Renewables — the $300 billion dollar vested interest that hardly anyone mentions

Imagine there was a $300 billion dollar industry that depended almost entirely on a pagan belief that cars cause storms, and coal caused floods. Imagine this industry produced nothing that consumers would voluntarily buy unless the government banned cheaper options. Now imagine how much money these investors might be willing to donate to lobby groups, Superpacs, and activists in koala suits. Purely hypothetically…

Global clean energy investment[1] totaled $332.1 billion in 2018, down 8% on 2017. Last year was the fifth in a row in which investment exceeded the $300 billion mark, according to authoritative figures from research company BloombergNEF (BNEF).

Global new investment in clean energy, graph BNEF, Bloomberg.

Global investment in renewable energy, 2018  | Bloomberg.

With 100% of their income at risk of evaporating if the voters pick the wrong person, or if public faith in the pagan religion starts to wane, these investors have a reason to create a PR campaign that called anyone who questioned the faith an idiot denier, funded by fossil fuels, out of touch, old, white and unfashionable.

Fossil Fuels, on the other hand, wouldn’t need to worry. They’ve tried the solar and wind research already. They know how uncompetitive they are and how people will be using coal and oil for decades to come.

Imagine if every time someone said “fossil fuel funded”, someone else said, “or a target of a $300 billion investment industry 100% dependent on government rules and a pagan belief?”

The BNEF put out a report earlier in 2018. What’s evident in the graph the year before is that investment in developed countries is declining (palest columns below). Funnily, no one seems to want to mention that in their news releases?

For some reason the BloombergNEF report for 2017 was $70 billion smaller than the estimate for the same year made later in 2018. Some key assumption must be different? One reason the totals fell from 2017 to 2018 was the axing of many Chinese subsidies for solar.

Global Clean Energy Investment, Graph, 2018

Global Clean Energy Investment, Graph, 2018

Nearly half of the money in the graph above for 2017 was in China.

In the older 2018 Global Status Report for Renewables [March 2018]

Global new investment in renewable power and fuels (not including hydropower projects larger than 50 megawatts (MW) totalled USD 279.8 billion in 2017, as estimated by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)i. This represents an increase of 2% compared to the previous year, even as the costs of wind and solar power technologies fell further ii. Investment in renewable power and fuels has exceeded USD 200 billion annually since 2010.

REFERENCE

BNEF’s 2018 clean energy investment figures can be found https://about.bnef.com/clean-energy-investment/. [Jan 2019]

2018 Global Status Report for Renewables, chapter 5 — Report for Renewables. [March 2018]

This chapter is derived from United Nations Environment’s Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2018 (Frankfurt: 2018), the sister publication to the GSR, prepared by the Frankfurt School–UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance (FS-UNEP Centre) in co-operation with Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Data are based on the output of the Desktop database of BNEF, unless otherwise noted, and reflect the timing of investment decisions. The following renewable energy projects are included: all biomass and waste-to-energy, geothermal and wind power projects of more than 1 MW; all hydropower projects of between 1 and 50 MW; all solar power projects, with those less than 1 MW estimated separately and referred to as small-scale projects or small-scale distributed capacity; all ocean energy projects; and all biofuel projects with an annual production capacity of 1 million litres or more. For more information, please refer to the FS-UNEP Centre/BNEF Global Trends Report. Where totals do not add up, the difference is due to rounding

 

9.2 out of 10 based on 80 ratings

181 comments to Renewables — the $300 billion dollar vested interest that hardly anyone mentions

  • #
    Latus Dextro

    Government driven investment, UNEP driven divestment. The greatest ideological fuelled boondoggle in history en route to becoming the biggest financial bath.

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        What an absolute misallocation of scarce national resources.

        It shows that, no matter how many times the socialists of the world demonstrate that socialism just won’t work, they never learn.

        If a Labor government is elected under the shifty leadership of Bill Shorten in a couple of weekends’ time, we can expect the same outcome; a waste of scarce national resources and a growing level of taxes and charges to pay for it.

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        • #
          King Geo

          And recall Einstein’s famous saying,

          “You can fool all of the people some of the time & some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time”.

          This applies to the “AGW/CC Religion” – so many of the people fooled. Unfortunately there is a very large price to pay for those who have been fooled.

          It will become apparent here in Australia in the 2020’s as the twin swords of “Global Cooling” (yes it is coming) & reliance on fast tracked mega expensive and unreliable RE take their toll. The former – humans have no control over – the latter they do – but is it too late – the seeds for this catastrophe were sowed back in 2007 with the arrival of the Rudd Govt. Ever since that time base load electricity in Oz has rocketed up – a recipe for economic demise. This curse appears to be triggered by “Socialist Govt’s in western nations” – the EU first and others following including Canada & Oz. It appears that the east (most Asian nations) have been spared this madness, ie obsession with “Economy Destroying RE’s!!!”

          10

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Why is it we arent investigating things like plasma reactors the Chinese have just got running?

          You can tell the green thing is a sc-m, as if it truly was a crisis, govt would be exploring all avenues of power generation.

          It appears its not about saving the planet, but installing a control grid upon humanity…..

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  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    The frustrating thing about being a skeptic of CAGW is not getting a share of that $300,000,000,000.

    300

    • #
      RickWill

      You do not need to be a CAGW believer to accept the government largesse. In Australia, the only requirement is that you own a sun-exposed roof or yard.

      You are required to pay taxes that various governments use on programs that you may disagree with. Why not accept the largesse on offer for home based power generation even if you do not believe in CAGW. You are doing you and your family a disservice if you are able but do not take advantage of the money offered. There is no doubt that subsidised solar is a good investment when undertaken with due care and attention.

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      • #
        David Wojick

        It is only a good investment if it is equal to or better than all other available investments. Since many investments are liquid this is highly unlikely. Making money is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for being a good investment.

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        • #
          RickWill

          My investment in rooftop solar has given the highest percentage return of all investments over the last decade. There are currently no term deposits with ADIs giving better than 3%. Infrastructure funds have performed well over the past 12 months but that is rare and they have risk.

          Tell me – what is a better investment than rooftop solar when you own a roof.

          41

          • #
            Bill in Oz

            But you also have to accept the risks
            involved in solar panels on your roof
            Thye have been mentioned here…..
            And are real.

            40

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Exactly.

              And, the risk of the Inverter going belly up just after the warranty period has passed. Or, if the warranty is supplier backed, that the supplier is still in business. Many of them install the cheapest product then, after three years or so, fold up and phoenix under another name.

              You’d better make sure your house insurance is up to date and covers the whole cost of replacement of the house, plus rent while you wait for it to be rebuilt.

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          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            We’ve had this discussion before Rick.

            http://joannenova.com.au/2018/12/weekend-unthreaded-241/#comment-2088629

            When you do the sums, it doesn’t pay. Not for me. Not for most people who are honest with themselves.

            If you’d like to study my analysis you might see why. In the interim, it is disingenuous to say PVs pay. Give us your figures.

            Oh, and BTW, about 25% of the top 150 companies listed on the ASX pay 5.00% or better – fully franked in most cases.

            50

            • #
              RickWill

              Yep and it does not change that fact that my system has more than paid for itself on the income alone without even considering the reduction in usage from the grid:
              https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgx76MaeRDdzvcaa5

              There is nothing stopping any skeptic from enjoying the benefits of the largesse offered on solar power supplies.

              All investments have risk. Solar has been a very good investment for me in the last 10 years.

              Once you retire the share market becomes a very unattractive place to invest. A 20% fall in one year takes a 25% rise in the next year to just get the capital back. Actively managing a share portfolio is a shortcut to an early grave.

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              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                Rick,

                I’ve read your graph. If I’m right you think you make about $530 pa over and above your usage. If that’s correct then you are not paying for your system. It’s costing you big time.

                If your system cost (say) $7,000 to install, then you are $100s out of pocket every year.

                Your PV system is a depreciating asset. You are subsidizing your “cheap” power out of your own pocket (as well as from mine – but to a lesser extent).

                At the end of 20 years your PV system is worth nothing. Zero. But it has a further cost associated with removal and disposal of the system with all the nasties it contains.

                Add the annual depreciation figure to the income foregone (opportunity cost) plus the make-good at the end of the 20 years, plus the replacement inverter, plus maintenance and annual cleaning and see how you come out of it – especially with a feed in tariff of just 7.1 cents per kWh (in Perth), plus connection fee of $100 – $150 per quarter and the GST thereon. Don’t forget to deduct the reduction in electrical output over the period at around 1.0% pa either.

                Do your sums and post them here so that we can have a look how you are “better off”.

                On my crude analysis of your graph, you are fooling yourself.

                41

              • #
                RickWill

                Your $530 is low by a good margin; I net almost $150/month in the summer months and have a slight negative net in winter. The other 6 months net strongly positive. You also miss the not so obvious that the charted data is only what is metered. A significant portion of my daytime usage is not metered. I would pay 34c/kWh for that if it was not supplied by the roof. That works out around 3kWh/day so another $365pa there.

                I paid out $9k for the system and it took more than 4 years but less than 5 years to recover that.

