’s most influential Earth scientists. As director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, he advises governments, corporations and activists, including his Swedish compatriot, Greta Thunberg, about the latest research on the climate and biodiversity and argues for better science communication. Last year, he co-edited Standing Up for a Sustainable World, a book that brought together essays from climatologists, economists, environmental defenders, financiers and school strike activists. In recent months, he has teamed up with David Attenborough to create a new Netflix series, Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, participated in President Joe Biden’s climate summit and co-organised a declaration by more than 100 Nobel laureates….
…If we want to have any chance of keeping global warming to 1.5C, we need to cut emissions by half over the next nine years.”
So it’s 9 years, not 10?
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“Farm incomes fall by 20% in a year due to weather, Covid and Brexit
Increased hardship for small farmers as close to a billion pounds wiped off UK’s farming economy in 2020”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/28/farm-incomes-fall-by-20-in-a-year-due-to-weather-covid-and-brexit
Funny how when it’s bad weather, not heat, it’s “weather” not “climate”. Also, it was wet then dry wot dunnit, apparently, not the extreme cold, which obviously must not be mentioned:
“Extreme weather also took a big toll, with heavy rain and storms early in the year preventing planting before one of the driest springs on record. The wheat harvest was down sharply, and other key crops such as potatoes suffered. Overall, there was a drop of £999m in the value of crop output, though livestock value increased by about £490m over the year.”
Quite gratuitously, at the end of the article, this is tagged on:
“Prince Charles wrote in the Guardian this week that small farmers were essential for a sustainable future agriculture that would reduce greenhouse gases and nurture the countryside. He called on small farmers in the UK and around the world to unite in cooperatives to increase their clout and promote environmentally friendly farming methods.”
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“Outrage and delight as France ditches reliance on meat in climate bill
Environment minister Barbara Pompili says proposals will help country to meet net zero emissions”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/france-outrage-delight-meat-ditch-reliance-climate
“The country that gave the world foie gras, coq au vin and le steak frites is being asked to ditch its meat-heavy diet in favour of vegetarian options, as France embarks on a historic “culture shift” that will bring sweeping changes to all aspects of society, the French environment minister has said.
Meat will be off the menu at least one day a week in schools, while vegetarian options will be standard in public catering, and chefs will be trained in how to prepare healthy and toothsome plant-based meals.
The proposals have sparked uproar and howls of outrage among the traditionalists of French cuisine, but have been welcomed by many young people.
Barbara Pompili, minister for ecological transition, said the country’s wide-ranging plan to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions would improve health and wellbeing, while providing a big boost to the economy.
“Developing a vegetarian menu offer is about freedom as much as ecology,” she said. “Vegetarians must be able to find menus that cater to their needs in their canteens. This is especially true for young people, among whom the proportion of vegetarians is twice as high as the rest of the population.”
The climate and resilience bill, now under examination by the higher chamber of the French parliament, includes: one compulsory vegetarian menu a week in all schools; one daily vegetarian choice in all state-run canteens, including government establishments and universities; training for canteen staff to guarantee high-quality vegetarian menus; and the stipulation that from 2024, 60% of the meat served in mass catering must meet minimum quality requirements, which are likely to favour meat produced in France over imports.”
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“The $3bn bargain: how China dominates Pacific mining, logging and fishing
China received more than half of all seafood, wood, and minerals exported from the region in 2019. Experts warn this is creating ‘enormous challenges for sustainable development’”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/the-3bn-bargain-how-china-dominates-pacific-mining-logging-and-fishing
“One country dominates the Pacific’s resources extraction.
Guardian analysis of trade data has revealed that China received more than half the total tonnes of seafood, wood and minerals exported from the region in 2019, a haul worth $3.3bn that has been described by experts as “staggering in magnitude”.
The country’s mass extraction of resources comes as China has deepened its connections with governments across the region, amid a soft power push that sees it rivalling the influence of the US and Australia in the Pacific.
China took more by weight of these resources from the Pacific than the next 10 countries combined, with experts saying China “would easily outstrip” other countries, including Australia, when it comes to “gross environmental impact of its extractive industries”.”
Some “greens” still argue that China is at the forefront of “renewable” technology and is a paragon of virtue which shouldn’t be criticised (OK, I paraphrase, but that seems to me to be the gist of some of the comments whenever sceptics mention China).
This was the Guardian just last year, for example:
“What China’s plan for net-zero emissions by 2060 means for the climate
Barbara Finamore
Though the country is a huge polluter, it leads the world in the clean technologies that could make this feasible”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/05/china-plan-net-zero-emissions-2060-clean-technology
“When I first moved to China in 1990, winter meant coal. The moment Beijing turned on the municipal heating system, our faces would become covered with soot. People stockpiled loose coal in huge piles outside their homes for heating and cooking. I could see the smokestacks of four large coal power plants and the country’s largest steel mill in the distance. China’s addiction to this most carbon-intensive of fossil fuels made the prospect of a country dedicated to fighting climate change seem fanciful.
Now, in perhaps the most important news of 2020 that you may have missed, China has stepped up on its own as a climate leader. On 22 September, President Xi Jinping announced in a video address to the UN general assembly that China would aim to become “carbon neutral” before 2060 – Beijing’s first long-term target. In so doing it joins the European Union, the UK and dozens of other countries in adopting mid-century climate targets, as called for by the Paris agreement.”
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“The crippling cost of Net Zero
Green technocrats are utterly indifferent to the lives of ordinary people.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/26/the-crippling-cost-of-net-zero/
Every bit as good as one would expect from Ben. Well worth a read, IMO.
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“Human-induced global heating ‘causes over a third of heat deaths’
Between 1991 and 2018, human activity contributed to 37% of all heat-related deaths in locations studied”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/31/human-induced-global-heating-causes-over-third-heat-deaths
“More than a third of all heat-related deaths around the world between 1991 and 2018 can be attributed to human-induced global heating, research has found.
Climate breakdown has a range of effects ranging from wildfires to extreme weather. As the temperatures rise, more intense and frequent heatwaves disproportionately affect elderly people and those with underlying chronic conditions such as asthma, making them more vulnerable to disease and premature death.
A study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, used data from 732 locations in 43 countries to calculate the number of deaths attributed to heat levels higher than the ideal temperature for human health, which varies across locations.
The researchers examined past weather conditions simulated under scenarios with and without emissions triggered by human activity – allowing them to separate the warming and related health impact linked with human activity from natural trends.
Overall, they found 37% of all heat-related deaths in the locations studied were attributable to human activity – but the largest climate change-induced contributions (more than 50%) were in southern and western Asia (Iran and Kuwait), south-east Asia (the Philippines and Thailand) and Central and South America.”
Sheesh. The study can be read here if anyone is interested:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01058-x
Bizarrely, the Guardian in the past sort of recognised the truth, but as usual draws all the wrong conclusions:
“Thousands of people in the UK are dying from the cold, and fuel poverty is to blame”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/dying-cold-europe-fuel-poverty-energy-spending
“On average, there are 32,000 more deaths between December and March than the rest of the year. Many have perished because of the refusal of a society with abundant wealth and resources to provide for its most vulnerable citizens. An average of 9,700 deaths each year are believed to be caused by living in a cold house, according to research by National Energy Action (NEA) and the environmental group E3G. According to its figures, that is as many as those whose lives are cut short by breast or prostate cancer. While, sadly, we do not have the ability to cure all forms of cancer, we do have the means to ensure all have a warm home. Indeed, 6,900 of those deaths were linked to the 25% coldest homes in the country.”
It’s all the Tories fault, nothing to do with the fact that cold is more of a killer than heat.
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More climate litigation:
“Guyanese citizens challenge ExxonMobil offshore drilling on climate grounds
Case is first in Caribbean to challenge fossil fuel production on climate and human rights grounds”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/guyanese-citizens-challenge-exxon-mobil-offshore-drilling-on-climate-grounds
“Guyana’s government is being taken to court by two citizens seeking an end to offshore drilling by ExxonMobil and other large oil firms that will exacerbate the climate crisis.
The case has been filed by Quadad de Freitas, a 21-year old Indigenous tourist guide from the Rupununi region, and Dr Troy Thomas, a university lecturer and former president of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency Institute Guyana.
They claim Guyana’s approval of oil exploration licences violates the government’s legal duty to protect their right and the right of future generations to a healthy environment. It is the first constitutional climate case in the Caribbean to challenge fossil fuel production on climate and human rights grounds.”
No mention of who is funding this itgation either. I loved this:
“Guyana is a carbon sink and has committed to going 100% renewable under the Paris agreement provided the funding is available.”
Provided the funding is available. Sounds like the epitaph for the Paris Agreement.
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“UK investors urge G7 to force firms to reveal their climate change exposure
Investment Association also called on most developed economies to help firms meet Paris Agreement climate goals”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/31/uk-investors-urge-g7-to-force-firms-to-reveal-their-climate-change-exposure
UK investors, or (as acknowledged later in the article) a “lobby group”?
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Mark,
Regarding attribution and heat-related death, we have been here before when discussing the logic of causality. It’s one thing to demonstrate a probability of necessity and quite another to demonstrate a probability of sufficiency, particularly when several causative factors are in play. You’re example regarding the government being blamed for cold related deaths makes this point very well. By the same token, one might as well say that it isn’t the global warming that is killing people, it is the poverty that leads to inadequate air conditioning.
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Monday morning BBC Radio Humberside news
“There’s an online puffin spotting day at Bempton
the numbers of puffins are decreasing due to warmer seas
caused by climate change.”
WTF the sea at Skegness today was 9C.. not very warm
Puffin numbers have always varied from year to year
mainly cos the puffins choose to go to different places each year.
and counting zones tend to be restricted eg the puffin might be outside the counting fence this year
A tweet shows where the bBC got their ideas
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BBC-Future on facebook Sunday at 10:18 AM ·
4 minute video
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That Facebook link
Wordpress didn’t accept it
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“Ancient shells from seabed show rising CO2 levels”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-57288676
“Microscopic shells have been used by geologists at the University of St Andrews to chart the earth’s climate over millions of years.
They have concluded that it is three million years since current carbon dioxide (CO2) levels were last experienced on earth.
The shells were extracted from mud samples taken from the deep ocean bed.
Experts then related the make-up of the shells with the acidity of the sea water and then atmospheric CO2 levels.
They predict that if the burning of fossil fuels continues to grow, CO2 levels within two generations will match those of around 50 million years ago when crocodiles roamed the Arctic.
Dr James Rae, co-author of the study, told BBC Scotland: “That record of CO2 changes in the past is really trying to tell us a message about where we’re headed in the future.
“If we allow earth’s climate system to catch up with that level of CO2, we are heading back towards worlds that haven’t been experienced ever before by the human species and that really are prehistoric in terms of the climate change involved.”…
…The geologists say their findings are the most complete history of CO2 levels over the past 66 million years.
