Got no actual data-trail on “big-oil” dollars? That’s no reason not to run another name-calling smear article. A Yale group has spent countless months reading through the tea-leaves of old worn out climate themes and think they’ve discovered that the Kochs and Exxon carried the most influence.
What’s really remarkable is that the Yale group had so much funding they could trawl through 40,000 documents, track 4556 people and 164 “contrarian” organisations across 20 years and through 39 million words. Yet despite this, they found nothing. There’s no smoking gun, no proof that anyone was being dishonest, that the messages were wrong.
What the Yale team found was that “documents produced by lobbyists backed by two key corporate benefactors (Koch and Exxon) — proved to have been reproduced more often and with more “semantic similarity”. Justin Farrell (of Yale) thinks that means the Koch’s and Exxon are artificially skewing public opinion. Here’s another hypothesis — Exxon and the Kochs are smart businessmen. They spotted the leading skeptics in the 1990’s and gave them some help. The messages stuck with the public because they were good ones, not because they were “oil funded”. Farrell gets cause and effect confused.
Despite running down 40,000 rabbit holes, Farrell misses the numbers that matter when it comes to money and influence. If the Koch money has influence, the trainload of government money ought be 5000 times more influential. If, as Farrell says, only 14% of Americans think man-made climate change matters, either Koch and Exxon money is wildly effective, or just possibly, the government funded argument is a loser and 86% of Americans have figured that out.
Climate science: corporate donors behind influential deniers
Corporate dollars are skewing climate science in a taste of things to come as researchers become increasingly reliant on private funding.
Which private funds? The climate debate is the gold-plated government funded gravy train of scientific research. In 2014 Obama gave more than $2.6 billion to research climate science. That’s got to fund a few climate scientists. Now ask yourself how many private companies are building climate models to predict the climate in 2100. Zero? Could be.
An analysis by Yale University sociologist Justin Farrell has found the most influential climate deniers are those backed by key corporate donors. Their views are rehashed — sometimes word-perfect — by media and politicians. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, helps explain why 44 per cent of Americans believe humans are warming the planet — and only 14 per cent believe it really matters.
So the Yale guys tracked those funds… er, not quite:
“Loosening restrictions on financing has made it difficult to track flows of money, creating a lack of transparency,” he said.
Instead they read tea-leaves called “computational text analysis”:
The analysis, one of a plethora of publications coinciding with the Paris climate change conference, used network science and computational text analysis to uncover the institutional structure of the “US climate change countermovement” and its influence on media and politicians.
Dr Farrell identified an institutional and social network of 4556 people and 164 organisations involved in promoting contrarian viewpoints and used tax data to examine their corporate funding.
If only John Ross, Higher Education reporter, at The Australian had had a real higher education himself, he might have been able to spot the poor research, confirmation bias, and philosophical vacuum in his story. Instead, he probably went to an Australian university. Poor him. Poor us.
h/t GWPF
h/t Peter for compiling the list of contrarian organisations.
The paper by Farrell is here:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2875.html
It makes some pretty ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims.
From the abstract-
“The data include a new social network of all known organizations and individuals promoting contrarian viewpoints, …”
so presumably that would include you Jo, and me.
The end of the abstract claims that
“I find that the organizational power within the contrarian network, and the magnitude of semantic similarity, are both predicted by ties to elite corporate benefactors.”
310
“all known organizations and individuals”
Clearly you and Jo are not known. Which makes the statement rather hollow.
90
I’m a POET and I want my name on a list — ANY LIST!!! You know how hard it
is for a poet to generate name recognition? Ha! The undead get a far better
press than poets! I will swear on a Bible that I have received millions in
grant money from Exxon and that the Koch brothers wine and dine me while we
sit around and plot my next poem. PUT ME ON A LIST!!!!!!
Eugene WR Gallun
20
They seem unable to speak in plain English judging from the verbiage in the abstract.
110
It’s code. It doesn’t need to make sense. Yeah, it’s all garbage, but they don’t expect anyone to bother to try to read it. Phrases like “…climate change counter-movement…” and “machine-learning text analysis” (which doesn’t even seem to have the hyphen in the right place) evoke the mentality of Moscow, 1937.
Some bald statistic, based on politically motivated “analysis”, will be trotted out in the pliant media. The less comprehensible the text of the study, the better, in their view. Firstly, they don’t want outsiders checking their claptrap, so if it’s about as accessible as middle-period Hittite, that’s fine. Secondly, if outsiders do make the Newspeak available to the general public, for every reader who thinks, “Am I paying for this twaddle?”, there are are probably* many more who think, “Is that the time? I’m going to miss my train!”
For the abstract to be so opaque is a bit extreme (the likes of Looby-Lou and Geoffrey Lean rely on cut-n-paste, after all), but I suppose that they don’t want all their expensively crafted fantasy balloons to be popped at the outset. They really are getting desperate.
* My estimate, not based on any research, or funded by Exxon, or the Kochs, or the EPA; also not “adjusted” by the BoM, NOAA, or the Met Office.
00
I was going to link Andy Pitman’s funding page as a reminder that he probably gets more funding in a year than all sceptics ever got put together, but I notice there is no funding link at UNSW anymore. I guess they have become even less transparent. I guess the monstrous wads of cash thrown at him are now seen as something to hide while warmists perpetuate this big oil/Koch “denialist” funding meme.
Still, he isn’t quite as morally reprehensible as Cook, but that is setting the bar extremely low.
210
So Farrell should have also been “tracking” me…without my explicit and informed consent, which makes the “research” unethical and potentially unlawful. Perhaps he should be reported to the oversight committees?
10
I wonder if the Yale experts have thought through who might benefit greatly from eliminating coal from the electric power generation sector. If they gave it more than two seconds thought they might realize the biggest benefactor would be companies that sell natural gas which Exxon is one of the worlds biggest players and the Koch brothers are involved in this to a lesser extent. Exxon has even called for a carbon tax because it would give them a competitive advantage in the thermal energy market (although that’s never the reason they cite). Climate change alarmism has been a net benefit to Exxon’s bottom line. Perhaps the Yale experts have come to realize they are colossal patsies for the biggest player in an energy industry they hate so feel a need to extract a pound of flesh, no matter how full of bone or grizzle it might be.
340
Sean,
I admit I am no expert. The Koch Plants that I am familiar with use natural gas to extract ethylene. This is their main feed stock in making their end products. So are the Koch’s protecting fossil fuels because taxing their use hurts the economy which in turn inhibits the consumer’s ability to afford goods made from their chemical industry products such as plastics? Are they trying to avoid paying a carbon tax on natural gas? Are they protecting coal power in hopes of keeping power prices low which they are purchasing off the grid? All of the above?
My point here is we all have a dog in this hunt along with our brothers and sisters worldwide!
10
“social network of 4556 people”
Am I on the list? I would be very disappointed if they missed me!
221
It’s amazing that so many people are devoting so much time, effort, and money into hunting down 4556 ‘deniers’?
– Daesh has more active participants!
– There are more homeless people living in South Australia than this, yet they do not seem to warrant much attention.
Adding to this, assuming for a second that the “97%” story is true (sorry, allow some suspension of disbelief for a second), then surely this other 3% is insignificant, and can safely be ignored…?
251
3% insignificant? Haven’t you heard that Armageddon is being caused by 0.04% of CO2!!
200
I am not on the list, because I am not social enough. James is on the list, because he knows what Daesh is.
150
Any publicity is good publicity…?
10
Nazis had list and this ended with the “night of the long knives”. After that whole nations were on the list. Commies had lists just ask the old DDR citizens where up to 25% of population collaborated. Poland has a Wildstein list of victimis and collaborators on which my name still is. This indicates to me that someone in my family collaborated with the communists, a family secret that I would have resolve before I die.
Stalin’s lists are famous as he personally signs death warrants. 20,000 polish officers were signed off by Stalin and then shot or drowned in 1940.
This begins with the lists, then people will burn. The progressive expansion of violence is the hallmark of any killer.
The green killing machine is the making.
270
Jewish proverb: When someone says they want to kill you, believe them.
100
They could have checked the “Oregon Petition” and started with >30,000. Then off to the major blogs and added many more. Are the retired NASA guys in there? Hopefully, when this is over, the Ivy League will be discredited and fold.
10
And the politically motivated IPCC by endorsing sloppy science to support otherwise unsupportable agendas is not shaping public opinion?
251
Great cartoon in The Australian today – PM Turnbull addressing Paris 2015: “We must act now! We wont get another last chance to save the planet till next year.
720
I’ve just read the paper and the SI to try and see where he got his 4556 people from. The SI says:
“I created an affiliation network (9–10 ) whereby I identified 4,556 individuals with ties to these organizations. This was an exhaustive process that aggregated data from many different sources. I first began by using GuideStar and IRS data to record every board member in the organization for the last five years. This was an important first step, but only provided one formal dimension of ties between organizations. Using the website and archival material described above, I recorded all names of individuals with past involvement in an organization.”
In other words, he’s found that people with links to organisations have links to organisations.
And the bit in the abstract about all known individuals promoting contrarian viewpoints seems to be unsupported.
[Editorial discretion was applied. If you can provide a link to something rather than quoting it we prefer that method.] AZ
120
Come on Yale Group, you warmies will hafta’ do
better than that …’It don’t mean a thing if
you ain’t got that schwing.’
50
Ah beth:
Nice analogy.
There’s nothing like a Duke Ellington song first thing in the morning.
Tony.
40
‘Makes no difference
If it’s sweet or hot,
Just give that rhythm
Everything you’ve got.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxfMRhyzu3g
10
Ah the heat,how much I enjoy it
Global warming seems much less an annoyance.
But do you not fear
as the warming comes near
that your children will suffer in consequence?
