Finally, 15 years and a trillion dollars too late, George Monbiot says what skeptics have been saying all along. Nearly every single carbon reduction scheme is a useless make-work machination that creates the illusion that the government is doing something. He calls it “perceptionware”.
A new paper was released in Science pointing out that in the last 25 years, barely 4% of climate policies in 41 countries have made any real difference. And by “real difference” we mean reducing a useful fertilizer, so it’s a good thing that 96% of the ploys failed, but a tragedy that a thousand billion dollars was stolen from decent people.
In any case, finally Monbiot sees the tip of the iceberg of grift and graft, but doesn’t realize his own role in it, doesn’t realize the same failures of journalists like him also failed the science world where 96% of papers have achieved nothing they set out to do as well — like predicting the climate. Climate science has been spinning its wheels, creating perceptionware and failing to figure out the climate for fifty years, but George hasn’t noticed.
Monbiot hasn’t even taken the obvious leap: Where were the Greens, the people who supposedly were the smart ones who cared the most? Most of these carbon reduction failures were obvious to anyone who owned a calculator. Could it be George, that the Greens were the dumb ones wrapped up in their own perceptionware game, pretending to care about CO2 to impress their friends at dinner parties but not actually giving a damn? Or worse, could it be that some Greens were bought off by industries and foreign countries that profit from the carbon grift?
Who stood up for the poor, the workers, and the taxpayers who were being shafted — only the skeptics.
Out of 1,500 global climate policies, only 63 have really worked.
That’s where green spin has got us
George Monbiot, The Guardian
“Grand schemes, many backed by governments, masquerade as positive action on the environment. They should be disowned”.Let’s talk about perceptionware. Perceptionware is technology whose main purpose is to create an impression of action…
Monbiot zeroes in on the endless fantasia that is the quest for airline biofuel:
…perhaps the clearest example of perceptionware is the repeated unveiling, across the past 25 years, of mumbo-jumbo jets. Throughout this period, fossil fuel and airline companies have announced prototype green aircraft or prototype green fuels, none of which has made any significant dent in emissions or, in most cases, materialised at all. Their sole effect so far has been to help companies avoid legislative action.
Now he worries the poor are starving as we burn their food, and chop down forests so we can fly to Bali:
But never mind, this perceptionware is now Labour policy too. Failure is baked in. Even with restrictions on which feedstocks can be used, any significant deployment of biofuels for aviation will increase total demand, which means either that agricultural crops are removed from human consumption, raising the price of food and therefore increasing global hunger, or that wild ecosystems are destroyed to make way for agricultural expansion.
George still doesn’t realize the root of the problem is Big Government itself. In the crazy biofuel market, it was the government that “picked the winner” and decided we should burn food to save the world, not the free market. Who could have guessed that convenient high energy plant matter would also be the same stuff people wanted to eat?
As for using waste, this promise is repeatedly rolled out to justify disastrous policies. Biodiesel would be made from used cooking oil, but as soon as production increased, new palm oil was used instead. Biomass burners would mop up forestry waste, but soon started taking whole trees and, in some cases, entire forests. Biogas would be made from sewage and food waste, but operators quickly discovered they could produce more with dedicated crops like maize and potatoes. Why? Because waste is generally low in energy, variable and expensive to handle. Already, there’s intense competition for the small portion of waste that might be commercially useful, as companies chase carbon payments: so much so that fresh palm oil has been sold as waste oil, as this attracts a higher premium.
The government funded monopoly in science created a fake crisis that parasites could feed off, and he is surprised that parasites turned up to dinner.
Where were all our expert climate scientists, George, while 25 years of money and time was wasted? Did they or did they not want to save the world, or were they too stupid, or too scared to say the obvious?
REFERENCE
Stechemesser et al (2024) Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades, Science, 22 Aug 2024, Vol 385, Issue 6711,pp. 884-892, DOI: 10.1126/science.adl6547
“Where were the Greens, the people who supposedly were the smart ones who cared the most?”
Pure comedy gold!
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They are holidaying in The Maldives – the ones that were going to be underwater by 2018.
At least the new resorts* are building on piles in the water, freeing up the land for the extra airports for the increased tourists**.
* the ones advertising in The Guardian, the darling of the Left who believe it.
** And with GLOBAL WARMING making Europe so hot you must wonder why so many are keen to go the Tropics.
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Where were the greens?
Getting rich subsidy farming.