They say the last time it was at current levels, there was much less ice on Greenland and Antarctica, driving up sea level by around 20 metres….”
This is interesting at several levels.
First of all experts in one topic are deemed sufficiently expert to opine on the impact of growing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (the power of that word “expert”!).
Secondly, it doesn’t go near the old argument as to which came first – rising temperatures or rising CO2 levels. What caused the rising CO2 levels in the past, if it wasn’t humankind (which it wasn’t)?
Thirdly, it implicitly acknowledges that a blink of an eye in the past (a blink of an eye in terms of the life of the planet) the planet quite naturally had much higher CO2 and sea levels than now and “crocodiles roamed the Arctic”.
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“Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57253947
“…Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars.
It is certainly what the world’s big car makers think.
Jaguar plans to sell only electric cars from 2025, Volvo from 2030 and last week the British sportscar company Lotus said it would follow suit, selling only electric models from 2028.
And it isn’t just premium brands.
General Motors says it will make only electric vehicles by 2035, Ford says all vehicles sold in Europe will be electric by 2030 and VW says 70% of its sales will be electric by 2030.
This isn’t a fad, this isn’t greenwashing.
Yes, the fact many governments around the world are setting targets to ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles gives impetus to the process.
But what makes the end of the internal combustion engine inevitable is a technological revolution. And technological revolutions tend to happen very quickly….”
He compares electric cars to the internet to justify the claim. There’s just one problem. We already have cars, and we don’t need to replace them with a product which is currently inferior in many ways – more expensive, difficult to “fuel”, and much more expensive, compounded with range anxieties problems.
The internet, by contrast, was new and exciting and different and people embraced it because it was (rapidly) cheap and useful.
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“Glasgow to plant 18m trees as city readies for Cop26 climate summit
Clyde Climate Forest project hopes to plant 10 trees for every resident over next decade”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/01/glasgow-to-plant-18m-trees-as-city-readies-for-cop26-climate-summit
“Councils in the Glasgow area have pledged to plant 18m trees – equivalent to 10 trees for every resident – as the city prepares to host a global climate summit later this year.
The Clyde Climate Forest (CCF) project hopes to increase tree cover in urban areas of Glasgow to 20% and ensure that a fifth of the region’s rural landscape is forested or planted with native woodland over the next decade.
Glasgow is the host city for the Cop26 climate talks in November, when world leaders are expected to set much tougher targets to combat global heating, as evidence grows that the world is close to breaching the 1.5C limit agreed in the Paris climate treaty in 2016.
The summit had intensified pressure in Scotland for far more radical action to combat climate heating, by cutting emissions and moving to a zero-carbon economy, but also preparing for extreme weather being forecast.
Already one of the wettest regions of the UK, the greater Glasgow area is expected to be hit by far heavier storms in future and prolonged periods of heavy rainfall, but also, in common with the rest of the UK, intense heatwaves.”
Yeah, whatever. It was 6C when I drove north over Rannoch Moor in the middle of the afternoon 12 days ago, just 5 weeks before the summer solstice.
Let’s hope the tree-planting doesn’t involve more of this:
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“Mark Rylance: arts should tell ‘love stories’ about nature to tackle climate crisis
Exclusive: actor says individuals rather than government should lead way as he launches wetlands drama”
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/01/mark-rylance-arts-should-tell-love-stories-about-nature-to-tackle-climate-crisis
“Sir Mark Rylance has called on the arts to help solve the climate crisis by telling stories that persuade people to “fall in love with nature again” and prompt government to back green policies.
The Oscar-winning actor is starring with Sophie Okonedo in an innovative BBC Radio 4 drama set in a nature reserve that charts the challenges conservationists face in a time of rapid environmental change.”
The problem, Sir Mark, is that many climate alarmists don’t understand what nature is, and happily promote the destruction of the environment with industrial-scale “renewable” developments, ostensibly in order to save it.
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“Europe’s farm fail
A week of negotiations crashed and burned after EU countries pulled back on plans to make farming greener.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-eu-farming-fail-common-agricultural-policy-budget-environment/
“EU governments showed their true colors on reforming the bloc’s mammoth farm policy this week — and that color’s not green.
Four days of negotiations billed as the prime moment to finalize a new Common Agricultural Policy blew up on Friday in a skull-crunching head-to-head clash between governments and members of the European Parliament over how much of the €270 billion budget should be set aside for greener kinds of farming.
The CAP is the single biggest tranche of the regular EU budget and campaigners have pressed the European Commission’s green supremo Frans Timmermans to ensure that those payments secure a paradigm shift from business-as-usual industrial farming to more environmentally friendly methods.
That switch to greener farming looked a remote prospect after Friday’s breakdown, with talks now shunted into June. The failed negotiations revealed a chasm of divergent views between governments, EU officials and MEPs on how to make agriculture more climate-friendly, and left the bloc’s 10 million farmers in the dark about what’s in store in the next five-year CAP, which has already been delayed by two years.
“Some member states have zero willing, but really zero, to change anything. They wanted a reform that does not change anything at all,” said European People’s Party lawmaker Herbert Dorfmann.
As talks reached their climax on Thursday afternoon, MEPs were seething at a proposal from EU countries that walked back the environmental ambition even further than what countries had offered the previous day, and was light-years away from what the European Parliament wanted.”
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I’ve recently found this site which has quite a lot of paleo-climate posts.
In particular, I was struck by a post that suggests that at the end of the last interglacial, the Eemian, there was a temperature spike followed by the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and a sea-level rise of 5-9 metres. This disruption came just before a sharp drop in temperatures and the onset of glacial conditions.
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“Brecon Beacons landslips rise ‘a clear climate change warning'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57308780
“Reservoirs in the Brecon Beacons are increasingly being polluted by landslides that have been described as a “dramatic” warning of climate change.
Extreme rainfall in recent years has led to an increase in the slips, the National Trust and Welsh Water said.
They result in the water being supplied to 1.5 million homes and businesses turning “rosé” pink and requiring additional treatment.
Thousands of trees are being planted to stabilise land near the reservoirs.
The pink-tinged water that may, on occasion, come out of the taps in thousands of homes that “looks like a mild rosé wine” is a tangible – and worrying – example of the impact global warming is already having on Wales, according to Keith Jones, the National Trust’s adviser on climate change.”
Met Office data for rainfall in SW England and Wales can be found here:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/monthly/HadSWEP_monthly_qc.txt
I can’t say I noticed “extreme rainfall in recent years” compared to previous years going back to 1873.
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“Southampton BP oil terminal entrance blocked by protesters”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-57318154
“Environmental activists from Extinction Rebellion have blocked the entrance to a Southampton oil terminal.
Members of the campaign group laid across the entrance to a BP depot in Hamble to protest against “greenwashing” by the fossil fuel industry and government.
Some locked arms inside oil barrels, while others dressed as cleaning ladies armed with scrubbing brushes.
BP said it has plans to reduce its oil and gas production.”
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#PRasNews
yet again BBC RadioHumberside-news is acting as a GreenDream PR agency
promoting another Northern Powergrid PR story
“They expect a big rise in electric cars in Hull
right now it’s just 3,000 but in 30 years time it could be 130,000
Jim Cardwell says
” what will drive the pace of change is the cost and attraction” waffle PR words
.. Right lets unpack that
there are 32 million cars in the UK, so about 1 for each 2 people
Hull has 321K people, so must have 160K cars
So right now it’s 2% electric and in 30 year time he reckons it will be 81%
Who the hell knows ? There are so many variables that no estimate is reliable
It’s like saying we’ll have fusion-power in 30 years time.
Glance at their Twitter
“Look we’re green”
… “We are are out again in our helicopters”
The#GreenBlob mean the UK is NOT a safe place to invest
Expensive electricity, sudden crazy rule changes etc.
BTW visit the NorthernPowerGrid website
and you can see the PR story the BBC “news” story derives from
https://www.northernpowergrid.com/news/more-than-5-million-electric-vehicles-could-be-on-the-roads-of-the-north-east-yorkshire-and-northern-lincolnshire-by-2050
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BBC morning emsil
Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think
You probably haven’t driven one yet, let alone seriously contemplated buying one, so the prediction may sound a bit bold but bear with me.
We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford’s first production line started in 1913.
And it is b> likely to happen much more quickly than you imagine.
Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars.
It is certainly what the world’s big car makers think.
Read full analysis >
Justin Rowlatt Chief environment correspondent
***
@PGuestWho writes : Given the not full analysis does not cover purchase costs, rare Earth shortages, charging issues and grid supplies,
maybe he should stick to flying to exotic places to emote?
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Paul Homewood has made a more detailed rebuttal to that ridiculous Brecon Beacons article at the BBC, complete with graphs which sets out the rainfall figures in a far more user-friendly way than the lists of figures I linked to:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/climate-change-rise-in-brecon-beacons-landslips-a-clear-warning/#more-51211
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Mark,
As I understand it, the supposed problem is a combination of wetter winters and drier summers. So I am not looking for a graph that shows no trend in overall annual rainfall. I’m looking for one that contradicts the wetter winter/ drier summer combination. Has anyone drawn that graph as far as you know?
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Looks like the most expensive ocean energy harvesting gig from mother nature to date.
Say hello or hej! to Minesto
I see so many issues I didn’t explore very far – but it’s a fair bet I feel that taxpayers will be picking up the tab….
Paging Professor Pangloss
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IF there has been an increase in the silt/clay loading of water in reservoirs near the Brecon Beacons, then something must be causing it. You cannot dismiss a change in precipitation as a likely cause. Any amount of graphs of rainfall amounts also cannot dismiss a possible increase of rainfall events falling upon already sodden ground, for it is these events that cause most sediment transport. What I don’t understand is the unproven link between landslides and the sediment loading of reservoir waters. Large quantities of fine sediment can be moved down slopes by overland flow (=sheetwash) without the necessity for earth movements. It goes without saying that the link between increased fine sediment loading and climate change is tenuous to say the least. One more speculative product of climate change. The act of planting trees could exacerbate the problem.
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John
Well it’s true that that’s an important detail, which provides a gloss on the wetter Wales narrative. However, that said, it means the alarmists have two hurdles to jump, not just one – they have to show both that winters in Wales are getting wetter and that summers there are getting drier. Having looked again at the Met Office statistics, I see absolutely nothing in them to justify either claim. No such trend appears to exist.
Sadly I haven’t seen anyone producing graphs in that level of detail, but the statistics do speak for themselves. I wonder why the BBC Factcheck team weren’t interested in checking the veracity of the article before it was published?
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“EU’s plan to source rare earths takes a hit in Greenland
There have been shifts of opinion over whether a mining project should go forward.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/rare-earth-mining-project-greenland-eu-radioactive-uranium/
“The EU’s plan to secure its supply of rare earth metals — vital for its green transition — is running into trouble in Greenland.
