The Carbon Majors Report came out two weeks ago has been used to stoke Marxist fears that “corporates” are polluting the world.
These 100 Companies Are to Blame For 71% of The World’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions
[ScienceAlert]
Since 1988, a mere 100 companies have been responsible for 71 percent of the entire world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
This data comes from an inaugural report published by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an environmental non-profit. Charting the rapid expansion of the fossil fuel industry in the last 28 years, they have now released some truly staggering numbers on the world’s major carbon polluters.
Tess Riley of The Guardian tells us that “A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change”. She goes on to name the worst corporations: “ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron are identified as among the highest emitting investor-owned companies since 1988″. It’s not til the ninth paragraph we find that: “A fifth of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions are backed by public investment, according to the report.”
Only a fifth?
Look closely — the Worst corporate “polluters” are Big Government, not the Capitalist Pigs.
Forget for a moment that “pollution” is a plant fertilizer. Check out the top ten on the list. The largest corporate producer by far is the communist government of China, followed by a Saudi owned entity (Aramco), not to mention the also state-owned National Iranian oil Co, Coal India, Permex (Mexico), Russia (Coal) and China National Petroleum Corp. Fully seven out of the top ten are not private corporations, but Big-government entities.
Click to enlarge.
Riley doesn’t talk about how much influence investors can have on these. The message is “divest”. Go on, sell your Chinese bonds.
Alarmists call plant food ‘pollution’,
Which now needs their Marxist solution,
Which would force the reduction,
Of fossil fuel production,
In the West for the Green Revolution.
— Ruairi
Bastards. They’re probably responsible for feeding, clothing and sheltering 71% of people too.
391
So what? It’s plant food and we all need it.
101
Yes, the simple answer to the ‘problem’ is for people to stop buying and using fossil fuels and those ‘evil’ companies will go out of business! The unintended consequence might well be that many people also might “go out of business.”
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J Cuttance:
Somewhat more than 71% unless you think that the Greens produce anything useful.
110
The Green produce rules ‘n green-red tape.
30
But don’t governments produce the good kind of CO2 because they serve the public interest? Isn’t bad CO2 produced only by private individuals and corporations who serve their own evil selfish ends?
At least this is what the Green Blob would have us believe. All the while, they want to take the wealth produced by all of those evil private entities and spend it on what THEY think it should be spent on. There are more double bind traps here that are baited with equivocation than thought possible.
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Lionell,
You have it all wrong. 🙂
There is no bad kind of CO2, only CO2. CO2 molecules are brainless inanimate things and haven’t nearly the capacity to form a good or bad intent — or any intent. It’s the humans in the equation who get it wrong every time, as this post by Joanne clearly shows.
BB
40
Read my second paragraph. I implied as much.
70
Lionel
Just another example of “if it is in government hands it is all right”.
Like biology.
Queensland government is keen to tell you of the ecological value of road and stock route reserves.
When one has a close look at, say, a very common 3 chain (about 60 metre) road reserve one finds that about 35 metres of that is road and about 6 metres is boundary fence clearing. The remaining vegetation is two strips of about 10 metres width and as long as there is vegetation (no length to width ratios) on the road reserve. These strips hold all those ecological benefits!
In contrast land holders either side are subject to restrictions on clearing including strips of much greater minimum width and with width to length ratios.
So biology is much more effective in government hands. QED.
60
Good CO2,bad CO2,good electrons and bad electrons,the crazies are taking over,when will we reach Peak Stupid?
30
When you think it is getting really bad, it gets worse.
The only limit on stupidity is death.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Time to stop feeding them.
20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
It’s not that easy bein’ green,
livin’ in the double-ethical-bind
of findin’ the right balance between
bein’ effective and bein’
honest. 🙁 Not easy bein’ green.
H/t Kermit the frog and Stephen Schneider.
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It appears that Riley is suffering from ‘Never mind the quality – just feel the width’ syndrome which appears to be the norm for any science reporting by that publication.
70
Divest is limited to those with shares. Just don’t use these evil products, then they will not be extracted.
I like that: “All the while, they want to take the wealth produced by all of those evil private entities and spend it on what THEY think it should be spent on. ”
And they want the production to stop?
80
At a risk of stating the damned obvious, “divest” is pure UNEP dogma all dressed up as “ethics.” So, who deems what is “ethical?” Where are these ethical canons, the moral judgements inscribed, at 350.org? /rhet
/S/S considers beheading on a beach an entirely moral past time. The Nazis considered they were on a moral crusade.The Aztecs sacrificed people to the Gods. Fund managers invest in medical “care” that undertakes state funded convenience abortion. Countries maintain standing armies for national security. My question to Fund Managers and State Pension companies.
When are your going to stop paying your taxes?
A well recognisable hall mark of extremism is the conflation of ideological belief with the moral imperative. The tolerated imposition of ideology in the name of “ethics” is unquestionably one of the largest societal red flags out there. It is a harbinger of war.
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what beheadings on beach? Conflate with Jap beheadings Rabaul.
10
Then there are those billions of uncounted humans whose unaccounted dung, twigs, sticks etc are combusted daily across the globe for lack of “evil” carbon, the sort which emits no smoke, smell or flame.
Just Third World and Bob Brown you say? Walk across Spain, France, Italy and as soon as you exit the towns and ‘burbs you’ll see every available bit of wood bundled for incinerating. Yes, even in the shadow of the wind turbines. But of course we are talking about mere reality here, not Guardian-friendly statistics.
Power to the People! Save the dung! Divest from Big Green! Make Adelaide Great Again!
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… save the dung, the dung beetles need it …
80
Just a minor technical point: it’s actually “Pemex”, not “Permex”.
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Environmental non-profit?
Is that a euphemism or an oxymoron?
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It’s an oxfam-moron…
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Forrest Gardener,
Predicated on the ‘double benefit’ theory, environmentalism like climatism broadly relies on first ‘demonizing’ then ‘charging’.
Eg. label something a pollutant and then reduce it by charging for it.
‘Euphemism’ like ‘oxymoron’ has 4 syllables, and too many people understand neither.
‘Rip-off’, only two syllables, and everyone knows what you’re talking about. Now that’s true ‘double benefit’!
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Manfred
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 26, 2017 at 2:06 pm · Reply
Ohhh please, not again. Why this time???
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“…and their investors… ”
Investors expect to be paid for their investment. Maybe these folks — Tess Riley and the Carbon Disclosure Project — think Cuba and Venezuela are better models?
Divestment was the topic a few years back:
Divestment ethics and realities
February 14, 2015 by Paul Driessen
http://www.cfact.org/2015/02/14/divestment-ethics-and-realities/
~~~~~
ALSO POSTED ON WUWT with comments
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/16/divestment-ethics-and-realities/
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Its amazing how Marxists can continue to attack the credibility of democracies but ignore the terrible track record of human suffering under their own systems of repression, they will never accept the fact that while democracy isn’t perfect the mechanism is there to reset rogue governments through a vote as opposed to violent revolutions, even the current quiet attempt will eventually lead to conflict.