I wish that I could give credence
or even think good the interference
but alas my pity
is reserved for those not in a city
with reservations less pithy
seeking only relief from famine ,no water and death.
But we must save them !
By denying their rights to embrace
technology we take for granted?
Wipe the sweat from your brow my love
for as sure as we are grounded from a past
that has surrounded us with comfort
then we must permit the same resolution
that saved our Countries ,to be a total solution.
Back in the day we demanded equality ,now we would deny
the science ,the freedom ,to those of them that cry.
But no matter ,for all shall seem well
when the tears of the fallen turn deserts to wells.
William Shakespeare circa 1665
20
Paul,you have to see the first three citations in the first line of the abstract to get a good sense of where the rest is likely to be going.
And bearing in mind that the article is a ‘letter’ it simply ain’t worth bothering about except….I was unable to see the authors declaration of funding and acknowledgements.
Can anyone provide that please?
30
Indeed, a look at the ‘letter’ (as distinct from ‘paper’) in the Journal would disclose the funding sources and authorial acknowledgements, which would have been of interest here.
The ‘paper’ by Farrell published in Nature Climate Change is published under the Journal heading of ‘Letter’. It may have only received a limited measure of review from an editorial perspective and could have entirely escaped ‘peer review’, which may have made little difference given the journal concerned. Therefore, nothing less than the detonation of pure and timely propaganda replete with echo-chamber references for the benefit of COP21.
There are important distinctions to be made here about the ‘quality’ of the research, a letter being a considerably lesser measure.
210
Thank you Manfred. I didn’t realise how important the distinction was.
These guys use the English language in the most mysterious of ways, their propaganda to perform.
160
Just one more example that sociology is not a science and sociologists are not scientists (but they are regarded as climate scientists, as long as their studies bash the “deniers”).
271
Phil. I think you are correct. But in the US $billions are doled out to just such “sciences” while others, medical research, grid stability from terrorists attacks, etc. are not receiving such largess.
A president (and his Congressional lackeys)with well rounded educations might not do this,but think of a president schooled in Muslim anti-colonialism, communism, and community organization and activism; he only knows of social sciences. To such a man social science, activism, etc. are the way to power and rule over others. If he is not trained in the scientific method, critical thinking, real sciences, etc., then these subjects probably frighten and threaten him.
30
Leanard,
Thanks for the response. My comment was intended to be partly sarcastic (stress on partly). But I agree with most of your comment. I agree that:
“a president schooled in Muslim anti-colonialism, communism, and community organization and activism; he only knows of social sciences. To such a man social science, activism, etc. are the way to power and rule over others.”
However,when you’re on a [religious] mission [snip] and trying to further a radical ideology, I don’t think critical thinking or the scientific method are even on the radar, except to the extent that they can be abused to push an agenda.
[Generic “religion” and snip by me. Please be very careful with potentially offensive comments] ED
30
Oops, My apologies. Will be more careful.
00
Exxon’s response is a must read!
http://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000151-5a8a-d6a2-a155-dbca213c0000
Activists really need to be careful what they wish for
(I expect Exxon gloves will come off, now they are the next target, following Keystone ‘victory’)
180
Great link Barry but I believe it relates to a separate issue with Columbia University rather than Yale. However it does illustrate the forces at work within U.S. academic institutions. Sadly, Australian Universities are equally afflicted eg. UWA: Lewandowski/Lomborg, Flinders Uni: Lomborg again, UQ’s John Cook (Mr 97%).
Don’t think for a moment that universites have anything to do with learning, free thinking and illumination.
141
It’s a thing of beauty.
Personally I think big-oil and big-coal should go on the offensive and do what the warmists say they do, along with an extensive campaign of advertising demonstrating the real and enormous benefits of their energy for the planet. They could shut down the nonsense in Paris in a heartbeat. The public is on their side.
I’ve even considered setting up a pro fossil fuel advocacy foundation myself.
180
Thanks Barry.
I did not realise how work and therefore money Exxon had put in climate science.
David and Jo –I suggest you forward copies of David’s work to Exxon. They should be very interested ( of course you readers would be interested in their response). They clearly have employees who would understand the work.
20
Sorry for the double post –Ed.please remove one of them.
[Not a worry Ross, removing a post makes more trouble than leaving the double.] ED
10
Thanks Barry.
I did not realise how much work and therefore money Exxon had put in climate research.
David and Jo –might I suggest you forward copies of David’s work to Exxon. They should be very interested and they clearly have employees who would understand it.
Obviously your readers would be interested in any response you get, assuming it is not confidential.
10
97% Entitled to “Pollute”?
FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop had an empty government VIP jet fly from Canberra to Perth to pick up her and her boyfriend from a charity dinner.
> Apparently, this behaviour is well within government guidelines for politicians “entitlements”.
CSIRO: “A return flight from Sydney to Perth per-person emits about one tonne of CO2, of which 400 kg will still remain in the atmosphere after 100 years, and about 200 kg will still be airborne in 1,000 years.”
. . .
Australia’s 97% Doomsday Global Warming Politicians are out of control.
Australians really need to question if politicians are “entitled” to ignore their best 97% Global Warming Scientists.
130
Don’t forget that the CSIRO calculation is almost certainly based on commercial airline travel – with around 200 seats on an aeroplane. Bishop’s trip involved a “private” aeroplane which, while it might not burn as much fuel as its commercial counterpart, certainly will emit way more than one tonne of CO2 per person.
90
But hot CO2 emissions at altitude cool the atmosphere far more than those near the surface.
If it weren’t for “greenhouse gases”, the upper atmosphere would have no way to lose heat and it would get ever hotter; eventually cooking the planet in hot air.
20
Well doing research to find out what happens for warmists takes five seconds when one article talking about Bill Gates green fund takes them to the lead. The funding scales are grossly skewed. II hate to think of the opportunity cost of warmist funds . We could solve some real problems.
81
David
The “opportunity cost” of warm funds is a concerned I share. Just imagine how far the renewables science could
have progressed in the last 10 years if all the money used up by the Green Machine was spent on REAL research at Unis and CSIRO.
Of course the unis and siro would require some sort of intellectual enema first but in the end all scientists want to work on science not politics.
KK
111
This is becoming interesting. If the same scrutiny was performed for the documents produced by the AGW crowd, the obvious result would be devastating for them. As I keep saying, the better way to expose the AGW scam is through the courts, not by the scientific community who by and large are covering up the lies and corruption occurring with climate science and who are among the beneficiaries of the scam.
171
PeterS
I agree that a high profile ( but also worthwhile) Court case is needed as part of the fight. someone needs to get the work of Tony Heller and drag NASA into court.
It may not be the best case but it must be getting close to the point when someone in the alumni of one of these prestigious USA universities thinks this type of work by the Yale sociologist is bringing the Yale into disrepute and action is needed.
110
PeterS that in all likelihood will occur in the 2030’s when planet Earth is being gripped by the ravages of the next GM/LIA (during SC26 according to many Solar Physicists). This could well be the biggest legal settlement case on record, ie of the order of 10’s of trillions of US$’s.
60
Seems like a beat up that certainly has nothing to do with the science. Some zealots looking for a story, come up blank but massage it enough for a newspaper article that does the rounds like a game of Chinese Whispers. Not good journalism on the university’s part.
30
A protest was mounted in Wellington last weekend, primarily populated by rent-a-mob. The organiser was one Kristin Gillies.
As per the script, Ms Gillies accused the Government of not doing enough to curb the excesses of our industrial base (say what?) and allowing our economy to run rampant.
The next day, a tweet did the rounds, quoting her as saying: “If Govt isn’t trashing economy over climate change, they are doing it wrong”.
Sort of sums up the idiocy of it all, really.
150
Speaking of Chinese Whispers
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-02/china-blamed-for-cyber-attack-on-bureau-of-meteorology/6993278
Possibly a “DIY Climategate” fishing expedition by China during the Paris-ites confab.
Possibly something even more devilish given the BoM’s WAN link to DoD.
I guess we’ll never know.
50
It’s very easy to hate those who become successful. All it takes is a little jealousy or envy coupled with having not been very successful yourself. Or alternatively, all it takes is a big dose of self-righteousness. It’s a little harder to understand what makes someone successful and therefore be able to understand why you aren’t as successful.
The Koch brothers are among the top tier of the most valuable successful men on this planet. Their detractors have no idea how many good jobs depend on these two men and the managers with whom they have surrounded themselves. It extends to jobs far beyond the direct control or influence of the Koch’s enterprises. They have no idea about the good causes that are supported by the Koch’s personal and corporate money either.
As for Exxon — think about how much you depend on oil companies the next time you get in your car and it starts, runs and keeps running because the many petroleum products it requires are there when it needs them. Even your hybrids and electrics can’t run without lubricants and some fuel somewhere. Then stop and think a little harder — even if automobiles and other forms of transportation do ultimately make a successful transition to other fuels, say hydrogen or become all electric, where would you be today if not for the progress in transportation enabled by that ugly, awful, almost criminal fossil fuel?
140
And so after wading through the whole history of everything the Kochs have had a hand in, the best they can come up with is something that has to be ferreted out using “computational text analysis”, whatever that is. Honestly, the list of things you can make a computer do that are meaningless seems to be endless.
So to the yo-yos meeting in Paris, I have some either good or bad news for you depending on how honest you are. Successful people tend to be read, quoted and courted as mentors a whole lot more than failures are read, quoted and courted as mentors. Yes, they communicate too. And so do the failures. Put that in your “computational text analysis” and click the start button. You might be surprised to find out that I’m correct.
Any worthwhile human being wants to be successful. Then our society comes along and tries to beat that desire out of them with a baseball bat. They succeed far too often.