A new two-party coalition government on the autonomous Danish territory is planning to stop one of the world’s biggest rare earth mining projects over fears that radioactive uranium, which is also present in the deposit, could damage the local environment.
The prospect that the mine, known as Kuannersuit, could be shut down is a heavy blow to the EU’s long-term plan to source more rare earth metals — which are key to the production of a range of green technology from electric cars to wind turbines — from politically stable Western-aligned countries.
The EU is increasingly concerned that relying on China, which sources the bulk of “critical” raw materials — those defined as economically important and with high supply risk — is unwise among ongoing diplomatic tensions between Brussels and Beijing.
“The new coalition does not support uranium mining,” Naaja Hjelholt Nathanielsen, Greenland’s new minister of mining, told POLITICO.
Her party, Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), made scrapping the rare earth mine and uranium central to its campaign ahead of last month’s election. And following its win at the ballot box, it is widely expected to make good on that promise.
Nathanielsen said she has yet to meet with Greenland Minerals, the Australia-based company developing the mine, but she expects the government will make an announcement about the project “before summer.” The proposal is currently subject to a public hearing that is scheduled to end June 1.
“I suppose they will stop the project,” said Erik Jensen, the leader of the Siumut party, which came second and lost power in the April election. His party has long backed the mine, but it too has cooled on the project in recent months.”
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Also in the Arctic:
“Alaska: Biden to suspend Trump Arctic drilling leases”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57322511
“US President Joe Biden’s administration will suspend oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge pending an environmental review.
The move reverses former President Donald Trump’s decision to sell oil leases in the refuge to expand fossil fuel and mineral development.”
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“G7 nations committing billions more to fossil fuel than green energy
In spite of green rhetoric, money has piled into aviation and car industries since start of pandemic, report finds”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/02/g7-nations-committing-billions-more-to-fossil-fuel-than-green-energy
“The nations that make up the G7 have pumped billions of dollars more into fossil fuels than they have into clean energy since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite their promises of a green recovery.
As the UK prepares to host the G7 summit, new analysis reveals that the countries attending committed $189bn to support oil, coal and gas between January 2020 and March 2021. In comparison, the same countries – the UK, US, Canada, Italy, France, Germany and Japan – spent $147bn on clean forms of energy.
The support for fossil fuels from seven of the world’s richest nations included measures to remove or downgrade environmental regulations as well as direct funding of oil, gas and coal.
The analysis from the development charity Tearfund, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Overseas Development Institute showed that the nations missed opportunities to make their response to the pandemic greener. In most cases, money provided for fossil fuel industries was given with no strings attached, rather than with conditions requiring a reduction in emissions or pollution. The analysis found that eight in every 10 dollars spent on non-renewable energy came without conditions.”
I would have liked to look at the report to assess the way in which the numbers are calculated. Regrettably the Guardian hasn’t provided a link.
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If there is an increase in the fine-grained sediment loading of water in reservoirs fed from the Brecon Beacons there has to be a reason for it. But, there is no proof that this is due to any increased supply of fine sediment. It’s equally likely that stronger winds than usual have stirred up sediment on the floor of the reservoirs. Even if more sediment has been introduced in recent years, there is no proof that this is a consequence of landslides: most fine-grained sediment is transported downslope by rainwater flowing over the ground surface when soils are already saturated (sheetwash). So if this is to be attributed to climate change one would need to demonstrate an increased frequency of closely spaced rainfall events, which I strongly suspect they cannot do. Increased land slipping should easily be established by comparison of satellite imagery at different dates and/or aerial photographs taken by the RAF over areas used by the military.
It is amazing the lengths to which some people are prepared to go to attribute any change to human interference via climate change.
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Sorry for the near identical repetition of my Brecon Beacons musings. The first disappeared without trace, so I thought I might try again only to find my first attempt risen from ashes.
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Alan,
>”Any amount of graphs of rainfall amounts also cannot dismiss a possible increase of rainfall events falling upon already sodden ground.”
Indeed not. But a claim has been made that there has been a sustained increase in such events and that this increase is linked to a change in climate, i.e. a change in the pattern of rainfall through the year. I would like to see the evidence that backs up the claim that such a change in climate has actually occurred and the only way I see of doing that is to look at graphs of rainfall pattern. It is difficult to discern such a long-term change by looking at Paul Homewood’s graph – to the naked eye, it just looks like noise. Maybe a proper statistical analysis might detect a signal, but I would want it to be pretty strong to back up the claims being made regarding climate change as a causation.
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Alan,
I had to rescue your first comment from moderation. WordPress playing funny buggers again?
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John, thank you for the rescue; initial burial more probably caused by my early morning mistyping. In both attempts I was trying to point out that there are multiple reasons for increased sediment loading without needing to call upon land slipping, let alone requiring climate change as a cause. If South Wales had the same type of wet May as we had in the East of England, with day after day of rain, then I’m not at all surprised if slopes became waterlogged, overland flows occurred transporting more sediment to rivers and reservoirs. This would not be climate change, it would be weather: an unusually wet May. It has happened before, and it will happen again. The only difference is that there are now people looking to ascribe any weather deviation as climate change and predict things getting worse. Woe is Wampant!
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Hull news, taxi firm is set to cancel its contract to drive hundreds of kids to school.
The boss says he is now 140 drivers short
He can’t get the drivers,
ONE of the things is now they spend unpredictable amounts of time stuck in traffic
Why ? : #1 Council reducing lanes by changing them to cycle lanes
#2 new roadwork plans
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@Alan Kendall:
If there is an increase in the fine-grained sediment loading of water in reservoirs fed from the Brecon Beacons there has to be a reason for it.
Yep, the first thing I thought of was ‘how many sheep are around these reservoirs?’ I think is very likely that the ultimate cause of the problem is overgrazing, especially if it occurred during a dry period.
Of course, planting more trees is only a solution if there are no sheep around.
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Woman’s Hour, what agenda are they shoe-horning in today ?
“Marianne North – she is one of several female artists being featured …
The exhibition, called UnNatural History
,.. also features contemporary artists addressing the current climate crisis“.
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26,000 views for Alan Jones new opinion piece
Greta Thunberg and those who “condone her alarmist nonsense” are tragically destroying young people, according to Sky News host Alan Jones.
“We have learned that vulnerable students have fallen through the cracks over coronavirus,” he said.
“We have been told that schools don’t have a proper review process to prevent – a frightening term – suicide clusters.
“Young people are constantly comparing themselves to others on social media and suffering mental health problems as a result.”
Mr Jones said there is “two blunt answers” as to how this crisis has “accelerated to this point”.
“The first is an appalling absence of political leadership,” he said.
“But young people are being confronted by uninformed, disinformed, illiterate and often innumerate protest leaders urging young people to march for causes they don’t understand based on arguments that can’t be proven and trading on fear which is destructive.
“Why have leaders in the western world given international exposure to the uninformed and disinformed utterances of Greta Thunberg?”
Greta Thunberg’s “dishonest, alarmist rubbish” is now seeing its manifestation in massive emotional and psychological instability in young people, according to Mr Jones.
“It is a farce; a sickening farce.”
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4:30pmR4 Laurie is talking about attitude to closing coal mines
” Those who opposed the closure of the mines were often described as Luddites
but Gavin Mueller suggests that Luddism may not always be regressive.. argues that improvement in people’s working lives may depend on subverting or halting some technological changes. “
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R4 now Mucilage
war reporter “we on our way to report a Climate Change story
an alien slimey substance called Mucilage in the Sea of Marmara”
(That’s the kind of Inland sea next to Istanbul, so you would expect pollution)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/25/turkey-struck-by-sea-snot-because-of-global-heating
The Guardian : “The thick beige gloop is spreading across the surface of the Sea of Marmara, where it first began spreading in 2007.”
The “snot” is formed when phytoplankton grow out of control in warm conditions.
“It is created as a result of
*prolonged warm temperatures*
+ and calm weather
+ and in areas with abundant nutrients in the water.”
(..interesting double “and” sentence to hide the main driver ?)
“the sticky substance attracts viruses and bacteria, including E coli,”
BS ..only a few subspecies of E-coli re actually dangerous
quotes : Dr Barış Özalp
I suspect it’s a once in 20 year plague thing, if the conditions coincide
(you can get 2 such events within 5 years of each other)
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Historic tweets show blooms in various years
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https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/atmosphere
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9pm BBC2 Hinckley C documentary
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Front page news on the BBCwebsite:
“UK records hottest day of the year for third day in row”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57333711
“It has been the hottest day of the year in the UK for the third day in a row.
Temperatures reached 28.3C (83F) in Northolt, west London, on Wednesday afternoon. It beat the previous day’s high of 26.1C in Cardiff on the first day of meteorological summer.
But there have been showers and even thunderstorms in some areas, with these spreading north as the day progressed.
More warm weather is expecting for many parts of the UK this week but it will then start to cool, forecasters say.”
This is news, apparently. Amazing – after a very cold winter and spring, and now that it’s summer, guess what, it’s getting hotter. Not exactly the heat levels we’ve been warned to expect, but hey ho, it’s worth a story, obviously.
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“Scotland’s largest council pension fund backs climate change move”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57331904
“Scotland’s largest council pension fund is to end investments in fossil fuel companies that are not strongly committed to reducing emissions.
Environmental groups have been calling for years for local authorities to divert investments away from coal, oil and gas.
The £24bn Strathclyde Pension Fund covers 12 councils including Glasgow.
It will now carry out an assessment of energy sector companies in its portfolios and set minimum standards.
Environmental campaigners said that while the agreement meant divestment could take place in principle, councillors had effectively deferred the decision by not setting a clear timeline.
They called for strong climate standards and a timeline to be agreed in the coming months to ensure that divestment actually happened.”
It doesn’t matter what anyone does – it’s never enough!
And my word, isn’t it complicated:
“Divestment is not as simple as it used to be. Not that it was ever that simple.
Five years ago it was fairly clear cut that companies like BP, which drilled for oil, were the baddies while those like Vattenfall building wind farms were the goodies.
Now everyone’s into everything. BP runs one of the larger electric vehicle charging networks in England and Shell have been investing in offshore wind in the North Sea.
SSE, which has long been into renewables, now runs Scotland’s most polluting industrial site at Peterhead Power Station.
And a lot of the engineering in the oil and gas supply chain will now be used to develop carbon capture and storage technology.
So the fund managers who look after the massive Strathclyde Pension Fund have a challenging task ahead in deciding what’s green and what’s not.”
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“Major project aims to clear clean energy hurdle
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57313991
“A major project aims to overcome a barrier to electricity grids that are entirely supplied by renewable energy.
Output from wind turbines varies because wind speeds fluctuate; output from solar cells changes according to cloud cover and other factors.
This is called variability, and overcoming it is crucial for increasing the share of renewables on the grid.
A group of leading nations will invest $248m over the next decade to solve the issue by 2030.