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/sarc ?
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Well lets say initially quiet but becoming progressively louder. 🙂
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Yes, they were very “loud” when they murdered the Romanov royal family in cold blood……
Or the killing fields of Pol Pot, or the starving of peasants under Stalin, or the genocide under Mao, the world war under Hitler.
Yep…socialism – 100 % fatal if left to run its own course.
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The analysis looks at the supply side of the equation. This “businesses” would not exist if there was no demand. Given that fossil fuels are widely dispersed, then take out one supplier, and a number of others will take their place. Indeed, the dominance of relatively few suppliers is the Government-imposed cartel nature of the business. That extends beyond borders. OPEC was extremely powerful from 1973 to 1986. Its attempts to reassert its power by driving down oil prices in 2014 seem to have backfired. Slightly more success if the funding of anti-fracking protests in Europe by Russia, helping maintain Gazprom’s vice-like grip on much of Europe’s gas supply.
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While I’m online, may I ask a pointed question before I go? Isn’t this whole exercise a giant buck pass? After all, it’s you and me who put the product produced by EXXON-Mobile et al into our gas tanks and actually burn it to produce that horrid carbon that wafts through the atmosphere conspiring to destroy the planet.
And I think we’re voting with our money every time we fill up. And the vote is for more fossil fuel, not less. So I wonder what they think the world will do if they manage to squeeze the “giants” of the petroleum industry out of business. I think the ordinary citizens of this world have more power than they believe we do and the recent US election is a good indicator that we will flex our muscle if pushed too far.
BB
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Indeed. Beware the anger of the mild mannered.
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Note the “we“. If it Australians, then they comprise very little of the global emissions, especially if it is filling up the car. Now look at the list. No.1 is China Coal, with three times the emissions of No.2 Saudi Arabian Oil. No.3 is Gazprom.
The full list is on page 14.
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It reads as a list of the world’s biggest countries who do not believe that CO2 is poisonous world killing pollution, an absurd proposition. Russia, China, India and now the US. Still the temperature is not change, CO2 is steadily climbing, the planet is greener, calmer and the Greens vote is steadily declining. Their eco fantasy is dying. Only true believers are left, very left.
The Green vote in Australia has halved. Even their supporters think that taking 10% of the salaries of the poorest people to pay for wild Green fantasies is bordering on criminal and certainly inexcusable, arrogant and just wrong. Quite apart from the fact that it obviously has made no difference at all to CO2 here or anywhere else, the only point of paying the world’s highest electricity prices.
In this country it is not the capitalist oppressors but the Greens who are killing and starving the old and the poor. The Greens are the villains. Now everyone knows it. Besides Green senators were quite unaware that they held dual citizenship while sitting in the Australian parliament. Credibility zero.
160
Photosynthesis CO2+H2O+sunlight to hydrated CO2, the source of all life on earth involves two harmless and clearly essential compounds, essential for all life on earth from amoebae to elephants. CO2 is not just a fertlizer, a catalyst, an ingredient. It is the tree.
When you reverse photosynthesis, which is what powers your heart and your brain and everything else, you turn hydrated CO2 back into CO2 + H20 but now CO2 is a pollutant? It is the same stuff!
At least the more embarrassed try to hide this absurdity by talking about ’emissions’ and ‘Green House Gases’ and ‘Carbon’ and other misleading terms when we all know they mean Carbon Dixide. As they breathe out carbon dioxide at 14%, how does any politician call it pollution? Lies, damn lies and the Greens.
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.
Brainy Quotes;
Thomas Sowell
———————
Jacques Barzun
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Of course you would expect that the Green senators had not read the requirements for being a senator.
On the first page.
4. Grounds for disqualification
44(i): owes allegiance to a foreign power etc.
Paragraph 44(i) applies to a person who has formally or informally acknowledged allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power and who has not withdrawn or revoked that allegiance (Nile v Wood (1988) 167 CLR 133).
In the Hill case (1999)
“Given that a naturalised Australian may have dual citizenship, it is necessary that he or she take some step to renounce his or her former citizenship before he or she can be treated under Australian law as having renounced it. ”
We are not talking ancient history. Now three senators have flagrantly ignored the law of the country and they were elected to create and uphold such laws. This should be more than a parking fine.
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TdeF:
In the Australian this morning I suggested that a lot of our political problems would be solved by inducing some corrupt african country to grant honorary citizenship to most of our Parliament, including MT and BS and what was left of the Greens.
It was censored.
Later another commentator suggested Japan grant citizenships as a riposte to the whaling protests and that got through.
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Ah yes TdeF.
And where was I reading recently that the dastardly Dastyari, who was born in Sari, Iran, is probably still an Iranian citizen by dint of his failure to undertake his Iranian military service?
90
I remember now. It was here:
http://morningmail.org/dastyari-national-service/
Made me laugh that.
Taquiya. Isn’t that a powerful alcoholic tipple that you drink with salt from the confluence of the thumb and fore-finger of your left hand. Makes you quickly cactus, I’m told. Maybe the dastardly Dastyari has been licking his left hand and tippling?
21
So when the true value of CO2 is widely accepted and there is a move to require payment, the world’s 100 top businesses will be in line for the biggest payments. Who could have expected that?
30
‘Who could have expected that?’
That would be the logical choice, but they first have to prove that a harmless trace gas is a pollutant.
Donald is preparing his Red Team to go into battle and there will be ramifications.
30
OT but there’s a story from Charles the mod that’s so funny and relevant to us all , he made up a fake story and used Star Wars info as facts but cleverly put in in the stories and sent it to some prestigious journals for review .
Four fell for it and one wanted $360 to publish it , which tells me these climate journals don’t read anything if the title is good .
80
? please explain
32
My bad it was a medical paper sent to the prestigious medical outlets that publish their new research etc , given that the climate version of the above have been caught out I guess he figured this one worth a try.
No matter if peer review is the same for climate science the prank exposes what a sham these professional organisations really are .
30
A link would still be nice. PLease?
00
Just go to WUWT 🙂
00
I found it and I can see why you didn’t supply a link because your post was fake news. Nice try.
So…
a. It was not climate science
b. It did not involve prestigious journals
c. who is Charles?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/#.WXk_UFFLdhE
I’ll leave it to whoever is reading this to find out for themselves what a predatory journal is.
A conclusion
00
I see you did.
00
I still want to know who charles is.
00
I thought the biggest souce of global CO2 emissions was coca-cola
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Researchers Have Been Underestimating the Cost of Wind and Solar
I recently gave a talk called The Problem of Properly Evaluating Intermittent Renewable Resources (PDF) at a BioPhysical Economics Conference in Montana.
