By Jo Nova
There are so many holes in the Holy Carbonista Bible it’s easy to find one to surprise a BBC interviewer with.
Now that Guyana has discovered the joys of major oil deposits, the President came prepared. But because the BBC is so robotically predictable, Irfaan Ali knew exactly what they would ask, but host Stephen Sackur, seemingly had no idea what was coming. If only the BBC had interviewed a few skeptics in the last thirty years…
There are few things I enjoy quite as much as watching indoctrinated Western virtue signallers get epically destroyed by people from developing countries who are willing to be honest. pic.twitter.com/MkC2EIyQZR
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) March 29, 2024
…
“Let me stop you right there,” he said. “Did you know that Guyana has a forest that is the size of England and Scotland combined, a forest that stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon, a forest that we have kept alive?”
“I’m going to lecture you on climate change. Because we have kept this forest alive that you enjoy that the world enjoys, that you don’t pay us for, that you don’t value.
“Guess what? We have the lowest deforestation rate in the world. And guess what? Even with the greatest exploration of oil and gas we will still be net zero.”
But tomorrow the BBC will be unperturbed and continue disseminating its particular brand of climate disinformation.
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Of course!
The BBC is completely sold on Climate Change; not out of any concern for the environment, but as a political tool for use against those who the BBC wants to discredit and also the redistribution of wealth to the favoured. Interest in opposing views, the normal remit of journalists, is irrelevant, because they have no interest in the actual debate about climate change and whether it is real.
It all makes sense when it is understood that it is politics, and certainly not the environment, that informs the BBC’s approach.
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I think the BBC just got taken down a peg or two.
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All I can say is BAM !
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Correct. What the Prez should have done after he finished was to get up and job that insufferable, condescending, racist snob from the BBC.
But, here’s the sting: a powerful as the President’s words were they still conformed to the grotesque lie of AGW. AGW is a disproven idea/theory. it has been shot to bits by failed predictions, fraud, the fact that world agricultural output is the best it has ever been and by any and every marker the climate we live in today is he best this planet has to offer.
AGW is sustained by grift, ideology, virtue signalling and corruption.
I would have liked the president to say after he listed the green credentials of his country to then note that AGW is junk. Jo disproved it a long time ago:
https://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/
Until the AGW nonsense is attacked directly and people like the President are not content to just rub the arrogant noses of the alarmists in their better green credentials the lie will continue.
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Totally agree.
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Anthony Cox was sure busy on that post.
Some later discussion :
https://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/#comment-1130169
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Well Said!!
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Sackur is incredibly smug and annoying, but he does that with all sorts of guests, regardless of skin colour. It’s the whole point of the show … to see if a guest can miraculously complete an entire sentence. Very occasionally Sackur might be polite to someone … and that’s when you know this interview is a setup to put forward whatever key propaganda narrative the BBC feels useful.
Think of it this way: Stephen Sackur is to political debate, what Kyle Sandilands is to life coaching and relationship counselling.
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President Ali is right putting the pompous BBC twat in his place
Good on him he has my respect
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If he tours Australia, perhaps he should go on Their ABC’s Q & A!”
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Well said!
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BBC – British Bolshevik Corporation
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This story is appearing all over the skeptical sphere and I have to say it is being somewhat misrepresented.
The attitude/manner of the host? The program is called BBC HardTalk. The whole point is that it is confrontational. Any guest agreeing to appear knows that. It is advertised using clips of the host getting an angry dressing down from his various guests, it’s what he wants. That is the whole point of the program!
As to the host being put in his place, nope, he just got angrily shouted down, which is what he set out to provoke.
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Thanks for the info, it brings a different perspective.
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If the point is confrontation Mr Sackur should have come better prepared.
The thing that makes this response so unusual from Irfaan Ali that he takes the moral high ground. No apologies.
He has only a couple of numbers — which Mr Sackur should have known were coming — yet Sackur is hamstrung because the Carbonista theory has so many holes he risks stepping into another one if he does what this program “theoretically” is supposed to do. Sackur can’t admit that the biodiversity claims are exaggerated, can’t lecture him on the value of chopping down forests to put up wind farms, and can’t discuss how carbon accounting is a joke and most carbon is stored and emitted by nature.