The effort has emerged from a clean-tech research programme called Mission Innovation (MI).
Environmentalists say the sum’s a fraction of the many trillions of dollars of damages that climate change is projected to wreak on society, unless it’s curbed.”
As I say – it’s never enough.
“Solutions to the variability problem will include energy storage; for example, smart power systems which respond to changes in demand; advanced controls and artificial intelligence.
Those behind MI say that half of the global emissions reductions required to achieve climate targets by 2050 depend on technologies that exist today, but are only at demonstration or prototype phase.
These include hydrogen power, advanced battery storage and zero-emission fuels.”
Hmmmm.
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“Scottish climate campaign to highlight net-zero benefits”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-57319098
But not the downsides, apparently.
“People across Scotland are being urged to help tackle the climate emergency ahead of COP26 in Glasgow later this year.
A major TV, radio and digital campaign called Let’s do Net Zero has been launched to highlight the benefits a net-zero society would bring to the economy, health and the environment.
It also aims to raise awareness of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Scotland is committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.
Capital investment of £1.9bn will be spent on low-carbon projects in 2021/22 to tackle climate change and create green jobs.”
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“Climate crisis is suffocating the world’s lakes, study finds
Falling oxygen levels harming already struggling wildlife and drinking water supplies, say scientists”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/02/climate-crisis-is-suffocating-the-worlds-lakes-study-finds
“The climate crisis is causing a widespread fall in oxygen levels in lakes across the world, suffocating wildlife and threatening drinking water supplies.
Falling levels of oxygen in oceans had already been identified, but new research shows that the decline in lakes has been between three and nine times faster in the past 40 years. Scientists found oxygen levels had fallen by 19% in deep waters and 5% at the surface.
Rising temperatures driven by global heating is the main cause, because warmer water cannot hold as much oxygen. Furthermore, rising summer heat leaves the top layer of lakes hotter and less dense than the waters below, meaning mixing is reduced and oxygen supply to the depths falls.
Oxygen levels have increased at the surface of some lakes. But this is most likely due to higher temperatures driving algal blooms, which can also produce dangerous toxins. Cutting emissions to tackle the climate crisis is vital, the scientists said, as well as cutting the use of farm fertiliser and urban sewage pollution that also damages lakes.”
Oh I see, there might be more to it than “climate crisis” after all – farm fertiliser and sewage pollution, eh? More in similar vein:
“Freshwater habitats are rich in fish, insects, birds and animals, and are important for food and recreation for humans. But they have already suffered great damage, with average wildlife populations having fallen by 84% since 1970. In addition to global heating and pollution, the causes include overuse of water for farming.”
Overuse of water for farming….
If anyone wants to analyse the study, they can find it here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03550-y
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“David Beckham buys stake in vehicle electrification firm
Lunaz specialises in classic cars but is set to start conversion of bin lorries to help transition away from fossil fuel”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/03/david-beckham-buys-stakes-in-vehicle-electrification-firm
“…The company is part of a small but growing trend of the new battery economy: ripping out polluting engines and installing batteries and electric motors with zero exhaust emissions.
The attraction for Beckham became clear during a Guardian test drive on Wednesday afternoon alongside the famous Silverstone race track in the well-upholstered back of a 1961 Rolls-Royce Phantom. Electric motors may lack the engine roar beloved of petrolheads, but the smooth, quiet ride they offer is well suited to the more rarefied atmosphere of chauffeur-driven luxury. At first glance the plush interior could have been hand-upholstered 50 years ago, but wooden charge and power dials tell a different story….”
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I assume this is part of the propaganda effort ahead of COP 26:
“Key species at risk if planet heats up by more than 1.5C, report finds
WWF report finds puffins, penguins and many other species will face issues such as habitat loss and food insecurity”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/02/key-species-at-risk-if-planet-heats-up-by-more-than-15c-report-finds
“Corals will bleach, penguins will lose their Antarctic ice floes, puffins around the UK coast will be unable to feed their young, and the black-headed squirrel monkey of the Amazon could be wiped out if the world fails to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Beyond a 1.5C rise, many species will face increasing problems finding food or surviving, according to a report from WWF on the effects of climate breakdown on 12 key species across the world.
In the UK, puffins are facing increasing threats from warming seas. Sandeels form a large part of the seabird’s diet, and the sandeels depend on crustaceans called copepods. Now, however, warming seas mean copepods are blooming before the sandeels hatch. As the sandeels miss out on their meals, there are fewer for puffins to catch, and entire colonies can fail as a result. WWF found that between 2000 and 2016, copepods were blooming nearly 20 days earlier than sandeel larvae were hatching, a mismatch likely to widen at higher temperatures.”
The sandeels story is an old one. Climate alarmists never look at the obvious reason for the shortage of sandeels – overfishing by Danish trawlers.
The article ends with this:
“Tanya Steele, a chief executive at WWF, said the report showed why governments needed to strengthen their pledges on cutting greenhouse gas emissions before the crunch UN climate talks (Cop26) to be held in Glasgow this November. Many countries, including the UK and US, as well as the EU, have already promised steep cuts in emissions by 2030, but taken together, these would still lead to a rise of 2.4C by the end of this century, according to estimates.
Steele said: “World leaders must seize the chance at Cop26 to build a greener, fairer future – one with nature at its heart. As hosts, the UK government needs to show it can deliver on its ambitious climate targets by publishing a credible action plan without delay, outlining the steps it will take to cut harmful emissions and reach net zero. Ministers must also recognise nature’s vital role in helping to deliver a 1.5C world and urgently scale up efforts to protect and restore nature at home and overseas.””
So, indeed, it is all part of the warm-up to COP 26. If anyone wants to check out the report for themselves, it can be found here:
Click to access FEELING_THE_HEAT_REPORT.pdf
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Speaking of over-fishing:
“Hundreds of fishing fleets that go ‘dark’ suspected of illegal hunting, study finds
Vessels primarily from China switch off their tracking beacons to evade detection while they engage in possible illegal fishing”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/02/fishing-fleets-go-dark-suspected-illegal-hunting-study
“Giant distant-water fishing fleets, primarily from China, are switching off their tracking beacons to evade detection while they engage in a possibly illegal hunt for squid and other lucrative species on the very edge of Argentina’s extensive fishing grounds, according to a new study by Oceana, an international NGO dedicated to ocean conservation.”
And yet China, which – according to the Guardian – behaves like this, can also be expected to play its part in defusing the “climate crisis”. When will the Guardian (and the rest of their fellow-travellers) join the dots?
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“Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists
Analysis shows significant risk of cascading events even at 2C of heating, with severe long-term effects”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/03/climate-tipping-points-could-topple-like-dominoes-warn-scientists
It’s worse than we thought everywhere – Antarctic, Greenland, Atlantic Gulf Stream, Amazon rainforest. Models, models, models…
“The research, published in the journal Earth System Dynamics, used a new type of climate model because existing models are very complex and require huge computing power, making them expensive to run many times. Instead, the researchers used an approach that focused specifically on how the temperature thresholds for the tipping points changed as the systems interacted, allowing them to run the 3m simulations.”
But don’t worry – stop emissions, and all will be well:
“However, the chance of a cascade of tipping points leading to a runaway greenhouse effect, where the planet gets ever hotter even if humanity stops carbon emissions, is extremely unlikely, according to Prof Anders Levermann, also at PIK but not involved in the new work. “The Earth will get as warm as we make it, which means we’re the ones [that must] stop it,” he said.”
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“World must rewild on massive scale to heal nature and climate, says UN
The ‘decade on ecosystem restoration’ launches with a call for ‘imagination’ and action on never-before-seen scale”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/03/rewild-on-massive-scale-to-heal-nature-and-climate-says-un-decade-on-ecosystem-restoration-aoe
“Humans are using about 1.6 times the resources that nature can sustainably renew every year and the UN said short-term economic gains are being prioritised over the health of the planet. ”
That much we can probably all agree on. What it has to do with the climate, the article doesn’t really say, despite the headline.
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These people must have access to different news media to me:
“The media is still mostly failing to convey the urgency of the climate crisis
Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
We asked the world’s press to commit to treating climate change as the emergency that scientists say it is. Their response was dispiriting”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/03/media-climate-change-crisis-emergency
“Today, all of humanity is under attack, this time from an overheated planet – and too many newsrooms still are more inclined to cover today’s equivalent of dance competitions. The record heatwaves and storms of 2020 confirmed what scientists have long predicted: climate change is under way and threatens unparalleled catastrophe. And because carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere for centuries, temperature rise and its effects are only getting started. As one scientist said as wildfires turned San Francisco’s skies orange last September, “We’re going to look back in 10 years, certainly 20 … and say, ‘Wow, 2020 was a crazy year, but I miss it.’”
A handful of major newspapers are paying attention. But most news coverage, especially on television, continues to underplay the climate story, regarding it as too complicated, disheartening or controversial. Last month, we asked the world’s press to commit to treating climate change as the emergency that scientists say it is; their response was dispiriting.
We created Covering Climate Now in April 2019 to help break the media’s climate silence; Bill Moyers talked about Murrow at our inaugural conference. Since then, Covering Climate Now has grown into a consortium of hundreds of news outlets reaching a combined audience of roughly 2 billion people, and the climate coverage of the media as a whole has noticeably improved.”
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Mark, here are some irrelevant factoids about the black-headed squirrel monkey that the WWF and the Grauniad are worried about.
1) Its Latin name honours a well-known composer of samba songs.
URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZd_l8Wqe2o
2) Squirrel monkeys smell horrible. This is because they don’t do social grooming, preferring to piss on their own tails then use them as sponges. (I can’t re-find the source for this one. It might be bollocks.)
3) Saimiri vanzalonii lives only in one tiny area (half the size of Greater London) of a forest that is flooded for two or three months every year, in some places to a depth of 15m. Agriculture becomes impossible and fishing becomes much more difficult because the fish disperse into the flooded forest. This leaves logging as the only source of income for many local people. Or it did. For about ten years, the part of the forest where this monkey lives was the focus of a project that tried to manage logging sustainably and provide locals with other sources of income. It was ultimately a success – illegal logging was reduced almost to zero – but it got off to a bad start because the locals were deeply suspicious of it, partly because foreigners were involved. (Including Brits. DFID was a major funder.) Some locals believed that the project’s real purpose was to dig a tunnel to Japan that would allow foreigners to secretly remove every last fish, dolphin, manatee and bald uakari in the area – which proves that you don’t have to live in Totnes or Hebden Bridge or be called Naomi or Stephan to come up with wacky conspiracy theories.
3a) The bald uakari is sometimes called ‘o macaco-inglês’ – the English monkey. Two reasons are given for this. One is that its red face makes it look like an English tourist who has forgotten his sunscreen. The other is that it makes it look like an Englishman during a drunken night out. I don’t know why Brazilians associate the English with sunburn. Drunkenness? Yeah, they can have that one.