As many of you know, this is the group that is concerned about Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI).
As you might guess, my conclusion is that the current methodology is quite misleading.
Wind and solar are not really stand-alone devices when it comes to providing the kind of electricity that is needed by the grid.
Grid operators, utilities, and backup electricity providers must provide hidden subsidies to make the system really work.
via The energy collective (The world’s best thinkers on energy & climate)
http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar
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From yr Link. Thx, Mark.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/18-effect-of-addition-of-wind-or-solar-system-to-grid.png
Re Jo’s post …
It’s do as I say
all
the
way
down. -(
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Figure 2 of the referenced paper shows Denmark and Germany with residential electricity prices around 300 Euros/MWhr. That’s equal to about 44 Aust cents/KWhr. Is that the current price in SA? UK is reported at equivalent to 31 Aust cents/KWhr.
30
Robber:
The South Australian pricing is complicated by various prices e.g. normal daytime, premium daytime, (possibly super premium for summer at peak demand) and night time tariffs. Normal daytime would be about 0.38 depending on Retailer and the % discount given. Premium I guess at 0.42-0.44, and that level cuts in at a very low usage – I get charged even though my daily usage would be 4-5 kWh in summer (8.5-9 daily per 24 hours).
Night time has been jacked up by 33% instead of the 18-20% added onto daytime usage, thus increasing the bill. There is also a Service Charge for being connected, and the State Government gets 10% GST.
20
O/T somewhat
Peer reviewed literature scores again
“Predatory Journals Hit By ‘Star Wars’ Sting”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/25/predatory-journals-hit-by-star-wars-sting/
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Just one small point that is hardly worth mentioning because it’s so entrenched in the vernacular. The term carbon pollution is wrong on so many fronts. The reference is to Carbon dioxide and CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s like describing a flood ( of H2O ) as hydrogen pollution. It is just an attempt to convey an odourless colourless gas as some black/ brown looking piece of dirt. The AGW scam is all about imagery and nothing about accuracy.
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Alarmists call plant food ‘pollution’,
Which now needs their Marxist solution,
Which would force the reduction,
Of fossil fuel production,
In the West for the Green Revolution. Pp mo
90
So let me see if I’ve got this right.
100 ….. entities produce 71% of the World’s CO2 emissions, and the general gist is that if investors divested from those entities, then we would, umm, save the World.
Go back 75 days to this Thread from Joanne, (at this link) and just look at that pie chart image she showed in the main body of her text.
So now we have 71% of the World’s CO2 emissions, and from that pie chart, that comes from 81% of the World’s total Primary Energy Supply, all of it consumed around the World.
So then, let’s believe it and get these people to divest all their holdings in these Top 100 entities then.
The World just grinds to a complete halt.
If you seriously think that is ever going to be allowed to happen, then you’ve got rocks in your head.
(Green rocks mind you)
Tony.
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Tony, it is happening now. SA, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland. I do not have rocks in my head but Labor politicians and many Liberal politicians do.
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Tony do you think a bullet train will reduce GHGs?
‘Even though a high-speed bullet train is a costly proposition, it saves energy costs and reduces greenhouse emissions, argued railway officials. An aeroplane consumes 51.1g energy per passenger per kilometre, private cars 29.9, bus 18.3 classic train 17.6, a high-speed train uses only 12.1.
‘Similarly, journey time for air travel involves travel times to and from the airport, away from the city heart, and one also has to factor in waiting time at the airport. Taking all this into account, travel time by air betweeen Delhi and Chandigarh takes 3.5 hours, but would take only an hour in bullet trains.’
Times of India
10
Now begin to take the energy cost of the very expensive rail infrastructure underlaying bullet trains operations into account.
What are the comparisons in energy usage when the shifting of large masses of people but only minute amounts of freight tonnage, the blood and sinews of civilisation, cannot be shifted by bullet trains.
What are the efficiency costs of just delivering large masses of people to very concentrated and specific rail side nodes from which other shorter or longer range and therefore far less efficient transport [ road, tramway, bicycle, cars, walk way facilities and etc ] facilities have to be employed to both distribute and then possibly collect the bullet train’s extremely limited freight articles, that is people, the only bullet train freight.
Put a bullet train between Adelaide and Melbourne and we would still have close to 2500 heavy freight vehicles ie ‘; trucks, B doubles and etc stopping , starting , gear changing, 600 HP truck engines winding up and down their rev range down the two major heavy freight thoroughfares in the heart of Horsham city here in west Vic.
No cargo carrying bullet train or even a fast freight train will displace those trucks in the near future as they exist due almost entirely to the incredible flexibility and consequent efficiencies arising from being able to to deliver freight where and when needed and when required.
A characteristic that cannot be matched by rail nor the road freighter’s efficiencies matched in their collective totality by any fixed timetable fast freight or none cargo carrying bullet train today.
Steam powered trains were almost the only major reliable and least costly and by far the fastest and most comfortable transport system across the length and breadth of rural and a lot of urban Australia in the 1920’s, 30’s and early 1940’s.
Victorian railways ran at a profit right through until the mid 1950’s despite the total unionisation of the rail system workforce.
But the effciencies stopped at the railway yard’s gates as transport more akin to the late 19th century had to be utilised on a road network that was primitive at best due in large part to Australia’s vast distances and the lack of population.
Australia reached about 3.5 million total population around 1950.
Locally on Saturdays during the 1900’s to the beginning of WW2, the local railways would lay on special football passenger trains to take football followers and their team from a town to the town their team was playing that Saturday and then return which must have led to some wild parties on those trains at times.
A couple of local towns are just 20 kms apart but during the 1920’s and 30’s the crowded football trains, the two towns were very competitive to put it mildly, had to steam 22 kms south to where a branch line junction which then took them the 22 kms north to the other town for the football match.
The less than 20 km distance road between the two towns was often close to impassable during a wet winter and the football season.
So with this type of advantage over roads and the rail right of way long established and not having to be acquired for a faster train service, why did rail let alone bullet train rail systems fail to appear to challenge the up and coming road vehicles and the road construction that followed the increase in vehicles and vehicular traffic in the years after WW2.
The answer was the ability of road transport to deliver goods and freight right from the dispatcher at the doorstep of the user or retailer, the total flexibility of road transport and its total distribution of good’s flexibility .
So despite apparently being less efficient compared to the fast rail systems, in the end the flexibility and versatility of road transport proved to be more suited to the community’s needs and requirements and in the totality of the whole collective that makes up a transport system probably more efficient overall than a train system.
In fact the a lot of the intercapital rail passenger trains today are given a lower priority acess to the lines than the fast intercity freight traffic as that is where the rail systems still make their money.