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In Irfaan Ali’s shoes I might have suggested we clear the forests to make charcoal to fuel the Guyanan economy so that we could pull that third of the population living in abject poverty up to a level approaching half that of a British one. Brazil tried this in the 80s when they discovered high grade iron ore but had no coal. These days Brazil imports the necessary materials and also exports the ore to Europe.
This interview would have made a fun comedy skit for April 1st with some generic South American leader stabbing his finger at the air and a pompous white Anglo twit making fatuous remarks. I had a good laugh anyway.
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Let me get this straight in my mind.
If you grow a tree this somehow stores carbon and prevents it getting into the atmosphere? The carbon in the tree comes from CO2 floating in the air and if its available more trees grow. So if there is less CO2 in the air there are less trees. Sounds to me like the tree is a consequence of atmospheric CO2 not a CO2 sink.
So if we want more trees (who does not) we need more atmospheric CO2.
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Liebig’s law of the minimum states that growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). Access to carbon is usually not the limiting factor. Trees are incredibly efficient at extracting carbon from the atmosphere, there is no industrial equivalent to photosynthesis. It is usually nitrogen, phosphorous, or some other nutrient that is the scarcest resource. Human intervention is the biggest determinant on forest size.
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None of that is to say , other necessary resources being adequate, that more CO2 does not equal more plant growth, more sequestration.
You were saying?
Something?
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You have heard of lots of trees in ages ago? You do realize that is from where all the fossil fuels derived? You do know at one point the Earth’s atmosphere had a high percentage of CO2?
CO2 levels drive plant growth. Plants extract and make more plant food. They create more of themselves from CO2. Sounds like “Life 101” because its exactly what it is happening.
Most of our planet would be green if we had a lot more CO2. Those against CO2 are against life itself. Complete stupidity.
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Thereby demonstrating that CO2 is indeed a limiting factor for plant growth!
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Not quite!
Coal is almost certainly derived from vast amounts of vegetation compressed over the ages.
OIL? Probably NOT.
Yes, it id black and it burns, but that is about where it ends. Different geological formations and very different behavior. It was a small band of “heretical” Russian rock-doctors why posited a more feasible theory, about sixty years ago.
“Abiogenesis”. They posit that “oil” is a product of some serious chemistry deep in the earth’s crust When the planet coalesced out of cosmic detritus, it picked up all manner of stuff. In a “sort-of” link to “fossils”, the other big player id plate tectonics; especially what happens to all the material on seabeds that are subducted under an adjoining plate? It gets shoved deep into the crust and super-heated. There would have to be some sort of “distillation process, but different “fractions and different materials will be “separated..
As they said in the old “Castrol” ads; “Oils ain’t oils, Sol”.
all over the planet there are wildly different “grades” found in everything from extremely deep bore-hole of merrily seeping out straight onto the surface..Think “La Brea Tar Pits” in California.
And, let us not forget the industrial extraction of “food-grade” CO2 from deep wells, both in Oz and the US. How did that get deeply “buried”? I sort of doubt the dinosaurs were running “Carbon Capture” a hundred million hears ago. “Natural Gas”? “Sequestered” dinosaur farts?
Yes, oil and coal are extracted from the same “region “of Pennsylvania, BUT, given the wonderfully bizarre geology of the US and Canada, two wildly different rock formations
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Place a map over every known coal field across 400 million years and tectonic plate movement to today. Move downhill across that time period. Every known oil reserve suddenly appears on your map. ALL OF THEM.
Now look at the coal fields with no oil field yet discovered.
Methane can be made almost everywhere there was water.
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Where’s the modern coal field corresponding to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran?
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Go back a few hundred million years and you will find it uphill. Look at the Ghawar region 300 million years ago. Same goes for Iraq and Iran. Tectonic plates move.
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Look in Turkey 300 million years ago.