Perhaps a bit less irrelevant…
Is this monkey doomed? The WWF is worried that climate change will make the flooding so severe that all of the monkey’s trees will die, but I’m not sure where this worry comes from. The WWF’s ultimate source is a somewhat crude modelling exercise of the prospects for 80 Amazonian primate species. (_Recalculating route: dispersal constraints will drive the redistribution of Amazon primates in the Anthropocene_ by Sales et al, 2019.) The black-headed squirrel monkey did particularly badly but this wasn’t because of flooding. The study assumed that much of the forest in the monkey’s tiny range will be felled illegally in the next 30 years and, being trapped between two big rivers, it won’t be able to migrate. Perhaps the modellers hadn’t heard of the Mamirauá project, partly funded by drunken Englishmen, that has reduced logging so successfully in the monkey’s range. If so, I reckon they should be a bit red-faced themselves. (Macacos-modeladores?)
But given their tiny range there’s no doubt that black-headed squirrel monkeys are vulnerable. So fingers crossed for the delightful – if perhaps a bit stinky – critters.
Their main threats at the moment are the locals, who capture them to keep as pets, sell them to people who supply labs (they make good lab animals) or just eat them, but they are doing OK. Researchers say their numbers have been stable ever since they were first studied in the 1980s.
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There’s something going on when it comes to the drafting of headlines at the BBC:
“Bus depot to be ‘UK’s largest vehicle charging hub'” changes, if you click on the story, to “Bus depot bid to be UK’s largest electric vehicle charging hub”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57352972
There’s only one word different between the two headlines, but it significantly changes the meaning. Bidding to be something is not the same as being something. Clearly, therefore, one of the headline variants is misleading. They cannot both be completely accurate.
The headline, I suppose (whichever variant you read) is neither positive nor negative, but the story contains an uncomfortable truth:
“Scotland’s biggest bus operator has announced it is building the UK’s largest electric vehicle charging hub.
First Bus will install 160 charging points and replace half its fleet with electric buses at its Caledonia depot in Glasgow.
The programme is expected to be completed in 2023 with the first 22 buses arriving by autumn.
Charging the full fleet will use the same electricity as it takes to power a town of 10,000 people.
The scale of the project means changes are needed to the power grid to accommodate the extra demand.”
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It’s ramping up ahead of COP 26, that’s for sure:
“Arctic sea ice thinning twice as fast as thought, study finds
Less ice means more global heating, a vicious cycle that also leaves the region open to new oil extraction”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/04/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-twice-as-fast-as-thought-study-finds
Worse than we thought – again.
“The new research used novel computer models to produce detailed snow cover estimates from 2002 to 2018. The models tracked temperature, snowfall and ice floe movement to assess the accumulation of snow. Using this data to calculate sea ice thickness showed it is thinning twice as fast as previously estimated in the seas around the central Arctic, which make up the bulk of the polar region.”
Does that mean the ice hasn’t actually been measured with any confidence in the accuracy of the measurements?
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Strange goings on at The Guardian
Story about research into extent of 8000 year old Storegga tsunami affecting Scottish shorelines and Doggarland, a study involving some modelling, fails to mention climate change. This despite comments that if it occurred today, with the higher sea-level, its effects would be even more devastating. Are the climate alarmists on holiday? Well no, because on page 4 the big story concerns speculations about a domino effect for climate tipping points. (Which I am still steeling myself to read).
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R4 coming up before 1pm : “Does the consumer really get good advice on how to be green?”
“Guilty about not being green enough ?”
=====================
8pm R4 actually allows a non-woke on
Ann Widdecombe is one of the panel on Any Questions
she’s up against
– Rachel Maclean Minister for the Future of Transport & Decarbonisation
– Luke Pollard Shadow Environment Secretary
– playwright James Graham wrote against Cummings
James Graham has kind words for May and Corbyn’s Labour, but Brexit is a “poisonous, unhealthy arena” and Boris Johnson’s behaviour “inexcusable”
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The item seemed like a weak item from local radio
12:47 Kay Thompson in Derby growing her own veg
“At university in mid-90s I did my dissertation on climate change,
.. work for a charity part time ..single mum”
“mostly I fail to be sustainable”
“I try to reduce my car use, but its very difficult, I drive my 3 kids to school, using buses is unaffordable”
“The gov is relying on people’s choices, the government needs to act instead”
(She means IMPOSE on people more
restrict their freedoms )
Now guest from Circular and Co. “We use 17 tonnes per person, 3 planets worth”
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“Southampton Airport activists ‘taken aback’ by runway sign-off”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-57363049
“Airport protestors have said a council formally approved an airport runway extension despite an earlier agreement with the government to delay.
On Thursday Eastleigh Borough Council issued formal planning permission for Southampton Airport to lengthen its runway by 164m (538ft).
Campaign group Airport Expansion Opposition (AXO) said it was “taken aback” by the announcement.
The council said it gave the government time to intervene but had no response.”
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I thought it wasn’t going to cost us anything:
“Private finance won’t decarbonise our economies – but the ‘big green state’ can
Daniela Gabor
While the private sector wants to keep control of the green transition, what’s needed is massive public investment”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/04/private-finance-decarbonise-economies-green-state
“The strategy of cuddling carbon financiers is at the heart of the Cop26 conference that takes place this year in Glasgow. The hot new private sector gig for high-level public employees is green finance. But the world of “green finance” has injustice and inequality built in. It reduces democratic government action to higher carbon taxes, which often place the burden of decarbonisation on the poor. Government spending is to be directed to “derisking” private infrastructure, to cover the gap between the fees paid by users of essential public services and the commercial rates of return expected by private investors.
Yet having privatised public services while hiking carbon taxes on ordinary people threatens a political backlash, which will reduce politicians’ appetite for meaningful decarbonisation measures. It will also reinforce the pressures to trust global asset managers to set the pace of green investment, even though the financiers’ “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) rush is rife with greenwashing: PR exercises that stick green labels on high-carbon activities. This greenwashing is a feature, not a bug, of big finance-led decarbonisation. It allows private finance to both enjoy the green subsidies promised by central banks and to protect profits from democratic forces that may, one day, transition from cuddling to penalising carbon financiers.
The big finance approach owes its political appeal to fiscal fundamentalists who point to Covid-19-related surges in public debt to argue that the state simply cannot afford to green the economy. Instead, financiers dangle trillions of ESG investments in front of politicians, seducing them into believing the market will take care of the climate crisis. This validates unambitious carbon politics, as we see all too clearly in the EU’s sustainable finance initiative, which created a green public standards system. Four years after it was launched, this classification system for “sustainable” activity is now under serious threat of greenwashing from member states that want to include natural gas and other dirty activities within its scope. In turn, European commitments to develop in parallel a system that works towards penalising dirty lending have evaporated.”
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“German fuel price brawl pits ruling parties against Greens
Coalition parties are under pressure to head off a Green surge and fearful of social backlash to its own policies.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/german-fuel-price-pits-ruling-parties-against-greens-christian-democrats-social-democrats-increase/
“Germany’s new climate targets will require some painful cuts — but its ruling parties are bending over backward to avoid the subject and pin the blame elsewhere.
Politicians from across the political spectrum are jumping at the chance to slam plans for a gradual fuel price increase put forward by the Greens— even as they mirror existing government policy.
The ruling coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats has been scrambling to shore up their climate credentials to hold off a surge in support for the Greens ahead of federal elections in September and respond to a court ruling that found its climate law partly unconstitutional. It is pushing ahead with efforts to scrap short-haul flights and boost rail links, and has put forward its own plan to bump fuel rates in the fight to slash emissions.
But that apparently isn’t stopping it from trying to distance itself from measures that could be unpopular with voters, and it is increasingly quick to attack Green policies to mitigate climate change.
The fear is that the unpopular measure will create a social backlash on the scale of the Yellow Jackets protests that rocked France starting in 2018 and threw President Emmanual Macron’s government into open conflict with motorists.
The pile-on started Sunday, when Annalena Baerbock, the Green’s candidate for chancellor, outlined plans to gradually raise the fuel price by 16 cents per liter by 2023 should the party form Germany’s next government.”
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“United plans supersonic passenger flights by 2029”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57361193
“…The other big issue is fuel consumption.
“In order to fly supersonic, you will need more power, you will need more fuel,” Kathy Savitt, Boom’s chief commercial officer, told the BBC.
But she expects Overture to be operated as a “net-zero carbon aircraft”.
Central to Boom’s plan is for Overture to run entirely on sustainable aviation fuel (Saf).
That can take the form of “posh biodiesel” made out of everything from waste animal fat from the farming industry to specially grown high-energy crops, explains Dr Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University.
But one big problem is that “the world is very far from having anything like the production capacity needed” to produce enough biofuel to power the entire aviation industry, he says.
Boom predicts “power-to-liquid” processes – where renewable energy such as wind power is used to produce liquid fuel – will make up the shortfall.
“We expect that to be commercialised well before it’s needed for our purposes,” explains Boom’s Raymond Russell.
“There are billions of dollars of both airline commitments and investments across the sector.”
But it remains an industry that needs to be scaled up….”
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Mark the other place to look besides BBCnews is the Magazine type articles put out by BBCFuture
usually promoted on their Facebook page
Today they have also put a Future Flight article
By Jocelyn Timperley 26th May 2021
From switching the fuel they use to changing flight plans so they produce fewer contrails, airlines are searching for ways to cut their impact on the climate.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210525-how-aviation-is-reducing-its-climate-emissions
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Wales’s Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall has been classified by the RGS as one of the UK’s Seven Natural Wonders.
An old English hippie who owns a café near the waterfall explains why:
URL:www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAyhhuS8FMw&t=0m30s
Romans, the Greek goddess Rhea, something about two thousand years and four different epochs of spiritual messages, ancient Druidic spiritual pathways, and on and on and on.
Personally, I think the waterfall has been honoured because it’s quite a nice waterfall. I might pay it a visit some time.
*
Or not…
Googling shows that the waterfall is in a tiny, tiny wood in the middle of typically bald Welsh sheepfest uplands:
URL:www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.8531641,-3.3669,900a,35y,270h,39.13t/data=!3m1!1e3
Monbiot is sometimes right. There is something very wrong about such landscapes. They are the product of misdirected subsidies. Don’t ‘rewild’ such uplands with lynxes and whatnot, as Monbiot suggests, but please do stop paying people to raise sheep.
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Much of Wales shares with the Western Highlands of Scotland the honour of being the only man-made, cold, wet desert in the world.
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7:57am our BBC local radio news promoting today’s XR stunt
against sea level rise
part of a national event called “Make The Wave”
local spokesman was Mary Horrobin
Simultaneously Simon Reeve read this week’s Radio4 charity appeal for Marine Conservation Society
Heavily crafted and sounded political
cos although it focused on beach plastic
the money could end up used on Global Warming campaigning
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Vinny
I gather that “Pistyll Rhaeadr Waterfall” means Spring of the Waterfall Waterfall”, a bit like the Cumbrian village of Torpenhow (pronounced Trepenna by the locals) means, I suppose, HillHillHill).