Ifyou are talking about the transport of vast quantities of single item bulk commodities such as coal and ores and grains then a dedicated rail transport system is far, far more efficient than anything that road transport can possibly match.
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Some good points ROM, but all I’m saying is that a bullet train from outer Brisbane to Melbourne would be faster, cheaper and have less GHGs attached. In other words, a viable financial option.
00
Inland Rail is a good political investment, even if its only freight.
‘Rail freight also produces an estimated 10 times less carbon dioxide than road freight per tonne-kilometre travelled.’ Aurizon
00
10x less always confuses me. Does it mean 10% of the total or what?
One thing that is indisputable is that less GHGs means more efficiency, less cost and less pollution (aside from GHGs)
00
o/t but well worth a listen:
AUDIO: 11mins21secs: 25 Jul: 2GB: Great Barrier Reef not at risk
Chris speaks with Professor Peter Ridd (James Cook Uni) about the misleading research on the reef.
http://www.2gb.com/podcast/great-barrier-reef-not-at-risk/
40
should have noted the 2GB interview with Prof Ridd is by Chris Smith.
ABC jumps on this, naturally, but it is somewhat misleading, given France only AIMS to stop sales blah blah:
26 Jul: ABC: Reuters: UK to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars from 2040 in pollution crackdown, reports say
The move follows a similar announcement earlier this month by the French Government.
No-one was immediately available for comment at Britain’s Environment Ministry which was due to make the announcement, according to the newspaper reports…
Under the proposals due to be announced on Wednesday, local authorities would be able to charge levies on the drivers of the diesel vehicles on the most polluted roads from 2020, if air quality does not improve, the Daily Mail newspaper said…
Earlier this month, Volvo became the first major traditional automaker to set a date for phasing out vehicles powered solely by the internal combustion engine by saying all its car models launched after 2019 would be electric or hybrid.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-26/uk-to-ban-sales-of-petrol-diesel-fuelled-cars-from-2040-reports/8744076
bit more detail:
26 Jul: BBC: New diesel and petrol vehicles to be banned from 2040 in UK
Ministers are to unveil a £255m fund to help councils introduce steps to deal with pollution from diesel vehicles as part of £3bn spending on air quality.
The government will publish a court-mandated clean air strategy later, days before a High Court deadline.
Campaigners said the measures were promising, but more detail was needed.
The government was ordered by the courts to produce new plans to tackle illegal levels of harmful pollutant nitrogen dioxide…
Local measures could include retrofitting buses and other transport to make them cleaner, changing road layouts, altering features such as speed humps and re-programming traffic lights to make vehicle-flow smoother…
The UK announcement comes amid signs of an accelerating shift towards electric cars instead of petrol and diesel ones both at home and abroad…
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40723581
more to come.
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reminder:
April 2016: ScienceDirect: A planet with two billion cars
Author: Michael Gross
Summary
Projections indicate there will be two billion motor vehicles on the roads by 2030, most of them still powered by fossil fuels…
Following the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which obliged the high-income countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, the EU chose the fateful strategy of persuading motorists to switch from petrol to diesel on the grounds that diesel engines use less fuel and burn it more efficiently, leading to lower carbon dioxide emissions overall.
This was mainly possible thanks to an innovation made by Volkswagen in the late 1980s, which made the direct injection, turbo charged diesel engine viable for cars. A 1998 agreement between the European Commission and all European car manufacturers confirmed the direction and sweetened the deal with financial incentives. In the following decade, much of the European vehicle fleet switched to diesel in an attempt to reduce costs as well as carbon dioxide emissions…
Now the majority of private cars in much of Western Europe use diesel fuel — and it emerges that the EU may have taken a spectacularly wrong turn…
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982216303414
11 Jul: Australian: UK Times: Matt Ridley: How the electric car revolution could backfire on taxpayers
The British government is under pressure to follow France and Volvo in promising to set a date by which to ban diesel and petrol engines in cars and replace them with electric motors. It should resist the temptation, not because the ambition is wrong but because coercion could backfire…
Building an electric car generates considerably more carbon dioxide than creating a comparable petrol model because so much energy is required for the mining and processing of lithium, nickel and other materials for the battery. The battery accounts for more than half the cradle-to-grave emissions created by an electric car. Fuelling that car from a coal-fired grid like China’s or India’s makes the emissions even worse…
Ten years ago Britains’s Labour government announced ahead of an EU timetable that Britain would forcibly phase out incandescent light bulbs in favour of compact fluorescent ones, promising this would “help tackle climate change, and also cut household bills”. By sending free CFL bulbs to most households and requiring retailers to sell only the new bulbs, this cost the country almost £3bn. Slow to warm up, tending to flicker, with a much shorter lifetime than expected and dangerous to dispose of, CFL bulbs were less popular with consumers than with manufacturers, who tooled up to produce them. Now nobody wants CFL bulbs, thanks to the dramatic fall in price of the next technology: more efficient, better quality and safer LED lights.
The government backed the wrong technology…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/how-the-electric-car-revolution-could-backfire-on-taxpayers/news-story/9c71639be7fee780ab9e5d22a3bbff3c
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not widely reported:
11 Jul: BusinessInsider: ‘We are in a precarious situation’: The electric-car startup Faraday Future is scrapping its big Nevada factory as its cash crisis deepens
by Bryan Logan
•Faraday Future is scrapping plans for a 1-million-square-foot assembly plant in Nevada amid a deepening cash crunch, and it is now looking for an existing facility to build its first car, the FF91.
• A Chinese court reportedly froze billions of dollars in assets belonging to Faraday’s owner, Jia Yueting, who is the chairman of a Beijing electronics company that is mired in its own cash crisis.
• Faraday is expected to slow down operations at its Los Angeles-based headquarters, but the company says no layoffs are planned in the near term.
SAN FRANCISCO — Faraday Future, the California startup that set out to dethrone Tesla in the electric-car business with ambitious plans to build a self-driving, 1,000-horsepower entertainment hub on wheels, is officially in trouble.
The company, at least for now, is abandoning one of its cornerstone projects, a 1-million-square-foot assembly plant in North Las Vegas, it announced on Monday…
“We are in a precarious situation right now,” a senior-level Faraday Future employee told Business Insider. “The generous funding we had in the past is no longer here.”
The developments represent a big change in Faraday’s public posture. Though reports of cash shortages and internal strife have circulated for months, the company had continued to insist that it was on track to build the Nevada plant — itself a scaled-down version of a planned 3-million-square-foot facility — and that its electric SUV was on track to hit the market by the end of 2018…
Faraday relies heavily on its owner, Jia Yueting, the founder of the Beijing-based tech giant LeEco, which is having cash-flow problems of its own.