Just ask Al Gore, the patron saint of Green Graft.
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Brilliant article. Cuts right to the core.
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Is the moonbot trying at long last to write something sensible? Not before time.
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Great article Jo, says it all, especially the bit about the government funded scientific monopoly, this is where it all (not just climate science) really falls down.
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Renewables Are An Energy Footnote
Journalists love to write about fast growing renewables.
It fits the narrative that solar and wind can eventually replace our traditional sources of energy.
It allows the absence of any serious push towards nuclear power to go unanswered.
It avoids the uncomfortable question of why China’s increasing emissions from coal are acceptable when in America California is a decade away from banning sales of gasoline-powered cars and NY forbids natural gas hook-ups to new buildings.
The Energy Institute’s 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy is a rich source of data on how the world obtains and uses energy. PDF Download is 76 Pages
Careful analysis allows many energy shibboleths to be put to bed.
You can also download a 3.5Mb Spreadsheet of Data
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Turning to China, they recently reported hitting their renewables power target six years ahead of schedule.
To the casual observer of energy news, it appears that the world is moving in lockstep to solar and wind. Some even worry that America is at risk of falling behind China’s ambitions on climate change.
Then there’s the facts.
China obtains 8.5% of its primary energy from renewables (10.4 EJs), substantially more than the US. It’s grown at 10.1% pa over the past decade. However, this is only 6.1% of China’s energy consumption since they have such a big deficit.
What the cheerleaders for China’s renewables ambitions overlook is that coal production has increased by 13.8 EJs over the past decade, over 2X the 6.5 EJs growth in renewables.
Coal provides more than half of China’s primary energy.
It’s down from 65% a decade ago, but only because their energy demand has risen faster than their ability to meet it domestically.
Coal is 13% of US primary energy production.
Energy reporting generally overstates the impact of renewables.
It missed the enormous impact of increased US natural gas production.
It gives China a free pass on their growing use of coal.
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And how much of their “renewables” comes from hydroelectricity?
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The Spreadsheet shows Total North America –
Hydroelectricity: Generation*
Terawatt-hours = 2023 620.9 Growth Rate Per Annum 2023 = -9.3% Growth Rate per Annum 2013-2023 = -1.0% Share 2023 = 14.6%
It also shows Hydroelectricity: Consumption* Exajoules (input-equivalent)*
And there is full breakdown by Countries across the World including Australia
Extremely Comprehensive Spreadsheet of Data
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Sorry Graeme No.3,
I assume you are referring to China
Hydroelectricity: Generation*
Terawatt-hours = 1226.0 Growth Rate Per Annum 2023 = -5.6% Growth Rate per Annum 2013-2023 = 3.0% Share 2023 = 28.9%
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Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Energy from 1965 to 2023 – Million tonnes of carbon dioxide
US 1965 = 3451.9 2023 = 4639.7 Growth rate per annum 2023 = -3.304% 2013-23 = -1.2% Share = 13.2%
China 1965 = 488.5 1 2023 = 11218.4 Growth rate per annum 2023 = 6.071% 2013-23 = 2.0% Share = 31.9%
India 1965 = 167.5 2023 = 2814.3 Growth rate per annum 2023 = 8.426% 2013-23 = 4.0% Share = 8.0%
Australia 1965 = 118.8 2023 = 376.1 Growth rate per annum 2023 = -0.221% 2013-23 = -0.5% Share = 1.1%
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Action? Moonbat the Grauniad speaks of ‘action’? Try this from the Antipodes, boy George:
via NZ MetService, Friday 13th, Sep 2024
“ORANGE HEAVY SNOW WARNING
Action: Prepare for snow, cold temperatures, and possible power outages. If you must travel… ensure you have snow chains, sleeping bags, warm clothing, and emergency items.”
Nothing like a govt public announcement to remind us of the dangers of living on an ‘ever-warming’ planet. Surely school kids will be out protesting – it’s Friday after all – against this ‘clear and obvious evidence’ we’ve cooked the planet? Or will they be grabbing their skis & boards and running for the hills…
Free Gravity Now! 😃
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Curiously there are early (and heavy) snows predicted in Europe esp. The Alps.
And equally I’ve just stopped watching a YouTube about China and India (and others) increasing their purchases of grains and boosting their stockpiles. I wonder could there be a connection between that and their scientists not being worried about GLOBAL WARMING?
