It’s another tiny marker on the road to reality. Mike Hulme has admitted that Cooks 97% study is “infamous” and “irrelevant”. He’s trying to wash himself of both the “Consensus” argument and Cook’s work which he can see are becoming a liability. But make no mistake Hulme is more alarmist than ever. He’s just trying to rebrand the gravy train.
In Science can’t settle what should be done about climate change he’s not trying to argue from scientific authority. But–watch the pea–it is just a different form of authority — his. He’s trying to chuck both sides of the science debate under the bus-of-oblivion and pretend that science is completely irrelevant. With his mere statement that the science is settled (according to him), he’s hoping to get the policies discussed and stop people raising awkward points about the science.
What’s amazing is that anyone falls for this nonsense at all. It’s a naked attempt to divert the national conversation with statements that are self evidently inane. He wants us to discuss how much money to spend to change the weather, but not discuss how much the weather is going to change. What, no discussion of value for money–how much for 1C of warming-avoided, Mike? Again, it’s as if the climate is a Yes or No question, and half a degree equals three degrees. Let’s run the country without any numbers shall we?
Here’s his bland argument from his own authority, with the Yes:No assumption built in.
“What matters is not whether the climate is changing (it is); nor whether human actions are to blame (they are, at the very least partly and, quite likely, largely); nor whether future climate change brings additional risks to human or non-human interests (it does).”
Then here’s the incredibly weak followup — where the fact that the highest projections of the scientists on the No case overlap with the lowest projections of the scientists on the Yes case, means we should give up on figuring out whether it’s half a degree or three degrees. Really? These people are not good with numbers.
“As climate scientist Professor Myles Allen said in evidence to the committee, even the projections of the IPCC’s more prominent critics overlap with the bottom end of the range of climate changes predicted in the IPCC’s published reports.”
So our policy on the climate doesn’t depend on the truth about the climate? Surprise me. It was always about the politics all along. Copenhagen redux anyone?
Toss out the science?
It’s like the pea is hidden under a clear plastic cup. Does he think we can’t see it? To state the bleeding obvious, the amount we ought to drain from the economy depends very strongly on whether the warming will be small or large. Small warming will help plants grow, give longer growing seasons, produce more crops, reduce winter deaths, and methinks we ought spend exactly no dollars to avoid. Large warming has a totally different cost benefit ratio, which is harder to predict, and yes, we might want to turn the economy inside out.
Mike Hulme posts the four questions he hopes we will discuss. It’s a wish list, and all of them have built into them the unspoken assumption that the warming will be large, that we need to do something, that even democracy itself needs to be discussed.
He poses as someone who wants “debate” while he quietly tries to sweep the most important debate under the rug. It’s about “seeming”, and not about sense.
“As I have argued elsewhere, the most important questions to be asked about climate change extend well beyond science. Let me suggest four; all of which are more important than the committee’s MPs managed. They are questions which people should and do disagree about and they have no correct answer waiting to be discovered by science.
- How do we value the future, or in economic terms, at what rate should we discount the future? Many of the arguments about urgent versus delayed interventions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions revolve around how much less we value future public goods and natural assets relative to their value today. This is a question that clear-thinking people will disagree about.
If the warming is small, we don’t need to reduce greenhouses gases at all. Clear thinking people don’t ask what rate to discount nothing.
- In the governance of climate change what role do we allocate to markets? Many arguments about climate change, as about environmental management more generally, revolve around whether commodifying nature, by pricing environmental “goods” and “services”, is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
If CO2 doesn’t make much difference, we don’t need governance. (What politician wants to hear that?)
- How do we wish new technologies to be governed, from experimentation and development to deployment? This question might revolve around new or improved low-carbon energy technologies (such as fracking, nuclear power, or hydrogen fuel), the use of genetically modified crops as a means to adapt to changing climate, or proposed climate engineering technologies. Again, these are not questions upon which science, least of all a scientific consensus, can adjudicate.
Renewables? We didn’t need to ask scientists in the first place, we just needed to let the free market work. If renewables were useful they’d make cheap electricity and everyone would want them.
- What is the role of national governments as opposed to those played by multilateral treaties or international governing bodies? This requires citizens to reflect on forms of democracy and representation. They are no less important in relation to climate change than they are in relation to state security, immigration or financial regulation.
Yes, finally a question that does not need science. It’s answered by history pretty darn well. Big Government has killed and incarcerated millions, shall we do that experiment again? Even in it’s most benevolent kind form (aka the EU) we see productive economies reduced to flaming wrecks, with mobs in streets rioting over their lost hand-outs and 50% youth unemployment.
Not only does he fool The Conversation editors (not much of a task), but many of the commenters fail to see the transparent ruse and the obvious contradictions. If we don’t care how much warming is coming, why not axe all the climate research right now? In one fell swoop we save billions. Let’s rush those funds towards studies on discount rates of more-or-less crops in 2100. And we don’t know if extra deaths are coming, but we ought know exactly what the cost of the death-or-not-death will be, right?
At the most optimistic I would say Hulme’s admission means only that one alarmist politician thinks that the alarmist scientists and the consensus arguments are starting to be a drag on the propaganda campaign, and his answer is try to reframe the debate, improbably, as if all scientists are irrelevant. Should skeptics call this a win? Not much — though it is a loss for Cook. But as long as our tax funds are used to pay editors and politicians who post transparent drivel it just means the debate has moved from one swamp to another. It’s progress I suppose on the road back from the climate cult, but it’s only a side-step.
This is the same old boring “the debate is over” argument. The only difference is this time he’s not lauding “The Scientists”, just pretending science is irrelevant and saying we should focus on politics.
In his dreams people would just assume that there is no debate. Those days are gone.
The desperation is palpable..
They can see the natural cycle of the sun is starting to play havoc with their agenda.
That’s why the rush, before it become so bleeding obvious even a monkey could see it.
And what about his money train, how much investment and income does he have at stake.
330
I do not get that the desperation is palpable. But he is smart enough to realize that Cook is a black hole that needs to be done away with. He is just not honest enough to say it is pure garbage.
But there is desperation in his comments. As Joanne notes, he is trying to do the old shell game with clear classes, not shells. I am sure he will be shocked with the customer tells him the pea is in his hand, not under the cups.
60
This is a historic walk of some of the “End of the World” attempts since the 1880’s
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/02/04/a-historical-perspective-on-hysterical-rhetoric/
At the end of the page are more historic amussing end of the world stories
60
This is what is called “post normal science”. People fail to understand what it means when the lefties use that term. It is best understood if we rewrite it — “After normal science”. It stands for the political process occurring after “the science is settled”.
Since the kooky lefties believe “the science is settled” then what else is there to debate but the political solution?
As an example — In the old Soviet Union the “science” of Communist economic theory was settled. The implementation of Communism (how to implement it) was the “post normal science” of the Soviet Union. Nobody disputed the “science” of Communism (or you died quickly) but the party spent its time working on the implementation.
Eugene WR Gallun
290
This comment reminded me of a classic MemoryVault post from a couple of years ago.
The “rules” of “old” chemistry have not changed.
However, with CAGW we are dealing with “post-modern chemistry”.
In post-modern chemistry there are no “rules”, only “socially desired outcomes”.
In this post-modern chemistry the perception of the inputs are massaged to meet the needs of the desired outcomes.
Still – who knows?
The last guy to mess around with this concept had a predilection for turning water into wine.
So some good may come of it after all.
250
“The last guy to mess around with this concept had a predilection for turning water into wine.
So some good may come of it after all.”