                I am not certain how long I will live in this house but by 2030 I expect it will be wearisome to keep the garden maintained. My solar was essentially one of the investments I considered as a self-funded retiree.

                If the house burnt down I may come out in front. My son has an older house on a smaller block of land in the same area and he has been offered 30% above the market price by a developer to build units on his land. Low rise redevelopment has only started in this area and property prices for houses have not fallen yet. Unit prices are no longer booming.

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            • #
              John in Oz

              I have had a system for almost 9 years and am on the old $0.44c/KwH FIT, currently getting 60.3c/KwH from AGL.

              My return is over 12%, even though the 5KW system cost $15,500. Well worth it as my overall electricity cost is cash-flow positive (thanks to all those who subsidise this through the tax system).

              I am about to down-size and fear the current FIT will not be cost-effective. I am yet to do the sums for batteries and/or automatic emergency generator (I am in South Australia) and do not expect it will be worthwhile, even with the government subsidies.

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              • #
                RickWill

                My only regret was not going for a larger system. It would have gone up in cost disproportionally because panels would needed to be mounted on the second storey roof and safety requirements for the installers would have been expensive.

                I had a friend who followed my advice and crammed 4.2kW onto a smallish northeast facing roof and he has made money every year since installed. Another followed with a 5kW system after the top FIT finished and he has managed to avoid electricity bills.

                10

          • #
            The Wog

            Well yes, the IRR on your $10,000 solar is high – unless it burns down $1m worth of property as happened to a friend of mine. After unexplained surges over several years blew up $20k worth of electrical appliances. And produced effectively zero power. So yes, if you get lucky and you’re not one of the house fires you will probably make a high ROIC. And of course your IRR is -100% if you’re trapped in the house when it burns.

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          • #

            Rick, forgive me if I missed a discussion of your solar system earlier. Depending on when your system was installed you either got FITs in excess of their value, or your installer quietly got SRET certificates to cover half the cost of the install? Yes?

            50

            • #
              RickWill

              I had the grid connected system installed in 2010. It cost me $9k for a 3kW system. The installer got an extra $2k to 3k from the federal RET scheme.

              My FIT has always been 66c/kWh. I think that includes 60C/kWh from the state (that was limited to 100MW of capacity in Victoria) and the retailer throws in 6c/kWh.

              A year later I installed 3kW of off-grid capacity with a 5kWh lithium battery as I get 66c/kWh for the energy I can shift to export rather than use internally. I actually installed the off-grid solar panels in 1kW lots at $1100/kW until I could easily get through winter running fridge and freezer off battery. That gave me an awarenesses of the required overbuild in energy collection to meet a particular demand.

              The on-grid system had obvious payback and achieved that. The off-grid system has now paid for itself but that would not be the case without the high FIT. I will be looking at the economics of subsidised battery once that offers comes out but I doubt it will be attractive while I retain the high FIT.

              Prices for solar systems have come down significantly since mine was installed. In Victoria it is possible to have a subsidised 6.6kW system installed for $2.5k (once the “pause” is over). With well managed household load and current FIT, that should payback within 4 years.

              I expect we are still years away from proponents of grid connected intermittent appreciating how they have killed grid economics. I have a reasonably well developed, low cost alternative. I have no hesitation in accelerating the economic demise of the grid as no one wants to listen until that happens. My Finkel submission:
              http://www.environment.gov.au/submissions/nem-review/willoughby.pdf
              My ISP submission:
              https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Planning_and_Forecasting/ISP/2018/Round-1-Submissions/Rick-Willoughby—AEMO_ISP_Submission.pdf

              30

              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                My FIT has always been 66c/kWh.

                This is why socialism eventually runs out of other peoples’ money.

                In Perth the FiT is 7.1cents/kWh with my supplier.

                That’s why PV doesn’t pay.

                For Rick, on his boondoggle of 9x the going rate, it does. It’s not sustainable, but who cares? It’s nice to know that somebody can turn a profit from PV. Most can’t.

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          • #
            toorightmate

            RickWill,
            You received subsidies going in and subsidies while using.
            The pensioners or people waiting for hospital beds might just reckon that the subsidies which you were given should had been redirected to more worthy causes.
            But , NO. We are too dumb as a country to correct this gross stupidity.
            If any of this renewable caper was worth a squirt of PI55, it would NOT have to be subsidised.
            I am yet to meet a person who is struggling who has solar panels.

            70

      • #
        David Wojick

        It is only a good investment if it is equal to or better than all other available investments. Since many investments are liquid this is highly unlikely. Making money is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for being a good investment.

        20

      • #
        Dennis

        I have considered solar several times, I have a large shed roof facing east and a house roof facing north.

        All costs considered including loss of income on money invested, provision for replacements and repairs, cleaning cost, etc., I cannot justify the cost.

        90

        • #
          RickWill

          Your State needs to lift its game with regard subsidies!

          23

          • #
            ivan

            Your State needs to lift its game with regard subsidies! Yes, like cut them completely, and then where would you be?

            60

          • #
            toorightmate

            Subsidies – spoken like a true socialist.
            What happens when other peoples’ monies run out?

            60

        • #
          RickWill

          Unless you are in Tasmania of course. There is not enough sunshine there to get value from a solar system. Low sun and inevitably cloudy or smokey.

          00

        • #
          Graeme#4

          I’m considering adding solar if I can prove that it will pay for itself. Am very interested in any calculations folks might have.

          10

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Many decades ago we installed solar hot water.

            It did noticeably reduce power usage and was was a worthwhile low tech item.

            It would be interesting to compare cost benefits of solar electric panels and the solar hot water that we had.

            Two very different systems and technologies.

            KK

            30

          • #
            RickWill

            With FITs based on wholesale power price, your best option is to determine what loads you can shift to sunlight periods. If no one is at home during the day then it will lengthen the payback period. However if you set up things like washing timer and oven timer to do high energy chores when it is sunny then that will help. If you have electric water then setting that to operate through the sunny periods will help.

            Air conditioners are usually only required when the sun is shining. Pool pump can be set to operate only in sunny weather.

            I know a fellow in Brisbane who got his bill close to zero with a 5kW solar system and rooftop gas boosted water heater. The gas is turned off for 8 months of the year. He has a couple of children as well.

            In evaluating a potential system you need to know where and when energy is used in your home. The most value from a rooftop system on a low FIT comes from the usage you can shift to the rooftop rather than taking from the grid. I have a high FIT so it benefits me to shift as much of my load from daylight hours as I can; apart from those connected to the off-grid system.

            20

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      I want my money back!

      60

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      John,

      What frustrates me about being a skeptic is not being able to stop all these carpetbagger opportunists.

      By fiat, government creates a business opportunity in a commodity the opportunists know nothing about and they rush in, put up a shingle and start selling whatever they can kludge together. And as long as government keeps demanding that we buy their product, how can they lose?

      No one but the sucker at the bottom of the pile has an incentive to ask if it works, is safe or lives up to the marketing hype. And they don’t seem to know they should ask the question.

      And worse, suddenly there are more and more experts who couldn’t tell you the first thing about the dynamics of weather, even something as simple as why the wind blows, are telling use we’re doomed in, what is it now, 11 or 12 ears?

      70

  • #
    Edwina

    For all this money how much change in climate change be measured?

    250

  • #

    Scientific malfeasance that inspires economic insanity funding additional scientific malfeasance. Sounds like positive feedback to me.

    290

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    The Big Lie.

    Nothing good comes from lying.

    Its a test of character.

    Elites appear to be souless automons.

    How are the Elites any different to a pack of locusts?

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Id suggest teaching your kids they are being lied to is also essential.

    The green lie cant work if our kids know they are being used and abused by the zombie-like Elite.

    160

    • #
      ColA

      Steve,

      The leftard teachers have eco-brainwashed the kids for the last 30 – 40 years, so now the Unis are also infested and kowtowed, and the media sits there and says it’s all going swimmingly!!
      How do you propose to change that momentum??
      Even when the evidence is right in their face they don’t have the capacity to realize or understand because they have lost the ability to think critically.
      Many times I wish breathing was more of an intellectual challenge as I am sure most of us would be better off for it!

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      • #
        el gordo

        ‘How do you propose to change that momentum??’

        A debate in the MSM would see us come out on top because the precautionary principle has no legs. At the moment only Sky is offering an alternative viewpoint, which is good, but if you want to see a revolution we really need aunty to follow her charter.

        What we have to prove is that the slight warming of late last century was caused by the sun … game over.

        100

        • #
          RickWill

          The Herald Sun in Melbourne gives space to prominent skeptics including Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin and Terry McCrann. The letters page occassionaly has well argued input from skeptics.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Easy – you talk to your kids who are now 5-10 years old, and explain the reality that they are being systematically lied to by the whole establishment – govt, media & education industries.

        If you dont point out that the kids are being lied to , you are agreeing with the attempted brainwashing……

        WHo do you want kids to be – themselves, or be stolen by the occult UN?

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    • #
      glen Michel

      Most of the young and not-so young Secondary Teachers are compromised by their tertiary educators.Unfortunately there is nothing critical about their thinking on most matters.

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      • #
        el gordo

        Middleton has a story at WUWT on the US education system and I pulled this quote.