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G3, what with auroras (last night), comets, meteorites, artificial satellites (ISS, SpaceX, StarLink, etc.) maybe those ancient cultures are able to read the signs better than our billion-dollar super (sic) computers can.
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They’ve wasted trillions $ on their mad lunacy of toxic W & S ruinables and yet these disasters have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
But ESG has bitten the dust and AI will force most sane countries to wake up and understand that we will require record generation of base-load energy to service our future needs.
China, India and other so called developing countries have seen the light and are becoming militarily stronger and the OECD countries will have no choice and must try to keep up.
We must abandon toxic ruinables ASAP and only build base-load coal, gas or Nuclear energy for our future prosperity and safety.
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From Monbiot.
Note the nasty end sentence. This bloke still thinks planes can fly around using non-fossil fuel without falling down – it’s just the greedy fuel and airline companies deliberately preventing this development. Legislation will fix that, says our George.
Fanatics like this could deserve to be onboard the first real attempt at long distance flight using experimental “fuel”.
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The greatest waste of government money since the last greatest waste of government money.
See Rudd’s GFC response, the NBN, Covid, Kardinia Pork, add them together, and triple it.
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And Juliar’s ‘Ejucashun Revolution’ which is still MIA. If anyfink, fings have gone backwards Big Time.
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Thanks for another gold mine, Jo! Solar and wind have peaked just like pink batts did. Next up is a precipitous but expensive decline. The World sits precariously on a WW3 footing and all our political class can think of and argue about is “killing coal” and other natural resources that Australia has been blessed with. One thing for certain is that whoever wins the future will want Australia for these elements alone. CO2 levels will be immaterial.
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George Moonbat has been on the grift for a long time. He knows it when he sees it.
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We must hope that Trump is elected in November and we never see other left wing loonies like Harris and tampon Walz again.
Trump and Vance understand the increased energy needs for the USA and free world’s future and the safety and security offered by fossil fuels will never be replaced by toxic W & S ruinables.
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Not waisted.
Recycled.
And turned into yachts.
And politician grooming.
To arrange more recycling.
And to produce more ‘Science’ papers that no one will read.
It’s a mistake to think my governmental is non-organized.
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Paulie,
I have stressed this before, so please pardon a repeat.
I have dealt with activist green people since about 1972. We had discovered ranger uranium, then the largest, richest uranium prospect on the globe, so we attracted high level greens. The stakes were high and uranium was red rag to a bull.
My initial impression of most greens is still valid. Most of them are as thick as two planks. They usually have school child understanding of science and less of national economics and ways countries can be harmed. There are a few who are cunning clever, who usually avoid publicity.
Many of these simple folk, driven by belief instead of data, unable to compete in gainful corporate employment, spare time on hands, have gone off to gain strings of degrees. To the shame of our universities, several of these struggling kids I used to pity now have “Professor” before their names. In the early days the local Council was their home of comfort to avoid unemployment.
Does that answer your question of where the greens were?
Geoff S
p.s. At last, some other people with guts are now taking on green NGOs, example Greenpeace USA. There is a large sum of money involved if this retribution mood catches on and spreads globally, as it should.
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2024/09/09/a-dallas-energy-companys-lawsuit-could-bankrupt-greenpeaces-us-operations/
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Ahem, assume you meant “two short planks”?
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let’s add “Thick as a Brick!”
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‘As thick as a boarding house sandwich’, as we used to say.
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Again, here is the global percentage share of primary energy consumption by source in 2023.
See all other energy sources at the link. Again, have our so called world leaders lost the ability to understand very simple sums and then think for themselves?
Again this shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to understand and certainly not the last 34 years.
Note Fossil fuels 91.45%.
Wind– 1.52%.
Solar–1.07%.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-primary-energy-consumption-by-source
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Neville,
In similar vein, here is an email I wrote to the International Energy Agency this morning.
No reply yet.
Geoff S
….
As a senior and experienced scientist with a good track record, I find it most demeaning of IEA to use anti-scientific terms, two of which are in your opening title below as “The Clean Energy Transitions Newsletter”.
The IEA appears to promote a future where so-called “renewables” will displace hydrocarbon fuels. They will not penetrate far while they are more expensive and badly intermittent. Nobody of integrity favours subsidies to camouflage the real cost, as is happening now.
There is nothing “clean” about wind and solar to generate electricity. Unless IEA can show measurements and their valid interpretations to support “clean”, you should discontinue the term when writing on scientific, engineering and similar technical matters. You are not supposed to be doing advocacy or advertising.