He also had power over the weather,which makes any efforts to change the climate superfluous!
00
It’s not going to get better with the educators reading from the same playbook. What will happen when all the kids have been thoroughly trained to believe what they’re told and not ask questions? We’re heading that way in the USA and Australia is only a little ahead of us:
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/
70
Ref: “Since the kooky lefties believe “the science is settled” then what else is there to debate but the political solution?”
I would rather instead Write: Since the kooky lefties believe “the science is settled” then what else is there to debate but the one and only political solution?
40
Exactly !
These global warming cretins still believe that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd from the clean end…….
00
Hulme can try a different shade of lipstick but that pig just doesn’t get any better looking, I shudder to think what’s next in this makeover.
300
What I’m waiting for is consensus crumble. It will start slowly, as those scientists with balls opt out of the narrative. Then it will get interesting.
171
So his conclusion is that politics can/can’t/might control the future climate better that science can/can’t/might?
LOL! 🙂
140
Good article.. please do not use the word “methinks” in a serious post like this. It makes it look like amateur-hour blogging. Other than that, excellent work.
625
Methinks you are a pedant.
Methinks you are a soft “ex-lefty”. Red thumb for you, pal!
148
A bit harsh on the red thumb there scaper. He did say it was a good article and that it was excellent work.
80
Methinks, were you not once a leftie, thou wouldst accept said verb as part of the common language.
31
yea verily! (used to be popular in mission control in Houston during Apollo, I read)
10
Methinks we shouldn’t criticise someone who’s woken up over something as simple as a blog word.
80
hear, hear!
00
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” – Hamlet Act III Scene II
Good enough for Shakespeare, good enough for Jo. 😉
240
I just love this Heywood comment, it gave me such pleasure. Good on you Heywood, last time I saw a better slam dunk I was watching The Bulls led by one Michael Jordan.
Now James x leftie; in situations like this, what one does is dips their lid, slowly gives way, then proceeds to crack open a frothie, put ones feet up on the coffee table and read the comments on this thread and read the label on the beer bottle after every deep swallow, admiring how enjoyable and satisfying both are.
“You can get it stuck in a bog;
“You can get it COMMENTING ON A BLOG;
“You can get it SELLING A COW……..
“As a matter of fact I got it now.
50
Methinks thou doth protest too muche.
“Methinks” is a perfectly good Elizabethan word, that has obviously withstood the test of time, along with “thou” and “doth”, both of which appear in the Anglican wedding service:
(“Doth thou, [insert Christian name here], take …)
92
That word just stands out and brings an otherwise professional sounding article sound like a twitter post scrolling along the bottom of the screen on Q&A.
It doesn’t bother me personally, but I like to post these articles on forums and forward them to friends and family.
52
Are you implying that your social circle is not well-read? Methinks you do them an injustice. Your years of knee-jerk leftism ihas left deep scars on your psyche. I suggest reading, “The Road To Serfdom”, until you are more in control of your urges. 🙂
121
it’s the content that matters, the style, not so much.
80
Poor James, walked into a bees-nest.
This forum has many people, who say things in many different styles.. Go with the flow, dude. 🙂
Its what is said that is important, not necessarily the language used to say it.
60
Come now james, the original post reads like typical climate “skeptic” rubbish. The use of “methinks” can hardly lower the tone.
339
‘The use of “methinks” can hardly lower the tone.’
–
Ever reliable warmist ad hom is what lowers the tone.
110
And your post reads like its from a ignorant brain-washed moron..
….and definitely does lower the tone.
50
Nobody lowers the tone quite like Mr Head Tilt. Don’t you have university toilets to mop?
50
You’ve given up too John but like all lefties that simply means being rude and sulky; anything except admit you made a mistake supporting the stupid scam called AGW.
Just think, exhaling makes the world a worse place; what an idea, let’s call it AGW, promote it and make lot’s of money; there are plenty of fools out there who will support it!
32
Your presence here “John Brookes” lowers the tone !
01
In James defense, Mirriam Webster Dictionary says it’s archaic and the Urban Dictionary says “A really pretentious and annoying way to say “I think.”” Oxford Dictionary calls it archaic or humorous. Perhaps the “humor” was evident to all?
60
““A really pretentious and annoying …..”
Then how could an ex-leftie possibly find fault..
..does it remind him of what he once was. 🙂
60
The OED probably calls it,”humorous”. On my side of the Pond, Methinks is generally used in a slightly satirical way, and also drops the, “I” count. It’s a useful word.
30
But you must admit, Sheri, that it was a great diversionary tactic to get everybody talking off-topic – “Oh look, isn’t that [insert todays hot celeb]?” 🙂
00
Yes, it was.
00
“It seems to me” that the urban dictionary does not know what methinks means.
03
The new study from Friends of Science seem to point to a 97% non-consensus:
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/97-non-consensus-with-cagw.html
70
Yes indeed !
That 97% agree that man made global warming is BS….
00
Hulme’s four points should come as part of a coherent argument for policy.
First is the “scientific” case, which does not get off the ground.
Second, there is Mike Hulme’s moral/political case against policy. This, as Jo explains, he vastly understates.
Third, there is no policy that will deliver benefits greater than the costs.
All three are necessary for policy to achieve a net position that is “better” than no policy. All three fail.
160
Is this post MBC “coming out” ?
20
Nice summary MBC. It seems to me that Hulme is on the short road to irrelevancy.
40
I am not sure that I agree with Mike Hulme’s being on the “road to irrelevancy”. He has been a leading climate scientist for years, and part of the core team from the climate science emails. Yet he has quite fundamentally questioned the role of climate science. Before Jo posted, I summarised Hulme’s four points.
I was at University studying economics when Brezhnev died and had graduated when Gorbachev came to power. Gorbachev was no great reformer or lover of freedom. But he did allow people to question without fear of being shipped off to a labor camp in Siberia or a mental institution. That was sufficient to allow the falsity and pretence to crumble. When the edifice crumbled it happened rapidly. The powerful leaders like Eric Honecker were quickly turned into sad and small old men.
Hulme raises some rather limited questions. But they do amount to saying that a prediction of climate catastrophe is far from sufficient to justify policy. As a key figure in the consensus, it is not easy to “out” Mike Hulme as a denier of science, in the pay of big oil, or a conspiracy-loving weirdo. Further questioning will mean that the tight leash that the Lewandowsky-Cook-Mann faction try to exert will be broken, and other figures will break ranks, causing the edifice to eventually break.
In the 1970s there was in diplomatic circles the study of Kremlinology – the study of glacial power shifts in the Kremlin and other Warsaw Pact Countries, between the hardliners and those who advocated a softer approach. There could be a similar study of the shifts in the factions around internal politics of climatology. Problem is, there is no one focus that I can easily add “ology” to the end.
32
[…] Nova discusses Mike Hulme’s four points here. Share this:GoogleLike this:Like […]
00
May be Michael Hulme is checking the media and blogs reactions in prevision of the publication of the next IPCC AR5 reports (of WG II & III) which will be even less scientific than the first part of AR5 on the “scientifc” basis of global warming.
20
here’s a survey of the ***ignorant, being spruiked by a guy you can really trust?
5 Feb: Canberra Times: Simon Corbell: National capital energised about climate change
(Simon Corbell is Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development)
Extended heatwaves have emerged yet again to subject large swathes of south-eastern Australia to relentless extreme heat and very low rainfall. The country is parched, crops, trees and communities wilting under the baking conditions and electricity demand pushing power networks to the brink. In Canberra, emergency services have activated extreme heat event plans, and fire services have been placed on high alert.