Light oil is derived from lignite (C6-C20) N-anes, n-enes, phenols
Heavy oil is derived from bituminous black coal (C28+)
There is a reason why oil is not 600 million years old.
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The pine cones sink where the trees were located. For a 30-60M year old lignite field you may find plenty of wood but no pine cones. This means the tree remains flowed to a marsh to settle and become lignite. The pine cones do not float. Find them and you will find the original forest location. This is useful information for finding potash deposits.
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There is a reason it was called the Carboniferous!
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Liebig’s Law of the Minimum states that the local yield of terrestrial plants should be limited by the nutrient that is present in the environment in the least quantity relative to its demands for plant growth, and this statement has been confirmed worldwide.
Note the word “local”. LL assumes a closed system. Water moves nutrients into and out of any local system. So Liebigs Law is not valid over a long time period applied to large areas.
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We need more CO2!
We have just narrowly avoided a mass extinction event had CO2 levels continued to drop and reached 200ppm and less.
I would like to see atmospheric CO2 reach 800-1000ppm so we have a safety buffer, but since most atmospheric CO2 is NOT of anthropogenic origin, it will have to get there naturally.
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Simon, what happens when atmospheric CO2 drops below 200ppm?
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Always Fact Check Mr S for “misinformation” and “disinformation”
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/chemists-create-artificial-photosynthesis-system-10-times-more-efficient-existing-systems
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Simon stated “there is no industrial equivalent to photosynthesis”, your link just states it has developed an artificial photosynthesis that is 10 times better than the present artificial photosynthesis, not disproving him.
A Nature Catalysis study from six chemists at the University of Chicago shows an innovative new system for artificial photosynthesis that is more productive than previous artificial systems by an order of magnitude.
That article is full of, if, might, may, possibly, could.
Always pays to fact check the fact checkers.
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How can we convert carbon dioxide to oxygen without plants?
Take hydrogen and mix it with your carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure in the presence of a nickel catalyst. The carbon dioxide and hydrogen will react to form methane and water. You can then take the water and use electrolysis to split it into oxygen and hydrogen.
No if, might, may, possibly, could here.
Always pays to fact check those who fact check the fact checkers
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What?
The last card in your deck was the straw man?
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Simon’s links often point to the opposite of what he claims … I doubt he reads them, and he expects you won’t either.
The most common industrial photosynthesis is … drumroll … photosynthesis, which is done on an industrial scale at these places called “farms”. Fine for them to invent something newer and better … hope it goes well … but actually the existing agricultural industry is already making pretty darn good use out of the standard method.
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“Access to carbon is usually not the limiting factor”
Actually it is, there are hundreds of trials done on CO2 enrichment and plant growth, it’s done in green houses everywhere at 3 times current levels.
More CO2 means more abundance, which is really what you’re against.
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That is self evidently not true, complete rubbish. NASA would agree.
By satellite observations of the planet and a multi country study they found that between 1988 and 2014 the planet grew another 14% of tree coverage, the equivalent of two Brazilian rainforests. And often in arid or semi arid areas where water shortage was presumably the largest problem.
And by how much did CO2 grow in that time? 14%
So self evidently more CO2 means proportionally more trees. And vastly more trees, far more than all the carbon farming of the planet does NOT mean lower CO2. CO2 growth was unaffected.
This busts carbon credits, carbon farming, growing trees to reduce CO2, carbon sequestration, nett zero and everything else.
Of course only NASA could call it carbon ‘fertilization’ which is nonsense too. Fertilizer is a trace element. CO2 is the tree, the molecule from which all life on earth is made. And all life on earth breathes and breathes out CO2. (except a few special bacteria)
What I cannot understand is that no one much noticed NASA’s announcement, even the CO2 coalition who picked up on the good side of this in growing vast numbers of trees but did not notice the proporationality or the fact that CO2 did not go down.
Which confirms what C14 dating tells us, that CO2 is exchanged rapidly with the ocean in a vast rapid continuous equilibrium. And that the CO2 which replaced that buried in a trillion new trees came from the only source available, the vast oceans which contain 98% of all CO2.