Likewise, there is no “transition” under way. The % of global electricity generation from hydrocarbon fuels is fluctuating mildly. The word “transition” correctly implies a move away from a former state, so it is inappropriate to use it as you have.
It is disappointing to see such low-level errors from an organisation that should do better. Perhaps your writers lack experience. I was one of the scientific managers of the team that discovered and developed the Ranger uranium deposits from 1970 or so. This long exposure to global energy equips me, I suggest, to comment as I have done above.
Please let me know if I can be of more help.
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All those climate dollars done with Fiat money. Then the further irony, the majority source of those dollars are the oil rich countries. So the whole climate scam is being funded from dollars earned from harvesting oil and gas from countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.
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Depends who is spending the money and what is the objective.
If the objective was to destroy the Western Capitalist based Democracies, raze their industries to the ground, destroy their energy supply and turn their future generations into ignorant serfs, in essence conduct a global war for world domination, then the cost of promoting your opposition to spend its own resources to create the propaganda supporting these objectives was not a waste of money.
From the look of the final balance sheet, whoever is running this Totalitarian takeover appears to profiting handsomely from the pillaging of the sovereign wealth and the capture of advanced technology and manufacturing.
Not so the tax payers in Australia who contributed to this research. In fact it would be extremely costly possibly multiples in the trillions above the actual cost of the research itself.
We appear to have paid to bomb our society into the submission.
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Reality trumps ideology. Every. Time.
So many people impoverished for the sake of ignorant, blind, ideology. Politics as well.
Facts matter more than emotions and ideology. Think for yourself, of suffer the consequences.
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It’s a political problem. We are actually living in a once-in-a-lifetime energy revolution.
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-doom-spiral
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Zeke’s earlier post is interesting, he thinks Hunga Tonga is a ‘mediocre’ explanation for the warm spike.
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/2024s-unusually-persistent-warmth
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Agree with your comment Simon.
In simple terms the revolution is, we are moving from a progression towards more reliable and an progressively more efficient energy source that was increasingly available to more of the world’s population, and moving towards an unreliable and incredibly expensive alternative that appears to associated with the fragmentation of communities and diversion of wealth to a powerful few.
I clicked on the source of your simplistic ideology. Do you really believe people would not naturally move towards renewables if these were the simplistic solution you appear to believe.
Do they truly believe there is some addiction to fossil fuels that mimics their own belief in wind or solar? Do they understand how silly their religion is? The revolution will be against this mad Temple of Thieves
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“once-in-a-lifetime energy revolution”
Yep, I’m thinking French, Russian, even a little Cambodian.
Plus, the folk that saw it begin aren’t likely to live to see it work.
Revolution alright … nothing to do with energy production.
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” 63 of 1,500 “worked” ”
I wonder what “worked” means.
It could mean the activity reduced CO2 from a previous level. This, perhaps, could be measurable.
But to me “worked” should mean the temperature of the atmosphere was lowered (or kept from rising). I don’t think this could be measured, so the result must have been estimated by an equation, or simply just a WAG {Wild A$$ Guess). Regardless, Gaia doesn’t notice or care. Gaia says “George who?”
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Only 96%?
I contend that 100% of all ‘climate policies’ are wasted, costly and counterproductive.
That is because there is no climate problem, no climate emergency‘ etc. because CO2 emissions are not a problem anyway!
We need more CO2, not less because if levels get too low all plants will die and so will all animals including all of us.
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ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE IS AN INSIDIOUS MONEY-MAKING SCAM. God decides the climate. Daniel 2:21 (ESV) says:
Evidently, so called scientists like Monbiot, Green climate zealots, vested interest tycoons and big dumb government missed out on the wisdom and understanding part of Daniel 2:21.
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Lance I couldn’t agree more, but how do you first show them the data when people don’t want to understand the same very simple data?
OWI Data tells us that the OECD have not increased annual co2 emissions since 1990, but the NON OECD have increased annual co2 emissions by 14 billion tons per year by 2022.
So,2022 total Human co2 emissions have increased by about 14 biilion tons per year since 1990 and all of that increase is from the developing NON OECD countries.
Good luck trying to explain the OWI Data increase in co2 emissions by 2022 to the very average left wing loony.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OECD+%28GCP%29~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29
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Unsure. People who do not want to understand data are willfully blind and therefore unable to think, logically.