I have no doubt this is a foretaste of what a warming climate means for our city and our region…
A recent survey commissioned by the ACT government of almost 1200 residents found that 76 per cent considered action by the ACT government to reduce the city’s carbon emissions was moderately or very urgent. Eighty-one per cent stated they wanted the government to show strong leadership in helping residents to reduce their emissions and were prepared to accept reasonable costs in doing so.
Canberrans considered a cost of $1.61 per day acceptable to implement the technologies and policies needed to reduce the city’s carbon emissions.
***The survey also found that despite this strong level of support, only 40 per cent were aware of ACT government plans to meet our greenhouse gas targets of a 40 per cent reduction on 1990 levels by 2020….
Of the 10 key actions in AP2 put to respondents in the survey, 73 per cent to 95 per cent supported all 10 measures, with eight of the 10 actions receiving more than 80 per cent support. The most significant of the AP2 actions now being implemented had very high levels of support. The shift to large-scale renewable energy generation by 2020 was endorsed by 87 per cent of respondents. Renewable energy will do much of the heavy lifting to meet our 2020 carbon target, achieving estimated abatement of 1.47 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent. This means the deployment of large-scale solar and wind generation in the ACT and surrounding regions…
To cut Canberra’s annual carbon emissions by 2 million tonnes by 2020 will require a further 450 MW of renewable energy generating capacity. The government will shortly consider how wind, waste to energy facilities and further solar projects will play their part. In particular wind generation could significantly expanded, if the reverse auction process applied to the solar farm developments is also used for wind farms…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/national-capital-energised-about-climate-change-20140204-31zcl.html
a recipe for disaster?
60
Pat. Looks like the Gore Effect is about to kick in.
http://weather.perthnow.com.au/synoptic/?d=6
Don’t Warmist pollies ever check the Met before pontification?
60
Pat;
there are 3 known methods of reducing CO2 emissions from electricity generation. In increasing order of cost they are:
1. boost the efficiency of coal fired stations see TonyfromOz
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/upgrade-coal-power-and-cut-15-of-emissions-will-the-greens-consider-coal/
2. use CCGT only (with minimal OCGT for variations in demand).
3. Use nuclear for approx. 80% of peak demand.
Greenies are AGAINST ALL of these, therefore Greenies are AGAINST any reduction in CO2 emissions.
They want the “problem” to remain so they can push their own IMPRACTICAL, EXPENSIVE and USELESS measures.
190
“They want the “problem” to remain so they can push their own IMPRACTICAL, EXPENSIVE and USELESS measures”
None of which decrease CO2 emissions in any way, because they cost heaps of CO2 and massive amounts of real pollution to make,
and because they all need on-line real energy back-up to have any semblance of reliability.
90
Absolutely. The problem is esential because they view themselves as the solution.
Oh, the inconvenience of having to reinvent themselves!
10
Why worry about “plant food” (carbon DIOXIDE) at all when it is not a problem ?????????
00
If today’s heatwaves are called extended……then what the hell do you call the most consecutive days of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or above, during a period of 160 days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924…????
Hint….a world record that hasn’t even been close to being broken in 90 years!
10
Longer term players and spectators may recognize this as the chickens coming home to roost.
The prolonged corruption of science by politics and the failure of the majority of real scientists to point to the corruption has resulted in science being deemed “irrelevant”.
It no longer matters what scientists say. Politicians and bureaucrats will do as they please; excused by the declared irrelevance of science to pay any attention to what’s happening in the real world.
The political classes thrive on certainty; even if they are unsure and in that which they are certain changes at a whim; they remain certain. That is of course the antithesis of the proper conduct of science.
110
Professor Lindzen made the clear point at the IPCC 5th Assessment Review parliamentary select committee meeting that whatever you ‘do’ about climate change™, the effects on people are certain (and harmful) and the effects on climate uncertain and no public policy beats doing nothing.
That was something the chairman (Yeo) and members on the left didn’t want to hear.
190
Yeah, but Professor Lindzen also used to say that tobacco wasn’t harmful. So I’m not listening to him.
136
Let’s see. Using your logic, because Sir Isaac Newton believed in alchemy we should ignore anything he had to say. That, and logic similar to that, explains most of your comments on this blog.
210
Descartes believed that tears were a leaky brain. What an idiot!
80
What?
00
Sarcasm, Sheri. Descartes did actually believe it was humour from the brain but it doesn’t make him an idiot.
10
In a way, he was actually correct.
Tears happen when one of our emotions gets overloaded, be it laughter, sadness, pain etc. Emotions are a mental response, of the brain.
10
Got it. I did the same thing on another forum this morning–thought it was clear I was being sarcastic but it wasn’t. As annoying as the /sarc tag is, I suppose sometimes it is handy. Is there an emoticon that reflects sarcasm? (No, I’m not being sarcastic.)
00
Griss, ‘humour’ as in ‘funny’ comes from ‘humour’ – liquid from the body, so ‘humourful’ is so funny it makes your eyes (brain) leak.
00
John, You are a liar and a lemming! Care to show the quote that Lindzen said that tobacco was not harmful? I could not find it. Unlike you, you indolent slug, I took a few minutes to search the internet for the quote and could not find it. You would think with all of the claims I found on my search that he was paid by the tobacco industry to say so that there would have been at least one quotation to verify the claim?
However, I did find the following http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/webextras/richardlindzen_transcript.pdf:
I await your vapid, inane and brain dead response!
372
Eddy, if he is “vapid, inane and brain dead” you’re not going to get a response; or at least one worth reading!
Poor John, like all alarmists, has invested his ego in AGW and now it is revealed to be a scam can’t admit to being wrong.
That character defect would be amusing if it were not for the fact that all the alarmists are like this and their obdurate inability to admit they are wrong will see the AGW industry continue to waste $billions.
40
Brookes-Nice reference here for you to check before posting: http://www.logicalfallacies.info
I’ll let you research which one you just committed.
80
Strictly speaking tobacco isn’t harmful, cigarettes are – it’s all in the way it’s processed.
21
James, you can accurately say that second hand smoke is for all practical intents and purposes harmless. Yes, it’s smelley but it’s effects are broadly inseparable from the effects of a wide range of atmospheric particulate pollution, anthropogenic or naturally derived.
The more concentrated inhalation of smoke is (whether ‘natural’ or adulterated) is however far more likely to be troublesome. Our forbears struggled in huts without chimmneys. Smokers of whatever persuasion or dose are more likely to run into respiratory trouble. There is however, the citical matter of dose, not only toxicity. This is a more inconvenient problem with the anti-smoking activist. They avoid the ‘dose’ discussion. There is a point below which the effect of low dose smoking becomes difficult or impossible to discern from background pollution.
As you know, one Mars Bar a year does not a non-insulin diabetic make. The odd tobacco dried tobacco leaf is similarly, likely neither here nor there, much as the odd ciggy.
71
The consensus said that arctic ice would disappear in 2013, and that by 2010, snow would be a thing of the past in the NH. I’m not listening to you either.
110
Brookes, in listening to that Committee debate you’ll have heard the discourse regarding WWF/ Greenpeace activists holding review positions in the IPCC process and not only not being objective but being seen to be objective.
Presumably you exclude them also on the basis of COI, lack of objectivity, being seen to be objective?
How refreshing.
40
Who was talking about libel earlier?
10
Brooksie found the Big Tobacco Argument key.
20
John,
Need I ask? Have you ever said or thought anything that was in error? By your own implied principle, you cannot ever again say or think anything worth listening to and understanding. No matter how right it might accidentally be, it is immediately, catastrophically, and absolutely wrong in any context exactly because you once made a mistake.