Unpaid loans recently prompted a Chinese court to freeze $US182 million in assets tied to Jia, his wife, and several affiliates, according to reports in The New York Times and Xinhua…
Krause told Business Insider in a May interview that he had hoped to round up $US1 billion in a series A round of funding. His worldwide blitz took him to the Middle East, London, Germany, China, and back to the US to speak with roughly 35 investors — mostly private individuals — to fund a two-year plan designed to get Faraday’s factory off the ground and move the FF91 closer to production…
But the startup still faces a dire outlook in the short term. The company is slowing down development of the FF91, which has been undergoing beta testing for months. Faraday has sought to keep some positive buzz going, participating last month in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, where it beat a Tesla Model S P90D in a 12-mile high-altitude race in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Still, publicity stunts have done little to deflect the real concern that Faraday’s days may be numbered…
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/faraday-future-latest-news-cash-flow-crisis-forces-company-to-leave-north-las-vegas-factory-2017-7?r=US&IR=T
a re-run for those who haven’t read it yet:
22 Jul: Townhall: Paul Driessen: Tesla Battery, Subsidy and Sustainability Fantasies
Now the focus is on climate change. Every EV sale will help prevent assumed and asserted manmade temperature, climate and weather disasters, we’re told – even if their total sales represented less than 1% of all U.S. car and light truck sales in 2016 (Tesla sold 47,184 of the 17,557,955 vehicles sold nationwide last year), and plug-in EVs account for barely 0.15% of 1.4 billion vehicles on the road worldwide…READ ALL
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2017/07/22/tesla-battery-subsidy-and-sustainability-fantasies-n2358396
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Pat
Remember Peter Sellars and Co’s “How to win an election or at least not lose by much”?
IIRC the Conservative Minister for Transport was Sir Orson Carte.
That still seems to be a pretty good guide to elections IMO
20
Now Mr Caravan, Liberal senator says his mom made him an Italian citizen without telling him? Granted he was not born in Italy. He has never been there. However to believe his mom did not tell him is beyond any reasonable belief. If it had been done without his knowlege it could have been removed the same way. What possesses any person to lie on oath and argue they did not know or understand the document they were signing as a candidate for the Senate?
In the document, available online
Step 1: Determine
your eligibility
To nominate for either the Senate or the House
of Representatives, you must be:
■ at least 18 years old;
■ an Australian citizen; and
■ either enrolled or eligible to be enrolled on the
Commonwealth electoral roll.
You cannot nominate for the Senate or the
House of Representatives if you are:
■ currently a member of a state parliament or
territory legislative assembly and have not
resigned before the hour of nomination;
■ disqualified by section 44 of the Constitution.
See Electoral Backgrounder on Constitutional
Disqualifications and Intending Candidates
available at http://www.aec.gov.au.
You have to fill out and personally sign form 59D or similar.
These people have done this at every election. What part did they not understand?
Remember Pauline Hanson did real jail time for less money and paid it back.
These people are paying nothing back out of a million or two in salary. These are the people pushing up our power bills and taking 10% of the income of all the poorest people in the country. For nothing.
110
Now we hear that this relates to events in 2006 when Nationals Senator Caravan’s father was convicted of stealing $1.6Million from Nestle. I guess he would know nothing about that either or where the money went?
We Australians should still be angry at the jailing of Hanson for a signature on her party applications as she did not have enough memebers. Clearly so many politicians go free for lying on their own forms, some after receiving 10 years salary as Senators, after receiving about $2Million each, fraudulently. Still Hanson made the mistake about asking where all the money was going for Aboriginal welfare. Now it is about Climate Change. Billions disappearing into the pockets of middlemen who just love Climate Change and Wind towers. Very profitable.
As was reported this morning, the electricity retailers in Victoria made 7.1c per kw/hr average, the highest in the country. Considering Hazelwood closed as it could only get 4c kw/hr, you have to ask why?
90
Now we hear that this relates to events in 2006 when Nationals Senator Caravan’s father was convicted for taking $1.6Million from Nestle. I guess he would know nothing about that either or where the money went?
We Australians should still be angry at the incarceration of Hanson for a signature on her party application as she did not have enough members. Clearly so many politicians go free, some after receiving 10 years salary as Senators, after receiving about $2Million each knowing they had signed improperly. Hanson made the mistake about asking where all the money was going for Ab welfare in her maiden speech. Now it is about Climate Change. Billions disappearing into the pockets of middlemen who just love Climate Change and Wind towers. Very profitable.
As was reported this morning, the electricity retailers in Victoria made 7.1c per kw/hr average, the highest in the country. Considering Hazelwood closed as it could only get 4c kw/hr, you have to ask why?
40
On ABC radio today, most of the money stolen from Nestle was recovered.
At the time her husband was arrested the Senator’s mother applied for Italian citizenship and passport, and she nominated her son for the same. Maybe there was a bureaucratic bungle and the Italians mistakenly included the son thinking that he was a dependent.
Because he never filled in or signed an application for Italian citizenship and was not aware of his mother’s application.
60
Spot on Dennis , unless he has signed something which will be found if he has then he is in the clear .
60
The question is whether he knew about it any time in the last 11 years and two elections. Pauline Hanson went to jail simply for signing something she should have known was not accurate. Why not these Senators? Or does being elected make you exempt?
20
Crickets. Cheep. Cheep.
ACCC.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The ACCC is Australia’s competition regulator and national consumer law champion.
Champion?
Champ, you’re nothing but a loser. You’ve taken a dive.
40
Former Brexit Hero and Anti Green Blob Warrier – Micheal Gove- turns Left, Embraces WWF!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/24/has-britains-michael-gove-joined-the-green-squishies/
50
an absolute must-read…lengthy:
26 Jul: ClimateChangeNews: Solar not cheaper than coal, says former Coal India boss
India’s future is still tied to coal and fixing woeful inefficiency of plants will create huge new generation at a price solar cannot match
By Aditi Roy Ghatak
In an interview with Climate Home, the former chair of the state-owned coal monopoly Partha Bhattacharya, a serious thinker in the energy space, agreed that solar has emerged as a major competitor to those wanting to build new coal plants.
“The low tariff bids on solar power (most recently Rs 2.44/kwh) raises question marks on the feasibility of new coal-based power capacity.” However, he says, “this fails to take into account the enormous scope and ample technology that can take the average plant load factor of coal-based power plants… to far more respectable levels”.
Plant load factor (PLF) is the ratio between the actual power generation and the possible generation if the plant works at its rated capacity; essentially the efficiency of operations. Currently India’s coal plants are running at around 60%. Old inefficient capacities are being phased out and a “sustained demand growth for thermal power and coal can arise following from attaining average PLF of 85%. That is well within the realms of possibility”, says Bhattacharya.