Anyway, I have visited Pistyll Rhaeadr, and it is quite spectacular, and it is definitely worth a visit, IMO. I take the point of man-made deserts, however. Monbiot, I think, created the phrase “sheep-wrecked” for the English Lake District, which I admit is quite a clever use of language/play on words, but it didn’t endear him to the locals.
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It’s interesting that MCS’s charity appeal and website focus entirely on Plastic Pollution
and make minimal mention of Climate Change
yet their tweets show It is a big part of their campaigning
recent example :
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“Australia looks set to lose its opportunity to decouple GDP growth from carbon emissions
Greg Jericho
The sad state of affairs is that, since the end of the carbon price, much that is good for growth is bad for reducing our emissions”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/jun/06/australia-looks-set-to-lose-its-opportunity-to-decouple-gdp-growth-from-carbon-emissions
“The sad state of affairs is that, since the end of the carbon price, much that is good for GDP growth is bad for reducing our emissions, and conversely among the things in the GDP figures that were “bad” were good for our task of cutting emissions.”
And therein lies the problem.
“To get to net-zero emissions by 2050 we need to cut emissions by around 34% from 2020 levels in the next decade. We’re on pace to cut them by 4%.
The problem of this week isn’t that GDP is unimportant, it is that for now it gets much more attention and focus than do emissions.
The political cost of low GDP growth is much greater than is barely falling or rising emissions. And there is no political cost at all about doing nothing to decouple GDP and emissions growth.”
Decoupling GDP and emissions is a huge problem, IMO, and not just in Australia, but especially in developing countries, i.e. the countries responsible currently for pretty much all the growth in emissions.
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Ah strangely the XR event is not today
“And in Cleethorpes there is a protest coming up this week against sea level rise
as part of a day of Climate action directed towards the G7 meeting protesters will be having a tea party in the sea
Here’s Mary Horobin .. ”
The student then read out her prepared statement
I guess the girl featured in a prog or is a friend of presenters so they edited a piece for the news.
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The R4 religion show today pushed a lot of metroliberal agendas and not much discussion of religion
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A Cleethorpes protest against sea level rise Stewgreen?
Have they learned nothing from Cnut?
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The pressure continues in the run-up to COP 26:
“Pressure on UK as Germany backs ending free carbon permits for airlines
Boris Johnson has pledged to give details of how UK will meet its climate targets before Cop26”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/06/pressure-uk-germany-backs-ending-free-carbon-permits-airlines
“The German government is backing an extension of EU carbon pricing that will end free carbon permits for airlines, putting pressure on the UK to put in place a similar package to meet climate targets.
The European Commission will propose a dozen climate policies on 14 July, each designed to slash greenhouse gases faster in line with an EU goal to cut net emissions by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.
The package will include reforms to the EU carbon market and a border levy to impose CO2 costs on imported goods. All the policies will need approval from EU governments and the European parliament.
Boris Johnson has pledged to give details of how the UK will meet climate targets ahead of the Cop26 conference in Glasgow this year.
Ministers are concerned that the costs of transition arrangements to reduce emissions 78% by 2035 will dramatically force up the cost of fuel for transportation, including flying, potentially prompting protests and a backbench rebellion by Tory MPs.
According to a document seen by Reuters, Germany backed the commission’s plan to impose CO2 prices on transport and heating in buildings through a separate system to the EU’s existing carbon market.”
I can imagine that increasing the cost of transport and heating homes could well be the stage at which public rebellion begins against this programme.
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UK National Grid just now:
Gas: 51.6%
Solar: 0.1%
Wind: 1%
Hydro: 0.8%
Pumped storage: 1.9%
Nuclear: 21.3%
Biomass: 8.5%
Interconnectors: 14.1%
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The pre-COP 26 ramping-up continues unabated:
“Climate crisis to shrink G7 economies twice as much as Covid-19, says research
G7 countries will lose $5tn a year by 2050 if temperatures rise by 2.6C”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/07/climate-crisis-to-shrink-g7-economies-twice-as-much-as-covid-19-says-research
“The economies of rich countries will shrink by twice as much as they did in the Covid-19 crisis if they fail to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions, according to research.
The G7 countries – the world’s biggest industrialised economies – will lose 8.5% of GDP a year, or nearly $5tn wiped off their economies, within 30 years if temperatures rise by 2.6C, as they are likely to on the basis of government pledges and policies around the world, according to research from Oxfam and the Swiss Re Institute.
The economies of G7 nations contracted by about 4.2% on average in the coronavirus pandemic, and the economic losses from the climate crisis by 2050 would be roughly on the scale of suffering a similar crisis twice every year, according to the research. The UK’s economy would lose 6.5% a year by 2050 on current policies and projections, compared with 2.4% if the goals of the Paris climate agreement are met.
Other nations will be hit much worse, including India, whose economy will shrink by a quarter owing to a 2.6C temperature increase, while Australia will suffer a loss of 12.5% of output, and South Korea will lose nearly a tenth of its economic potential.”
Well, I have to say that I’m not at all convinced by this kind of alarmism. The report can be found here, if anyone (John R?) is interested:
Click to access swiss-re-institute-expertise-publication-economics-of-climate-change.pdf
Any report that can say this:
“Of the major economies, China ranks lower, in part due to lesser adaptive capacity in place today relative to peers. However, with rising investment in green energy and increasing awareness of climate risks, we believe China is on course for rapid catch-up here….”
doesn’t receive my unquestioning agreement.
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Well, the link didn’t work, for some reason, but it can be picked up from the article in the Guardian. There’s more (so many studies!):
“Wealthy nations breaking climate pledge with gas dash in global south
Study finds leading economies have funded projects related to fossil fuel, worsening global heating”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/07/wealthy-nations-breaking-climate-pledge-with-gas-dash-in-global-south
“Wealthy nations are breaking their climate commitments by funding a new dash for gas in the global south, according to a study.
A week before the G7 summit begins in Cornwall, the report reveals low and middle-income nations received nearly $16bn a year between 2017 and 2019 to fund projects related to gas, a fossil fuel that worsens global heating.
This was nearly four times more than international public finance for wind or solar projects, raising concerns that poorer nations are being locked into the old fossil fuel economy even though cleaner and increasingly cheap alternatives are available.
Many of these gas projects are likely to become stranded assets before the end of their 30-year terms because the International Energy Agency said last month that no new oil, gas or coal fields should be tapped if the world is to stay within 1.5C of warming above pre-industrial levels.”
I suspect they won’t be stranded assets, and those investing wouldn’t have done so had they believed there was any such risk.
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“Trouble brews at home as Boris Johnson plays climate hero on world stage
The UK prime minister has set lofty targets, but appears reluctant to explain what they mean.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/cop26-boris-johnson-climate-change-un-summit/
“…In his effort to live up to the hype of hosting the COP26 U.N. climate summit in November, Johnson has set world-leading emissions goals, but achieving them means a difficult conversation with the public and his own party: one experts and officials worry Johnson is avoiding.
“My fear is we’re going to end up with the same sort of problem we had with the EU. It’s the policy-making elite who have all agreed with one another that this is what we should be doing and haven’t carried the public with them by clearly explaining what it’s going to mean in people’s lives,” said Steve Baker, Conservative MP and perennial thorn in the government’s side….
…Chris Stark, CEO of the Climate Change Committee, said: ”It’s great to see the enthusiasm that there is from No. 10 to do all of this, but we haven’t had much since. Many of the things that we need to do to get to net zero rest on the willingness of the people in this country to go with this program that the prime minister’s set out.”
“It’s top-level politics rather than engaging with people in the country on what it means, and I’m very worried about it.”
“What it means” encompasses a huge range of things: moving from diesel to electric cars; cutting out car travel altogether where possible; using heat pumps rather than gas boilers; and even changing diets. Perhaps the biggest single change affecting people’s lives will be the transformation of the jobs landscape, as the country moves away from carbon-intensive industries.
Despite the scale of the coming transformation, government progress is patchy. Ministers have put in place various measures to encourage the use of electric cars, even if a recent public accounts committee report warned it would have to go faster. Phasing out gas boilers, on the other hand, remains too hot to handle.
The government’s decarbonizing transport plan and its heat strategy are both currently missing in action, as is the Treasury’s final net-zero review.
That vacuum is allowing a new wave of skepticism to creep in: not skeptical (in general) of manmade climate change but skeptical of the scientifically-recommended pathway to safety — net-zero by 2050 — and suspicious of who will bear the heaviest burden.
At the vanguard is Baker, the Conservative MP who has hounded the government over Brexit, coronavirus restrictions, and now what he calls in his latest Twitter hashtag “the cost of net-zero.” His interventions on the subject have steadily increased over the last month, reaching fever pitch when Bloomberg reported that people could face fines over failure to replace gas boilers, which he decried as “Soviet-style” planning.
“Unlike Brexit and the EU, it’s not going to be a minority pursuit when this thing really hits. It will affect every homeowner, every tenant, because tenants will see that rents go up to cover the costs,” he said….”
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12:26pm R4 Pushing Electric Cars again
Despite the initial high costs of electric vehicles,
has it now become more economical than buying and running a diesel or petrol car?
(PRtrick : Their question contains a premise)
As consumers look to make the switch ahead of the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel models in 2030,
we look at the most affordable way to go electric now.
“..but factor in running costs It can workout cheaper in the long run,
there are grants.. in Scotland there are loans ”
“Here’s GinnyBuckley from Electrifying.com” … (OK that’s PR)
Ginny
“- The monthly payments for an EV *can* be equivalent to petrol/diesel car
– the lowest I saw about £205/moth for a Nissan Leaf (em HUGE deposit I bet)
– It’s about total cost or ownership (depreciation !)
– that Leaf you’ll spend 10-£40/month for leccy
– compares to £125/month for petrol 10,000 miles year
(hmm thats 20,000 miles in 100 weeks = 200 miles /week 850 month, 40 miles each workday
Can you drive an EV 850 miles for £10 ?)
– you’ll make saving on parking, congestion charging too”
Presenter “another way is to buy second hand EV
Andy Mallett Smith got an early Leaf with 100 mile range 3 or 4 years ago ”
AMS “1,800 miles on clock, paid £8K
(Hang on that Leaf cos someone £30,000 then it fell to £8000.
so someone lost 22,000
Factor that in depreciation and their cost per mile becomes expensive.)
My wife’s work travel 50 miles/day, so we saved £250/month for fuel
(So his wife did 50 x 20 days = 1,000 miles
seems very expensive fuel !