Data tells us that humans do not control anything. Climate, weather, history, etc.
Not clear how one might overcome emotions. Responsibility for outcomes, real and imagined, might be a start.
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I agree Lance but I don’t want to share their stupidity and therefore I don’t want to suffer their consequences either.
And I don’t want to waste trillions of $ for SFA change and also destroy our environments on the land and in the sea.
BTW Bloomberg and their ABC have told us recently that “net zero will cost Australia trillions of $”.
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Most politicians have a major problem. They are the source for reacting to the Anth. Glob. Warm. scare. They are the ones who forced all the action onto their nations. Politicians accepted the words of the activists. Those activists stated that just in case AGW was true it was better, cheaper to control CO2 production now to prevent bigger problems later (IF the ‘science’ was true) rather than waiting until it is proven.
40years later the entire concentration of the governments, media of all sorts and the carpet baggers taking the profits on offer from the people via government legislation and largesse ( ‘Save the Planet!’ What a heap of gold that is worth to any government – and what worlds of forced political change open up) has been to sell the story as fact. It forces science uneducated people to accept it, based on fear. Because climate always changes, every bit of propaganda that can be taken from weather changes or ‘broken records’ based on measurements taken only from around 1909 if I recall properly, is utilised as seen especially by the BOMs of the Western world.
Now consider yourself as a politician heavily involved in this revolution based on this paltry story. Or as one so illiterate as to be destroying national energy systems, other industries that pay our way and forcing increasingly lowered living standards on your people. All based on unproven opinion science which looks increasingly precarious and increasingly a danger to your political longevity. You see the political demise of ideologues like yourself with populations starting to rebel.
What would you do??? Self defence kicks in. The fear campaign is supercharged. You can’t afford to back off. Your could become infamous either in your Party or socially. Ruined forever. You must stick with the failing internationalists that brought you to this point. Safety in numbers. Your last chance to get out free is to use them as ‘the pressure group that ‘forced’ you into such nation-debilitating actions from the start’. Then, hopefully, POTUS Trump forces a full reassessment of climate science open to all applicable divisions of qualified scientists, excluding activist organisations completely. Game over!
Our politicians are too fearful to even follow India or China in the unfettered use of fossil fuels. They will never break away from the AGW theory themselves. The gross waste will continue until the game universally falls apart. Then they have fall guys to use to explain their own lack of fortitude and the destruction they are now causing this nation.
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I like it;
“a full reassessment of climate science open to all applicable divisions of qualified scientists”.
The “applicable divisions” qualification is highly relevant.
A number of us on this blog cover all areas of the global Warming “science” and have exposed it as “non science ” from every possible view point.
Just ask Cementa, MaryF, Mr B.Nice, Will Janoschka, MV and a few others, there is no science, it’s a sciency sounding story that has the right backing and a proper assessment would show that CO2 cannot do the things claimed of it.
Sorry if I’ve left anybody out of the list.
People’s careers have been smashed when they told the scientific truth, and so that truth stays well out of sight for now.
It’s not easy to change a meme like ” human origin CO2 is a dangerous gas ” when jobs, money and fame might be disappeared.
We live in hope.
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A scientific analysis of global Warming materials and techniques.
https://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/is-another-big-la-nina-on-the-way/#comment-498542
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Even though our CO2 contribution is a tiny 0.17%, NZ’s doing its best to help keep things cold:
Mt Cook summit (12,000’) max -11 C
windchill -24 C today
Next week Mon/Tue max -17 C
windchill -34 C
See, getting colder… even though it’s only weather. Glad I’m at sea level a long way away from the mountains and the avalanches closing ski areas due to too much snow… must be lambing season again.
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High pressure is too strong and low pressure is AWOL.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
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Where were the scientists you ask at the end of the article? They were busy ginning up end of the world stories to drive the hysteria to keep the climate alarmism going and the grants flowing. The panic they sowed pushed politicians to make poor policy and they worked hard to silence anyone challenging their absurd projections based on absurd scenarios.
Those policies were not just a waste of money they made countries that implemented them less competitive in world markets leading to domestic job losses and lower tax revenue. But, like squeezing a balloon, Asian economies burning coal have picked up the slack which improved lives of their citizens who are making products for western consumers.
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Did the Earth move for you? https://uk.yahoo.com/news/entire-earth-vibrated-nine-days-180035264.html
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