The economics is simple: improving PLF of coal-based power plants from 60% to 85% could generate about 40% more power. That means a potential 400bn units of additional coal power that will entail only the variable cost of fuel, which is measurably cheaper than the latest solar power bids by about Rs 0.6-1/kwh…
In other words, don’t read too much into cancellations of new coal plants, coal still has a competitive edge…
Unlike most other large economies, India’s Paris pledge was tied to GDP. “Assuming an average annual GDP growth of 7%, the 2030 GDP will be 5.8 times 2005 GDP. Thus fossil fuel consumption growth allowable in line with INDC at COP21 is 3.9 times. Applying that factor on coal permits consumption of 1.5 billion tonnes per annum by 2030,” he says…
According to projections from the Niti Aayog, the government of India’s planning body, India’s coal-based power generation capacity (125 GW in 2012; 192 GW in 2017) will probably rise to more than 330-441 GW by 2040 – confirming the continued dominance of coal in India’s energy infrastructure. The amount of coal burned each year is projected to nearly double in absolute terms by 2040.
Power, significantly, is not the only claimant for coal; India’s massively expanding manufacturing sector (a darling of prime minister Narendra Modi) needs coal as well…
The current government has offered consistent, full-throated backing for coal. Narendra Taneja, the key energy policy architect for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said in 2015 that coal and gas will remain the mainstay of the country’s economy for the next 50-60 years.
In April, power minister Piyush Goyal told parliament coal “will remain and to continue to remain our mainstay and there was no such agreement in Paris that will stop us from continuing to encourage coal-based generation of power”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/07/26/solar-not-cheaper-coal-says-former-coal-india-boss/
40
Plant Load Factor here is Capacity Factor.
Hmm! Who would ‘ever’ have thought that Capacity Factor would be important?
Imagine how cheap it is to construct either one of these plants in India.
The coal fired plant will have two units, each unit running a 1200MW generator, so a Nameplate of 2400MW.
Compared to a solar plant, (and I’ll use the PV plants here, because it seems that the heat seems to have gone out of Concentrating Solar Power, pardon the pun) you know, a really big PV plant of 150MW.
Coal fired plant – Capacity Factor of 85%. (and be aware here that the currently operating USC plants in China are averaging around 90% Plus during the early (some now up to 8 and 10 years) years of operation)
Solar PV plant – Capacity Factor (might even be as high as) 20%
Power generated in a year Coal fired plant – 17,900,000MWH
Power generated in a year Solar PV plant – 263,000MWH
Coal fired plant generates 68 times the power.
Now, I wonder which one of those two could sell its power more cheaply to recover the initial cost. Keep in mind also that the coal fired plant has double the life of the solar plant, so comparing lifetime power generation, you’re looking at around 140 times the power.
Please, don’t even begin to think that a coal fired plant would cost 140 times what a Solar plant would. Not even adding the cost of coal would bring those costs closer by any appreciable amount either.
Tony.
111
Some of you will notice that here I haven’t compared like with like, and there was a reason for that. (my bolding here)
That 150MW i selected for the Solar PV plant is about the biggest they can make in the one place, and that’s a plant covering a huge area.
So, to equal the Nameplate of that big coal fired plant, you now need 16 of those Solar Plants.
The CF inequality (85% compared to 20%) means you now have to construct 4.25 as many to equal the yearly power output.
The coal fired plant has double the lifetime, so now you need to construct twice the numebr of solar plants.
So, 16 X 4.25 X 2 = 136
So, just to equal the lifetime power output of that coal fired plant, you now need 136 of the huge solar plants.
See how ridiculous the results are when the maths involved is taken into account.
The coal fired plant is immeasurably cheaper than 136 solar plants.
Tony.
131
Well said,
I’ve always said bloggers should restate fossil fuel plant in the same manner as solar plants, e.g. in household numbers per hour, just to get the message across.
That way the green numpties can see their illogical nonsense with ease.
P.S. I’ll probably reuse your example in future. 🙂
60
Can I do my toast on a cloudy winter morning?
10
Tony, can you check those figures again please?
10
Yep! Done!
And……
Tony.
41
Thanks.
20
no thanks:
24 Jul: UK Telegraph: Katie Morley: Your energy bills could be controlled by Google or Amazon under Government plans for ‘peak pricing’
Households will soon be rewarded for turning lights off at night and heat off in the winter, under official plans to let technology firms like Google and Amazon to provide energy to British Homes.
The Government and regulators want radical new “time of day tariffs”, where energy prices fluctuate depending on availability, to be widely used by millions of families by 2020, Ofgem told the Daily Telegraph…
Under the arrangements suppliers will be able to switch consumer’s appliances – like TVs and washing machines – on or off during times of high or low demand…
Andy Burgess, associate partner at energy regulator Ofgem, said : “We want time of day tariffs to be commonplace by 2020. We will make this happen by letting other types of firms, for example technology companies like Google or Amazon, to enter the sector and innovate.
“If they introduce time of day tariffs then Big Six energy companies will either have to change to keep up, or lose money.”
Google and Amazon have expressed interest in the energy sector by setting up energy arms, however it is not known whether they will enter the market to provide new smart tariffs…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/24/energy-bills-could-controlled-google-amazon-government-plans/
25 Jul: CarbonBrief: Simon Evans: In-depth: How a smart flexible grid could save the UK £40bn
That’s according to research (LINK) by the Carbon Trust and Imperial College London, which was commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It is part of the evidence behind the government’s Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan (LINK), published jointly with the energy regulator Ofgem. This plan aims to facilitate a smarter grid through a series of technical and regulatory changes.
Carbon Brief looks at the potential savings from a flexible grid and the BEIS plan to unlock them…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-how-smart-flexible-grid-could-save-uk-40-billion
20
Pat
Link at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/07/silicon-valley-.html#comments
Maybe the likes of Google etc are looking for new cash streams
30
I guess they could then produce a smart algorithm to prioritise who gets cut off, and for how long, including an option to bid for increased exclusio…
Cheers,
Dave B
20
I’m not sure what his fathers trouble with the law has to do with him , as for the citizenship status this one should be allowed to go to the high court because if he didn’t sign anything he’s not an Italian citizen .
If he did sign he needs to be turfed out on his ear and charged with paying the bill for the high court sitting .
You can’t sign up for Italian citizenship without at some stage going to Italy is the advice I’m hearing so this one might be a bit different to being born overseas and not checking the status .
Wether or not he knew about it before hand is questionable but without a signed bit of paperwork there is nothing to this story .
Not a fan of any major party or the greens .
50
Let’s then pretend for a minute that we divest from all these CO2 emitting entities.
We can move to electric cars and that solves the oil problem eh!
Pretend for just one minute that we do that, and those cars can find a way to be charged by wind and sunbeams.
Those electric cars better not be made out of steel, which needs coal to manufacture the steel.
They better not be made out of Aluminium. (liquid electricity)
They better not be made out of plastic which requires oil.