The clear conclusion, from your implied principle, is that we need not pay any more attention to your confabulations nor even consider taking any of them seriously.
10
I doubt there is a way to remove the stain of corruption from science in a hurry thanks to the global warming scientists. It might take decades to restore the credibility of science. The global warming scientists don’t know yet what damage they have done. The greed for funding is still blinding them from the truth.
240
Would you like to name some names so you can get charged with libel?
134
You don’t get charged with Libel. You get sued for Libel!
Unless Libel is in the Crimes Act, which I don’t think it is.
160
Also await summons from Professor Richard Lindzen!
140
John, are you so naive as to believe that climate scientists are any less human than other scientists that rely on grant money to pay their bills?
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble
Is that two watt bulb of a brain of your beginning to wax bright or do I need to draw you a picture with an etch a sketch?
201
Mighty generous with your watts there Eddy, ‘course his could be running at a fraction of Designed voltage. 🙂
110
A thing about common 2W bulbs: They only come on when somebody opens the door.
20
Eddy,
You said …
I suspect that John Brookes would not be able to comprehend anything drawn with any more detail than you can get with crayons …
50
John, you more than demonstrate the ability to carry a good argument please don’t resort to the typical alarmist threats of litigation when you have no answers.
70
So which are you..
A trougher..
or a moronic brain-washed anti-environmentalist?
or , I suspect… both!
60
Its hard to prove a scientist didn’t just make a mistake, as in The Hockey Stick fiasco. Mann claims that he always maintained that the uncertainty was high before 1400 but he never spoke out when alarmist claims were being made.
How badly does the science have to get is best exemplified by the Cook paper. Here is someone who has a comfortable job at a university despite not having higher qualifications to lecture in science, who wrote a poor paper with a propaganda bent. Its the tax payers money and tuition fees that are meant to pay for academic excellence that was used to produce propaganda rather than scientific analysis.
80
of hubs and sub-hubs:
5 Feb: Reuters: Jeff Mason: U.S. to launch ‘climate hubs’ to help farmers face climate change
President Barack Obama’s administration will announce on Wednesday the formation of seven “climate hubs” to help farmers and rural communities adapt to extreme weather conditions and other effects of climate change, a White House official said.
The hubs will act as information centers and aim to help farmers and ranchers handle risks, including fires, pests, floods and droughts, that are exacerbated by global warming.
The hubs will be located in Ames, Iowa; Durham, New Hampshire; Raleigh, North Carolina; Fort Collins, Colorado; El Reno, Oklahoma; Corvallis, Oregon; and Las Cruces, New Mexico, the official said.
Additional “sub hubs” will be set up in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico; Davis, California; and Houghton, Michigan.
The hubs are an example of executive actions Obama has promised to take to fight climate change…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/05/us-usa-climate-hubs-idUSBREA1408120140205
10
4 Feb: Gizmodo: Geoff Manaugh: Will Smallpox Reemerge In Siberia As Corpses Thaw From Climate Change?
In an article primarily about the potential folly of holding onto stockpiles of smallpox virus for research purposes — a now-eradicated plague that humans no longer have natural immunity to and that would very likely cause a worldwide catastrophe should it escape from the lab — the BBC includes one awesomely horrible detail. Could the frozen bodies of smallpox victims in Siberia, now thawing because of climate change, re-release the virus into the environment and thus start a global pandemic?…
Writing for Science back in March 2002, for example, in an article straight-forwardly entitled “Is Live Smallpox Lurking in the Arctic?,” author Richard Stone describes a scene that he likens to the Blair Witch Project. It’s both stomach-turning and awesomely macabre…
The idea of long-frozen things coming back to life — or, at least, emerging once again into fresh air — was also raised last week by Smithsonian‘s look at one of my favourite stories of recent times: the blood-red “waterfall” that has emerged in Antarctica as the glacier above it melts…
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/02/will-smallpox-reemerge-in-siberia-as-corpses-thaw-from-climate-change/
31 Jan: BBC: Rachel Nuwer: Smallpox: Last refuge of an ultimate killer
In the past, some researchers and news outlets speculated that smallpox in the frozen graves of former victims might remain in suspended animation, ready to begin a new cycle of infection should those bodies ever be dug up and unthawed…
“No one feels there’s a serious chance that global warming will melt the permafrost and unleash an epidemic,” says Michael Lane, who served as director of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) smallpox eradication programme from 1970 until 1981, when it was declared a success and shut down…
So how do we know that additional smallpox samples are not also hoarded away in some terrorist hideout, or stuck in an old vial in the back of a forgotten freezer? “We don’t,” Lane says. “There’s no way to prove a negative.”…
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140130-last-refuge-of-an-ultimate-killer/all
the BBC writer, Rachel Nuwer – surely it isn’t this UEA person!
About Rachel Nuwer
Rachel Nuwer’s love for nature and science was kicked off by a childhood exploring the bayous and beaches of southern Mississippi. As a biology student at Loyola University New Orleans, she researched Mekong River fishes in Laos, sparking a passion for travel and exploration. This wunderlust has since taken her to 49 countries – six of which she lived in.
In 2010 Rachel returned to Southeast Asia to investigate illegal wildlife trade and natural resource use in Vietnam for her ecology master’s thesis at the University of East Anglia, England. She published that research in the scientific journal Oryx.
In 2011, She earned a second master’s degree at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Writing Program (SHERP).
She writes for venues such as The New York Times, Smithsonian, Scientific American, the New Scientist, Wired UK, Audubon Magazine, Slate, Popular Mechanics, ScienceNOW, OnEarth, NOVA, Scholastic, Edible Magazine, and others, and blogs for Smithsonian. She also publishes a column, Last Place on Earth, on BBC Future. She lives in Brooklyn.
http://rachelnuwer.com/about/
i just clicked on her name on the BBC page and it says (no UEA, of course):
About the author
Rachel Nuwer is a science journalist who contributes to venues such as The New York Times, Scientific American and Smithsonian. Her website is rachelnuwer.com and you can follow her on twitter at @rachelnuwer. She lives in Brooklyn.
00
“It was always about the politics all along.” My BS detector has been telling me that for years.
80
I still remember clearly in 1986 in Yr 11 Physics, as I was being lectured on how coal powered stations might more polluting than nuclear, thinking that someone wants to sell more nuclear power stations.
50
Hulme, the Marxist professor plays another mind game, thing is Mike we read you a long time ago and honestly mate – you should change the record because we’ve heard this one many times before.
130
Hulme is behaving exactly as none of the apparatchiks in the old Soviet Union.
60
Marxists unite ter combat
globul warming…ummm
… climate disruption …
well …er … climate change?
beth the serf.
100
Jo, Mike Hulme has admitted that academia does not have all the answers. This may not sound much to us outside as we always knew this, but to those inside academia, it is a very momentous first step toward looking outside academia for answers – indeed, in part it is an admission that academia has been wrong.
We already knew this, so it doesn’t appear a big deal, but I assure you it is, because once people like Mike Hulme stop being focussed solely on academia, and start looking outward from academia for solutions, then our job of sceptics will be largely done.
Because once they start looking outward, they will see that there is a lot of expertise that they have formerly rejected – much of it in the “sceptic” community.
In other words, he is opening the door to look outside, and I think if all he gets is mud hurled at him, he is very likely just to close that door again.
