|
|
We can’t blame Goldman Sachs. It’s just good business.
Goldman Sachs pours money into lefty causes and politicians of both stripes. The gifts to left-wing flagships like climate change and same-sex marriage buy protection from the anti-bank Occupy crowd. And climate propaganda is doubly useful — Goldman Sachs can invest and profit from government largess. And these are very big biccies – -in 2009 Goldman Sachs announced it would spend $150 billion on green energy by 2020.
The message to non-left causes is that if you want to get multimillion dollar philanthropic funds, mobilize people and march in the street. When Goldman is afraid of what you might do against their bonuses or profits they might get interested in your cause too.
But infamously and so much more importantly, Goldman donates to both sides of politics and their people are appointed to key positions in the Treasury and corridors of power. When Goldman crashes, it gets bailed out — and that has happened four times in the last 20 years. The TARP bailout for Sachs was as much as $10 billion, so a mere $675k in speaking fees for Hillary-nearly-Pres might be viewed as a decent investment at the time […]
Welcome to paleolithic politics: in this version, the witchdoctors are syndicated and with lap tops.
OSLO (Reuters) – Nations around the world have adopted more than 1,200 laws to curb climate change…
Patricia Espinosa, the U.N.’s climate change chief, … said the findings were “cause for optimism”…
Because more laws are always good.
Forty-seven laws had been added since world leaders adopted a Paris Agreement to combat climate change in late 2015, a slowdown from a previous peak of about 100 a year around 2009-13 when many developed nations passed laws.
All those new laws and global temperatures peak anyway. Must be depressing for legisladocktors.
Too many laws is never enough:
“We don’t want weaklings in the chain,” said Martin Chungong, Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He urged all countries to adopt laws that help limit downpours, heatwaves and rising sea levels.
I’m with him. Why not speed limits for winds?
h/t Climate Depot
9.8 out of 10 based on 73 ratings
A funny thing happened on the way to the market. The government picked a winner, and everybody clapped as the losers left the room. But the electricity prices doubled, and unpredictable brutal price spikes started to happen (forty times a month). Then the real free market (or what was left of it) reacted — traders started to game the system, and the investors start to back away. Welcome to Queensland.
But dire news for everyone:
Australia passes a ‘tipping’ point in energy crisis
There is an energy crisis in the world’s largest exporter of coal, the second largest exporter of gas and a major exporter of uranium. We need real solutions. Unless we make decisions really quickly, and I mean in the next 12 months, that re-establish base load capacity then we have no chance of sustaining the economy in the shape that it is in now. — Financial Review
“In the end the market will work its way to balance,” Freyberg continued. “It will stabilise – but the wrong way and for the wrong reason. The inability to secure affordable base load supply means that the problem will befixed by demand destruction.
Ouchy prices….?
…
8.7 out of 10 based on 21 ratings
Solar – creating 79 pointless jobs
The New York Times tells us that Today’s Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal. But watch the pea – these jobs are “energy jobs”, not jobs that use energy.
Apparently it takes 79 people to create the same energy through solar as one person does through coal. (And that would be cheaper, how? )
Washington Examiner.
To start, despite a huge workforce of almost 400,000 solar workers (about 20 percent of electric power payrolls in 2016), that sector produced an insignificant share, less than 1 percent, of the electric power generated in the United States last year (EIA data here). And that’s a lot of solar workers: about the same as the combined number of employees working at Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company and Procter & Gamble.
In contrast, it took about the same number of natural gas workers (398,235) last year to produce more than one-third of U.S. electric power, or 37 times more electricity than solar’s minuscule share of 0.90 percent.
…to produce the same amount of electric power as just one coal worker would […]
All over the US media today — discussion over whether Trump will pull the US out of the Paris agreement. We all know the Paris agreement will not alter world temperature*, slow storms or stop floods but is potentially a trap for domestic legal action, it hurts the poor via high electricity bills, and reduces living standards (for those outside the $1.5 Trillion Green Industrial Complex). The free citizens around the world may score a big win soon. We hope.
*To put the impotence of Paris in perspective: if we use IPCC estimates, and all industrialized nations make a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2100, we can only cool global temperatures by 0.35C — a third of one degree at most. That’s no oil, no gas, or coal, in a world powered by handmade nuclear reactors using mud bricks transported by horse and cart. 😉 And that assumes that the models are right despite them failing on regional, local, short term[1] [2], polar[3], major feedbacks [4] [5], humidity[6], rainfall[7], drought[8] and on clouds[9].
White House may pull out of Paris agreement due to legal implications
Timothy Cama, The Hill
Trump could announce as soon as next week […]
Poor petals. The ABC is selling the sob story of scientists paid from the public pocket who feel suppressed because they aren’t allowed to voice their personal unresearched opinion on things like international treaties and energy policy.
Leaked emails from 2015 reveal a bitter dispute within CSIRO, Australia’s leading science body, as management tried to prevent top scientists from breaking ranks before the Paris climate summit.
The disagreement took place after CSIRO declined to make a formal submission to a government consultation about Australia’s new emissions target.