They better not be made out of wood or paper, because, well, there goes the trees.
What do they think they will be made out of, and the batteries themselves will need cases to hold their chemical reaction in, and what do they propose to make the electric motors from, the rubber for the tyres, the roads they will drive on?
These arguments those greenies have are never really properly thought out, are they.
Then there’s trucks of all sorts, trains, boats, ships, planes, and the list goes on.
Nope! CO2 emissions on a huge scale will be around for the rest of time there are humans on Earth.
King Cnut the Great is laughing so loud right now, I’ll bet he wishes he had Galaxy S8 and a facebook page.
Tony.
141
Nissan and Mitsubishi have both withdrawn their lowest priced pure electric cars from the Australian market after sales in 2016 nose dived from earlier years when sales as a percentage of all cars sold was a very minor portion.
So much for the predictions that electric cars are the future. Maybe hybrids will capture a worthwhile market share, maybe.
60
The plan was never conceived to ensure everyone replaced their cars with e-cars. The goal is to render the personal car extinct. It will be replaced by State sanctioned, owned, subsidised, regulated and monitored ‘transport’. You will, if you’re a card carrying member, be permitted to hire a vehicle from the pool. The rest will manage on bicycles and home brew or phart fuelled jalopies.
60
OT – Proof by the Central Banks themselves that the whole inflationary “growth” model that is used to justify Quantitative Easing and ridiculously low interest rates is fundamentally wrong.
A publication by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – an international financial organisation owned by 60 member central banks.
The costs of deflations: a historical perspective
Scrap fiat currencies and bring back a commmodity based currency system.
40
Ireland would be insane not to miss its emission targets:
26 Jul: Guardian: John Gibbons: Ireland’s staggering hypocrisy on climate change
The national climate policy is a greenwash – the country is certain to miss its 2020 emissions target and still handing out drilling licences
(Climate action minister, Denis) Naughten recently pleaded in Brussels that the 2020 targets (of a 20% emissions cut compared with 2005) that Ireland chose to sign up to are too onerous, and ***threatening to delay EU-wide implementation of the Paris accord(LINK). By 2020 Ireland will only have achieved a paltry 5-6% reduction in emissions, with greenhouse gases from transport and agriculture actually rising. The spectre of serious EU fines looms ever closer…
Per capita, Ireland’s emissions are the third highest in the EU, and it is one of only four EU states (alongside Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria) expected to miss its 2020 targets. Things may be about to get a lot worse. With no public announcement, on 11 July Naughten’s department issued a licence permitting oil drilling on the Porcupine Bank off Ireland’s west coast.
Some 5bn barrels of offshore oil may be recoverable, which, when burned, would release 1.5bn tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent of more than a quarter of a century of Ireland’s current total emissions from all sectors…
Irrespective of whose balance sheet this oil ends up on, issuing such a licence is “complete doublespeak” and shows “inconsistency and incompetence”, according to Green party senator, Grace O’Sullivan…
While the Porcupine Bank oilfield presents a prickly political problem for a government claiming to take its climate obligations seriously, its real challenges are closer to home; first, in the transport sector where a lack of strategic planning means emissions are set to spiral by 14-16% by 2020…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/26/irelands-staggering-hypocrisy-on-climate-change
behind paywall:
***25 Jun: UK Times: Naughten vows to push ahead with EU climate law complaint
Denis Naughten, the environment minister, has threatened to escalate Ireland’s complaints about a potentially stringent new climate law to the level of European Union heads of state and government.
The move could delay a deal by member states on a new law to implement the Paris climate agreement.
However, Ireland got little support for its complaint at a meeting
in Brussels last week, where several ministers emphasised the importance of reaching agreement quickly. Without the backing of a large number of member states, Ireland cannot bring its grievance to the European Council.
The government is unhappy with a proposal that Naughten claims is a “red line issue” because it has “unaffordable” implications. The proposal would result in a series of financial penalties for Ireland after…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/naughten-vows-to-push-ahead-with-eu-climate-law-complaint-frwq73tr0
10
25 Jul: Fortune Mag: Beth Kowitt: Climate Change Is About to Remake the Insurance Industry
At a certain point, as the likelihood of extreme weather events increases, insurance companies are “not selling a risk aversion remedy to people,” says Dan Kahan, a professor at Yale Law School who specializes in risk perception. “[They’re] getting taken to the cleaners.”
A recent industry study found that last year there were 750 major “loss events” like earthquakes, storms, and heat waves, well above the 10-year annual average of 590. Analytics firm CoreLogic has found that 6.9 million homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are at risk of damage from hurricane storm surge that could cost more than $1.5 trillion…
Congress set up the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 as it became clear that private companies couldn’t profitably provide coverage. Now, nearly half a century later, the program is—ahem—under water by $24.6 billion. As a result, there’s a push to move flood insurance toward the private market. That could mean less building in flood-prone areas, as they become effectively uninsurable thanks to sky-high rates. Says Morningstar’s Brett Horn: “Frankly, that’s not a bad outcome.”
A version of this article appears in the Aug. 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline “As Oceans, Rise, Insurers Flee.”
http://fortune.com/2017/07/25/climate-change-insurance-industry/
25 Jul: Financial Times: Acting on climate change is Africa’s opportunity
Continent is well placed to reap benefits in investment and jobs
by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
(Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and chair of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. She was previously finance minister of Nigeria and managing director of the World Bank)
Climate investment opportunities in emerging markets could be as much as $23tn by 2030…
Take jobs, where climate action could generate a veritable bounty of clean energy employment…
China expects to create 13m jobs in the renewable energy sector over the next four years…
Across the African continent, forays into the clean energy industry have been promising, with renewables already providing 62,000 jobs and much potential ahead…
Overall investment in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly for clean energy, represents a $783bn opportunity…
The potential for renewables in sub-Saharan Africa stands at about 1,100 gigawatts of solar capacity, 350 gigawatts of hydropower and 109 gigawatts of wind…
Rather than importing solar panels and wind turbines from elsewhere, Africa can establish itself as a green manufacturing giant…
African cities can leapfrog the urban development challenges that other fast moving economies have faced…
https://www.ft.com/content/48e7ca40-712e-11e7-aca6-c6bd07df1a3c
10
26 Jul: Australian: Editorial: Protecting the reef with science
Peter Ridd from James Cook University is an outspoken champion for a more rigorous system of quality assurance for reef science, most recently in his essay in ***Climate Change: The Facts 2017, published by the Institute of Public Affairs. To date he has been poorly treated for his efforts, with many scientists happy to continue with the system of peer review that governs scientific research and publication. But, as Professor Ridd argues, he is seeking no more than the extra measures taken by industry to confirm research results before investment decisions are made…
But the politics of the Great Barrier Reef have become an extension of the ideological battle over climate change. Professor Ridd’s experience fits with calls for a more robust challenge to climate change research findings and the peer review process. Such calls are finding support within the Trump administration in the US. With heavy demands for scarce public funds, a thorough examination of the facts on which big-spending public policy is based should be welcomed, including for the Great Barrier Reef.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/protecting-the-reef-with-science/news-story/12af1a4f9d4678c3d1d0ece87f21948c
reminder, for those who want the book:
***25 Jul: IPA: New Book – Climate Change: The Facts 2017
by Jennifer Marohasy
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/new-book-climate-change-facts-2017
10
25 Jul: Toronto Sun: Lorrie Goldstein: Hypocrites on climate change – and incompetents
Anyone who believes you can’t suck and blow at the same time has never met the Ontario Liberals when they’re explaining their plan to — insert laughter here — “fight” global warming.