I suspect that what I just said is bad news for the delegates descending on Paris. 🙁
90
And lest you believe that I think the Kochs and their organizations have never made a mistake or have never done anything harmful to someone or their interests, you can forget it. I know better. The world is not a perfect place and one man’s interest is bound to conflict with another’s. We either take those harmful things along with the good or we don’t get the good.
I’ll take those two men named Koch any day.
80
That’s fine, but they have to be home before it gets dark, OK?
50
How about by 10 PM? Would that do? After all, even the most successful need a little fun out sometime or another.
00
Journalists honing their skills at how to limit freedoms of speech and association in the land of the “free” is a worry. This computer association technology is a boost for any aspiring despot.
70
McCarthyism at the push of a button. What could possibly go wrong?
60
Maybe McCarthyism is an overblown myth like much of the leftists ones. By and large he was correct about communists in government, the media, and Hollywood. Please search “The Venona Files” and other books on the subject of Soviet penetration of American government, media, education, and Hollywood.
Also reading about the “Frankfort School” might help.
60
No question, often where there’s smoke there’s fire, however these techniques of guilt by association are all too easily used as political tools by operators of any persuasion. They are fraught with danger of persecution of innocent. They cast a wide net for their catch with the by catch being non target individuals.
50
John Cooks consensus paper relied on counting papers from sceptics to reach his 97% results , Lewandowski with his moon landing hoax paper, relied heavily on the non sceptical, scepticalscience site , in their attempts to finger the Koch brothers as chief contrarians how much do the authors of this rubbish rely on the Koch’s funding of Berkeley Earths fake sceptic Richard Muller ?
70
Andrew Bolt has received a silly response from Fairfax about his criticism of Shorten’s fact free nonsense about SLR etc.
Amazing how these left wing donkeys consider that an ignorance of the facts and science isn’t a problem. Almost impossible to believe that these people are that stupid.
Here’s the last paragraph quoting Robert Manne—————-
Holmes then writes a paragraph stunning in the complete lack of self awareness it reveals:
As Robert Manne details in a long, despairing article in the current edition of The Monthly, behavioural studies have shown convincingly that most of us aren’t swayed by “hard” science. No matter how well-educated or well-informed we think we are, what “evidence” we accept, and what we reject, is determined almost exclusively by our pre-existing mindsets
And here’s the link to the full story. http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/facts_dont_count_as_warmists_spread_fear_and_rob_the_poor/#commentsmore
101
Robert Manne studies have shown convincingly that Robert Manne isn’t swayed by “hard” science. No matter how well-educated or well-informed Robert Manne thinks he is, what “evidence” he accepts and what he rejects is determined almost exclusively by his pre-existing mindset.
170
Left right left sums up Manne.Has no thoughts on the subject- just spurious quotes from propaganda central.
00
The element missing in all this vagueness and smear without substance is any motivation. No crime, no evidence and no motivation. Guilty then.
What do the oil, gas, coal industries care? They supply energy. You can choose not to buy. It’s not as if sales are dropping because of windmills or solar or tide power or ever likely to do so. Government spending and government taxes are irrelevant. Consumers pay taxes and traditionally they have been monstrous. In Australia up to 90% of the cost of petrol was taxation even when we were self sufficient for most of the last century. The only change is to redirect those taxes to the UN and their friends.
Now it is alleged big energy has used minions to create a denial industry and half the price of oil? How cunning. What mega lobby managed that? How is that in the interests of the oil companies and against the best interests of the public? Oil is not a debilitating drug of dependence. It is a scare resource becoming scarcer by the day. Countries suffer from not having oil, gas or coal. Saudi Arabia is not suffering.
The big private industries which are raking in billions for achieving nothing useful are big wind, big solar, big carbon taxes and millions of self appointed climate experts in an environment where nothing is actually changing. The verbiage does not even begin to make sense. For example, how are Pacific coral atolls threatened by Climate Change? What Climate Change are they talking about? Coral Atolls are at sea level not by amazing coincidence but because that is what coral does. There are no unusual sea level rises and no climate has changed.
So the only culprits in all this partying into the night are the tens of thousands in Paris, at your expense.
130
I suppose the point of such a study and its timing is to tell you that really caring good people have been forced against their will to go to Paris and spend train loads of your money to fix a problem created by others. We all know they would rather be doing something else but the emergency is the Climate and the world’s leaders are all in their Chicken Little suits having dinner in Paris. Noblesse oblige.
80
As Talleyrand would have it when describing the Bourbons.”they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.
00
It’s time the alarmists came clean,
On how governments fund their smokescreen,
Which none of them earn,
Faking climate concern,
When skeptics don’t get a brass bean.
170
Too Good Dude !
10
Have posted this on the previous post, but the sheer ignorance of some ABC presenters is too important to be missed.
Tony Delroy on OUR ABC? Talking point overnight was on Paris and Climate Change. One of the callers, Joe, although he rambled a bit correctly mentioned the Medieval Warming period and that we are still coming out of the Mini Ice Age Tony was totally non plused, edited part of transcript below.
Joe, was the temperature in the Roman times warmer than today, it was and in the medieval warm period, then we had a mini ice age that ended about 1800 and we have just come out of that, you know ….
TONY! JUST COME OUT OF AN ICE AGE????
Joe, That’s right, we’ve come out of the mini ice age
TONY! IN THE 1800s!!!!!!
Joe, That’s right it started…..
TONY! I MUST HAVE MISSED THAT ONE
JOE, it’s well known Tony
TONY, IS IT????? Blah blah blah
You really need to hear this, These are the people leading the discussion, the mind boggles.
The talking point starts at the 3 hour point, our host mentions the 97% and the carbon explosion since the Industrial Revolution causing climate change, Joe’s contribution starts at the 3.28 mark.
But at least Joe got to put his point across, Had he tried to say the same on 2SM with Gary Stewart he would have been called ignorant and the call terminated. Gary gets his climate information from the Climate Institute and those outstanding scientist David Attenborough and the Pope!!!
161
refers to 3 hours 28 minutes…
80
So Bob you listen to ABC 720 talkback radio – I don’t know how you do it – If I was to endure 10 minutes of their “leftie” propaganda I would need “anger management counselling”.
50
I only have a choice of ABC RN or local ABC….it’s character building at the best of times. Often I’d rather just listen to the tractor engine.
80
Alternatives in Newcastle overnight are scarce for an old white male. As I say at the end of the post the ABC is not the most biased broadcaster on air at that time of the day. If 2sm provided podcast you would really need anger management.
30
As a fellow sufferer of the tirany of communication power we have
!. Their ABC
2. Allan Jones net (only with a better wireless)
3. That glorious channel called “OFF”
30
Tony Delroy and the ABC should issue an apology but how can you apologise for sheer stupidity. His warmist posturing when he is completely ignorant of the mini ice age was arrogance beyond belief. These people direct and control the conversation and yet have failed to undertake even the most basic background research. As soon as they parrot the “97% of scientist” line (and he does), they confirm they have absolutely no knowledge of the facts,
41
I live in North America so I won’t, but you could, send the ABC guy a copy of
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300–1850.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hdxT54NVL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
30
To the anonymous red thumber, “please explain” was it the accuracy of the transcript that raised your ire, or maybe the public exposure of this ABC presenters ignorance.
Your anonymous contribution exposes your cowardice, a better tactic would have been to argue your case. Be it factual or not tell us why you disagree with my post.
10
Bob,
You have omitted the latest, greatest scientific mind of all, surely the King of all scientific minds and a great communicator known to source information from his home grown tomatoes
00
In science, in law or any academic discipline worth its salt, the proponents of a strong case will promote the positives of their claims, and encourage others to compare with the counter with opposing point of view on the basis of independent standards. But climatology is a worthless discipline, based vague theories and moralistic arguments by people who do not learn from others. So they spend all their efforts on trying to make opponents appear lower than themselves. It is nothing new. It was not new when Marx claimed opponents were blinded by class interest. Nor when King James I of England (& VI of Scotland) claimed his anointing gave him special insights into religion.
But what is clear from the believers in climate is that they cannot show that there is a big potential problem, nor can they show a big solution to that problem. In preparation for the COP21 climate talks UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres claimed that the policy proposals reduce prospective warming (if you believe the climate models) from 4-5C to 2.7C. I checked the references. The UNFCCC said that policy proposals would make very little difference to global emissions by 2030. There was no extrapolations of the policy impact from 2030 to 2100. The 2.7C from policy is hidden in a table at the very bottom of a turgid technical annex, from two organisations quite separate from the UN. One achieves the big impact by substituting a modeled policy scenarios for proper forecasts, despite the authors of those scenarios explicitly saying not to. The other uses a number of tricks to downplay the impact of India, Africa and China on future emissions. Neither does a proper forecast.
The full story is here.
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By the time people realise ‘the policy’ is a climacteric crock, the UN and its appendages in ‘civil society’ will have things buttoned down and sewn-up quite nicely as described by The Agenda, for all our own good you have to understand. Apologies will be made that the models got it wrong, and climate science was in its infancy, ‘but we couldn’t take the chance, now could we?’ Emplacement is now largely achieved. ‘Climate’ merely becomes one device of implementation.
And to think the ‘weather’ is the greatest challenge evahhh. There is quite a lot of confusion and uncertainty around what exactly constitutes our ‘greatest challenge’ isn’t there…
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Scientists that are skeptics whose credentials are beyond reproach are simply claimed to be in the secret employment of ‘evil oil’ .
Because they cannot be discredited academically , they are said to be paid off by ‘evil oil’ to lie about the science !
If there was a true threat , then what scientist that is competent enough to know what is really going on would risk our entire existence by saying ‘no problem here’ for money .
What good would money be to them or anybody else if such a stand would lead to our extinction .