        Fewer than half of K-12 teachers told us that they talk about climate change with their children or students. Again, parents were about the same.

        The top reason that teachers gave in our poll for not covering climate change? “It’s not related to the subjects I teach,” 65% said.

        ——-

        I believe the same situation prevails in Australia.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          US “teachers” do not have the ABCCCC radio and T.V. whispering “the truth” in their ears from the moment of birth.

          In this parallel universe I have little doubt that even “music festivals”, where a few kees of the latest stimulant are eagerly consumed, are seen as being in support of Eco Renewables Transitioning.

          My point? Australia has arguably one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world and besides the National Broadcasting Disgrace the other major influence is our schools.

          Our schools are in need of redirection. American schools are not ours.

          KK

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            • #
              OriginalSteve

              It gets worse….The Matrix & Minority Report reloaded.

              Globalists like Bill Gates apparently respect this guy.

              Notice the theme – control , and more control. Socialism.

              https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-25/global-government-and-mass-surveillance-needed-save-humanity-expert-says

              “Over 15 years ago, Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, made the case that we are all living in a Matrix-like computer simulation run by another civilization.

              Here’s a summary of that theory, explained by Vox:

              In an influential paper that laid out the theory, the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostromshowed that at least one of three possibilities is true: 1) All human-like civilizations in the universe go extinct before they develop the technological capacity to create simulated realities; 2) if any civilizations do reach this phase of technological maturity, none of them will bother to run simulations; or 3) advanced civilizations would have the ability to create many, many simulations, and that means there are far more simulated worlds than non-simulated ones. (source)

              ………………….

              Bostrom believes the only thing that can save humanity is government.

              Bostrom has proposed ways to prevent this from happening, and his ideas are horrifyingly dystopian:

              The first would require stronger global governance which goes further than the current international system. This would enable states to agree to outlaw the use of the technology quickly enough to avert total catastrophe, because the international community could move faster than it has been able to in the past. Bostrom suggests in his paper that such a government could also retain nuclear weapons to protect against an outbreak or serious breach.

              “The second system is more dystopian, and would require significantly more surveillance than humans are used to. Bostrom describes a kind of “freedom tag,” fitted to everyone that transmits encrypted audio and video that spots signs of undesirable behavior.

              “This would be necessary, he argues, future governance systems to preemptively intervene before a potentially history-altering crime is committed. The paper notes that if every tag cost $140, it would cost less than one percent of global gross domestic product to fit everyone with the tag and potentially avoid a species-ending event. (source)”

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                And meanwhile, back on Earth, our biggest problem is the inability to find, locate and identify REALITY and then interact with it appropriately.

                KK

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              • #
                theRealUniverse

                “All human-like civilizations in the universe ”
                1. How does he know there are other human like civilizations in the universe. I do wish ‘professors’ of some ilk would stop using the term ‘Universe’ The universe is a VERY large place most of which we cant see or EVER hope to. Nearest galaxy of large proportion Andromeda at 2500000 light years. MAYBE theres ‘other’ civilizations in out own GALAXY but then we will never know as it is TOO FAR! Also the probability of them being coincidental with us is literally astronomical, Thousands of years of round trips to visit and not possible. (Alien conspiracy can shove itself).
                Too many people are brainwashed with sci-fi fantasy movies along with most else.

                Bostrom believes the only thing that can save humanity is government. Yep like we can trust them to save us? NOT. They dont have a very good track record on saving anything.

                Hes straight from the 3rd Reich.

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              That’s good.
              Identifying the problem is the essential first step to getting a fix.

              30

          • #
            Another Ian

            KK

            They have NPR

            “NPR: 8 Ways To Indoctrinate School Children With Warmunist Propaganda”

            https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/29/npr-8-ways-to-indoctrinate-school-children-with-warmunist-propaganda/

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    • #

      ” …. teaching your kids they are being lied to …”
      This needs a bit of care, especially if your kid is on the Aspergers spectrum, eg likely to get fixated on the garbage fed to them by their teacher, or possibly just easy to fool because they are trusting and naive. The first reaction might be anger, directed against the teacher.
      Imparting the skill of dissimulation is harder than deprogramming the AGW/CC nonsense.
      One approach is to encourage the kid to see if they can find out who else among their peers knows that it is nonsense. Most adults know it, but some young ones have a natural instinct to know when they are being lied to. Not studying hard sciences, up against huge pressure from schools, teachers, the psychiatric profession, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (25 organisations including the National Union of Students) – and they still know it is nonsense.

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  • #

    Look at actions and not words for a moment. The world fights over oil production, reserves, supplies and transits, and it fights over gas transits.

    Big Green increases oil and gas dependence, which is why Big Green and Big Oil wriggle uncomfortably in bed together.

    There’s not much peace to be had, but what peace we can have resides in diversifying, not into pea-shooter tech but back into the coal which can serve us well for centuries. In an angry world, investment in domestic coal power is the single smartest geopolitical move Australia can make. Anyone with credit can blunder deeper into a debt trap by investing in flimsy green energy to the applause of carpetbagging scoundrels and globalist snakes. Anyone with an active credit card can knock on the door that says MUGS SERVED.

    But we have our coal.

    Coal!

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    • #
      Mal

      Coal and don’t forget nuclear power

      Ultimately nuclear will be the backbone if we don’t want to descend back to hunting and gathering.
      RET (raceteers extract trillions) and EV”s ( economic vandalism) says it all.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      🙂

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Big oil also profits from the carbon credit fiasco. Hence they have support for the ‘scam’ (CAGW).

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Don’t forget the humble light globe and its succe$$ in preventing global warming /sarc off …

    “Solar panels and wind turbines get a lot of attention, but a more inconspicuous instrument is helping to reshape America’s energy economy right now: The humble light bulb.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/08/climate/light-bulb-efficiency.html?smid=tw-share

    Footnote: Did I say succe$$?

    World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns (this article is over seven years old)
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change

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  • #
    tom0mason

    It will be interesting to see how this massive investment in solar energy pays off given that global cloud cover is on the rise. The cloud cover from https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/analysis/climanal1.html over recent times.

    The interesting point in the cloud cover is that it declined from around 1987 to about 2000, since then has been gradually increasing again. Not good for getting peak solar energy output …

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    • #
      Peter C

      The interesting point in the cloud cover is that it declined from around 1987 to about 2000, since then has been gradually increasing again.

      How do we know that?

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      • #
        James Hein

        Satellites, or for the Elite, magic.
        It’s all in the date range.

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        The return of the solar downturn.
        spaceweather.com, or http://spaceweathernews.com/ (See last graph of the recent solar cycles comparison)

        Spotless days.
        Current Stretch: 8 days
        2019 total: 70 days (59%) (so far)
        2018 total: 221 days (61%)
        2017 total: 104 days (28%)
        2016 total: 32 days (9%)
        2015 total: 0 days (0%)

        The Sun spots have been dropping since cycle 21 (1976-1986)
        Cycle 25 will be a non event.

        The new LIA will start in the next 5 years.
        Record cold and VERY late snow storms in the Northern hemisphere.
        ‘Chicago Shatters Spring Snowfall Record’
        ‘Up to 33 inches (84 cm) of snow in two days (USA)’
        ’50 percent losses for Burgundy winegrowers’
        And its spring there.

        So quite likley cloud cover will increase. Jetstreams will be more unstable, weather will have extremes that will be blamed on ‘climate change’ correctly of course BUT not human!
        Thats why it was quietly changed from ‘global warming’ as there is NONE.

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        tom0mason

        Peter C
        See the link.

        The short ISCCP time record, covering only about 22 years, shows some signs of a slower variation. Cloud amount increased by about 2% during the first three years of ISCCP and then decreased by about 4% over the next decade. ISCCP began right after one of the largest El Ninos this century (in 1982-83) and the eruption of the El Chichon volcano, both of which may have caused some changes in clouds. There were other, weaker El Ninos in 1986-87, 1990-91 and 1992-94 and another volcanic eruption (Mt. Pinatubo) in 1991. Note however, that there appear to be no related changes in cloud top pressure/temperature or optical thickness (the small change in 1991 is caused by including the extra sunlight reflected by volcanic aerosol with clouds which affects the cloud top pressure/temperature determined for very thin cirrus clouds). The surface temperature shows a decrease of about 1 K from 1983 to about 1991. Since there a number of events occurring during this time period, the cause of these cloud variations is not yet understood.

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      RickWill

      The BoM has been compiling solar insolation at ground level since 1990. There is certainly a downward trend in insolation in the northern latitudes but it is not so evident further south:
      Cairns:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=031215&p_nccObsCode=203&p_month=13
      Brisbane:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=040913&p_nccObsCode=203&p_month=13
      Sydney:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=066062&p_nccObsCode=203&p_month=13
      Melbourne:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=086338&p_nccObsCode=203&p_month=13

      I assume this data is actual energy based on bolometer measurements rather than some inferred nonsense based on spectrum analysis.

      Taking Cairns, the decline over two decades is at least 1MJ/sq.m. That equates to 12W/sq.m reduction. Puts so-called climate sensitivity of CO2 into perspective.