Because of Premier Kathleen Wynne, Ontarians are now paying almost $2 billion more a year, ostensibly to fight climate change, through her cap-and-trade carbon pricing scheme.
And yet, also thanks to Wynne, we’re about to become part owners of a giant U.S. electricity plant in Montana that consumes one rail car of coal every five minutes, with all the greenhouse gas and pollution problems that entails.
That’s a circle the Liberals can’t square, and a level of hypocrisy they can’t answer with political spin no matter how hard they try…READ ALL
http://www.torontosun.com/2017/07/25/hypocrites-on-climate-change–and-incompetents
u have to laugh:
PICS: 25 Jul: National Post: Tristin Hopper: Ontario climate change report weirdly shows a highway grader destroying a farm
The report, which details Ontario’s climate change action plan, inexplicably shows a road grader destroying a field of lettuce
The Ontario government-commissioned report was supposed to depict an idealized sustainable farm in the Ontario of 2050. And for some reason, it features highway equipment mercilessly destroying a field of harvest-ready lettuce.
Apparently mistaking the machine for a tractor, the report’s authors equipped the farm with a road grader — a piece of heavy equipment used to create level surfaces for roads.
Notice the road grader tilling the crops,” read a Monday tweet by John Deere instructor Justus Hickey. He added the note “not a clue.”…
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-climate-change-report-weirdly-shows-a-highway-grader-destroying-a-farm/wcm/2e4ea165-9b46-4d96-808f-b8f3a6110a31
10
read all for a nice kicker at the end:
25 Jul: National Post: John Ivison: Trudeau and new B.C. premier agree — don’t mention the pipeline
The concern remains that Horgan and Trudeau will allow their progressive principles to blind them to the reality of an economy struggling to maintain its competitiveness
It was comedy gold in the foyer of the House of Commons Tuesday when new B.C. premier John Horgan came to town.
At a press conference with Justin Trudeau, he inadvertently knocked a glass of water off his podium. Quicker than you could say “unstable minority government,” Horgan deadpanned: “Spills can happen anywhere.”
Trudeau chimed in: “We’ll clear it up,” to which the NDP premier quipped, “It’s a federal responsibility.”
It was the only time either voluntarily raised the issue that divides them. It was as if they’d agreed: “Don’t mention the pipeline.”
Trudeau mentioned it once but got away with it because it was so oblique. “We stand by the decision we took, in a respectful way,” he said…
It all suggested fears are overblown that a new NDP government in B.C., even one propped up by the Green Party, will make killing Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline one of its top priorities.
The new government continues to pay lip service to blocking the pipeline…
No doubt the B.C. New Democrats and their Green bedfellows would like to postpone indefinitely the sevenfold increase in tanker traffic it suggests Trans Mountain will trigger.
But this government was elected on a mandate to make life more affordable, improve services and create jobs.
Shutting down a multi-billion dollar investment was not one of those priorities — it didn’t even make the Green Party’s list of conditions for supporting the NDP…
The Chamber of Commerce issued a warning Tuesday that Canada’s climate change plan and other measures are raising the cost of doing business to a breaking point…READ ALL
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-trudeau-and-new-b-c-premier-come-to-an-agreement-dont-mention-the-pipeline/wcm/3be682af-cc65-44fe-ba1d-943419d4d52f
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the piece drifts off into CAGW la la land, but good to see not one mention of the word “denier”:
26 Jul: Townsville Bulletin: Andrew Backhouse: Prof takes aim at Reef papers
In the recently released book Climate Change: The Facts 2017, co-author Professor Peter Ridd argues the credibility of key research papers driving investments in reef management rested on “total reliance of the demonstrably inadequate peer-review process”.
The Federal Government is expected to spend more than $1 billion on the reef to mitigate the effects of climate change and much of the funding relies on the research Prof Ridd has criticised.
He summed up the peer review process as “a quick read by other scientists”.
“There’s no replicating or testing,” he said. “It’s a very cursory first check. It’s a good first check but not the basis to spend a billion dollars to save the reef.”
The climate change sceptic and geophysicist has called for a more adversarial approach to the peer reviewing of scientific papers.
“All the major supposed stressors to the reef are highly dubious,” he said.
“A lot of the science they’re using is not tested or replicated.”…
The book contains 22 essays by climate-sceptical commentators…
Leading coral bleaching authority Professor Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies based at James Cook University, said he would not comment on a book he had not read.
But he did say climate change was a real and well-established fact.
“It’s been accepted by the Australian Government as a fact,” he said.
Prof Hughes said Prof Ridd’s was a minority view, not supported by science.
“Climate research has been peer reviewed and published in journals like Nature, which is a well respected journal,” he said…BLAH BLAH
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/prof-takes-aim-at-reef-papers/news-story/759a503b5124cf5b55f13a55c64ebc5e
20
lots of laughs from Alister!
26 Jul: Reuters: Alister Doyle: Scientists dim sunlight, suck up carbon dioxide to cool planet
* World on track to overshoot Paris temperature limits
* Investors seek ways to turn down global thermostat
* Tiny Swiss project extracts carbon from the air
* Harvard project researches ways to dim sunlight
Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun’s rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet.
Backers say the risky, often expensive projects are urgently needed to find ways of meeting the goals of the Paris climate deal to curb global warming that researchers blame for causing more heatwaves, downpours and rising sea levels…
Worldwide, “direct air capture” research by a handful of companies such as Climeworks has gained tens of millions of dollars in recent years from sources including governments, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the European Space Agency…
Climeworks reckons it now costs about $600 to extract a tonne of carbon dioxide from the air and the plant’s full capacity due by the end of 2017 is only 900 tonnes a year. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of only 45 Americans…
Among new ideas, Wurzbacher at Climeworks is sounding out investors on what he says is the first offer to capture and bury 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air, for $500 a tonne.
That might appeal to a company wanting to be on forefront of a new green technology, he said, even though it makes no apparent economic sense.
http://news.trust.org/item/20170726060325-colqn
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