On the other hand CAGW advocates think that even if they are wrong ,at least we would clean up our planet .
However , general pollution has nothing to do with an invisible and essential for all life (our’s in particular)gas ‘co2’ which is being targeted as ‘carbon pollution’.
I would ask anybody to explain how even Carbon is Pollution ?
We are ourselves 20% Carbon !….. Therefore are we Pollution also ?
The Mad Malthusians, part of the CAGW Brethren , would argue yes !
Without adequate levels of co2 ,all plant life would die , followed by animal life , and after we turn to Cannibalism , finally our own extinction .
Is this the Green Utopia our esteemed leaders are going to ETS and Carbon Tax us towards ?
A devolvement back to the prehistoric ?
Our possible future ?
The CON21 ….to tax a gas that gives us life .
The ultimate crusade towards medievalism ,whilst the condemnation of energy sources that have improved the lives of all who have them , or at least those who have developed them .
If they are so confident that co2 will create dangerous warming , then why has it not done so ,in particular nothing at all over nearly the last 2 decades ?
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/clip_image002_thumb1.jpg?w=597&h=279
If dangerous warming is coming , then why the religious name change from Global Warming to Climate Change ?
Higher co2 ,they argue , will cause higher temperatures , hence the term Global Warming !
But ,if it does not warm then how can co2 be bad ?
If it does not warm or cools , how will our co2 be the cause for this ?
And how is any climate variation except for warming even relevant ?
Their preachings are that no matter what climate condition occurs , the Crusade against Co2(Capitolism & western democracy) must continue !
The politicians …. Marxists , Fascists , Totalitarians , Crony Capitalists(big banks in particular) , and Mad Malthusians are milking this garbage for all it’s worth !
And the gullible True B’lvers will willingly hand them what ever is deemed necessary for this Medieval Crusade to continue , and drag the rest of us CAGW infidels along for the fleecing .
CO2 Regulation: The Essence of Immorality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9bEOB3x0dQ
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Following the money…
I’ll just cut and paste my own comment from another site. I’m not sure how much exposure this is getting, or if it’s been mentioned on Jo Nova. Seems pretty important. Maybe the MSM don’t want to spoil the ambiance at Paris-Le Bourget.
“Spanish renewable giant Abengoa has started insolvency proceedings. Yes, it involves a US subsidiary and lots of US subsidy and investment: Solana mega-project, ethanol and advanced biofuels plants…that sort of white elephant. Don’t know where Australia stands. (Already, $450,000 in funds from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to conduct a feasibility study into building a 20MW solar thermal tower plant with storage.) But they’re all over the Asia-Pac region so a 30 billion dollar insolvency in Spain could just be the start. Looks like Obama has blown about 3 billion on this lot, and the bankruptcy will be Spain’s biggest unless the Rajoy government steps in and saves the “icon” etc etc. Rajoy is one of Europe’s surviving adults, so that may not happen. And nobody is partying now like it was 2007.”
What’s that Jo says about a good civilisation going to waste?
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This is a war we fight on two fronts , the believers use “paid for scientists ” to manipulate the science , and paid for journalists , psychologists and sociologists to manipulate the language , also its not just done in political circles or the MSM , its most worryingly in our schools too , in higher education they can infiltrate and radicalize our young through student groups and unions , creating a fake grass roots movement ( astroturfing ) but at younger levels of the education system where these student groups don’t tend to exist, they plan to manipulate the basic scientific text books themselves :http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/november/textbook-climate-science-112315.html
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Well Said DD,
The CAGW religion is a CON …..and a manipulation at all levels with the momentum of a mob mentality fueled by greed and hostile political powers that will not stop unless they are stopped !
The PitchForker Medievalists are upon us .
It’s time to fix bayonets or be devoured by the wolves !
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In this case devoured by sheep.
00
2 Dec: Daily Mail: AP: Obama says parts of climate deal must be legally binding
(Nancy Benac in Paris and Angela Charlton, Greg Keller, and Seth Borenstein in Le Bourget contributed to this report)
President Barack Obama said Tuesday that parts of the global warming deal being negotiated in Paris should be legally binding on the countries that sign on, setting up a potential fight with Republicans at home.,,
So the administration is looking to keep the targets out while including binding procedures on when and how countries should periodically review and raise their targets.
“Although the targets themselves may not have the force of treaties, the process, the procedures that ensure transparency and periodic reviews, that needs to be legally binding,” Obama said in Paris, “and that’s going to be critical.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a fierce critic of Obama’s policies, fired back immediately.
“The U.S. Senate will not be ignored. If the president wishes to sign the American people up to a legally binding agreement, the deal must go through the Senate,” he said in a statement. “There is no way around it.”
The White House previously said parts of the deal should be legally binding, but this is the first time Obama has said it himself and spelled out which ones…
“The fact that the United States of America could commit to a binding agreement, whilst before there was a doubt because of Congress, is really extraordinary news that comes at a good time,” French Environment Minister Segolene Royal said…
“I think at end of the day everyone knows that for the U.S. to be part of this, it can’t have the emissions target itself legally embedded in the treaty,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3340838/Climate-talks-tough-business-compromise.html
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1 Dec: news.com.au: Spanish solar energy firm Abengoa facing $29.6 billion bankruptcy
WELL this is awkward.
A renewable energy company personally picked by US President Barack Obama is on the verge of collapse, potentially leaving international banks on the hook for around $29.6 billion.
Abengoa, a Spanish solar energy firm which has received $3.74 billion in loans from the US government since 2010 to construct several large-scale solar projects, looks set to become the largest bankruptcy in Spanish history…
Shares in Abengoa have been suspended from Spain’s main Ibex-35 index after they went into free fall, losing about 60 per cent of their value.
Daniel Simmons, vice president of policy at the conservative Institute for Energy Research, told The Washington Times the failure was another reminder that government “meddling” in the energy sector led to disaster for taxpayers.
“When you have a company that is based on subsidies, it is no surprise they run into financial trouble because their business model isn’t based on economics; it’s based on politics,” said Mr Simmons…
“That’s where these projects go wrong: thinking governments will necessarily make good investment decisions.”
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/spanish-solar-energy-firm-abengoa-facing-296-billion-bankruptcy/news-story/aa119d77a29f11e16e9839e425fc30c0
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Buying or gearing by lending into something in the market based on climate change……..this would have to be called taking a position in the market based on pure unadulterated emotion.
Emotional trades always go wrong and turn into loss. And this one obviously had no stop loss!!!
20
Sometimes there can be so much humour in understatement!!!
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1 Dec: Daily Mail: Nikki Schwab: Obama’s motorcade for global warming conference costs $784,000 – and the contracts offer ‘no sustainability’ guarantees
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3341469/Obama-s-motorcade-global-warming-conference-costs-784-000-contracts-offer-no-sustainability-guarantees.html
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“It is a tale told by an idiot–full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
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read it all…for the sheer insanity of the people who want to decarbonise the planet:
1 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: India, China planned coal plants ***COULD blow UN warming target
Experts say 1,617 power plants in pipeline ***WOULD knock world over 2C warming limit, as row over ‘decarbonisation’ heats up at talks
Decarbonisation. It’s the word few want to utter at a conference aimed at slashing global levels of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
“It is a toxic word, many are opposed to it,” said Bill Hare from the Climate Action Tracker, a think tank charting national climate plans.
The word is “challenging and pretty radical for some countries,” said Liz Gallagher, head of climate diplomacy at the London-based E3G group.
“It will be a very hard sell,” said another veteran observer, speaking on condition of anonymity the sidelines of the talks.
An EU negotiator admitted it would be “difficult” for some countries to accept that word in the final agreement expected on 11 December.
This will disappoint many climate campaigners…
“The Paris climate summit needs to send a strong signal to the coal industry – build these plants and you’re burning money, because they’ll soon have to shut down anyway,” said Martin Kaiser from Greenpeace Germany.
“We simply can’t power our world with coal for decades to come”…
A leaked US briefing note published in Indian media suggested the US could back down on decarbonisation…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/12/01/india-china-planned-coal-plants-could-blow-un-warming-target/
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should have made clear the planned “1,617 new coal power plants by 2030” are for India and China ONLY:
“India and China alone plan to build 1,617 new coal power plants by 2030, which will blow hopes of keeping global warming to safe levels out of the water, said CAT.
Other countries with ambitious coal plans – albeit at a smaller scale – include Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Germany and Poland.”
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What is never calculated in this sort of statement is whether the new coal power stations are replacing existing energy sources.
Certainly in northern China, everywhere you go you see small coal fired boilers and heating systems at work, often with a damp pile of low quality coal sitting outside.
These people are currently surviving and thriving it what is a very harsh winter climate, and they are, very inefficiently, extracting energy from coal to do so.
There must be some degree of efficiency gained by replacing this system with centralized, modern, high efficiency coal generated power source.
40
markx,
As those new large scale coal fired plants come on line in China, they are closing down smaller units, and here that means all those units smaller than 200MW.
The total Nameplate closed between 2006 and 2010 alone was 72,000MW, as those new tech UltraSuperCritical plants started coming on line, and that’s around 500 plus of those older plants.
Now that those USC plants are expanding more rapidly, those closures of old plants has ramped up, and just this year so far, to the end of October, China has brought on line 433GW of new Nameplate coal fired power and has closed 280GW in Nameplate of old coal fired power plants.
Even so, barely 12.5% of all generated power goes to the Residential Sector, and that’s risen from around 7% as recently as 2008. Keep in mind that in the already Developed World, between 32 and 38% of all generated power goes to the Residential Sector. So, China still has a long way to go to catch up with the level of power to homes which we take so much for granted. Most of the power goes to the Industrial sector as development increases in China.