      Water vapour pressure literally skyrockets above 30C so it is no wonder that cloud cover increases dramatically when the tropical oceans reach the high 20s and low 30s.
      https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/687/saturation-vapor-pressure-diagram.pdf
      Who could have devised a better self-regulating temperature control than vast expanses of water; drenched in sunshine that is regulated by water evaporating, rising then cooling and forming reflecting clouds – just brilliant. If only climate models could get clouds right.

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        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        G’day RW,
        ” If only climate models could get clouds right. ”
        Do they actually include any consideration of clouds?
        If I remember Kinninmonth’s book correctly, his contention was that there was no attempt to include cloud effects as it was too difficult. The continued failure of IPCC models to get temperature forecasts ( or is projections?) to approximate reality has let me think he was not only correct then, but that nothing has changed.
        Cheers
        Dave B

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          theRealUniverse

          IPCC ‘models’ are meant to explain or predict anything except to ‘prove’ climate change is our fault and we must obey! They are FAKE, and thats it. Not even a pretense at any form of real geo physics. If there was theyd collapse faster than a neutron star.

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          RickWill

          The current coupled GCMs have some form of cloud model. None of these work on fundamental physics because it is painfully obvious that climate modellers have no clue about EMR. The only climate modeller who writes clearly, with acute understanding of EMR that I have come across is Michael Mischenko. He openly admits that climate models are a bunch of fudge factors that can produce any desired outcome.

          The linked paper gives some details on the development history of climate models:
          https://aos.princeton.edu/sites/aos/files/manabewetherald_retro-1.pdf
          You will see that clouds came into the scope during the 1980s. The problem is that the radiative transfer that sits at the foundation of the models is all garbage based on nothing to do with E-M fields by which the sun’s energy reaches Earth and Earth releases energy to the rest of the universe.

          Syukuro Manabe was a key player in the development of climate models and he stated a couple of years ago that climate models are too complicated to understand and cloud modelling remains challenging.

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          Peter Fitzroy

          Its interesting that big data, neural networks and climate models are coming together to better simulate clouds
          https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/07/09/cloud-climate-models/
          This is from the chip maker nvidia, who have developed some very innovative chips and processes

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          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            How nice of you to confirm (inadvertently) that the models currently used are worse than useless.

            That’s a first for a GetUp! troll.

            Does your boss know?

            Now, tell us how man-made CO2 is the primary driver of catastrophic global warming. We’ve been waiting far too long for your genius to become apparent.

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              Peter Fitzroy

              To the first part – it is a model, it is being improved all the time, even so there is valuable information generated in such models. To say they are worse than useless is a very strange comment, like “it will never fly, Orville”
              To the second part, I’m waiting for Reed to get back on to this blog. If you remember, we are going to have a debate, and are atm laying out our definitions. We have agreed that CO2 absorbs infrared energy emitted from the earth and in an omnidirectional fashion, reradiates that energy. As you can see it will be a while before all the terms are agreed, but there is no hurry.

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                AndyG55

                “We have agreed that CO2 absorbs infrared energy emitted from the earth and in an omnidirectional fashion, reradiates that energy. ”

                Not below 11km it doesn’t, in any meaningful amount.

                Loss of energy by collisional degradation is far greater and far faster than re-emittance time.

                You still have not produce one piece of viable empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2

                EMPTY AGW Vassal.

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                RickWill

                Peter stated:

                We have agreed that CO2 absorbs infrared energy emitted from the earth and in an omnidirectional fashion, reradiates that energy. As you can see it will be a while before all the terms are agreed, but there is no hurry.

                If you have agreed that then you are both up the well known creek without a paddle. You both need a good lesson in field theory. The linked paper gives you a reference point:
                https://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/mmishchenko/publications/2013_AIP_Conf_Proc_1531_11.pdf

                Even more fundamentally, the local instantaneous Poynting vector S(r,t) is a monodirectional vector. This means that even if one assumes that S(r,t) describes the direction and rate of local electromagnetic energy flow, then at any moment this flow occurs in only one direction.

                Note the word “monodirectional” completely at odds with your “omnidirectional” nonsense.

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                Peter Fitzroy

                Rick – what has that to do with CO2?

                Andy – Do you have a link to back up your statement?

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                Sceptical Sam

                Fitz says (with tongue in cheek?)

                To the first part – it is a model,

                That’s the problem right there. It’s a model that doesn’t work.

                It’s a model that has resulted in more than $300 billion per annum being wasted on ineffective solutions to a non-existent problem, as Jo points out above. That is the outrage.

                Until your models can replicate the success of Orvil’s feat, governments should say out of it.

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                toorightmate

                Drongo,
                Why does a model require raw data to be arbitrarily manipulated to make it work?

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                theRealUniverse

                The problem you have fitzy is that the IR re-radiated by CO2 isnt in the correct wavelength. THAT my dear Watson has been shown by an IR astronomer as well.

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                Peter Fitzroy

                SS – that is spending on renewables. the model does work, and just saying it doesn’t proves nothing.
                tRU – this is a bit beyond what Reed and I were discussing but you might like to comment on it anyway https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/5/4/76/htm

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              • #
                RickWill

                If there is a fundamental misunderstanding on your imagined EMR absorption and emission ability of CO2, as in being an omnidirectional re-transmitter, then you have no clue about what happens. You need to understand how EMR energy propagates to have some clue. I have know of only one climate scientist with the correct understanding of the electric field and magnetic field all matter exists in.

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                AndyG55

                “Do you have a link to back up your statement?”

                You are totally unable to produce any evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2.

                As long as you continue to produce NO EVIDENCE you PROVE my case.

                Thank you for continuing to do so. 🙂

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And if you don’t know the basic physics of re-emission times vs collision times of CO2 in the lower atmosphere, then nobody can educate you about anything. (hint, the latter is about 2 magnitudes less than the former)

                You will remain, forever, a nil-educated dim-wit..

                .. by your own choice.

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                AndyG55

                “the model does work”

                If you mean, “it runs” SO WHAT !!

                If you mean is it what it spits out correct….. then..

                NO, THEY do not.

                That is manifestly obvious by the fact that NONE of the models give the same results, 100’s of them are WRONG, period. End of story.

                … and there is zero evidence to say that ANY of them are any where near right.

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                Peter Fitzroy

                Rick – there are 1,020,000 Google scholar results all saying that CO2 behaves the way I have said, you have one link to non CO2 EMR – Sorry but unless you can explain why those million odd papers are wrong, I’ll stick with them.
                Andy – no link, no proof, (shouting does not count)

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                AndyG55

                As you say little man.

                You have no link

                You have NO EVIDENCE for warming by atmospheric CO2

                Thank you for YET AGAIN, proving me correct. 🙂

                Your obvious lack of scientific education explains your abject GULLIBILITY.

                Just “BELIEVE”, poor little-minded fits.

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                AndyG55

                “saying that CO2 behaves”

                Because that is the non-science behind the anti-science of AGW.

                They “say” , but just like you, they present ZERO EVIDENCE.

                Sorry you don’t have the scientific ability to understand that you have been CONNED.

                Maybe you could learn the basics if you wanted to.. nah.. probably not.

                It funny watching your INEPT INABILITY at actually producing anything but mindless blathering when asked to produce evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2, though. 🙂

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                Sceptical Sam

                ….the model does work, and just saying it doesn’t proves nothing.

                You’re the one who said it Fitz. So you’re in good company.

                Lewis and Curry’s 2018 work. The Impact of Recent Forcing and Ocean Heat Uptake Data on Estimates of Climate Sensitivity.

                “These results imply that high ECS and TCR values derived from a majority of CMIP5 climate models are inconsistent with observed warming during the historical period.”

                https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0667.1

                Meehl, Teng and Arblaster’s 2014 work. Climate model simulations of the observed early-2000s hiatus of global warming.

                “The slowdown in the rate of global warming in the early 2000s is not evident in the multi-model ensemble average of traditional climate change projection simulations”.

                There are numerous others. However, I don’t want to be accused of Gish-galloping you (which is a standard warmist mode of attack).

                Now, you can accept the science or you can believe the story of the warmists. The difference of view is no better demonstrated than in the Spencer/Christy image presented to Congress some time back, and which has never been refuted.

                http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png

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                AndyG55

                “Sorry but unless you can explain why those million odd papers are wrong,”

                As Rick says, I doubt there is one single “climate scientist™” that has the correct understanding of the electric field and magnetic field all matter exists in.

                Oh wait, I know of one, His name is Will Happer.

                Great choice to bring “climate science™” back somewhere towards the reality of REAL science.

                It will be a hard job because “climate science™” is so full of IGNORANCE and EGOS.

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                tom0mason

                Yes Peter Fitzroy,

                Your usual nonsense. The models are just appalling at cloud cover, not poor, not just inaccurate, not just approximate but GARBAGE! They do not, and can not, accurately show climate change of any time period, be that 1 year or 100 years!

                Of course this doesn’t stop people like you from propagandizing their use for ‘projecting’ future trends and trying to hoodwink everyone into the notion that the global economies must change because of the results of these ‘work-in-progress’ models.
                The model are, as a piece of research, interesting and useful (in learning about climate interactions etc.) but as a reason to change any policy or any economy of any nation in the world they are grossly unfit for that purpose.