So, whilst there is undoubtedly some appalling previous comments, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’ve written an extensive reply on my blog Scottish Sceptic: Reply to Mike Hulme
To summarise: thanks for trying to move the debate forward. But, science is more than just academia and whilst it is good that academia is beginning to realise it doesn’t have all the answers, the answer is not to hand over the problem to a group of largely scientific illiterate politicians. You should realise that science does not stop at the gates of Universities and there are many outside who are very scientifically literate who academics are going to have to learn to trust on this subject.
100
Why is science irrelevant?
Is it because it failed to verify what was thought to be a problem is actually aproblem? That it hasn’t identified a plausible, falsifiable mechanisms for managing the climate and to prevent further climate change (after billions of years of natural climate change)?
It’s politics that has failed to deliver to the public what it needs. Politics obsessed with particular ideologies that blind it to a world where there is only change.
The futility of trying to stop the world from changing was known before it was famously demonstrated by King Cnut.
Voltaire said
10
Talk about giving someone a new one.
Excellent read Jo.
My heads still spinning.
50
That makes 3..
The one he was born with, the one he has become, and the one Jo just ripped him. !
60
Hulme is being annoying, but correct. It is time to stop arguing about the science and plan the policy. If (and its rather unlikely) the current science turns out to be dramatically wrong, then we undo the policy. Easy really.
But of course the favoured scenario here is to keep arguing about the science and never even start thinking about what policies to adopt.
037
What science? You put the cart before the horse again. Or, more appropriately for this thread, palmed the pea.
It is time to START arguing the science. There has been no debate on it since the religion of climate alarmism will not allow anyone to debate their god.
You do not start hacking off body parts when a patient has a sniffle, at least not in modern medicine. But apparently Climate Alarmism does.
180
Thats right, and no matter how clearly the science says that continuing to emit CO2 will be bad, we need to keep arguing about the science.
036
John, if you remember the hole in the ozone layer issue back in the 70’s pretty much everyone jumped on board, there didn’t seem to be a lot of argument because it appeared to be clear cut so people did what they had to do. This sea level rise – CO2 – global warming – climate change – catastrophe band wagon is not clear cut and the more its proponents push the more outlandish the claims become, the more people will question the real agenda. Your an intelligent man so start thinking for yourself.
120
The science says nothing of the sort…
..only the control-hungry politicians, the trough dwelling climate scientists, and all their brain-washed hangers-on say that.
110
Again, what evidence? Increased crop yields? Delaying the return of the next glaciation? Increasing arable land?
Keep moving that pea. I am sure you can keep fooling yourself, but everyone else sees through the clear glass.
130
You must be missing your lunch time talks with Lewendowsky by now, hey JB.
Now that would really be an empty conversation.
30
“the science”?
Get up out of your chair. Walk to the wall where your Bachelor’s is hanging. Remove it from the frame. Cut it into squares of 11×11 cm. Take them to the toilet.
20
I so do love your comment!
00
John you dope, AGW has been disproved so many times it must hold the zombie record.
2 recent dis-proofs:
1 OLR is increasing.
2 Back-radiation is not from CO2 but water vapour. The graph is from Modtran’s radiation data which shows back-radiation from CO2 only occurs when humidity is less than 1%.
AGW is scientifically dead John; what does that make you; a member of a death cult?
60
Yes “John Brookes” certainly palmed something……
00
So you would spend billions to try and mitigate weather…talk about an air-head!!!
130
What makes you think we are not planning for climate change? Stopping CO2 emmissions is not the only way to plan, though you wouldn’t know it by reading climate “scientists” and politicians. Believe it or not, we might not want to redistribute income in a vain attempt to deal with warming or cooling. Maybe, we want more sources of cheap energy, maybe we want industry to work on ways to make energy without as much pollution (note that this eliminates turbines and solar right up front), that we should build homes with more resistance to cold, hot, wet, dry, etc. In other words, plan for whatever can come. I have evaporative cooling and a furnace in my house, extra shingles for when the wind rips off the ones I have, a garage should a tornado show up (I live in a mobile home–tornadoes are attracted to those…..not scientifically proven, of course), I can reroute water from excessive rains to be used to my advantage, I grow short season crops. This is how we work with the possiblilty of climate change. It’s pretty simple, really.
80
You seem to have a smaller carbon footprint and live a more sustainable lifestyle than Al Gore or Jon Stewart. I’m I missing something? Is your blender hooked up to a Chev 454?
60
Here is a spooky little opinion piece by Mann in the NYT followed by a lame attempt to use the poor, as a crutch, to justify carbon fee’s.
If You See Something, Say Something (HIS WORDS).
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/if-you-see-something-say-something.html
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — THE overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that human-caused climate change is happening. Yet a fringe minority of our populace clings to an irrational rejection of well-established science. This virulent strain of anti-science infects the halls of Congress, the pages of leading newspapers and what we see on TV, leading to the appearance of a debate where none should exist.
In fact, there is broad agreement among climate scientists not only that climate change is real (a survey and a review of the scientific literature published say about 97 percent agree), but that we must respond to the dangers of a warming planet. If one is looking for real differences among mainstream scientists, they can be found on two fronts: the precise implications of those higher temperatures, and which technologies and policies offer the best solution to reducing, on a global scale, the emission of greenhouse gases.
For example, should we go full-bore on nuclear power? Invest in and deploy renewable energy — wind, solar and geothermal — on a huge scale? Price carbon emissions through cap-and-trade legislation or by imposing a carbon tax? Until the public fully understands the danger of our present trajectory, those debates are likely to continue to founder…
===============
“One solution could fight both global extreme poverty and climate change,” Michael Howard, University of Maine
http://researchshows.bangordailynews.com/2014/02/04/home/one-solution-could-fight-both-global-extreme-poverty-and-climate-change-michael-howard-university-of-maine/
Global extreme poverty is an urgent and persistent, but ultimately solvable, problem. One partial solution to such widespread poverty could also help to mitigate the growing impacts of climate change: the development of a universal dividend funded by a universal carbon fee…
…The evidence shows that for the world’s poorest, a relatively small guaranteed income can go a long way in lifting them out of extreme poverty. One promising model is the creation of a resource dividend, such as the Alaska dividend. As proposed in an earlier U.S. Senate bill, carbon is one resource that could become the basis for a universal social dividend.
If carbon fees were instituted everywhere, say at $20 per ton of carbon dioxide, and a dividend were given to every person globally, it would amount to twice as much as the basic income in the Indian experiment. Carbon fees are desirable independently as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while the dividend benefits poorer households despite the increase in prices.
20
“Global extreme poverty is an urgent and persistent, but ultimately solvable, problem. One partial solution to such widespread poverty could also help to mitigate the growing impacts of climate change: the development of a universal dividend funded by a universal carbon fee…”
I think this sentence summarizes what Global Warming / Climate Change / Climate Mitigation is all about…there is no science, there are no verifiable facts…it’s just about the money, and the socialists / communists have all the answers and technics to resolve this issue for the whole of earths population.
90
Interesting to note the oft repeated expression “living science”, presumably, from alarmists being interviewed in a recent Brit panel interview that included Lindzen on the other side.
What on Earth is “living science”? How about a bit of fair dinkum science?
There is little doubt that there is no adequate scientific theory that relates increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global warming in a highly complex, chaotic non linear Earth climate system.
What we do have is a “partial” science that deals with the effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 in a simple isolated situation. Clearly the complexity of Earth’s Climate system invalidates the historic GHG theory as a useful tool to examine global warming in terms of the Greenhouse Gas CO2.