98% of all CO2 is in the ocean. So 98% of all CO2 ’emissions’ are also rapidly in the oceans. And if you grow a tree, the CO2 is replaced immediately. Or if you have a vast bushfire, the CO2 vanishes immediately into the vast ocean and the oceans bloom too.
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Real green thumb this time for an interesting response.
However I would say that Ifaan Ali (president of Guyana) give a strong response to the BBC BS, which was at least refreshing.
Pity he did not say that whole Climate Emergency is BS and quote JoNova as a source.
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Well this really is a mixed bag and the Guyana President is wrong that the world has destroyed our biodiversity, BUT he is correct that they should develop their valuable oil and gas .
Today Guyana has a life expectancy that is increasing every year and much higher GDP and the UN predicts life expectancy increasing until 2100.
In fact the world has been GREENING for the last 40 years because of the extra co2 fertiliser and the plants just love the extra co2.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/GUY/guyana/life-expectancy
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Is he wrong? We lived in central Europe foe a while and although pretty it is very bland from a bio diversity viewpoint. In Australia we live in a bio diversity paradise of tropical, desert and remoerate zones which we largely take for granted as its our normal.
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“remoerate” ? = temperate
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It is so good that we have so called 3rd world or developing countries standing up against pompous gits like this. Mr Ali – you champion! And it takes leaders like him to show us the way through our self centered hubris. Bring him to Australia.
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Guyana’s forests are a carbon sink but they are likely not sequestering much additional carbon. These forests have massive global ecosystem service but natural capital currently has little monetary value. REDD+ was a system for compensation, maintenance, and restoration, which has unfortunately not been well administered. Voluntary carbon markets are another solution, but these are designed for additionality, not for retaining what already exists.
Interesting that Jo is complementary of the Guyana President’s argument, given her previous opinions on ESG.
BBC Hardtalk is excellent; difficult questions and robust argument. More countries need something similar, too many politicians get a free ride.
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Topical article in the NY Times today: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/30/headway/is-guyanas-oil-a-blessing-or-a-curse.html
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Cannot take this NY times article seriously.
Another failed “projection” from the NY times 24 June 1988.
Even if this were true a rise of 1.5 inches over 6 years would not put “much of Georgetown underwater.”
Try 0.3 inches per decade
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=680-140
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And that was Mr Ali’s point wasn’t it? The hypocrisy of the West is that it claims to care about “the forests” yet won’t pay a cent for mature rich forests, only for junky plantantions. Mr Ali could have mowed right on — pointing out how the use of wind power and solar destroy forests when his oil could save them. I bet people are sending those ideas to him today.
The BBC were delusional to think they could “Hardtalk” on climate change. They lose on every point in every debate. They are unlikely to ask him back.
Interesting that Jo is complementary of the Guyana President’s argument, given her previous opinions on ESG.
Simon, which argument was I complementary of? Or was that only your fantasy, and I just talked about the BBC’s failure instead?
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“Guyana’s forests are a carbon sink but they are likely not sequestering much additional carbon. ”
True, if you want to sink carbon you’d clear the forest, plant pasture and run cows on it, then store the CO2 in the cows and the people who eat them. Seeing people are increasing we need more CO2, unlike mature forests that are not increasing.
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That’s pretty much what happened in Scotland. They turned the Scottish forest into the British Navy, and it’s been grazing land ever since.
I like the idea of being my own carbon sink … one more good reason not to take the whole weight loss fad too seriously. People who lose weight should be forced to buy offsets from the people who gained weight.
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Fair point KP. Youthful forests accumulate mass much faster than old growth forests which plateau approaching neutrality. Irfaan and Greta could get together and promote old growth clearing and reseeding with new trees to establish “carbon credits” for Guyana !
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Simon, what happens when atmospheric CO2 drops below 200ppm?
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‘BBC Hardtalk is excellent; difficult questions and robust argument.’
What caught my notice: ‘The exchange was met with intense debate on social media, with commentators leaping to defend both the president and Mr Sackur.’
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That is largely the point of the show … to be essentially video clickbait and stir up the audience.