                Only children think otherwise as evidenced by all the school children protests. Real thinking adults know otherwise and should act accordingly.

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                tom0mason

                Peter Fitzroy,
                “…1,020,000 Google scholar results all saying that CO2 behaves the way I have said”

                Is an appeal to the ignorance of a consensus and that is neither scientific logic nor reason to agree with them.
                100 years ago the ‘scientific’ consensus was wrong about Mars being populated by intelligent life. (see https://realclimatescience.com/2019/04/consensus-reached/ )
                Decades ago the ‘medical’ and ‘scientific’ consensus was wrong on the major causes of stomach ulcers.

                From all of the historical knowledge, and current empirical measurements about the climate, indicate that you and your 1,020,000 Google scholar consensus look increasingly like they are grossly in error over the climate effects of CO2.

                P.S. What is the current consensus figure for the Climate Sensitivity of CO2? 1, 5, or 10 and where is the measured evidence for its value?

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                RickWill

                Tha fact that you used GOOGLE as a counter demonstrates that you are clueless with regard to field theory and EMR.

                GOOGLE = the learned source!!! – since when. As I said you need to learn something about EMR and energy transfer in the E field and M field before you can begin to understand climate.

                People have been taught this nonsense about photons and radiation and do not have the understanding of fundamental physics to appreciate it is bunkum.

                Here is another reference to a physicist who explains the nonsense that is taught about photons:
                http://www-3.unipv.it/fis/tamq/Anti-photon.pdf

                It should be apparent from the title of this article that the author does not like the use of the word “photon”, which dates from 1926. In his view, there is no such thing as a photon.

                Take an hour of your life to get some education on field theory and its development. Then learn the maths and you might get to appreciate something about EMR:
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjKJyn_uoIE

                Here is a basic starting point for you:
                http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1420.html
                Isn’t it interesting that the electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability of vacuum or matter determines the speed of EMR in the vacuum or matter. That is how fast matter at different energy potential (or temperature) interact with each other across a vacuum or other matter.

                When you think of the electric field and magnetic field about you, you should be envisaging being immersed in an ocean and reacting with those E-M fields in the same way as you would in the depths of an ocean. It is not little bullets darting about in all directions as the concept of photon portrays but the response to energy waves within the medium. If you are at higher energy then your surrounds you will impart energy. If you are at lower energy you will absorb energy. Energy flow is one way; from high potential to low potential. Energy cannot flow against the potential gradient. AND the energy flow is NOT the net of a two way street. It only flows one way at any time.

                Downwelling long wave radiation is pure bunkum. It will take a long time to get this truth widely known because text books are full of misleading information that has no basis in physics.

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                AndyG55

                “You still have not produce one piece of viable empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2”

                36 hours, and still NOTHING, NADA, diddly-squat from mickey moose or misfitz.

                RUN AWAY, little children !

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                Kinky Keith

                Look at Will’s comment above this.

                Science is the ultimate arbiter.

                KK

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              • #
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          tom0mason

          David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

          As far as I can understand it (which may be in error on some of the more esoteric details …
          the model are exceptionally poor at resolving cloud cover an precipitation (both type and amount) because all too often these effects cover less of the standard grid used by the models or crosses height boundaries.
          Basically the models’ resolution is too coarse to resolve the clouds appearances and movement.
          So methods are tried to ameliorate the this difficulty (like forms of inter-grid and cross grid interpolation), however these methods are VERY approximate and often fail. Overall its a failure!
          And the ‘preferred’ method of many models has been to ‘tweak’ the particulate parameters to get the models to simulate a little more realistic cloud cover effect. Some of the model have the cloud parameters ‘tuned’ to what has been recently measured by satellites — they effectively curve fit recent historical measured data and project that into the future — however the difficulty is how to model the changes for 1 month, 1 decade, 100 years into the future.

          There is a lot of ongoing research on this aspect of the models but that has not stopped the IPCC hustlers from trying to tie the future of the world’s economies to the very approximate nature of these ‘work-in-progress’ models.

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            tom0mason

            Even the order in which parameterizations are processed are not necessarily that rational.

            See https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017MS001067

            Also of note is the paper “Air‐Sea CO2 Flux Estimates in Stratified Arctic Coastal Waters: How Wrong Can We Be?” https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL080099
            ~~~~~~~~~

            Of course the UN-IPCC have not updated the figures for natural venting of CO2 in their reports — they still use the figures from the late 1990s! So researchers finding big termite colonies, the size of the UK, in Brazil is ignored. (see https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-11/cp-4tm111318.php ) or that volcanoes that are long extinct but still vent enormous amounts of gasses including CO2. Or that the newly discovered active, or dormant but venting, underwater volcanoes are still being found. (See https://www.livescience.com/40451-volcanic-co2-levels-are-staggering.html )
            All these things don’t impact the UN-IPCC’s figures one jot! As that would upset some (so called) scientists notion that man-made CO2 is 110% of all the CO2 increase during the 20th century. That’s to say adding in these natural effect ruins the politics of de-industrializing the West. And also of note is the embarrassing silence about the initial results from the O-C-O satellites showing that highest CO2 fluxes happen not around industrial areas of the globe but the tropical rain forests is deafening!

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    • #

      Tom, I really like that ISCCP work, but it stops in 2010. Can anyone find a more up to date one? Seems so incredibly pertinent.

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    Robber

    Can someone, anyone, please explain what benefits that $300 billion investment in “clean energy” has delivered?
    And then contrast that with the benefits of investments in improving health and education.
    For example, the World Health Organisation has proposed an investment of $14.1 billion over the next 5 years could save up to 30 million lives, add up to 100 million years of healthy living to the world’s population and add up to 4 per cent of economic growth in low and middle-income countries by 2023.
    These investments would help achieve the “triple billion” targets of WHO’s General Programme of Work: 1 billion more people benefiting from universal health coverage; 1 billion more people better protected from health emergencies; and 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being.

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      Bobl

      The way to deliver that, the in building and operating coal fired power over disadvantaged parts of Africa and Asia, why the UN might even fund itself this way which is the aim of the tax by treaty schemes anyway.

      The UN wants money streams from anywhere to anywhere that it can skim on the way through. Doesn’t want to work for its money or actually save anyone’s lives though. They might get their halo dirty.

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      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      G’day Robber,
      That’s easy. Zero.
      That a lot of people have pocketed parts of that $300 billion is true, so they might be said to have “benefitted”, but for the rest of us it’s been a nett negative. For individuals, via increased power prices, and for societies through lost opportunities.
      Cheers
      Dave B

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      Robber, and that’s just last years investment. Not to mention the ten years before. What else could we have spent $2T on?

      We could have gene mapped the whole world and sorted for responses to drugs, disease, diet, and learnt so much….

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        Kinky Keith

        Opportunity Cost.

        Immeasurable.

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        RickWill

        The UK have embarked on that project:
        https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/about-genomics-england/the-100000-genomes-project/

        The 100,000 Genomes Project

        The project has sequenced 100,000 genomes from around 85,000 people. Participants are NHS patients with a rare disease, plus their families, and patients with cancer.

        The aim is to create a new genomic medicine service for the NHS – transforming the way people are cared for. Patients may be offered a diagnosis where there wasn’t one before. In time, there is the potential of new and more effective treatments.

        Based on project cost it works out at around AUD7000 per person. However once the project and system is established the cost per analysis will fall considerably and GPs could eventually have system access.

        There have already been some life changing discoveries highly beneficial to individuals with the abnormality.

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    Travis T. Jones

    Renewable Energy Could Save $160 Trillion In Climate Change Costs by 2050

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/04/14/renewable-energy-could-save-160-trillion-in-climate-change-costs-by-2050/#16f71e354878

    Whoa! Wait. What?

    2050?

    I thought we only had 12 years?

    ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019 – use your voice

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=Vyw6Pfv2nvc

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    theRealUniverse

    Watched the ‘debate’ on 7 from Perth last night if you could call it that, idiot Shorten raving about his favorite phrase ‘klimate change’. So Bill, where is that extra few billion in TOTALLY wasted tax payers money coming from? Tax the rich, handouts to the poor while ensuring their power bills skyrocket due to insane idiotic renewables policies.
    One tweet said that they ‘would vote for the leader that was taking positive action on climate’….yep another branewashed fool..
    Other said ‘I wish both of them would stop smirking at the camera!’

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    Neville

    Here’s Lomborg explaining how to fake your mitigation claims and NEVER EVER achieve a REAL reduction in emissions.
    The NZ example uses real data and don’t forget this country emits just 0.1% of global co2 emissions.
    This mitigation fra-d has to be the greatest Ponzi scheme for the last 200 years. Of course a guaranteed ZERO change to temp or climate, but who cares? IOW we’re wasting endless tens of billions $ for nothing, every day, every year.
    But China and India are laughing all the way to their banks.

    https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-change-undeliverable-emissions-targets-by-bjorn-lomborg-2019-02

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      Greg in NZ

      Neville, talking of fake mitigation claims and ‘Where did all that money go to?’ –

      https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/388077/census-2018-population-count-more-accurate-than-before-shaw

      “Yesterday, Stats NZ announced it had plugged enough of the gaps in last year’s census using a method that combines 89 percent of real census data and 11 percent of other government administrative data”. I heard the term ‘infilling’ on one radio interview but can’t find it in writing. The Minister of Statistics is also the Minister for Climate Change and he’s just allocated NZ$16,000,000 (that’s 16 million Pacific pesos) to his own department for the next census – sustainable future-proofing or sump-think™.