Mann and other alarmists’ science consists of observations that do not accord with the models, presumably incorporating the grossly inadequate GHG theory. So what is the nature of Mann et al science? There appears to be none beyond snippets of unrelated science used to give the impression the alarmists have science on their side.
What that leaves them with is a statistical manipulation of numbers which they imagine is called science.
80
This from the guy who thinks the crack in his behind was made for fence sitting.
40
Eddie, I think you’re wrong. When he dies, he wants to be buried face down with his behind above the ground to be used as a bike rack.
70
Obama launches ‘climate hubs’ to help farmers and communities
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/197487-obama-launches-climate-hubs-to-help-farmers-communities-battle-climate
The Obama administration will announce the establishment of regional hubs focused on mitigating climate change on Wednesday.
The hubs are the first-ever regional centers that will focus solely on risk adaptation and climate change solutions at seven locations across the country.
“On the heels of passage of the farm bill, the administration will take executive action to help farmers, ranchers and rural communities combat climate change and adapt to extreme weather and other damage it causes,” a White House official said in an email ahead of Wednesday’s announcement…
…The seven designated locations for the hubs will service the surrounding region with climate change information and outreach.
The new climate hubs will be established in Iowa North Carolina, New Hampshire, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon New Mexico.
There will also be three sub-hubs in Michigan, Puerto Rico and California.
10
And we have years left for this person to run rough-shod on our economy. Hopefully, this will be yet another unconstitutional application of executive power.
70
crikey.. the guy really is aiming at dictatorship, isn’t he.
setting up little control hubs to tell farmers what to do..
I wonder what emblem they will use when they come knocking at the doors.
90
–
“I wonder what emblem they will use when they come knocking at the doors.”
–
–
A hammer and hockey-stick, and a photo of Dana Nuccitelli to show what’ll happen if you don’t submit!!!
00
And why the heck by “executive action”..
that means bypassing all of the American constitution, doesn’t it ?
Are they at war or something ?
70
I wonder how he’ll be appointing the Gauleiter
10
How the hell did this oBUMMER ever get elected as president???
He needs to be gone !!
00
I see it’s still all about money – money to fund only those scientists who proclaim that man is causing catastrophic climate change, rather than money to fund scientists who seek the truth. Yet those so called global warming scientists keep saying the debate is over. Well, if the debate is over then why keep funding them? Of course intelligent people know for a fact the debate is not over. In fact it never really officially started. The global warming scientists and politicians have hijacked the debate and twisted things around to paint a false picture. Those scientists who are in bed with the politicians are a disgrace to the traditions of real science.
90
It is about the money. While facts are very helpful, following the money is huge. We have been following hundreds of shell and shelf LLC’s among other things of one company (there are others too) and will continue to do so.
Here are some pointers from an investigative journalist that toppled a President (Estrada).
Capture the Imagination
http://bit.ly/Mqmbwo
Sheila Coronel is the director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Last month, she was named as the next academic dean of the journalism school, a position she will assume in July. Prior to joining Columbia, Coronel founded the Phillippine Center for Investigative Journalism, where her reporting on corruption and graft by then-President Joseph Estrada helped bring about his impeachment and subsequent resignation. She recently spoke with ICIJ for its “Secrets of the Masters” series.
As the director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, your reporting revealed the massive personal fortune compiled by then-President Joseph Estrada. How did you report that story and what were your main findings?
That story was fundamentally a way of proving corruption – not by getting evidence of the actual corrupt acts, which was difficult, but by investigating where the proceeds of corruption went. We had heard rumors of large-scale bribery and commissions from government contracts and the sale of shares in state-owned companies. Because it was almost impossible to prove bribery, we decided to go after the fruits of bribery instead…
…Estrada was a former movie star who had five mistresses and he was building fabulous mansions in the ritziest parts of Manila for them. None of these properties were in his or his family members’ names. They were registered in the names of shell companies and it was difficult to show real ownership. What we were able to do was establish a pattern in the acquisitions: the same law firms were used to incorporate the companies, the same nominees fronted for the purchases, the same architects were used, the same interior designers, landscape architects, etc.
50
If were going to forget about The Science & just get on with The Spending, the next Climate sensitivity, ie. How much warming averted for a doubling of Spending.
Or do we just keep doubling with nothing but a hope & a prayer that it’ll be alright.
No problem when it’s just more of that OPM of the masses, other people’s money.
90
Well he misses to address the past and the experience accumulated so far.
What has the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere caused so far?
– maybe caused an increase of 0.7°C in temperature – alarmists keep pointing at it and make irrealistic projections that are shown dead wrong by reality. It more looks like the increase was caused by natural cycles and maybe, just maybe some influence from the CO2 increase
– what is more important the increase in CO2 cause extra food for 1 of the 7 billion people of the planet. This is undeniable. Lumo demonstrates is very nicely here:
http://motls.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/ipcc-wg3-plans-to-suck-excess-co2-and.html
But alarmists keep on focusing on their projections from the first point and totally ignore the second.
The effect so far was beneficial no matter how much they try to paint it dark. The alarmists dishonesty is unbelievable.
100
Hulme’s article was written in response to the HoC Select Committee interviews during their consideration of IPCC AR5.
He may have called the Cook paper “infamous” but does not actually reject it, deeming it “irrelevant”, putting his own
question on CAGW “what are WE going to do about it”. If the WE includes the BRIC nations, the answer is NOTHING because they never believed the CAGW narrative in the first place.
The 1992 Rio conference “settled the science” , the whole world endorsing the UNFCCC on condition that only the “developed” nations would pay the price, confirmed at Kyoto 1999.
Hulme declares “politics, not science, must take centre stage”. No change there then. It is significant that recognises this but, in doing so, tacitly admits that “the science” has always been subordinate to the narrative. The lethal observation, now irrefutable, is that the energy policies of China and India will each negate all of the actions of the “Developed” nations and their impoverished public is not going to such this up.
A HoC select committee has no actual authority but maintains credibility by providing support for desired actions by those who have. They will not contest the world authority of the IPCC but will point to exit routes extricate their party bosses from the abyss (except for the Lib-Dems who live there). If you watch the video of the proceedings, ignore the arguments but observe the body language of the committee.
Myles Allen comes across as a conceited prick, not lost on the underrated Glaswegian MP John Robertson whose remark on aerosols, lost on all but his constituents, was a fine piece of piss taking.
Missed by most was Prof Hoskins response to the question of the IPCC response to the IAC recommendations on governance.
“not everything has been followed but I expect that by the next one,IF THERE IS, then they would be.”
Just slipped out – he thinks the IPCC is toast, and he should know!
50
I love the word play by warmists. The core predujice is to call non believers deniers. The best though is the latest, the world has not warmed for
twenty years but it has not stopped warming, it has ‘paused’. They talk about ‘the pause’. This implies that the warming is still there
but the planet has taken a break, for reasons unknown and unexpected, but the warming will soon resume and catch up lost ground. The heat has been hidden in the deep ocean and will return with a vengeance. An explanation for the pause will appear soon, but it could be a conspiracy between the Al Ninos and La Ninas the the Polar Vortex and the katabatic winds and storm cells to deceive us into continuing our carbon pollution. We will not be fooled and we anxiously await the end of The Pause.
70
The wheels on the bus go thump, thump, thump …
Have you been wondering what John Cook, from un-SkepticalScience, said at the Australian Science Communicators national conference in Brisbane this week?
Here is an edited version at the Conversation.
( they will note the increased traffic, from Jonova, possibly “a novalanche” )
With that strategy of science ‘communication’, eg. denial of the observed halt in Global Warming, 2014 will be no easier for the communicators of consensus.