Right now, China is approaching 1,000,000GW in Nameplate just from coal fired power alone. In 2010, the total Nameplate from EVERY source in China was 950,000MW, and the total Nameplate for every source currently in China is approaching 1,450,000MW.
Tony.
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Thanks Tony!
But, is this all GW, not MW?
As above: Right now, China is approaching 1,000,000GW in Nameplate just from coal fired power alone. In 2010, the total Nameplate from EVERY source in China was 950,000MW, and the total Nameplate for every source currently in China is approaching 1,450,000MW.
Should be (??):
Right now, China is approaching 1,000,000GW in Nameplate just from coal fired power alone. In 2010, the total Nameplate from EVERY source in China was 950,000GW, and the total Nameplate for every source currently in China is approaching 1,450,000GW.
20
I forgot to add about the efficiency bit you mentioned mark.
China currently has the lowest coal burn rate per KWH of power being generated than any other place on Earth, because of those new tech USC coal fired plants, and because they are closing those older plants, that burn rate is decreasing. They’ve got to the stage now where those newer plants are now replacing the older large scale plants, some even barely 20 years old, because those new ones are just so much better. Their whole coal fired fleet is the newest and youngest in average age on Earth.
The average age of the whole U.S. coal fired power fleet is still around 46/7 years old and in 2008, it was hovering just under 50 years, which is the average life span for any coal fired plant. Virtually all of those U.S. plants are technology from the 60’s and 70’s.
Tony.
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Charles Koch is a pathetic lukewarmer.
——–
Q: Are you worried about climate change?
A: ‘Well, I mean I believe it’s been warming some. There’s a big debate on that, because it depends on whether you use satellite measurements, balloon, or you use ground ones that have been adjusted. But there has been warming. The CO2 goes up, the CO2 has probably contributed to that.’
Forbes
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Charlie is also a lukewarmer.
——
‘So when a Washington Post journalist earlier this week asked if he was “worried about climate change” his answer provided a rare opportunity for assessment.
‘He apparently accepts that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere might cause the globe to warm, which is a bit like accepting that the world is round.’
Guardian
20
Apologies for the brain fade, here is David Koch and he speaks well.
“Don’t Worry, we humans will adapt … we always have.”
30
2 Dec: BusinessStandardIndia: Nitin Sethi: Multiple closed-door meetings make smaller nations protest
It did not take hours for the bonhomie to dissipate at the climate talks in Paris.
The heads of states were on their flights back on Monday night as the negotiations began in right earnest. And the multiplicity of closed-room meetings running in parallel caused consternation among countries with smaller delegations…
Some of these meetings lasted till almost midnight on Monday, as countries were dealing with tricky areas such as embedding differentiation in the very mast of the Paris agreement…
On the issue of reflecting differentiation and ensuring that the developed countries’ obligations to provide finance and technology are linked to the emission-reducing actions of poorer countries, the Africa group of countries came out in support of the proposal from the Like-Minded Developing Countries. This led to the possibility of a formidable alliance — if they stick together on common issues…
http://wap.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/multiple-closed-door-meetings-make-smaller-nations-protest-115120101206_1.html
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2 Dec: Livemint: Mayank Aggarwal: Paris talks: Civil society groups rail at ban from spin-off groups’ meetings
Group of Like Minded Developing Countries calls for civil society participation in spin-off groups, but no developed nation joins in, says observer
Civil society groups usually meticulously record the minutes of such meetings, including the statements and proposals made by country delegates…
Raman said the group of Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) had called for civil society participation in the spin-off groups but no developed country had joined in the demand. “I think they (the developed world) are trying to prevent civil society from actually watching or observing what is really going on in the negotiations. They don’t want to make their positions public.”…
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/wguvNEZR4xOjj2cT045YBP/Paris-talks-Civil-society-groups-rail-at-ban-from-spinoff.html
21
1 Dec: NYT: Oliver Geden: The Dubious Carbon Budget
(Oliver Geden heads the E.U. research division at SWP, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.)
Negative emissions are the flip side of emissions. The idea is to develop technology that would remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere…
But there’s a problem with this scenario. The United Nations’ own Environment Program pointed it out in a report last year:
“Theoretically, carbon uptake or net negative emissions could be achieved by extensive reforestation and forest growth, or by schemes that combine bioenergy use with carbon capture and storage. But the feasibility of such large-scale schemes is still uncertain. Even though they seem feasible on a small scale, the question remains as to how much they can be scaled up without having unacceptable social, economic or environmental consequences.”…
Climate scientists and economists are betting primarily on a new technology called bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or Beccs. This involves cultivating fast-growing vegetation, or biomass, to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Trees or energy crops would then be burned in power plants, and the emissions would be captured and pumped underground…
But the Beccs technology does not exist at scale at present. And even if it did, the immensity of this endeavor would be unlike anything that exists today. To achieve the negative emissions that are an essential component of the I.P.C.C. models, we would have to plant around 500 million hectares of biomass crops — ***an area one and a half times the size of India. This would also require enormous capacities for transporting and storing the carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere…
Including negative emissions in these models has one decisive advantage, of course: ***It allows climate economists to significantly increase the carbon budgets calculated by climate scientists…
The public has taken little, if any, notice of these considerations, and even policy makers are often unaware of the amount of negative emissions climate economists assume for the future. I.P.C.C. models foresee negative emissions of about 600 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2100, which equals more than 10 years of current annual emissions…
We need to seriously discuss the effects of technologies designed to remove carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere…
Because right now, we’re on the verge of repeating the same mistake that led to the financial crisis: relying on economic models that are completely detached from what’s going on in the real world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/opinion/the-questionable-accounting-behind-the-worlds-carbon-budget.html?_r=0
the bigger the “carbon budget” the better, for the ETS crowd!
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30 Nov: Financial Times: Bjorn Lomborg: COP21 climate talks: Wasting trillions on carbon curbs is immoral
We will hear from Paris the suggestion that the green economy will make us all richer. If this were true, we would not need a Paris treaty; greed would long ago have triggered a stampede for green energy. In fact, cutting temperatures by even a trivial amount will cost trillions. Spending money that way — while billions lack food, health, water and education — is nothing short of immoral.
Humanity’s response to the climate challenge has been to try to make fossil fuels too expensive to use. It will not work; poor nations eager to advance will not play along. Rich nations do not have the money to subsidise a substantial switch to today’s inefficient green energy. According to the International Energy Agency, we will spend $3tn on subsidies for wind and solar in the next 25 years. Yet in 2040 they will provide a puny 2.4 per cent of global energy…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9b82ed46-952c-11e5-8389-7c9ccf83dceb.html
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Somewhat related – I am having a running debate on the following thread calling out the lie oft repeated at the ABC that the fossil fuel industry in Australia gets massive subsidies:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-02/barnes-calm-down,-turnbull-still-needs-to-prove-himself/6992690
Without counting the diesel fuel rebate as a “subsidy” (which it isn’t because off road vehicles still pay some diesel fuel excise even after the rebate, thereby making it a net tax)there is no massive “diesel fuel subsidy” in Australia. For some reason the ABC doesn’t Fact Check this. I am copying my latest comment here in case of ABC “modding”:
101
Comment still in limbo it seems, so I poked them with a comment about bias and the fact it was copied elsewhere. Taking bets on whether it will magically reappear out of the memory hole…
51
1 Dec: NYT: Eduardo Porter: Imagining a World without Growth
It’s hard to imagine now, but humanity made do with little or no economic growth for thousands of years…
Could civilization, as we know it, survive such an experience again?
The answer, simply, is no.
Economic growth took off consistently around the world only some 200 years ago. Two things powered it: innovation and lots and lots of carbon-based energy, most of it derived from fossil fuels like coal and petroleum…
The Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich has been arguing for decades that we must slow both population and consumption growth. When I talked to him on the phone a few months ago, he quoted the philosopher Kenneth Boulding: “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”…
Let’s examine what our fossil-fueled growth has provided us. It has delivered gains in living standards in even the poorest regions of the world…
Economic development was indispensable to end slavery. It was a critical precondition for the empowerment of women.
Indeed, democracy would not have survived without it…
Naomi Klein, a champion of the leftward fringe newly converted to the environmental cause, gleefully proposes climate change as an opportunity to put an end to capitalism. Were she right, I doubt it would bring about the workers’ utopia she appears to yearn for. In a world economy that does not grow, the powerless and vulnerable are the most likely to lose. Imagine “Blade Runner,” “Mad Max” and “The Hunger Games” brought to real life…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/economy/imagining-a-world-without-growth.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2Fun-climate-change-conference
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Still convinced CO2 is a bigger threat than terrorism?
ABC, 1 hour ago: China is being blamed for a major cyber attack on the computers at the Bureau of Meteorology, which has compromised sensitive systems across the Federal Government.
. . .
All those taxpayer funds spent chasing carbon(sic) Doomsday Global Warming ghosts when the money would have been spent fighting real threats.
60
handjiive ,
Co2 is not a problem at all , except for the lack of it !
What is the problem is 45,000 freeloaders ,thieves and general nutters at the Paris CON21 pretending to be acting in our best interests , scheming how much they can get away with stealing from the rest of us , which is in the trillions .
Little wonder why there are 45,000 tripping over themselves in hysterical and frenzied anticipation of wealth and power .
This BSers Bonanza alone pales into insignificance , all other threats .
30
1 Dec: UK Express: Ross Clark: ‘Climate science is like 15th century Catholicism – it has no tolerance for heretics’
THE Paris climate change summit will drag on for two weeks, yet the headlines can already be written.
Meanwhile, the world is nearly as reliant on fossil fuels as it was when the theory of man-made global warming first entered the public consciousness. In 1973 oil, coal and gas accounted for 87 per cent of energy.