      Regarding last year’s Census 2018, “At the time, the minister was heavily criticised by the opposition for not being present in the country on census day. Mr Shaw, who is also the Climate Change Minister, was with Ms Ardern on her first trip to the Pacific region as prime minister”. Yessiree Bob, both the minister of the census and the PM herself were out of the country on census day – how do you say leading by example? – saving the planet in Kiribati or somewhere warm and tropical by the sea…

      A rule for them and a rule for thee.

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    theRealUniverse

    Brilliant well put words from Paul Dreissen.
    https://www.iceagenow.info/fake-climate-science-and-scientists/

    ““We’re tired of being made guinea pigs in their fake-science experiments.”
    – Paul Driessen
    ______________

    “For years we’ve been subjected to what can only be described as fake science on climate change, brought to us by folks that can best be described as fake climate scientists,” says Paul Driessen.

    “They engage in practices that real scientists would never follow, and willfully ignore everything the scientific method prescribes as guidelines for honest, replicable, beneficial research. Even worse, these fake/alarmist scientists demand that their suspect work be used to justify energy policies that would upend and devastate modern industrial economies – for no climate benefit … with millions of acres blanketed by wind turbines and solar panels … and with billions of impoverished people being trapped in energy poverty, disease, malnutrition and early death.”

    Shorten and the rest of you fool in Canberra ..please read carefully!

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    Dennis

    Please consider;

    1) Not enough rainfall in future to fill dams: desalination plants required and money to be made by contractors and others.
    2) To offset the electricity consumption, using Sydney as the example: wind farm at Bungendore near Goulburn, Capital Wind Farm, private investors one born lucky.
    3) Transition to renewable energy by order the government: many more investment opportunities.
    4) Transition to electric vehicles: replace the fleet, replace the service station infrastructure, sell conventional trade ins to third world countries, more opportunities.

    Politics and money, man made global warming caused by carbon dioxide hoax.

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      Bobl

      Dennis, note that almost all the distribution infrastructure will need to be upgraded to support EVs. I think that’s a out a Trillion dollars

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    Neville

    Here Lomborg explains why Trump was right to pull out of Dr Hansen’s BS and fra-d Paris agreement. Yes that Dr Hansen, who has been the top adviser to Al Gore for the last 20 years.
    This 5 minute video is well worth 5 mins of your time. Very accurate and hard hitting.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbGZo8D5gnI

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    Kinky Keith

    Brilliant Jo.

    Never before, in the field of human enslavement, has so much been spent by so few to achieve so little for so many.

    The next leg of the unveiling of this scam is to track the skim off.

    Obviously Chyna was employing a lot of people making Solar and Wind Systems but there are others involved.

    Australia’s Own MalEx444 and Family are prominent.

    John Hewson, The Union Mooment Super Funds looking after Union Executives and other non renewables areas of the religion like The Great Big Barrier Reef Foundation all have fingers, or hands in the pie.

    Everyone profits out of an industry that is essentially making “thin air” for consumption by the serfs.

    The Emporers New Clothes was ahead of its time.

    Aren’t those renewables doing a great job!

    KK

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      joseph

      A variation on a theme . . . .

      ‘Never before, in the field of human enslavement, has so much been spent by so few to achieve so much for so few.’

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    redress

    Written in the last two years………there is no date on the pdf, this analysis of the German renewable industry is damning. Some may have already read it but it is well worth a reread.

    http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/1-6-_kompendium-der-energiewende_englisch_1.pdf

    Jo is it time to do the same analysis of the Australian renewable industry?
    If one has been done I have not seen it.

    Great to see you on The Bolt Report last night, hope you become a regular.

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    pat

    sorry I missed Jo on Bolt Report. has anyone got a video?

    30 Apr: 9News: AAP: Shorten softens language on electric cars
    Bill Shorten concedes Labor’s ambitious electric car targets may never be achieved.
    The federal opposition wants half of all new cars sold in Australia by 2030 to be electric.
    “That doesn’t mean that will happen,” Mr Shorten told Nova Radio in Perth on Tuesday…

    He has ruled out reducing import taxes on electric cars or providing incentives for household charging stations.
    Instead, Labor’s plan hinges on paying for more public battery charging stations and imposing buying controls on government fleets.
    “The good news is under Labor policies you can do what you like,” Mr Shorten said.
    “We’re happy for you to keep buying the cars you have, we just want to extend the range and the choice.”…
    https://www.9news.com.au/national/shorten-softens-language-on-electric-cars/30a51d5b-aa0d-47fd-9318-6a362fc44296

    no idea who this refers to:

    Car-making to return to Australia with EV production
    The Australian – 25 minutes ago
    Car-making is coming back to Australia with one company committed to launching “this year” with an electric city runabout expected to be its debut model…
    “We’re committed to launching an EV platform in Australia, we’re working very hard on a couple of options and we hope to announce more … “We’ll definitely be launching a car within this year”…

    00

    • #
      pat

      after finding the AFR piece, I included Gupta in a search of The Australian piece, and got this:

      Car-making to return to Australia with EV production
      The Australian – 25min ago
      Mr Gupta, who has previously floated the possibility of electric vehicle (EV)…

      29 Apr: AFR: Gupta’s electric car plans gather speed
      The billionaire says the price tag of electric vehicles will fall and his venture with Britain’s Gordon Murray Design will tap into extra demand
      by Simon Evans
      Sanjeev Gupta says Australia should have an electric vehicle manufacturing industry.
      A tie-up with Britain’s Gordon Murray Design is close to making decisions on vehicles best suited for Aust.
      British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta says the price of electric vehicles will fall steadily like big-screen televisions and solar panels and he’s close to finalising plans to become a niche manufacturer in Australia with a likely production run of between 10,000 to 20,000 vehicles…

      Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton (LINK) said separately the speed with which electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles are embraced will surprise some politicians…

      Mr Gupta wants to make electric vehicles in Australia and then set up manufacturing operations in India.
      A small ”metro car” for drivers in large cities was one of the prototypes, but Australian drivers seemed to prefer other types of vehicles. “Australia may not be ready for a smart car. We are likely to have a range,” Mr Gupta said.
      “My dream would be to launch a people’s car,” he said. He declined to say where the manufacturing site might be in Australia. Some formal announcements on the next steps were likely ”within weeks”…

      Mr Gupta said on Monday that governments were subsidising the industry in many countries around the world, and that had clearly added extra impetus to the industry, with Norway a prime example.
      The same would happen in Australia…

      Mr Gupta also said on Monday a decision by the Chinese government at last week’s Belt and Road CEO Conference in Beijing to anoint an ambitious next-generation steelworks plan at Whyalla as one of 16 projects of national significance to China, was a big plus for GFG…
      Mr Gupta announced in Whyalla in December that Italian manufacturer Danieli had signed a contract for a new steel mill to be installed in the existing Whyalla steelworks, while a new pulverised coal injection plant would also be incorporated into the upgrade of the existing Whyalla steelworks…
      https://www.afr.com/business/infrastructure/gupta-s-electric-car-plans-gather-speed-20190429-p51i3n

      above links to the following, behind paywall:

      29 Apr: AFR: ‘ZEVs will dominate,’ says Transurban CEO Scott Charlton
      by Jenny Wiggins
      Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton says anxiety over how far electric cars can travel without recharging is “overplayed”, and nothing will stop the global shift towards zero-emission vehicles.
      “ZEVs will dominate over the next two decades,” Mr Charlton said at the tollroad company’s annual investor day in Sydney on Monday, adding he
      https://www.afr.com/business/transport/zevs-will-dominate-says-transurban-ceo-scott-charlton-20190428-p51i0j

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      • #
        pat

        29 Apr: SMH: Transurban says user-pays road charges needed within decade
        By Patrick Hatch
        Australia must find a new way of taxing road users soon or be unable to fund new infrastructure, according to the boss of toll giant Transurban, who says the inevitable mass adoption of electric vehicles will soon demolish fuel excise revenue.

        Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton said on Monday that while electric vehicle sales in Australia had been “anemic” to date, nothing could stop the rise of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), and connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), which can drive themselves and communicate autonomously with other vehicles on the road.
        “We now believe that the mainstream uptake of CAVs will approach some sort of critical mass in the mid to late 2030s, and the ZEVs will be a little bit earlier,” Mr Charlton said.
        Electric vehicles would reach price parity with fuel-engine cars by the mid 2020s, which would spur faster adoption, he said…

        That would hit government earnings from fuel excise – the 40¢ per litre tax motorists pay when they fill up at the bowser, which contributes about ***$12 billion to government coffers every year to fund new roads.
        “We believe that as the road funding sources decline, the need for road-user charging will significantly increase by the late 2020s,” Mr Charlton said.
        “Something will have to change by the end of the next decade. Because all of these trends are going to feed on themselves and that funding pool… is going to dramatically decrease.”…

        The federal government is trialling a road-user charging system for heavy vehicles, to test options for alternative revenue models to registration fees and fuel taxes.
        “We’re hopeful that can be adopted eventually, with a brave politician, in Australia,” Mr Charlton said.
        The other option was to increase the goods and services tax or introduce some other tax that was not directly associated with roads, but that would lead to “misuse or misalignment” between the raising revenue and spending it…

        Transurban owns and operates many of the country’s biggest toll roads, including Melbourne’s CityLink and Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel, M2, M5, M4 and M7, plus Brisbane’s Gateway Motorway and Airport Link.
        It is also building Melbourne’s West Gate Tunnel and has bought a 51 per cent stake in Sydney’s WestConnex.