20
Cheers, Handjive. I placed a comment under my real name a few minutes ago. Please feel free to defend me from the onslaught.
20
I wrote a polite reply referring to a Skeptical Science article that was propaganda rather than myth busting like Cooks article refers to. Relevant and not an ad hominem attack but removed by the moderator/censor. I apologise for not cut and pasting it somewhere. Interesting too that it was removed after I pointed out the stupidity of a reply to it (don’t use your computer if you don’t believe in science).
20
Loathe as I am to direct any traffic to that site, when they allow Cook & Loony Lew loose over there, it’s a gift that keeps giving.
20
The reply from Michael Wilbur-Ham
“I wish Robert would avoid using the fruits of what science says. How many things did science have to get right for his computer and the internet to work? Peter should stop using this technology immediately and go and sit under a tree while muttering to himself ‘It’s all propaganda’.”
My two replies
MWH, the direction of the currents on the diagrams go in the opposite direction to the flow of electrons. A fifty/fifty choice made in the 19th century that the physicists got wrong. My computer still works.
Maybe a better reply is that I typed a message, sent it and it was posted. I know this because I also read it using my computer. I now know that computers work. How is this also evidence that CAGW is for real?
The reply before I was moderated.
“What about Australia has just had the hottest year on record, and it is forecast that in a few days Melbourne will have a minimum of 30 degrees, something I suspect has never happened before in my 55 years of living here. And how do you know that the guess about direction was wrong? Science. I hope the moderators deletion of non-science goes as far as your posts you are a distraction from sensible discussion.”
Great! A subjective assessment for the last 55 years of licking his finger and sticking it up in the air is science.
20
I found my post to the Conversation.
There is an attempt to refute the the myth that Venus is not hot due to a runaway greenhouse effect on the Skeptical Science site. http://www.skepticalscience.com/Venus-runaway-greenhouse-effect.htm
Please read this carefully to see how to avoid what the science says. The high temperatures at the surface can not be due to a runaway greenhouse effect. The ‘very likely’ that it once occurred early in the life of Venus is an assertion that can not be true as there is insufficient data to claim that there was once an ocean of water or similar liquids.
Note the avoidance of mentioning that the surface would be much hotter than Earths with an atmosphere of any dense gas rather than a greenhouse gas.
A good example of propaganda, not science, scepticism nor myth busting.
30
Vic,
Whenever any of the alarmists try to give Venus a greenhouse effect, just direct them to this simple and clear analysis to show what science actually looks like …
http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
20
Cook was recently engaged in Newcastle in the Fairfax press; note the comments, firstly to the article critiquing Coo’s consensus;
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1934243/opinion-politics-muddies-global-warming-debate/?cs=308
Cook’s reply, again note the comments:
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1939492/opinion-climate-change-deniers-use-tobacco-tactics/?cs=308
Right now the Cooks of this world and their energetic disciples have the ear of the MSM; anyone who thinks any different is deluding themselves. There may have been a change of government but the alarmists are so entrenched in key positions in the MSM, education and the bureaucracy and have so many resources that defeating them is still a long way off.
40
Has anyone else noticed the sleight of hand the BOM seems to be using lately regarding its records? Two examples come to mind.
On 2/2/2014 Adelaide was reported in grave terms as having had the hottest February day on record at 44.7′ C. The previous was 44.3’C 0n 14/2/2014. But the station was only begun on 1/1/1978. What happened to the prior recording is anyone’s guess.
Brisbane also only begun recording from a new station on 1/1/1993 in what I regard as a far hotter spot where previous recording sites were. If this is a common enough procedure then naturally one can say warmer recordings are being made as a matter of course.
90
Slight correction Edwina, it was 14/2/2004. The previous West Terrace site had a highest February maximum of 43.4C on 27/2/1939. The current Kent Town site is arguably a warmer location than West Tce though so it might be close to a dead heat.
On February 2nd Mount Gambier Aero recorded 44.9C which was its hottest ever, passing 44.1C recorded in January this year. So twice this year a new record has been set. Meanwhile in the far north of the state it’s been slightly cooler. It’s only weather and it’s natural. I haven’t seen reports of major bushfires in the area. So why all the fuss about the bushfires in NSW last October when it was slightly cooler? Oh yeah, they were started by accident. What’s this got to do with CO2 again?
60
Edwina,interesting comment,the BOM could outsource some of their activities to Guinness Book of Records,there is always some record being broken somewhere or other to be reported by media pandering to public anxiety.
20
6 Feb: Courier Mail: Annabel Hepworth: Gas prices force switch to coal for power stations
QUEENSLAND’S largest power generator will today declare that Australia is one of the world’s most expensive countries for energy and warn that the electricity market is being distorted by the carbon tax, mandatory renewables target and solar-rooftop subsidies. After Stanwell took the extraordinary step yesterday of announcing it would mothball its biggest gas-fired power station and resurrect a coal facility built in the 1980s – sparking predictions that gas-fired power plants would be withdrawn in other states – it will today call for a scaling back of the renewable energy target…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/gas-prices-force-switch-to-coal-for-power-stations/story-e6frg9df-1226819086580#
20
attributed to AAP at the top, & AFP at the bottom, & not behind paywall like the Stanwell link i just posted:
6 Feb: Australian: AAP/AFP: 2013 was the sixth-hottest year on record, UN says
LAST year tied for the sixth-hottest on record, confirming that Earth’s climate system is in the grip of warming that will affect generations to come, the UN’s weather agency says.
“This is confirmation of the trend of global warming of the planet,” World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) chief Michel Jarraud said on Wednesday.
Last year equalled 2007 as the sixth-warmest year since reliable records began in 1850, with a global land and ocean surface temperature that was 0.5 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the WMO said in a statement.
Thirteen of the 14 warmest years on record have occurred in the 21st century, Jarraud said…
Jarraud acknowledged in a statement that “the rate of warming is not uniform” in every country.
Last year, for instance, was the hottest year on record in Australia, while the United States measured record highs in 2012. But, Jarraud said, “the underlying trend is undeniable”.
“Global warming … is occurring. There is absolutely zero doubt. But more important, it is due to human activities,” he told AFP, pointing to record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“Our action, or inaction, to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases will shape the state of our planet for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” he said…
The agency released the temperature data in advance of its Statement on the Status of the Climate in 2013, which will be published in March.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/was-the-sixthhottest-year-on-record-un-says/story-e6frg8y6-1226819287966
00
That’s no argument at all. Talk about clutching at straws.
For each of the IPCC’s many individual projections published there would be dozens more not only at the bottom end, but also plunging well into the critics’ range because of lower starting assumptions on sensitivity etc. These would all be “vetoed” because they didn’t fit in with policy requirements. Conversely for the prominent critics’ projections, many would be higher. The only difference is that the high projections of the critics wouldn’t be vetoed, they’d be rejected on scientific grounds.
10
I think it is AndyG who keeps pointing out that if they are hindcasting to match HadCrut or GISS pre-1979, they are introducing a manufactured, unrealistiic trend, and therefore are always going to end up predicting way too high.
They need to go back to the real un-adjusted temperatures, put that 1940’s peak back where it belongs, if they want to have any chance of getting within cooee of any realistic future projections……. and realise that the Sun does have a major effect.
But of course, doing that would mean that they would have to use very low, or even negative, sensitivity to increased CO2 levels.