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It’s “complimentary” but anyway…
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Un Zud (NZ) sounds similar to Guyana: lots of trees / bush / forest AND oil & gas & gold under the seabed – if only we had a ‘leader’ and/or P.M. who worked and cared for the people, not Big Brother Corporation™.
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” oil & gas & gold under the seabed ”
And phosphorus , and iron.
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The liars and con merchants from the BBC don’t understand that we’ve seen the greatest Human FLOURISHING because we’ve used fossil fuels.
This UNPRECEDENTED increase in HEALTH, WEALTH etc since 1950 has been the only time in history that we’ve seen population increase from 2.5 BILLION to over 8 BILLION and life expectancy jump from 46 years to over 70 years in the last 300,000 years.
Life expectancy in 1770 was just 28.5 years and just 32 years in 1900 and yet today we’ve seen deaths from extreme weather events DROP by 98% since the 1920s. Look up OWI Data etc.
If Dr Pielke, Dr Koonin, Lomborg, Dr Happer, Dr Christy, Dr Lindzen, Dr Clauser etc quote the accurate DATA then we should pursue the bogus liars and con merchants as well.
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Perhaps they do understand it, Neville.
Like all Leftists, they are fundamentally opposed to the high standard of living and individual freedoms conferred upon non-Elites by the free enterprise system (to the extent it is allowed to exist at all) and Western Civilisation.
That’s why everything the Left does has the effect at the very least of causing inconvenience (e.g. banning plastic bags) or more generally lowering our standard of living and removing individual freedoms through increased taxes and regulations.
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I want to see the Guyanan President go head to head with Albo in a debate… just so all Australians can see the gap in intelligence and backbone, between a real leader and a snivelling Labor hack.
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When Albo the Trot was questioned about the latest youth crime and riots in Alice Springs his response was to say that he had been to the NT “several times now”.
[Albo] claimed that a “Voice” was required so that the goverment could better understand the problems faced by “First Nations People” – but when a bleeding obvious problem arises Albo goes Missing in Action.
[Small edit]AD
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* Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council.
* More than 30 Aboriginal Land Councils.
* More than 2,700 Aboriginal corporations.
* Council of Peaks, representing 70 top Aboriginal organisations.
* Federal politicians eleven (11) now identify as Aboriginal – that’s nearly 5 per cent of MPs, when Aborigines make up no more than 3.7 per cent of our population.
Add Northern Territory Labor Government the Commonwealth is responsible for, NT is not a State of the Federation.
States have primary responsibility for Aboriginal Affairs, the former British Colonies and Colonial Governments.
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I wonder what defines a “top” Aboriginal organization?
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I more or less agree with what the president said but disagree with his premise that atmospheric CO2 is a problem as when he cited the value of his country’s forests as a “carbon” sink.
The clueless “journalist” performed as expected.
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The Left want to prevent the Third World from advancing, hence their opposition to them having coal or gas power stations.
I agree with them not having nuclear power stations as they are not sufficiently mature for that, but our Government even regards Australia as not being mature enough to have a nuclear power station. So there!
You can’t have an industrial civilisation without coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro (not SH2).
In the Third World, each grass hut can have a small solar panel and battery for children to read and do homework at night and for parents to charge a basic smart phone to receive government propaganda. That is about the extent of what solar can do and that’s what the Left want for us in the West as well.
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Net Zero is completely Racist but the Left are blind to that.
If Australia and other wealthy developed nations where to cut their per capita CO2 emission by half – the under-developed world with a far larger population would still have a per capita emission rate much lower.
If it were agreed that these poorer “People of colour” should be allowed to increase their per capita rate to match, then total global emission would increase by around 50% from the current 34,000 million tonnes per annum.
So goodbye Net Zero.
So the Left are caught in a trap – support Net Zero then you must be a Racist.
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“I agree with them not having nuclear power stations as they are not sufficiently mature for that,”
I’m sure that’s racist or culturist, or ageist or something.. anyway, you’re not allowed to say things like that anymore! Facts may still be true, but they must be unacknowledged.