Leccy for same distance probably £40)
Then we saved roadtax and servicing was low
now 64,000 miles, so we saved quite a bit of money”
( so 62,000 miles in 4 years, 200 weeks , about 310 miles/week
I reckon depreciation is £8K over 50 months
ie £160 month plus £40 leccy
..He admitted he still keeps a diesel
so actually he has all the costs of running 2 cars)
When asked if the price of second hand cars was coming down Ginny double claimed
..”you’ll get a profit when you sell,…. the price is coming down”
“You can get one for £3,500K”
Ginny “you could get a Skoda SUV for $35K”
“If you pay 7p KWh
it costs £8 to charge a small Peugeot E208 gets you 200 miles
(£2/day for 50 mile commute)
at night you can get 5p KWh = £2-£3)
So she argues your monthly leccy might be £20
I expect that in real life it’s still more like £40
As ever they never mentioned all the lost taxes from petrol/road tax/ mining tax etc.
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Let’s replay that “My wife drives 50 miles/day , we’ve saved £250/month on fuel
Even if she works 6 days/week ie 25 days/month
that’s £10 less each day for 50 miles
Yet I see Corsa drivers saying commuting costs them £10 for 100 miles
So how can she save £10 in every 50 miles ?
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@Davylars posted
for a full year I monitored the readings every time renewables went below 20%.
( even taking bio-fuels into consideration.)
I took screenshots every 6 hours or so when this happened.
The reason why I did this was to have a captured record to prove how useless wind and solar power really are..
I got 159 screenshots,
so that works out at almost 40 full days when renewable power generation was less than 20%.
Very often a whole lot less also. Even down to 8% occasionally..
April to July of this year are even more dire…
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Bill, Ireland is also mostly a cold, wet desert, especially the Republic. I don’t know if sheep subsidies and/or hunting estates are also to blame for that.
Mark, ‘greyhound’ is another one – or almost. It means ‘bitch-dog’. Perhaps one day someone from Torpenhow Hill will take a greyhound bitch for a walk at Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall and use a PIN number when paying for their coffee at the café. (If so, I hope they don’t use the toilets. Terrible reviews. Though not as terrible as this headline about them in a local paper: ‘Volunteers loo-se dispute over toilets’.)
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“It’s time to nationalize Shell. Private oil companies are no longer fit for purpose
Johanna Bozuwa and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
Failing, heavily subsidized private oil companies enjoy the profits of oil extraction while the rest of us pay in tax dollars, human rights abuses, and an unlivable climate”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/07/its-time-to-nationalize-shell-private-oil-companies-are-no-longer-fit-for-purpose
“Private oil companies have propped up an ever-failing business on a complex system of national and international government subsidies, all of which function to privatize the benefits of oil and gas production while socializing its financial, environmental, and social costs – making the public pay in tax dollars, human rights abuses, and an unlivable climate. Now that these companies fear being left behind by a changing political context, their public relations strategy is to insist to a public increasingly aware of the dire need to stop carbon emissions that there is still a place for private oil companies in a “green” world.”
I’d have liked to see that reference to subsidies explained in great detail, given that (in the UK at least) oil companies have made a massive contribution to the public purse, not the other way around (unlike “renewables”).
“Public ownership, by itself, does not guarantee that we will fully replace oil and gas with renewable energy in time to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. As detractors to public ownership often note, three-quarters of the world’s oil reserves are already owned by states rather than private companies, which are far from immune from corruption. But we don’t advocate public ownership because it is a magic bullet – we advocate it because it is our only shot.
The profit math is just as clear as the climate math: corporations exist to generate profit and enrich shareholders, both of which require them to produce their product. No amount of shareholder activism can possibly do better than slowing or attenuating the rate at which corporations pursue this basic mandate. “Market-based solutions”, in this case, are a contradiction in terms: the market is the problem.
If we are to limit climate change, we have to take the very unprofitable step of virtually eliminating emissions. There is no way to square the pace and depth of needed emissions reductions with the dictates of profit-seeking – Shell’s best scientists have already tried and failed. Government organizations, which respond to more interests than just those of financial profit, are our only recourse. What’s more, companies like Shell or ExxonMobil nationalized today would be taken on with an express mandate to wind down their assets – not to line the coffers of the national government.”
Where is all the money to come from, then?
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stewgreen,
Ginny Buckley’s tweets are almost all about electric cars, but if you persevere, you do reach one which says:
“Devastated by the news that Australia won’t open its borders until later next year… so hard for all the families like mine that are separated”
Maybe I’m wrong, but I take that to mean in normal times she flies backwards and forwards to Australia not infrequently. If so, it sort of undermines the electric car messaging, I should have thought….
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Guido Green News links
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15068502/net-zero-pledges-suicidal-for-tories
Net Zero is Alright For The Rich
https://thecritic.co.uk/its-alright-for-some
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/greenpeace-offers-no-answers-to-the-plastic-waste-crisis
Ireland National Trust
https://gript.ie/humans-are-a-blight-the-views-represented-by-an-taisce
https://www.thegwpf.com/europes-heavy-industry-unlikely-to-survive-net-zero
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/21/boriss-big-green-gamble-risks-fuelling-anew-brexit-style-revolt
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-needs-to-go-green-but-not-at-any-price-dq7nkpds6
Keir Starmer condemned by Environmental Activists
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-keir-starmer-labour-flight-b1833733.html
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Radio4 drama : set in the future
character wakes from long coma “What they still have flights ?”
“Yes, they never actually stopped them
.. they switched to bio fuels”
It’s a BBC habit to portray the world, how they want it to be.
rather than how it is.
The sideplot is the character is an old female scientist placed in a male youth, and the young male researcher in charge has just had sex with him/her.
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“Banks tested on climate crisis risks”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57402955
“ritain’s banks and insurers will be tested on how well-prepared they are to cope with climate change emergencies.
The Bank of England will examine the risks rising temperatures and sea levels could pose for the UK’s big banks and insurers.
It will put 19 firms through stress tests involving three climate scenarios projected over the next 30 years.
The Bank said the tests will help it “understand the risks presented by climate change” to the economy.
Banks will be tested for the first time and assessed on their credit books.
They were due to be tested last year but the Bank of England put the process on hold during the pandemic.
Insurers will be assessed on the risks to their assets and liabilities, but were tested last year.
“This is the first time we are testing both banks and insurers to allow us to capture interactions between them,” the Bank said.”
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They are typically very Marie Antoinette.
but her timeline doesn’t have much talk of flights airports since 2014
However in 2017 after she’d been in Cornwall,! there was a conversation about her “flight home”
I guess to London.
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“Global carbon dioxide levels continued to rise despite pandemic
Emissions rose to 419 parts per million in May, the highest such measurement in the 63 years that the data has been recorded”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/08/carbon-dioxide-levels-pandemic-emissions
“The data is in: carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit 419 parts per million in May. The levels have now reached the dangerous milestone of being 50% higher than when the industrial age began – and the average rate of increase is faster than ever.
The figure is the highest measurement of the crucial greenhouse gas in the 63 years that data has been recorded at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii – despite slowdowns in air travel and industry during a global pandemic in the past year.
The 10-year average rate of increase also set a record, now up to 2.4 parts per million per year.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the reason is complex. Global emissions fell by 6.4% in 2020, but given the seasonal and natural variability, modest decreases wouldn’t make a big impact on the global tally of carbon emissions. And even as emissions dropped, wildfires burning through trees released carbon dioxide – maybe even at a similar rate as the modest lowering of emissions from the pandemic’s slowing impact on the global economy.”
I was intrigued by this statement:
“The laboratory at Mauna Loa, which sits on a volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, combines two complementary observations to come up with the all-important value for carbon dioxide. The current level hasn’t existed on Earth since the Pliocene era, between 4.1m and 4.5m years ago – and global seas were 78ft higher than current day levels.”
If the last time CO2 volumes on earth were this high, and the sea-level was 78′ higher than today, it certainly suggests that it was much warmer (obviously much more water, much less ice then), even though CO2 levels were the same. Something else must have been driving the warmth and the consequently higher sea-levels. If this is correct, greenhouse gas levels are from being the sole driver of temperature, yet they seem to be all we hear about.
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There’s a 2017 tweet about her flying home Cornwall
and Jan 2020 tweets confirm she was in Australia then.
2014 Tweet says she’s was born in Lancashire but rain drove her to move to Australia.
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Sep 7, 2017
“I’ve been stopped *many times* as my son & I have different names.
Ironically always on *our return to UK!*”
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Local BBC news Doddington Hall to go organic and devote 900 acres to rewilding for beef cattle.
#1 Greens don’t like any meat farming
#2 Organic usually goes astray when they get massive infestations or disease and can’t spray
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“Somerset biogas plant plans revived thanks to new investment”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-57404475
“Plans to build a biogas plant on the outskirts of a village have taken a step forward thanks to new investment.
Planning permission for the plant, at Evercreech in Somerset, was first granted eight years ago but the project has stalled since then.
Investment company Macquarie Capital, has bought a local renewable energy firm, bringing the plans back to life.
Macquarie Capital said the plant could save 95,000 tonnes of food waste from going to landfill each year.
It announced this week it has bought Evercreech Renewable Energy Ltd and will be paying for the construction of the new facility.”
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David Turgoose’s Electric car article BOTH PARTS
– https://independencedaily.co.uk/electric-cars-practical-or-not-part-1/
https://independencedaily.co.uk/electric-cars-practical-or-not-part-2/
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OVO Energy advert “The variable British Summer
power by 100% renewable” … a lie of course
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Of all their net zero plans, I suppose this is the least problematic:
“Halogen lightbulb sales to be banned in UK under climate change plans”
“Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.
The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.
The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.
Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.
Legislation for the plans is being brought forward this month by the government….
…LED lights last five times longer than traditional halogen bulbs and produce the same amount of light, but use up to 80% less power….”
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I still see tulip mania and the South Sea Bubble whenever I read these stories:
“Renewable crypto mining – from cow to coin”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57199405
“At Hendwr farm, near the Berwyn mountain range, not far from the Snowdonia National Park, in Denbighshire, cattle chew the lush valley pastures and flocks of sheep clothe the hills.
In a green shipping container next to a large domed tank, a very different kind of farm also thrives in this idyllic landscape – a cryptocurrency farm.
Philip Hughes’s family have farmed the land of Hendwr for generations – but now he is turning his hand to mining, using powerful computers powered by renewable energy to generate new cryptocurrency.”
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“Ardern says climate crisis is ‘life or death’ as New Zealand landmark report calls for sweeping changes
Climate Commission recommends shift to electric cars, large-scale agricultural reform and an end to reliance on gas in homes”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/jacinda-ardern-climate-crisis-life-or-death-landmark-report-new-zealand-electric-cars-farms
“New Zealand has been handed a new vision for dramatic reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions – including reduced animal numbers on farms, no new household gas connections by 2025, and a dramatic shift to electric cars in the next decade.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the climate crisis was a matter of “life or death” as she spoke at the release of a new roadmap for the government’s response to global heating.