CO2 forced CAGW is about to follow the Do-Do.
on a side note.. does anyone remember ” The Goodies” and the episode with the Do-DO.. it squawked nearly as much as a climate alarmist..
a deserved extinction. 🙂
30
6 Feb: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: Mid-Century Heat Will Be Tough to Beat in U.K., Study Says
Hot weather disruptions are projected to rise as decades pass — they already have — taking metropolitan areas dangerously past historic high temperatures, sometimes for days or weeks at a time.
A study of the U.K. this week in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, sees a rising probability of dangerous heatwaves as the century progresses. Heat-related deaths could rise by more than 250 percent by mid-century, with some of the most dramatic increases occurring in London.
Researchers from two British institutions studied the relationship between weather and mortality between 1993 and 2006, then combined their findings with 21st century warming projections…
The study emphasizes that its projections occur “in the absence of any adaptation of the population” — an assumption already wearing away, as cities and companies reinvent themselves for a changing world.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-05/mid-century-heat-will-be-tough-to-beat-in-u-k-study-says.html
00
And they will still be saying that when the Thames freezes over again. !
10
6 Feb: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: European parliament votes for stronger climate targets
MEPs respond to earlier commission proposal with call for binding 2030 targets on renewables, emissions and energy efficiency
The European parliament voted on Wednesday to require member states to meet binding national targets on renewable energy, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions.
In a decisive vote, 341 to 263 MEPs called for three binding targets for 2030: a 40% cut in greenhouse gases, compared with 1990 levels; at least 30% of energy to come from renewable sources; and a 40% improvement in energy efficiency.
This was stronger than the proposal from the European commission last month, that called for 27% of energy to come from renewable sources by the same date…
The UK government is strongly against having a national renewable energy target, arguing that a greenhouse gas reduction target is sufficient.
But the MEPs voted to require binding national renewable energy targets, though by a slightly slimmer margin at 347 to 308…
Ed Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change said: “The right 2030 package will unlock low carbon investment, while keeping consumers’ energy bills down. The vote in the European Parliament is one stage in the process and we are pleased that MEPs have come out in favour of an ambitious climate package for 2030.
“I am leading the argument for the right package through the Green Growth Group, which fifteen countries are now part of. Over the last two days I have been talking to my colleagues in Berlin and in Paris to ensure we can get agreement to a progressive plan that will reduce emissions without unnecessary costs.”
Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate commissioner, said the vote was a “good result” and she hoped European governments would “listen” to it. Green campaigners and renewable energy companies welcomed the vote, saying it showed that the 2030 proposals should be strengthened…
Stephane Bourgeois, of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), which represents the industry, said: “The European parliament has again shown it is the most forward-thinking of the EU’s institutions…”…
Jason Anderson, head of climate and energy at WWF, said: “MEPs reacted to the commission’s weak climate and energy proposals with a much-needed reality check. Energy efficiency and renewables are integral to achieving a low-carbon future and can’t be downgraded to afterthoughts.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/05/european-parliament-votes-renewables-targets
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For the life of me, I just cannot understand why there aren’t people with an engineering background shouting at these stupid politicians striving for a renewable energy target of, and most of them are 20%, what they hope for.
They literally cannot achieve a target of 20%, even if they use the fake Nameplate Capacity standard as a guide.
Even if they could achieve it, by an absolute miracle, and a monstrous amount of money, most of it taxpayer funding because there’s no power entrepreneur willing to sink that much money into renewables, then whole Countries would just collapse, literally.
What is needed is power to fill a Base load requirement, and renewable replacement means shutting down the very plants which supply that Base Load.
Renewables can NEVER achieve the scale required to fill that hole.
Wind is running at a Capacity Factor (CF) of (now approaching 30% at best) effectively meaning they can supply their full rated power on an equivalence basis of just over 7 hours.
Solar PV has a CF of 13% (again best case scenario) effectively meaning just over 3 hours a day equivalence.
Concentrating Solar Power is currently delivering its power at around the same as for wind power, 30% (also best case scenario) hence around 7 hours a day, but hey, who cares, it’s only tiny amounts of power anyway, and you’d need many many hundreds of these plants just to replace one coal fired power plant of 2000MW+
As you can see, there are none of these which can supply power on a 24/7/365 basis.
Here in Australia, wind currently supplies around 2.75% of all power being generated, and all commercial solar comes in at around 0.1% (rounded up) with rooftop solar around 0.8%, so here we have renewables of choice delivering barely 3.6% of all power generated, and add on Hydro (thank heavens for Hydro the greenies say) it still is under 10%. Hydro won’t change so that’s 10% from (basically) all wind power, which is 3.5 times the existing wind total in Australia, or a further 4,550 huge towers, or say just less than another 100 wind plants ….. all by 2020, not in planning but actually delivering power to grids, effectively meaning with the lead time involved, all those plants would be in planning right now, a scale which makes Snowy Hydro look like digging a hole in your lawn to put in a Lilly Pilly.
They aren’t even in thought bubbles, let alone being constructed.
Ergo, no 20% renewables by 2020.
The same applies all across the World, only humungously scaled up, as all renewables (of choice, wind and solar) are barely managing 2.5%, if that.
It just will not happen.
And you still do not get power to fill the absolute Base Load requirement.
And still, politicians set targets like this.
Tony.
POST SCRIPT: (again) That concentrating solar plant in Spain which ran for 36 consecutive days during a clear Summer period, delivering 24 hours of its full rated power is quoted as the go-to plant for coal fired equivalence. The total power it delivered to the Spanish grid over those 36 full days was delivered by Bayswater in ….. 6.5 HOURS.
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6 Feb: Bloomberg: Ben Elgin: Handshakes and Body English Vex Corporate Carbon-Cutting Goals
Global companies are trying to shrink their carbon footprints by targeting business travel, and the early results are frustrating, even among companies with celebrated green credentials.
Consider Nike, which flew several managers to Davos last month, and was proclaimed by Newsweek to be the greenest U.S. consumer products company back in 2010. Since then, it has revealed that its travel-related emissions soared 89 percent from 2008 to 2011 — far outpacing the company’s 12 percent sales growth during that period.
They’re not alone. “Travel is a tough one,” says Andrew Craig, senior manager of environmental initiatives at Royal Bank of Canada…
(Bloomberg L.P.’s business air-travel emissions climbed almost 35 percent between 2007 and 2012. Curtis Ravenel, global head of Bloomberg’s sustainability group, notes that the company’s travel emissions have grown more slowly than its 52 percent rise in employee count. “Travel will always be a challenge for us,” he says. “We’re a high-touch business. Customer service is a fundamental part of our business model.”)…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-05/handshakes-and-body-english-vex-corporate-carbon-cutting-goals.html
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OT but related..Moncton challenges Prince Charles. At WUWT.
Great comments to boot!
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Oops..Sorry Lord M.
Missed the “k”
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The debate is over. Yes indeed. Now it’s time for action. Elect politicians who will end green subsidies, stop putting wind turbines up (Don Quixote forever!) and tell the IPCC and UN to get stuffed.
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Gavin Schmidt gave an interesting response to “what scientific idea is ready for retirement” at edge.com.
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A great story from Andrew Bolt today…….
Putting a ruler through another alarmist:-
Two men armed with a ruler expose the deceit of White House science advisor John Holdren, who presented a wild graph showing runaway warming.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/putting_a_ruler_through_another_alarmist/
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Pleased to note that at least one other person [Snafu]knew of Marble Bar’s record 160 consecutive days maximum temperature above the old century [100degrees F]. That was an interesting fact which I used to teach my year 9 geography students in the weather and climate section over 50 years ago. It’s a pity it’s not a compulsory subject for ALL secondary students today. Many more people might then be able to see through the AGW bullshit we continue to suffer.
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