In 2012 they accounted for 81 per cent. For all the wind and solar farms which now disfigure the English countryside, these two forms of energy even now account for no more than one per cent of global energy consumption…
Climate change is not the greatest risk to the world: the biggest danger we face is the economic decline which would result from the loss of the cheap energy which has improved lives beyond all recognition over the past two centuries…
One day no doubt, some form of renewable energy will reach the stage when it does become cheaper than fossil fuels. At that point we won’t need an international summit to agree to abandon oil, coal and gas reserves – it will just happen…
Yet the climate has stubbornly refused to play along. It is now quarter of a century since the IPCC first tried to predict the rise in global temperatures as a result of carbon emissions, which it put at between 0.2C and 0.5C per decade.
That can now be measured against what has actually happened since global carbon emissions became significant: between 1951 and 2012 the measured rise in temperatures has been off the lower end of the predicted range, at 0.12C per decade.
Since 1998, the rise has been at a rate of just 0.05C per decade. Meanwhile, apocalyptic predictions of drought and tempest have also failed to materialise…
Trouble is that the atmosphere remains poorly understood and is chaotic in nature. The models tend to reflect the prejudices of the scientists who build them. We know from the leaked emails that climate science operates rather like 15th-century Catholicism, with no tolerance of heretics…
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/623325/Climate-change-economy-Express-Comment-Jeremy-Corbyn-Ross-Clark
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I have compiled the list of ‘Contrarian Organisations’ from the paper’s source into a more easily readable list if anyone is interested. Should it be posted here or elsewhere?
[Thanks for the doc Peter. Ive added it to the post in links! Cheers – Jo]
00
former Goldman Sachs’ Tepper is not happy:
1 Dec: Forbes: Antoine Gara: How SunEdison And TerraForm Power Made An Enemy Out Of Billionaire David Tepper
It takes a lot to turn billionaire David Tepper into an activist investor who resorts to public spats with struggling corporate boards. That’s exactly what happened with his holding of TerraForm Power, a yieldco that is associated with the crumbling empire of SunEdison, the largest developer of renewable energy projects in the United States.
In a letter to TerraForm Power’s board of directors, released on Tuesday afternoon, Tepper accuses the yieldco of departing from its business model and acting without regard to its shareholders. TerraForm was created in mid-2014 to finance and own power purchase agreements (PPAs) of solar and wind developments, mostly with large utilities. These projects were largely to have come directly from SunEdison, the general partner of TerraForm, but the company was to be run independently
However, instead of an arms length relationship, Tepper believes SunEdison is imposing conflicts of interest on TerraForm Power. In his letter, Tepper insinuates that SunEdison is using TerraForm as dumping ground for bad acquisitions and subpar renewable assets. These alleged shareholder unfriendly moves come at a time when SunEdison is trying to claw its way out of a debt-laden acquisition binge, which has shaken its financial foundation…
Tepper’s letter on Tuesday sent TerraForm shares surging, up over 34%. It also helped push SunEdison shares up by 9%. But even this billionaire’s ire won’t prove an immediate solution to stem the ***collapse of what remains the fastest growing renewable developer in America…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/12/01/how-sunedison-made-an-enemy-out-of-billionaire-david-tepper/
1 Dec: Reuters: UPDATE 1-TerraForm, SunEdison cancel Brazil power deal worth $3.45 bln
By Marcelo Teixeira and Luciano Costa
SAO PAULO, Dec 1 Renewable energy company TerraForm Global Inc is pulling out of an agreement to take control of projects accounting for 2,200 megawatts of generation capacity due to adverse market conditions in Brazil, companies involved in the deal said on Tuesday.
TerraForm, a unit of U.S.-based SunEdison Inc, was negotiating to take control of generation assets from Brazilian renewable energy company Renova Energia SA in a share swap valued at 13.4 billion reais ($3.45 billion).
The deal started to wane when SunEdison decided not to proceed with a contract to buy a 15 percent stake in Renova…
Companies building new power generation capacity in Brazil are suffering from high financing costs at private banks and reduced availability of lower-cost government-backed credit.
Some companies are cancelling plans to build wind farms and other projects due to the high cost of capital…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/01/brazil-power-terraform-global-idUSL1N13Q0QB20151201
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But, but, but ….. aren’t they supposed to be cheaper than fossil fuel plants to put into place.
Tony.
100
Tony,
they must be cheaper because 30 years ago they were saying they would be cheaper in a few years.
See also claims from 29 years ago, 28 years ago, 27 years ago etc.
60
Renewable energy is the wave of the future…and always will be.
00
This seems to be an ongoing problem among the warmists and their supporters at all levels.
40
ReutersCarbonPulse: COP-21 Roundup: Dec. 1 – Day 2
COP-22 IN MARRAKESH: A source from the Moroccan delegation told Carbon Pulse that his country has been all but approved to host next year’s UN climate summit in Marrakesh after facing no opposition from other nations to its offer. The meeting will he held earlier than normal, running from Nov. 7-18, 2016. After that, there has been some talk in the UN negotiations’ corridors of changing the timetable so that COPs are held every two years rather than annually…
NEGOTIATORS NEGOTIATING: …The co-chairs of the process intend to use this work to help them refine the 50+ page working text and produce a new document by Friday, where the full plenary will scrutinise it with the aim of handing over a paper of 20-25 pages to the French presidency by the end of Saturday. One negotiator calculated that a bracket had to be resolved every 90 seconds for the whole week if the version handed over to France was to be bracket-free…A key issue that could be sacrificed to the process is a long-term “decarbonisation” goal, with several oil-rich and emerging nations very wary of the term that the G7 agreed to earlier this year…
CHINA WILL NOT ADJUST INDC OVER COAL DATA: For anyone wondering if China will adjust the targets in its INDC over recent reports that coal consumption has been up to 17% higher than reported, the answer is no. China was aware of the new data when it designed its INDC and took it into consideration then, Xie Zhenhua, the special representative on climate change, said in a speech in Paris on Tuesday…
UNHINGED COAL SUPPLY: The Climate Action Tracker released new analysis showing that if all the coal plants in the pipeline get built, the sector’s carbon emissions would be four times higher than what would be consistent with a path to meeting the 2C target. “Even with no new construction, in 2030, emissions from coal-fired power generation would still be more than 150% higher than what is consistent with holding warming below 2C,” the analysts said.
http://carbon-pulse.com/12707/
11
Not sure if this has been posted, but it amused me:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/30250713/in-the-trench-war-over-climate-text-a-little-means-a-lot/
Seems the agreement is well and truly bogged down. Where every instance of parenthese indicates disagreement on wording, look at this paragraph:
I am reminded on the Monckton IPCC definition of a shovel…
91
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/02/lord-monckton-explains-ipcc-definition.html
50
BD,
And a ‘Shovel’ is exactly what is needed …….to Shovel the CAGW BS !
Also I would point out that a similar vigor of investigation was severely lacking with the whitewash of ‘ClimateGate’ for example .
The CAGW brethren’s idea of self scrutiny is akin to having Dracula in charge of the Blood Bank !
21
BD,
In addition ,that statement is the kind of contract you would sign if you were to ‘Sell your Soul to the Devil’ !
20
Once all the parentheses are sorted the 500 pages should be just a paragraph or two.
30
Take a look at my website where I publish lists of dononations to “green” initiatives. Includes some well known organisations.
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com
10
“Dr Farrell identified an institutional and social network of 4556 people and 164 organisations involved in promoting contrarian viewpoints and used tax data to examine their corporate funding.”
So, I would guess that the phoney 97% of scientists agree on AGW is a lie.
41
LOL; assuming those 4556 people represent the 3%; the other 97% comes to 151,666 people.
Clearly they have the numbers, so why the witch hunt?
50
For years the warmists have been rolling out the Koch Bros (whenever a beat up is required) as an example of contrarian views. Even after the cooling begins they will say its not happening, climate change will then be seen as right wing propaganda.
30
Here is our 2.9% http://www.petitionproject.org/
Where is their 97.1% ??? ….Their infamous non – existent CONsensus !
If we have 31,000 plus then they need to have about 1,000,000 that state categorically that our co2 output has and /or will cause Dangerous or Catastrophic Global warming !
Let’s see the list of 1,000,000 names of ‘individual’ scientists with at least ‘one degree’ that is of the ‘relevant climate sciences’ that have given their signature to the predescribed statement !
No such thing exists ….not even close , because only the controlling boards of scientific bodies , which are subject to government policy( bribes),will make such claims .
Yea….the so called science (or lack of it) is settled ?……I say BS !
31
p.s. the petition project ,is only in the USA !
Over 31,000 just in the USA ….How many in the rest of the world , I wonder ?
‘All Scientists agree’! …….No they don’t.