CSIRO has guidelines for its researchers, which encourage them to speak publicly about their areas of expertise — provided they do not stray too far into policy.
Critics say these tensions between CSIRO management and scientists are a symptom of ongoing self-censorship by an organisation fearful of offending government and losing funding.
The ABC entirely misses the plight of skeptical scientists who can’t be suppressed at the CSIRO because they would never even get a grant or a job there.
Put this in perspective, the CSIRO pour out climate reports in full gloss designer color on a regular basis. They forget to mention Australias hot […]
Nothing is more dangerous than a polite conversation.
On April 28th Brett Stephens wrote his first NY Times column, but dropped a complete bomb, he made it seem respectable to not robotically accept every bit of wild hyperbole about climate science:
“Let me put it another way. Claiming total certainty about the science traduces the spirit of science and creates openings for doubt whenever a climate claim proves wrong. Demanding abrupt and expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions. Censoriously asserting one’s moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.
None of this is to deny climate change or the possible severity of its consequences. But ordinary citizens also have a right to be skeptical of an overweening scientism. They know — as all environmentalists should — that history is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power.”
Naturally, the spaghetti hit the fan, people who think they are logical, scientificy types, but who pray at the Altar of Scientism have no where to run with this kind of dangerous material around. For once they have to think for […]
…
8.6 out of 10 based on 19 ratings
Thanks to the IPA we can see just how fast green tape multiplies. In 1971 the first environmental laws covered just 57 pages. But now there are 4669 pages of laws. The IPA estimates that costs the nation $176b a year in lost economic opportunity. That’s a lot of jobs, and a lot of trees. *Apologies $176b corrected to million.
Dennis Shanahan, The Australian
Green tape’s 80-fold explosion, costing $176b a year
That’s a curve that looks like the CO2 emissions. Does extra CO2 cause environmental laws? Could be…
…
A tale of economic destruction:
The Adani central mining project application has been running for seven years and faced more than 10 court challenges. It includes a 22,000-page environmental impact statement.
In the Pilbara in Western Australia, the Roy Hill iron ore mine had to obtain 4000 separate licences, approvals and permits just for the pre-construction phase.
The Turnbull government vowed to review environmental laws to prevent activist groups’ legal challenges to development projects ranging from dams and roads to coalmines. It said challenges under section 487 of the Environment Act, which allows anyone with a “special interest in the environment” the right […]
In 2016 67% of meteorologists said that humans have caused most or all climate change and The Guardian headlined that there was a Growing Consensus among Meteorologists. In 2017 that fell to only 49%. The Guardian said nothing.
….
In 2016 29% of meteorologists thought climate change was largely or entirely man-made, but that fell to only 15% this year.
Figure how this result fits with the idea of the overwhelming evidence and 97% consensus. Which group on the planet after climate scientists should be the second profession to “get it” — how about meteorologists?
So either:
1. meteorologists are really stupid, or
2. meteorologists know how hard it is to predict the climate.
8.7 out of 10 based on 88 ratings […]
A trace gas in our atmosphere hit 410ppm for the millionth day on Earth says Grist and this turned the planet in to something different. Who knew 410 was that exciting?
We just hit 410 ppm of CO2. Welcome to a whole new world.
This is not normal: We’re on track to witness a climate unseen in 50 million years by mid-century.
In pre-industrial times, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood at 280 parts per million. And that number has been rising ever since, warming the planet by 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) along the way.
It’s Big Number Fear Mongering which works so well on the innumerate. It might be the first time CO2 was this high in 50 million years, but if CO2 is so important, how come temperatures haven’t gone “to a whole new world”?
Kate Yoder on Grist has the usual calm dispassionate analysis:
As fictional carb-thief Aladdin once said: “Unbelievable sights/Indescribable feeling/Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling/Through an endless diamond sky.”
Frankly, I think Grist missed that in Base 3 this is the incredibly important 120,012 ppm. Spooky eh?
PS: Find numbers in other bases here. How much […]
The anti-carbon industry is in trouble — both Al Gore, and The World Bank are doing the hard-sell on “climate investments”.
The Fin Review used to be able to spot a chain letter…
Climate change offers huge investment opportunity, Al Gore tells World Bank
How did the worlds bankers miss something this big?
“It’s the biggest opportunity in the history of the world – it’s the biggest investment opportunity, but we have to have a clear vision, we have to have policy leadership… to bring the world community together to get the financing that is needed to move the momentum more quickly,” former US Vice President Al Gore told the discussion.
Any day now, this is going to be huge. (Right after they get that “strategy hammered out” yeah.)
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said financing climate action could offer a more lucrative home for $US8.5 trillion ($11.2 trillion) in negative interest rate bonds, $US24.5 trillion in very low-yielding government-type bonds and a further $US8 trillion in cash, though a clear strategy still needed to be hammered out.
Try not to think about what it means when the government is borrowing money from people […]
News just coming in suggests someone took some pot shots at the building the UAH satellite data is analyzed in.