        The introduction of zero emissions vehicles and automated vehicles – which could operate as a fleet of self-driving, on-demand vehicles – was not a threat to Transurban’s earnings, Mr Charlton said, and in fact would increase the use of its roads.
        That is because the next-generation of vehicles would be cheaper to drive, and autonomous vehicles would open up a new category of road users in people who cannot currently drive, like younger people, the elderly or people with disabilities, Mr Charlton said.
        Shares in Transurban closed down almost 1 per cent to $13.60 on a weak trading day for the Australian market.
        https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/transurban-says-user-pays-road-charges-needed-within-decade-20190429-p51i9i.html

        ***Charlton’s $12bn is ABC’s $18bn,based on current number of cars. that income will increase before EVs ever make a difference. you will learn nothing from ABC otherwise in this piece:

        30 Apr: ABC: Your questions about electric cars answered, as Federal election campaign ramps up
        ABC Radio Melbourne By Kristian Silva
        A shift towards electric vehicles is going to impact fuel excise collected by the Federal Government, which rakes in about ***$18 billion a year…
        https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-30/federal-election-your-electric-car-questions/11049084

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        • #
          Russell

          Call me a cynic but Scott Charlton couldn’t possibly have in mind an agreement with governments to collect road usage taxes via his toll charging systems, could he?

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  • #
    Greg in NZ

    O/T but no doubt the TEN TIMES FASTER newspeak will be hitting your shores tonight:

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/388063/ross-ice-shelf-part-melting-ten-times-faster-than-the-rest

    After a bunch of twaddle ‘n’ nonsense, “then Dr Williams said the ice shelf would likely melt very rapidly and carve more icebergs after it detaches”. I surf, skate- and snowboard, therefore I carve: glaciers and icebergs give birth to mini icy things, therefore they calve. RNZ’s ‘Environment Reporter’ Kate Gudsell really needs to turn on her phone’s spellcheck or run her propaganda essay past an adult before hitting ‘send’.

    Apparently this is the settled science: “This area, the Ross Sea Polynya, absorbs heat from the sun quickly in summer and drives very high levels of melt underneath the front of the ice shelf. This is the first study to show how important the heat from the sun is for melting ice shelves, prior to this work it was thought to have only a minor affect… Dr Williams said the ice shelf is right up against Ross Island which is a pinning point with the island holding the shelf there. If there are really high rates of melt around Ross Island and the shelf disconnects from the pinning point…”

    Ross Island is comprised of four volcanoes, one of which is active Mt Erebus. Do you laugh or cry?

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    • #
      el gordo

      We’ll look back and laugh, but at the moment its maddening.

      Big rains coming to south-east Australia and there is speculation that NZ might get a drop.

      http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/welcome-rain-on-the-horizon/529658

      The loss of intensity in the subtropical ridge means typical winter rains have returned.

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      • #
        Greg in NZ

        el gordo, I’ll see your weatherzone and raise you a https://www.marineweather.co.nz/pressure

        Cold rain in South Australia? Must be AGW/CCC! Rain and snow in NZ in May? You know it – it’s all our fault! Forgive me, Gaia, for I have sinned

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      • #

        More weather weirding, wet-weather weirding replacing recent dry-weather weirding, sigh. – The kids will be upset.

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      • #
        Bill in Oz

        Yehhhhh ! Tis the Break a coming !

        Tonight !

        We have waited far too long for a drink,

        Since last December !

        It is not the latest we’ve ever had.

        We waited till June 6th in 2007

        Now that was indeed a real drought.

        So thanks be to the weather Gods

        For making that Subtropical Ridge

        Retreat Northwards !

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      Greg in NZ

      Just noticed Kid Kate konfused ‘affect’ for effect, too. Yeah yeah, I know, I’m a grammar nasty – had the love of language caned & whipped into me by teachers at school. See, like ‘carbon’, it has no long-term ifekt offect uffecked affect effect. Meanwhile, at 3.30 pm today, it’s -26˚C at Scott Base on Ross Island and the sun’s gone till next spring…

      http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base/webcams-and-weather/

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    • #
      Serp

      Sun causing melting in the dark under the ice sheet is it?

      Surely there’s a carbon dioxide warming explanation for this climate crime.

      These researchers need to try harder rather than just pinning it on the sun which the IPCC has fully exonerated for any contribution to the climate crisis.

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      • #
        Greg in NZ

        But Serp, that stuff is buried in the fine print on page 1,234 – forget which section and clause and amendment and addendum – climate deniers activists need to be able to read to comprehend those pronouncements. Now it’s the burny burny sun wot done it coz of us!

        From one of my dictionaries: “climate (noun) the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French climat or late Latin clima, climat-, from Greek klima ‘slope, zone,’ from klinein ‘to slope.’ The term originally denoted a zone of the earth between two lines of latitude, then any region of the earth, and later, a region considered with reference to its atmospheric conditions. Compare with CLIME”.

        Not sure how ‘high’ the sun gets in an Antarctic summer sky (the angle, slope, degree, klima) yet I do know it’s a brief, and very chilly, sojourn.

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    pat

    3 days ago:

    China’s Belt and Road is ‘green and clean,’ says Xi
    Deutsche Welle-26 Apr 2019

    reality:

    29 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Multiple coal deals emerge from China’s ‘green’ investment summit
    At the belt and road summit in Beijing, leaders talked up sustainable development, while investors forged ahead with polluting power projects in partner countries.
    By Megan Darby
    Investment deals emerging from China’s belt and road summit 25-27 April show continued support for controversial coal projects, despite leaders’ green rhetoric.
    The official round-up of conference outcomes highlighted Chinese involvement in a recently opened coal mine and 660MW power plant in Thar desert, Pakistan; and Vietnam’s 1,200MW Nam Dinh coal power station.
    Media reports and company announcements also flagged coal projects in Turkey, Cambodia and Indonesia, as compiled by Greenpeace campaigner Yan Wang. Most announcements signalled advancement on existing projects, rather than new deals…

    Turkey’s leadership shunned this year’s summit, citing China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority and “debt trap diplomacy” – accusing it of predatory lending to secure strategic advantage.
    That did not stop Shanghai Electric Power signing a deal with Chinese banks earlier in April to build Hunutlu coal power station in southern Turkey. Financial partners include China Development Bank and Bank of China…
    Over 2013-18, Chinese power project loans were heavily weighted towards coal, according to analysis from NRDC (LINK)…
    https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/04/29/multiple-coal-deals-emerge-chinas-green-investment-summit/

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    pat

    28 Apr: UK Telegraph: Britain should eat less red meat, plant millions of trees and build wind turbines, Government advises
    By Steven Swinford
    Britain should eat less red meat, plant millions of trees and build a new generation of onshore wind turbines under radical plans to hit “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
    The climate change committee, a Government advisory body, is on Thursday expected to recommend abandoning the existing target to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by then.

    It will instead recommend that all greenhouse gases, including carbon, methane and nitrous oxide, are eradicated or offset by that date.
    The committee’s report will recommend a series of measure to help meet the target, including a suggestion that less red meat in people’s diets could reduce methane produced by livestock….
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/04/28/britain-should-eat-less-red-meat-plant-millions-trees-build/

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    29 Apr: UK Times: Politicians ‘too weak for climate crisis’
    by Gurpreet Narwan
    Political leaders in Britain are not strong enough to tackle the climate change crisis, according to one of the country’s leading authorities on the subject.
    Lord Stern of Brentford, author of the Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that politicians were holding the country back from making progress on the issue.
    “Has the political leadership been strong enough? No, I don’t think so,” he said. He added that protests by campaigners such as Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, and Extinction Rebellion, a group that caused disruption in the capital last week, would help to build awareness and spur politicians into action.