50
Here is the nicer formatted list of ‘Contrarian Organisations’ sourced from the data page of the paper. It is part of the publicly available data sourced from the supplementary data for Dr Farrell’s paper : http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nclimate2875-s1.pdf
60 Plus Association
Accuracy In Media
Action Institute For The Study Of Religion And Liberty
Advancement Of Sound Science Center Inc
Alexis De Tocqueville Institution
American Coal Foundation
American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity
American Conservative Union Foundation
American Council For Capital Formation
American Council On Science And Health
American Energy Alliance
American Energy Freedom Center
American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research
American Farm Bureau Federation
American Friends Of Institute Of Economic Affairs
American Fuel And Petrochemical Manufacturers
American Gas Association
American Legislative Exchange Council
American Natural Gas Alliance Inc
American Petroleum Institute
American Policy Center
American Spectator Foundation
American Tradition Institute
Americans For A Limited Government Inc
Americans For Balanced Energy Choices
Americans For Prosperity
Americans For Tax Reform
Annapolis Center For Science Based Public Policy Inc
Association Of Global Automobile Manufacturers Inc
Atlantic Legal Foundation
Atlas Economic Research Foundation Atlas
Australian Climate Science Coalition
Capital Research Center And Greenwatch
Cascade Policy Institute
Cato Institute
Center For American And International Law
Center For Defense Of Free Enterprise
Center For Security Policy Inc
Center For Strategic And International Studies
Center For Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change
Centre For New Europe
Chamber Of Commerce Of United States Of America
Charles Koch Institute
Citizens For A Sound Economy Now Freedomworks
Citizens For Affordable Energy Inc
Co2 Is Green Inc
Coalition For American Jobs
Coalition For Vehicle Choice Inc
Collegians For Constructive Tomorrow
Committee For Constructive Tomorrow
Communications Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Consumer Alert Inc
Consumer Energy Alliance Inc
Consumers Alliance For Global Prosperity
Cooler Heads Coalition
Cornwall Alliance For The Stewardship Of Creation
Dci Group
Defenders Of Property Rights
Donors Trust Donors Capital Fund
Edison Electric Institute
Energy Makes America Great
Environmental Conservation Organization
Environmental Literacy Council
Exxonmobil
Federalist Society For Law And Public Policy Studies
Federation For American Coal Energy And Security
Fraser Institute
Free Enterprise Action Institute Free Enterprise Education Institute
Freedom Action
Freedomworks Foundation
Freedomworks Inc
Frontiers Of Freedom In- Stitute Inc
George Marshall Institute
George Mason University Law And Economics Center Gmu Lec
Global Climate Coalition
Global Warming Policy Foundation
Greening Earth Society
Heartland Institute
Heritage Foundation
Hoover Institution On War Revolution And Peace Stanford University
Hudson Institute
Illinois Policy Institute
Independence Institute
Independent Commission On Environmental Education
Independent Institute
Independent Petroleum Association Of America
Independent Womens Forum
Industrial Energy Consumers Of America
Initiative For Public Policy Analysis
Institute For Biospheric Research
Institute For Energy Research
Institute For Liberty
Institute For Regulatory Science
Institute For Study Of Earth And Man
Institute Of Humane Studies George Mason University
Institute Of Public Affairs
Intermountain Rural Electric Association
International Climate And Environmental Change Assessment Project
International Climate Science Coalition
International Council For Capital Formation
International Policy Network
International Republican Institute Iri
James Madison Institute For Public Policy Studies Inc
John Locke Foundation Inc
Junkscience Dot Com
Knowledge And Progress Fund
Koch Foundations Combined
Koch Industries
Landmark Legal Foundation
Lexington Institute
Lindenwood University
Locke Institute
Mackinac Center
Manhattan Institute For Policy Research Inc
Media Research Center Inc
Mercatus Center Inc Gwu
Mountain States Legal Foundation
National Association Of Manufacturers Of Usa
National Black Chamber Of Commerce
National Center For Policy Analysis
National Center For Public Policy Research Inc
National Council For Environmental Balance
National Environmental Policy Institute
National Legal Center For Public Interest
National Mining Association
National Petroleum Council
National Policy Forum
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
National Taxpayers Union
National Taxpayers Union Foundation
National Wilderness Institute
New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
Oklahoma Council Of Public Affairs Inc
Oregon Institute Of Science And Medicine
Pacific Legal Foundation
Pacific Research Institute For Public Policy
Peabody Energy
Plants Need Co2 Org
Property And Environment Research Center
Reason Foundation
Responsible Resources
Science And Environmental Policy Project
Science And Public Policy Institute
Shook Hardy And Bacon Llp
Small Business Survival Committee
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Willie Soon And Sallie Baliunas
Southeastern Legal Foundation Inc
Sovereignty International Inc
State Policy Network
Statistical Assessment Service Stats
Tech Central Science Foundation
Texas Public Policy Foundation
Thomas Jefferson Institute For Public Policy
Ts August
United For Jobs
Us Russia Business Council
Virginia Institute For Public Policy
Washington Legal Foundation
Washington Policy Center
Weidenbaum Center On The Economy Government And Public Policy Center For The Study Of American Business
Western Fuels Association
World Affairs Councils Of America
World Climate Report
51
Thanks Peter. As you say, these are the 164 organisations that supposedly form the climate contrarian movement. But if you look at the SI, Farrell actually acknowledges that
“Some organizations are no longer involved in the climate contrarian movement, and some are no longer in existence.”
So where did Farrell get his list from?
I googled a couple of these organisations at random (most of which I had never heard of).
National Wilderness Institute
Tech Central Science Foundation
In each case I couldn’t find the website of the alleged organisation. But what did come up were pages from the notorious smear sites sourcewatch and exxonsecrets.
So it seems that what this university academic has done is to trawl through the pages of sourcewatch and exxonsecrets to get his list of alleged contrarian movements. He also seems to have regurgitated a lot of claims about organisations from Robert Brulle, who did the same kind of thing a year or so ago.
40
What would it take to get some crowd funding of a rigorous examination of Evans’ and /or Nicol’s demonstration that CO2 has negligible impact on climate? Recently in Melbourne,56000 people each paid $100 to see two women in a cage trying to kick each other senseless. If that’s where our enlightened society prefers to put its “hard-earned” it is no wonder Dr Farrell’s pointless/useless piece of work gets funded.
Problem in Australia is to get a politician with the courage to seek a rigorous examination of the Gore/IPCC/Obama waffle. It would certainly make much more long-term sense than the prolonged spectacle of Dreyfus trying to trap Brough/Turnbull over the Ashby/Slipper affair.
40
Dennis Jensem has been marginalised.
40
Yes , a Climate Change / Global Warming Royal Commission is what is needed !
Except PM Goldman & Sachs would appoint ‘Sage Flannery’ as El Commissioner Supremo .
Another WhiteWash ( joke )
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/artwork/cartoons-by-others/hunter/flannery-ultimate-prediction-600.gif
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/gw-virus.gif
20
Off-Topic: China blamed for ‘massive’ cyber attack on Bureau of Meteorology computer
Please stop laughing. It’s only the Bureau of Myrth through accident and incompetence.
If there was an “official” attack on Australian government systems, the the BOM would be the soft underbelly; over-funded and with little evidence of competence.
52
The ‘ Bureau of Mythology ‘
52
“environmental intelligence agency”, from a weather forecasting agency, the mind boggles (then explodes). Is it hubris or ego?
52
a must-watch:
multiple links below the video. mention of Strong dying 3 days prior to COP21 is somewhat incorrect, as he apparently died 28 Nov and COP21 began a day early on 29 Nov:
Youtube: 21mins06secs: James Corbett: Maurice Strong is Dead
https://www.corbettreport.com/maurice-strong-is-dead/
1 Dec: NYT: Sam Roberts: Maurice Strong, Environmental Champion, Dies at 86
Maurice Strong, a former industrialist and confessed ecological sinner who was in the vanguard of placing environmentalism on the world’s agenda as a high-ranking United Nations official, died Saturday. He was 86.
His death came on the eve of the United Nations negotiations in Paris on global warming, attended by President Obama and other world leaders.
Achim Steiner, United Nations under secretary general and executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, announced the death but did not say where Mr. Strong, a Canadian, died or give the cause.
He credited Mr. Strong with making “history by launching a new era of international environmental diplomacy.”
For years Mr. Strong, a self-made oil and gas billionaire, sounded the alarm on climate change and tried to goad the governments of developed countries to take responsibility for the ecological degradation wrought by industrialization…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/world/americas/maurice-strong-environmental-champion-dies-at-86.html?_r=0
41
Speaking as a Canadian, good riddance.
00
November temps for UAH V 6 show a drop in global temp of 0.1 C since October. And a drop of 0.21 C in the NH. Why is the NH showing these big swings?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/12/uah-v6-global-temperature-update-for-november-2015-0-33-deg-c/
40
Astrology or not these cooling trends, tend to happen on a regular cycle controlled by the moods of the sun modulated by the gas giants, nothing we can do about it. The next LIA is coming, the global warming mob over the coming decades will have some serious egg on face.
20
Question for those who would know. How long roughly have we been using satellites to measure global temps? (as opposed to ground based stations), It’s just that with the heightened attention from the stupid duracell bunny media types I heard an interview with some academidolt from the University of Waikato suggesting we we’ve been doing it for 36 years. I suspect he’s being a bit disingenuous given I’ve followed this debate for so long.
20
Speaking of thousands of documents, could this Chinese hacking, oops, “massive” hacking of BoM, be BoMgate? Or is it wishful thinking?
31
ex-ABC Holmes is a mug:
2 Dec: Age: Jonathan Holmes: Climate change debate comes down to choosing sides
Of course, it’s conceivable that all those scientists are wrong, and all those marchers and heads of state and government bureaucrats hopelessly deceived. If that turns out to be true, and I’m still around to say it, I’ll apologise for being taken for a mug.
But more likely, Australia will be left behind, sadly trying to flog its coal to a world that doesn’t want it any more, while its citizens import the new technology its governments were too slow – and too in thrall to the greenhouse mafia – to foster here…
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/climate-change-debate-comes-down-to-choosing-sides-20151130-glc252.html
cannot find a single mention of Abengoa’s woes on ABC (or Fairfax):
2 Dec: Bloomberg: Luca Casiraghi: Abengoa, the Teetering Sun King of Spain, Prepares for End Game
In the years that followed, Abengoa, founded as an electrical company in the Andalusia region more than seven decades ago, morphed into a global engineering giant. It wasn’t just solar installations but power-transmission lines and water-desalinization plants.