Shots Fired into the Christy/Spencer Building at UAH
April 24th, 2017 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
A total of seven shots were fired into our National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) building here at UAH over the weekend.
All bullets hit the 4th floor, which is where John Christy’s office is (my office is in another part of the building).
Given that this was Earth Day weekend, with a March for Science passing right past our building on Saturday afternoon, I think this is more than coincidence. When some people cannot argue facts, they resort to violence to get their way.
Maybe the “March For Science” should have been called the “March To Silence”.
More discussion at Roy Spencers Blog and also at WUWT.
Roy Spencer adds in an email:
I doubt any media have covered it yet. I doubt the police have even written a report yet. From what I’ve heard, it sounds like the police believe the shots were fired from a passing car, […]
A survey of Dept of Agriculture (USDA) scientists by the agency’s inspector general suggests some very fishy things are going on in government science:
[Darryl Fears, Washington Post] According to the survey’s findings, nearly 10 percent said their research has been tampered with or altered by superiors “for reasons other than technical merit,” possibly because of political considerations.
Looks like Monopsony Trouble: When almost all the research in some fields is done by government funding (one buyer), there is no competition. In answer to that, instead of finding ways to encourage competition, the government set up an agency instead — the SIP.
That didn’t work either.
In the survey, 85 percent of the 1,300 scientists who responded said the Scientific Integrity Policy established to protect their work didn’t benefit them, or offered no opinion. Nearly 20 percent said they didn’t know the policy existed.
Nearly 40 percent didn’t bother to take the survey, according to findings released April 13. Of those who did, more than half said they didn’t know how to file a complaint and some said they didn’t do so because they feared retaliation.
“You do not need to have […]
…
7.3 out of 10 based on 19 ratings
Today, the misnomer “March for Science” is trying to take over the aging faded Earth Day. It’s an attempt to steal the good brand “Science” yet again for other causes.
Once upon a time, Earth Day used to mean something. Back in 1970, 20 million people took part, 12,000 events were held:
Congress took the day off, and two-thirds of its members — Democrat and Republican alike — spoke at Earth Day events. The Today show devoted 10 hours of airtime to Earth Day.
Can anyone imagine both sides of politics cheering the March for Science?
By 2013, Time Magazine noted how irrelevant it was:
Earth Daze, what happened to the environmental movement?
It’s Earth Day, though you could be forgiven if you missed it
So, lo, along comes another name “March for Science”. Same political motivations, different guise.
9.7 out of 10 based on 93 ratings
The March for Science is on Saturday.
Will J Grant and Rod Lambert struggled with the message behind the “March for Science” at The Conversation. We should march, they said a month ago, because “science is a human process”, which will be news to people who thought science was about evidence and reason instead. On Saturday they will be marching for the kind of science that is “passion” and “belief”. Don’t turn up thinking this is about the dispassionate Laws of Physics. You’ll be at the wrong rally.
Is the March to solve a problem or create one?
The March seems to be fighting strawmen. It is supposedly about “Encouraging scientists to share their research” (as if scientists like to hide their research). We know they hide their data, their methods and their adjustments, but when the ABC turns up to interview them, they don’t seem to hide their opinions. They hide their declines but don’t hide their Nobel Prizes (even if they didn’t get them). Do they need encouragement?
And the March is there, apparently, “affirming science as a vital feature of a working democracy”, who says it isn’t? Like voters have been asking for witchdoctors instead? Absolutely no […]
Overnight a river in Northern Canada disappeared. A glacier had retreated and allowed the water upstream to sneak out via a different path. The water now ends up in the Pacific 1300 km away from the Bering sea where it used to emerge.
A close-up view of the ice-walled canyon at the terminus of the Kaskawulsh Glacier, with recently collapsed ice blocks. This canyon now carries almost all meltwater from the toe of the glacier down the Kaskawulsh Valley and toward the Gulf of Alaska. Credit: Jim Best/University of Illinois
You might think this event has happened every time glaciers retreated in the last 30 million years, but you would be wrong. Really, this is due to coal-fired power stations.
In a report published on Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, Dr. Shugar and his colleagues provide a detailed analysis of how an atmosphere warmed by fossil-fuel emissions has led to the river’s dramatic disappearance.
“To me, it’s kind of a metaphor for what can happen with sudden change induced by climate,” said John Clague, who holds a chair in natural hazard research at Simon Fraser University and was a co-author on the report.
[…]
CO2Science found a 1999 paper done in China that shows just how awful climate change is for cotton. It’s a major global crop for fibre and oil and when the researchers warmed daytime growing conditions from 27C to 34C the plants seemed pretty happy about it as they grew faster and bigger. But if CO2 levels doubled as well, in hot conditions plant growth was up 60%. (Panic now. It’s a international emergency).
…
Don’t change your cotton futures portfolio just yet. At the current rate of warming (0.13C/decade) it will take about 500 years for Earth to get seven degrees warmer.
9 out of 10 based on 71 ratings […]
|
JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
|
Recent Comments