    “Leadership is absolutely fundamental, but that doesn’t come out of nowhere, it comes as these pressures build,”…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c233cb30-69e1-11e9-95be-9353feb218cd

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    pat

    behind paywalls:

    28 Apr: UK Telegraph: How capitalism can save the planet
    by Tom Rees
    For the grand finale of its 11-day takeover of central London, Extinction Rebellion brought the chaos and upheaval of its climate change protests to the capital’s beating financial heart…
    While in Canary Wharf, they mounted the top of a train to face off bankers, holding signs saying “business as usual = death”.
    The enemy in the sights of the protesters was not just greenhouse gases, but also capitalism. On the Left, the debate has seemingly been hijacked by those arguing that capitalism and tackling rising global temperatures are incompatible…

    Companies are leading the way on clean energy technology, investors are pressuring the biggest carbon emitters, retailers are chasing shifting consumer demands and industries are being transformed by carbon pricing and targeted subsidies. Capitalism and the power of price signals in markets are proving to be the solution, not the problem…

    “We can use markets in order to tackle climate change, but we have to recognise that they currently suffer from a number of market failures which need to be corrected for them to work properly,” says Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. In the search for an effective tool to fight the problem, economists have coalesced around the idea of putting a price on emitting carbon…
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/28/capitalism-can-save-planet/

    29 Apr: UK Times: National Grid seeks to avoid fuelling panic over gas alert
    by Emily Gosden
    National Grid is seeking to rename the alert it issues to warn of possible supply shortages, claiming that calling it a “gas deficit warning” is inaccurate and can fuel panic.
    The utility company, which ensures that Britain’s gas supply and demand are in balance, issued the warning during the Beast from the East cold spell last year after a “series of significant supply losses resulting in a forecast end-of-day supply deficit”.

    The alert to the gas market, designed to inform traders that they needed “to provide more gas or reduce demand”, sent prices soaring and ultimately had the desired effect by securing enough gas to meet demand, which was unusually high in the freezing weather.
    However, in a submission to an industry panel, National Grid has complained that the warning “does not adequately reflect the purpose of the message and was, unhelpfully, taken out of context by some market observers”. It said that reporting of the warning “fuelled a sense of panic in the market that was unwarranted, potentially resulting in higher within-day gas prices”…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c47059b0-69ee-11e9-bf02-7f5aa383779f

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    29 Apr: UK Times: Labour backs green activists’ pop-up protests at Barclays
    by Francis Elliott
    The shadow chancellor has told Barclays that he is “on their case” as he backed a direct action campaign against the bank for financing fossil fuel projects.
    The Momentum group yesterday confirmed plans to disrupt Barclays branches by turning them into “pop-up discos” and “children’s play areas” in climate-change protests next weekend. Staff would be handed boxes of chocolates to apologise for the inconvenience, the group said.

    The support from John McDonnell comes as Labour seeks to capitalise on the popularity of the activism fed by the Extinction Rebellion movement and the 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg.
    Labour will use a Commons debate to get MPs to vote on whether to heed her call and declare an “environmental and climate emergency”…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-backs-green-activists-pop-up-protests-at-barclays-gpkltmljg

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    pat

    Times sees rather keen on such stories!
    behind paywall:

    29 Apr: UK Times: Writing’s on the wall for oil firms, say fund managers
    by Philip Aldrick
    Several big fund managers believe that oil companies should shut themselves down because soon they will become impossible to invest in as the world switches to renewable energy.

    A survey of 39 fund managers with $10.2 trillion under management found that 24 per cent wanted the oil industry “to wind down their businesses and return cash to shareholders”. All but two of the funds said that oil stocks would not be attractive investments within ten years if they failed to respond to climate risks.

    Among respondents to the survey ***by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association and the ***Climate Change Collaborative were leading names such as Aviva, Legal & General Investment Management, M&G Investments, Invesco, Hermes Asset Management and Schroders…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/34d5a4a6-69e7-11e9-95be-9353feb218cd

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    pat

    26 Apr: Bloomberg: China’s `Friendly’ Neighbors Seize Coal Share From Australia
    by Bloomberg News, With assistance by Ben Sharples, and Jing Yang
    Cargoes from Australia accounted for 18 percent of China’s overseas purchases in March, near the lowest since 2012, according to customs data and Bloomberg calculations. Meanwhile, Russia and Mongolia steadily built their share in the past few months as customs delay hobbled their rival. Top shipper Indonesia maintained its stake at about 50 percent.

    “Importers tend to favor supplies from countries that have a friendly relationship with China such as Russia and Mongolia, and avoid purchases from nations that have trade frictions,” said Zeng Hao, an analyst at Fenwei Energy Information Services Co. “There isn’t anything particular about Australian coal that Mongolian and Russian supplies can’t replace.”

    China has a history of using trade to help achieve its foreign policy goals and the slowdown of Australian coal since end-January has spurred concern it’s retaliating against a ban on Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co. The increased scrutiny, including checks for radioactive content, will likely remain until Beijing assesses government policy in Canberra after federal elections in May.

    That is benefiting Mongolia and Russia at this stage. The North Asian nation supplied 15 percent of the coal China imported in March. Russian purchases made up 13 percent, the highest in data going back to 2011.

    Smoothing out monthly fluctuations shows a less pronounced shift in China’s purchasing habits over the first quarter, as Australia got a boost in January when China eased prior import curbs. The exporter’s share was 25 percent in the first three months from 27 percent in the same period last year. Mongolia and Russia each accounted for 10 percent, while Indonesia continued to make up half of inbound coal cargoes in China.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/china-s-friendly-neighbors-seize-coal-share-from-australia

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    Neville

    Here’s a 2014 post from Willis Eschenbach showing OZ to be the third largest co2 sequestering country on the planet. But if you also added our cold territories we would be number one.

    This data comes from the Japanese Ibuki satellite. Nice clear graphics from Willis. So where are our reparations cheques and why aren’t we building new coal power stations? We’ve earned it.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/05/the-revenge-of-the-climate-reparations/

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      theRealUniverse

      Of course that CO2 doesnt stay in the atmosphere it decays exponentially. And the amount is totally irrelevant to the climate.

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    pat

    30 Apr: ABC: Land clearing laws to be bolstered if Labor wins government, so what do Queensland graziers think?
    QLD Country Hour By Melanie Groves
    If elected, Federal Labor has promised to improve the “robustness” of state governments’ native vegetation or land clearing laws to better match Queensland’s, in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

    But the pledge has Queensland landholders riled up, arguing the state laws designed to protect the environment have had the opposite effect…READ ALL
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-04-30/protecting-the-climate-or-environment-queensland-land-clearing/11053714

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    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Since when did the Federal government
      Have the constitutional authority
      To manage privately owned land
      Whether trees are there or not ?

      It bloody well does not !

      The constitutional authority
      To do this lies only with the states.

      Buger off Shortstop !

      And get some legal advice from
      Some decent constitutional layers.

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  • #
    Ian Wilson

    I made a prediction in 2013 that a severe drought in South-Eastern Australia would take place in 2019. This prediction was willfully Ignored by the Australian Government. On the front page of this 2013 submission to the Australian Senate Committee on Recent Trends in and Preparedness for Extreme Weather Events:

    https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Completed_inquiries/2010-13/extremeweather/submissions

    an unequivocal prediction was made that: “South-Eastern Australia needs to prepare for hot dry conditions in the summer of 2019 and possible extensive flooding in 2029”.

    The Australian Senate and the Australian Government has willfully ignored this prediction, leaving it totally unprepared for the terrible suffering of Australia’s rural/farming communities bought on by one of the severest droughts in Australian history.

    I will be sending out the following press release to the media after the May 18th elections [as I do not want to hurt the Coalition’s chances of re-election]:

    https://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-2013-prediction-of-severe-drought-in.html

    The Australian Government continues to ignore the main conclusions of this submission.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Australia should plan to move water from wetter areas to dry areas. That is what China is doing. Big project but would pay off, far better than idiot (un)renewables.

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        el gordo

        ‘Climate models indicate that if El Niño does develop it is likely to be short-lived.’ BoM

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    • #
      Peter C

      Dear Dr Wilson,

      When you say the severe hot drought of the summer of 2019 do you mean the summer just gone or the summer coming up 2019/2020?

      Also since you use the term possible flooding in 2029, why should we prepare for it and if you think it is in fact likely to occur, how should we prepare for it?

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    • #
      el gordo

      Ian you are basing your 2019 droughty conditions on a possible El Nino, but you may not have noticed the loss of intensity in the subtropical ridge.

      The MDB is about to get a dumping of water, because of a complex low and a blocking high in the Tasman Sea. This is a return to an extended period of good winter rains over southern Australia.

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      el gordo

      This clearly illustrates the loss of intensity in the STR.

      http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf

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    Bill in Oz

    IT IS RAINING IN THE ADELAIDE HILLS !

    Raining soft warm & gentle..The best way for rain to fall,

    Soaking in to the soil and bringing new life..

    Us farmers call this annual renewal ‘The Break’..

    It comes every year – almost !

    For there is the odd year when it doesn’t.

    Or is far too late.

    But it is regular enough,

    Predictable enough, that for

    Many South Australian farmers

    This is truly the start of farming year.

    So much for the fears aroused by

    “‘Climate Change” Alarmists…

    We are fortunate that Mother Nature

    Pays no attention to them at all.

    And I suspect that Mother Nature pays

    No attention either to our “Prayers of thanks’

    But still none of want to arouse the ire

    Of the Weather Gods

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    Another Ian

    “Warnings about mythical future perils are not “starting to bite business”… Misguided government policies in a futile war against the weather are definitely taking a bite out of business.”

    ““Climate Change Costs Are Starting to Bite Business”… How Not To Conjugate Verbs”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/30/climate-change-costs-are-starting-to-bite-business-how-not-to-conjugate-verbs/

    10