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Australia should be an ally of Guyana
https://www.atlasiron.com.au/australia-has-been-at-net-zero-for-a-long-time-ian-plimer-rowan-dean-the-outsiders/
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Unfortunately, none of those quoted ( including the Ghana pres), are refering to the definition of “Net Zero” that is applicable to current politicsl debate.
They are making a false argument , deluding themselves and anyone listening to them.
If they used that line of reasoning in a serious political discussion, they would quickly be dismissed.
The official UN/alarmist definition of Net Zero is the ratio of Anthropogenic CO2 emmissions , compared to the MAN MADE carbon sinks ( planted forrests, etc)
…..just saying !
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so where is the gutless,gormless leader of opposition in Australia? Australia has a net zero ratio of 3-4 times greater than our co2 emissions. Should be using this at every opportunity to hopefully get the message through the skulls of Aussies? Get in the ring and fight Dutton,attack,attack,attack.
ps Its almost like they don’t want to be in government
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Sadly, you are totally wrong !
See 16.1 above.
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What a great put-down for the arrogant know-nothing BBC reporter.
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He was straight into sanctimonious mode want he? It was great to see El Presidente with the courage to get angry about it and not put up with his BS and attempted interjections.
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CO2 emissions and national Wealth
Per capita CO2 emissions in Guyana are 4.374 tonnes (2022)
Per capita CO2 emissions in the UK peaked at 11.743 tonnes in 1973
Inline with the deindustrialisation of the UK CO2 emissions have fallen to 4.720 tonnes per capita (2022) – just above Guyana
The deindustrilaisation of Australia still has a long way to go.
Per capita CO2 emissions in Australia peaked at 19.2 tonnes in 2004 when cars were still made in Ausralia from Australian steel.
In 2022 per capita emissions had only fallen to 14.985 tonnes per capita.
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This is why we need rampant immigration. It makes our per capita numbers better.
40
So a hidden per-capita recession underway and the dreaded by government R word or recession is hidden by creative accounting.
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AT&T confirms data for 73 million customers leaked on hacker forum
AT&T has finally confirmed it is impacted by a data breach affecting 73 million current and former customers after initially denying the leaked data originated from them.
This comes after AT&T has repeatedly denied for the past two weeks that a massive trove of leaked customer data originated from them and or that their systems had been breached.
While the company continues to say there is no indication their systems were breached, it has now confirmed that the leaked data belongs to 73 million current and former customers.
“Based on our preliminary analysis, the data set appears to be from 2019 or earlier, impacting approximately 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and approximately 65.4 million former account holders,” AT&T said in a statement shared with BleepingComputer.
The company further says that the security passcodes used to secure accounts were also leaked for 7.6 million customers.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/atandt-confirms-data-for-73-million-customers-leaked-on-hacker-forum/
I knew they were lying. 😉
40
The UN SEC GEN chief yapper tells us the Earth is BOILING and we must do SOMETHING?
But the UN data tells us that TODAY the 8.1 billion Humans have never had it so good and are FLOURISHING in only the last 0.1% of our Human existence. Just look up the UN data from Macrotrends etc and then NOTE the UN projections until 2100 showing Human life expectancy rising to about 82 years. That’s about 10 years higher than today.
Of course their UN chief yapper also tells us BS and nonsense all the time, like dangerous SLR threatening the coral island nations etc.
Perhaps someone should tell Dr Kench that he doesn’t really understand SL data and in future he should only listen to the UN chief climate yapper? SARC.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/WLD/world/life-expectancy
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Interviews on oil, coal or gas,
By alarmists, can only be crass,
Best to know their cult waffle,
And have home truths to baffle,
Their arrogance and gravitas.
110
How fantastic. But the climate fanatics will not listen to this articulate President of Guyana, just as they don’t listen to geologist Ian Plimer who has told them for years that the CO2 Australian forests absorb far exceeds the CO2 that we supposedly produce in our urban environments.
80
Vicki,..
Please check the definition of NetZero…as applicable to this discussion.
Or just see 16.1 above
20