The far-flung expansion, from Brazil to India, with each project raising financing as it went along, cloaked how much the entire operation was borrowing: too much, as it turned out. Even with world leaders gathered in Paris promising a climate-change deal likely to bolster solar operators, Abengoa is fighting to stave off what would be Spain’s biggest corporate collapse.
“Investors stayed in because they thought that Abengoa was too big too fail,” said George Kaknis, an investment analyst at LNG Capital in London…
“I can’t see how the company will manage to avoid a breakup,” said Maxime Kogge, an analyst at Spread Research, an independent research firm, in Lyon, France. “It needs too much money to keep going and to finish projects that haven’t been completed. I am very pessimistic.”
So far, the company’s connections to the highest echelons of the Spanish establishment didn’t work to clinch a deal…
Javier Benjumea, the founder of Abengoa, was made marquis by King Juan Carlos, an aristocratic title now held by his son. The company also has a long history of hiring former government officials, or relatives of officials, as board members. Bill Richardson, the ex-governor of New Mexico and a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet in the 1990s, now sits on the international advisory board of Abengoa Yield Plc, an independent unit spun off by Abengoa…
“The whole house of cards collapsed,” said Antoine Bourgault, a London-based head of credit research at ISM Capital LLP, a merchant bank…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-01/abengoa-the-teetering-sun-king-of-spain-prepares-for-end-game
00
1 Dec: Reuters: Jose Elias Rodriguez: Shareholders threaten to sue Abengoa over plunge in share price
Spanish renewable energy and engineering group Abengoa faces a civil lawsuit after shareholders accused the indebted company of keeping them in the dark when it last week initiated insolvency proceedings…
He also said AEMEC, which is looking for compensation for 250 of the close to 50,000 minority shareholders in Abengoa, could also pursue criminal charges…
The company’s share price fell 73 percent last week and is down 93 percent since April when the shares hit a six-month high of 3.75 euros…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/01/abengoa-restructuring-lawsuit-idUSL8N13Q48P20151201
1 Dec: Global Trade Review: Melodie Michel: Abengoa collapse could change renewables financing
Santander is reported to have the largest exposure at €1.5bn, followed by CaixaBank and Banco de Sabadell, each with more than €300mn. International banks involved with the company include Citi, HSBC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays, among others.
In the past year alone Abengoa raised financing for three projects in South Africa, Uruguay and Israel, and won a number of contracts across Egypt, Mexico and the US…
She (Josefin Berg, senior solar power analyst at IHS) believes that after benefiting from the exponential growth of the solar industry in Spain, spurred by government incentives, the company hoped to export its expertise, but may have been surprised by the slow growth of the sector on a global scale.
“This growth never happened in other countries; even in Spain they realised that this was an expensive programme and it was cut, and Abengoa was involved in about a third of those projects. Abengoa is involved in scattered projects in various geographies, but nothing of the same extent and of the same perceived stability after the Spanish programme. There was nowhere to go to expand based on the expertise they had in this particular sector,” she tells GTR.
As a result, banks are likely to look more closely at renewable companies’ growth plans and how they connect to real market opportunities before funding them…
http://www.gtreview.com/news/europe/abengoa-collapse-could-change-banks-approach-to-renewables/
00
2 Dec: Reuters: Heaviest torrential rain in a century floods south Indian state, more to come
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed climate change for the rain, injecting urgency into the debate at global climate talks in Paris and highlighting the vulnerability of tropical nations like India to extreme weather…
http://www.trust.org/item/20151202070626-3znuh/?source=fiHeadlineStory
2 Dec: Tamil Nadu deluge unconnected with climate change: Javadekar
Perhaps alone among those concerned with the environment, union environment minister Prakash Javadekar today refused to link the rain-ravaged situation in Tamil Nadu directly to climate change, saying it was a natural calamity.
”What has happened in Chennai over last ten days is absolutely a very serious situation, this can’t be directly attributed to climate change; it is a natural calamity, but this calamity needs to be tackled effectively,” Javadekar told the media in New Delhi.
His statement is all the more strange because it is in direct contradiction of his boss Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, in his ‘Man ki Baat’ radio programme ahead of the Paris climate summit, clearly linked the Tamil Nadu situation to climate change.
”We are now experiencing the impact of fast-changing climate. In our own country, massive rains recently hit Tamil Nadu and caused losses to it as well as other states. Several people lost their lives. I offer my condolences to them,” he had said on Monday…
The India Meteorological Department said a slow-moving depression over southwest Bay of Bengal has triggered the fresh bout of heavy rain in Tamil Nadu…
http://www.domain-b.com/environment/20151202_tamil_nadu.html
10
2 Dec: BusinessStandardIndi: Nitin Sethi: The Long term goal to reduce emissions must account for equity: African negotiator
Xolisa Ngwadla is from South Africa and is the Lead climate change negotiator for the Africa Group of Nations at Paris. The group comprises of diverse set of countries from the continent and carry great weight at the negotiations. Ngwadla talks to Nitin Sethi on some tricky issues that could hobble the Paris summit.
Q: Some developed countries are against differentiation between developed and developing countries in the Paris agreement, where does the Africa Group stand on it?
Xolisa Ngwadla: That is a non-starter. We are here to enhance the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The principles of the convention have to be operationalized in this agreement…
Q: The new phrases have been suggested to define the long-term goal of the agreement – decarbonisation and climate neutral. What does Africa group make of it?
Xolisa Ngwadla: We want a long-term goal but these are terms that are new and we do not understand to the full extent words like decarbonisation. We know that it’s not just carbon-dioxide emissions that cause climate change. There are other greenhouse gases. Decarbonisation leaves these gases out. From our perspective we can learn from the formulation that was agreed in Cancun which refers to peaking and recognises that peaking in developing countries would be later than in developed countries. We don’t believe there can be any long term goal on mitigation that does not take in to account the principle of equity…
Q: On the issue of finance, how central for Africa Group is it to see a climate finance road map in the core of the Paris agreement ?
Xolisa Ngwadla: We believe that the agreement should highlight a number of things including finance and not just mitigation. We believe the $100 billion annually should be the base by 2020, however we need to account for delivery of these funds based on agreed methodologies in the agreement and not just any one telling it has done so. We see the OECD report as a good start, but we have our doubts right now over the claimed magnitude of funds in the report. So, we need to have the agreement quantifying how much finance is needed based on needs and accounted through a transparency provision.
http://wap.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/the-long-term-goal-to-reduce-emissions-must-account-for-equity-african-negotiator-115120200169_1.html
00
The Australian Met Office has been hacked. Jo,did you have anything to do with that? 🙂
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/12/2/oz-met-office-hacked.html
10
BoMgate? E-mails, come on China, let them all hang out.
00
Tiny money , far ago ?
“164 organisation across 20 years” #1 the abstract says “1993–2013”
So any small evidence and small money could actually all relate back to stuff that happened long ago in 1993. Whenever I checked conspiracy theories like his before I have always found they are not actually talking about today, but rather tiny money , far ago.
10
“164 organisation across 20 years” , “I created an affiliation network (9–10 ) whereby I identified 4,556 individuals with ties to these organizations”
Santa’sJustin’s making a list,Not checking it twice,
He’s gonna say “You’re naughty not nice”.
Justin is going to town!
He sees that you’ve been blogging
He knows that you’re not flakes.
But can you face all his smearing ?
So act ALARMIST for goodness sake!
You better watch out,
You’d better just cry,
You’d better just pout,
I’m telling you why:
Big alarmist smearers are going to town!
20
“You better watch out,
You’d better just cry,
You’d better just pout,
I’m telling you why:
Big alarmist smearers are going to town!”
Stew
Have heard this before 🙂
The sound isn’t very good but;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXFNkY9OUck
10
“Researchers become increasingly reliant on private funding ” …true,
now that they have been used to set the global warming scam trap they have outlived their usefulness.
After all the science is settled ,now all that is left is to tax the west into serfdom .
Pay someone else to take you out ? Brilliant .
00
Where we are at
#1 It’s a letter, so probably not peer reviewed etc. @Manfred has pointed out, far from being a paper.
#2 Probably just lifted the list of 164 orgs off of exisiting lists on “the notorious smear sites sourcewatch and exxonsecrets.” as @Paul Matthews finds them very similar eg (the same orgs that no longer exist)
#3 Info is quite probably old – From 1993-2013 so would include some org that provided $5 in 1993 they even state “Some organizations are no longer involved in the climate contrarian movement, and some are no longer in existence.” ..Investigating similar bigoil conspiracy claims I have always found the armists were talking about way back when and had no contemporary evidence at all.
#4 We know it’s just sci-activists just seeking to smear skeptics, cos they never make any attempt to contextualise the allegations in that skeptic money is tiny compared to alarmist PR resources, and they never investigate their own side.
00
correction to point #1 ..There are 2 versions
The one in Nature is just a LETTER standard
The one in PNAS in PNAS “Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change” seems peer reviewed as it mentions a review period of May to Oct
00
There is a detailed criticism of Farrell’s paper here:
http://energyindepth.org/national/yale-study-on-climate-and-corporate-funding-confuses-policy-disagreement-with-science-denial/
I hadn’t realised this but in fact there are 2 Farrell papers, one in Nature and one in PNAS.
The Energy in depth blog says:
“the research is just another part of a broader campaign by environmental activists to harass energy companies for supporting certain climate policies that differ from their own preferences.”
Farrell “Accuses many groups of climate denial who have actually embraced climate mitigation policies”
“Author’s data contradict author’s assertions”
… and much more
00
Paul, that page is not as good as JoNova’s here.
Apart from their point #3 their’s aren’t killer points.
#1 and #2 Saying that orgs like fracking corps can’t be skeptical cos they of course created America’s ACTUAL CO2 reduction ..is not a debunk.
00