The Climate Commission, an independent body set up to advise the government, released its final advice on Wednesday – a sweeping document outlining what New Zealand must do if it wants to meet its target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and reducing biogenic methane emissions by 24%-47%.”
And if little New Zealand does achieve its targets, what difference will it make, if China and the developing world don’t play ball?
Given that Climate Change Commissions always seem to be described as “independent”, I thought I would look this one up. Independent of what is the question? This one’s website can be found here:
https://www.climatecommission.govt.nz/
“We are an interdisciplinary team of experts committed to climate action in Aotearoa”
Not independently-minded on that topic, then.
“Ms Tumahai’s prior experience as Deputy Chairperson of the ICCC brings continuity to the work of the Commission.”
“Jo Hendy led the Secretariat of the Interim Climate Change Committee and oversaw the Committee’s inquiry into renewable electricity. ”
“Dr Clark is an internationally recognised science leader in greenhouse gases research. He is well regarded in the primary sector both from a science and agri-business perspective. As a member of the ICCC, Dr Clark was heavily involved in the delivery and oversight of reports and brings a strong sense of continuity to the broader climate community and Commission.”
“Dr Lawrence is a strong international thought leader on climate change adaptation. Judy’s expertise is reflected in having been appointed as a Coordinating Lead Author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). ”
“Ms Leining is one of New Zealand’s leading experts on climate change mitigation policy with a specialisation in emissions trading. ”
“Professor James Renwick is a leading climate scientist with a strong national and international reputation, and four decades of experience in weather and climate research. His appointment as a Lead Author and Coordinating Lead Author on three Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) demonstrates his expertise. ”
No doubt these are impressive credentials, and they are probably the best people for the job. But the plan seems to be pre-determined, and these people seem to be committed to it. In what sense, therefore, is it fair and reasonable to describe the Commission as “independent”?
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“Campaigners ‘dumbfounded’ by abatement plan that will let Woodside increase emissions in WA
Greenhouse gases produced by Pluto LNG plant i”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/09/campaigners-dumbfounded-by-abatement-plan-that-will-let-woodside-increase-emissions-in-wa
“The Western Australian government has been criticised for approving a greenhouse gas abatement plan for a Woodside Energy-led gas export development that will allow the plant to increase emissions over the next decade.
It came as Woodside’s interim chief executive, Meg O’Neill, argued that the oil and gas company could develop new fossil fuel projects while aiming to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The McGowan Labor state government this week announced it had approved an emissions plan for an expanded Pluto liquified natural gas development in the Pilbara. The project would allow a Woodside-led group of companies to process gas extracted from the Scarborough offshore reservoir more than 400km off the coast.”
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Batley Green Party “role model” hosted by the libmob petard
.. Although I accept that the of course he’s changed since he was in that atmosphere when he sent the tweets
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Then when the Green Party guy spoke out out against trans treatment for children etc,
Trans supporters attacked him
“The transphobe is Shahrar Ali
who has been high up for ages
but they’ve just given him their “domestic safety” brief.
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http://bright-green.org/2020/08/04/transphobia-in-the-green-party-leadership-election-is-harming-the-partys-reputation/
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The end of today’s Prayer For The Day
“Prevent us from perpetuating economic warfare, taking lands from indigenous peoples,
*burning rainforests and trashing ecosystems*. Amen”
A Tweeter replies
“Let’s hope those concerned with @COP26 hear and answer your prayer.
So far the people best qualified to talk there are least likely to do so”
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Was today’s Thought For The Day POLITICAL ?
Professor Robert Beckford of the dept of *Climate* and Social Justice at Winchester Uni
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09kyjnp
“1976 a metal work teacher racially abused me in class
..’If you don’t get this right you’ll be back on a banana boat to Jamaica
… booing taking the knee and the cricketers tweets took me back
… my father spoke to the teacher and it never happened again’
Racist ? what if the teacher had said the farmers kid, “you’ll be stuck mucking out the pigs all your life” ?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09kyjnp
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FBPE account tweet to @BBCRadio4 #youandyours
we had an air source heat pump fitted 2 years ago.
The costliest mistake we ever made. £12000 to install,
noisy,
didn’t heat the house and our last elec bill was £800 for 6 months. We had it taken out a few months ago.
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22:45 BBC2 Greta on @BBCNewsnight
Is it possible to live sustainably in today’s society?
Activist @GretaThunberg believes it isn’t, telling #Newsnight people are contributing to environmental degradation by simply paying taxes, adding responsibility for change lies with government 👇
http://bbc.in/3fZ8zJD
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“Poland to close Europe’s most polluting power plant by 2036
Draft paper says Bełchatów coal-fuelled plant to be phased out as part of plans to transform country’s energy”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/09/poland-to-close-belchatow-europe-most-polluting-power-plant-by-2036
“Poland plans to close Europe’s most polluting power plant by the end of 2036, according to a draft document published by local authorities.
The document, which is subject to public consultation, is part of the Lodz region’s application for support from the EU’s Just Transition Fund, aimed at helping regions bear the cost of shifting to a climate-neutral economy.
The move comes after energy group PGE abandoned a plan to develop an open-pit lignite coalmine in Złoczew to fuel the Bełchatów plant after concluding the project would be loss-making, the document said.
Bełchatów, whose operations were expected to be extended beyond the 2030s by output from the mine, will also now be phased out between 2030 and 2036, the document said….
…PGE’s coal assets, including Bełchatów and Złoczew, are due to be separated and moved to a state agency within months as part of Poland’s plan to free its utilities from coal.
Poland generates most of its electricity from coal, but under rising pressure from the EU and with carbon emission costs surging, it has encouraged more investment in low-emission sources.”
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guess which spelling error they made ?
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Long letter has come in from local Islington Blue Socialist Party MP, in Scunthorpe
Buzzwords not in it, Climate , Green, Green revolution, Climate
She promises to save steelworks
I don’t know if other people get different versions.
Environment means litter picking.
https://mailchi.mp/e6f920f549fe/local-update-june
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Pre-Cop 26 (and G7) propaganda continues:
“Leading investors urge governments to end support for fossil fuels
Group controlling $41tn in assets sign joint statement calling on world leaders to bolster net zero targets”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/investors-governments-end-support-fossil-fuels-assets-net-zero-targets
“Investors controlling $41tn (£29tn) in assets have called for governments around the world to end support for fossil fuels and set targets for rapid reductions in carbon emissions to limit the damage from global heating.
The 457 investors, who hold almost a third of world’s assets under management, signed a joint statement calling for governments to “significantly strengthen” their plans to cut carbon emissions in the next decade and to bring in detailed targets for net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.
Among the signatories were the largest British asset managers, including Aviva, HSBC Asset Management, Legal and General Investment Management and M&G. Other major supporters included Allianz Global Investors, Amundi, Axa, BNP Paribas and Nomura Asset Management.
It is believed to represent the largest group of investors by assets ever to join a concerted call for climate action. Measures should be in line with scientists’ estimates of what is needed to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels – the target to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
The joint letter, published on Thursday, came ahead of the meeting of leaders of the rich G7 economies in Cornwall this week, and the Cop26 United Nations climate conference, to be hosted in November in Glasgow.”
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OK, it’s Russia Today, but this piece makes some fair points:
“This G7 Summit will be a time for sensible proposals on Covid-19, and nonsensical, virtue signalling schemes for climate change”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/526120-g7-covid-climate-change/
“…The other issue at the top of the agenda we are told is climate change. The British are leading the way on this one and Johnson is calling for a new ‘Marshall Plan’ to fund green energy projects in middle and developing countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. This issue, however, is not as straightforward as it might initially seem and there are a number of glaring problems with this scheme.
Firstly, how big is this green Marshall Plan going to be and who is going to pay for it? One would expect the hardworking taxpayers of the G7 countries to be billed for the scheme, which is going to be immensely unpopular with the domestic electorate, particularly in the US and the UK. Also, a proportion of Marshall Aid, which was provided by the Americans after the Second World War, had to be paid back with interest. I wonder if there are any plans to recoup the money spent on this green Marshall Plan; I expect not.
Secondly, do these middle and developing countries actually want or need investment in green initiatives? We all want to see a greener world, and it may make wealthy leaders glow with a sense of self-satisfaction to be doling out cash, but many green initiatives result in making poor people poorer and rich people richer. I would suggest that the poor of Asia and Africa would prefer regular food, clean water, and infrastructure than a truckload of wind turbines.
There is also little point in the G7 countries funding a green Marshall Plan if other leading economies are not fully signed up to cutting emissions. If China, for example, which is responsible for 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, cannot be brought to the table, then putting a few wind turbines in Chad or Burkina Faso would be irrelevant. It would represent little more than self-indulgent virtue signalling and it would surely make more sense to tackle China on this issue first. I am sure many of the leaders know this already, but domestic political pressure will ensure that they agree to Johnson’s plan. …
…It is worth noting, however, that none of the decisions taken at the G7 are binding. Leaders can, and often do, ‘pay lip service’, make empty pledges to waiting media, and then hop on their private aeroplanes back to their respective capital cities. But once the leaders have jetted off into the sunset, the people of Cornwall will be left to pick the pieces.
Cornwall, which is one of the UK’s most popular holiday destinations, has barely any infrastructure. The trainlines are antiquated and it does not have a single motorway, which no doubt contributed to Boris Johnson’s decision to fly all of 280 miles from London to Cornwall – a real commitment to cutting carbon emissions. …”.
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Well now, who’d have thought it?
“Bath’s climate action plan moving ‘at a snail’s pace'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-57431442
“Almost no progress has been made towards Bath becoming a carbon-neutral area, councillors have claimed.
In March 2019, Bath and North East Somerset Council declared a climate emergency, pledging to provide “leadership enabling the area to be carbon neutral by 2030”.
Scrutiny councillors said work had been done “at a snail’s pace” and a lack of data had made progress hard to track.
The council’s corporate sustainability manager asked for patience.”
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Excuse me?
“Climate change: Unrealistic NI emissions target ‘morally wrong'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57425922
“The head of a climate advisory body has said it would be “morally wrong” for NI to be set a target for cutting emissions that it cannot reach.
Lord Deben, chairman of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, was giving evidence to a Stormont scrutiny committee on Thursday.
The government body is examining proposals for Northern Ireland’s first climate change bill….
…Lord Deben said the cut of at least 82% he had proposed would be “bloody difficult” and was the highest he could demand “in the present circumstances”, although it could be reviewed if those circumstances changed.
“But I don’t think it helps anybody to aim at something, when all the research which has been done by very significant people, working hard to get it right, says is not possible.”…”
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Oz, NSW politician Mark Latham is the last politician left scrutinising mad Green policies
SkyOz used the title
‘Renewables scammers’ ride on the coattails of climate change: Rowan Dean
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